Report To The Stakeholders

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

My reflex reaction is to shrug off the dissappointing Mars Attacks and Discworld sales as being Niche within Niche.

I wish I knew if the sales performance of the 4e Discworld book was on par with the 3e Discworld book, but I dont even know if sensible comparisons can be made between the 2 as I own neither and know little of the market.

Nymdok

Niche is good.

I have run six successful open demo games of Discworld RPG.

Couldn't get three people to the other GURPS games I wanted to demo. And I tried about six times

I'm going to go back to regularly running a demo open Discworld games (with even more promotion) and I'm confident I will continue to get new players.

They can't buy DRPG in Australia though (except with huge shipping cost direct from SJ Games). I don't even have a physical copy of DRPG because I haven't been able to get it yet. I feel there's an 80% chance at least one of the players would have bought it in PDF and maybe a 20% chance at least one of the others would have bought a physical copy if they could have.


I've missed the four day con this weekend, but will be demoing GURPS at a one day con in July and three day con in October.

I'd like to do something else, but DRPG is the game that reliably gets (new) players. Getting accepted onto the con schedule is also a factor, I can actually point at a Discworld book so the organisers know what they are getting.

[Whitestreak]

To slip back to the "where do you learn about our games" portion of the thread:

For me, it's very simple: Here, either the DI or the forums.

[Ronnke]

Originally Posted by lachimba

They can't buy DRPG in Australia though (except with huge shipping cost direct from SJ Games). I don't even have a physical copy of DRPG because I haven't been able to get it yet. I feel there's an 80% chance at least one of the players would have bought it in PDF and maybe a 20% chance at least one of the others would have bought a physical copy if they could have.

Good Games now have Discworld for preorder.
https://shop.goodgames.com.au/preord...me-rrp-74.html

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Ronnke

Good Games now have Discworld for preorder.
https://shop.goodgames.com.au/preord...me-rrp-74.html

Wow. I wonder when it will turn into actual physical copies.

[Ronnke]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Wow. I wonder when it will turn into actual physical copies.

Get in on the pre-order, the more demand they see the better. I wouldn't wait for it to become stocked.

[Ronnke]

Originally Posted by Ronnke

Good Games now have Discworld for preorder.
https://shop.goodgames.com.au/preord...me-rrp-74.html

For what it is worth, someone from the SJG sale/marketing team may want to contact Good Games and inform them of the retailer, get GURPS direct from SJG, offer. They are the only major games supplier/chain in Australia which actually has GURPS in their online store and/or possible their FLGS shelves. However, they have been out of stock for well over 6 months now. A little nudge or direct PR from SJG might see GURPS more readily available to us downunder and might even be an avenue for DFRPG sales in AU.

https://shop.goodgames.com.au/role-p...mes/gurps.html

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Ronnke

Get in on the pre-order, the more demand they see the better. I wouldn't wait for it to become stocked.

Ordering and waiting for an unspecified date is something I avoid. I've taken more direct steps to get a copy.

I'm glad I've backed DFRPG direct.

Maybe SJ Games will ship enough to Australia on the pallet that they have the choice to distribute direct to stores or sell with a lower postage direct to consumer.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Discworld is a more-odd beast, in that with over 70M books sold, averaging 1.7M copies per book, the market for this should be there . . . assuming that folks that want to read about the disc also want to play games on the disc. I'm a poor judge of this one; I've never read a book of this series. Based on Phil Masters' comments (and others) about distribution and reach, this might be a mid-chain breakdown rather than a strict lack of interest.

Without quoting numbers - the first edition was, financially, my most successful GURPS project ever - by, I think, a fairly large margin. It got into shops that wouldn't know what an RPG was. And while I couldn't hope to sell to all of Terry's fanbase, that does include people who are prepared to buy some fairly flaky spinoffery; witness the Discworld desk diaries and cookbooks, just for a start. Take a look at the Discworld Emporium's website. This should by rights be an easy sell, with, frankly, significant money coming from people who may never play an RPG.

But it's not even getting into the RPG shops over here in sufficient quatities. I keep meeting gamers who don't know that it exists. So, yeah, distribution and communication problem.

Originally Posted by lachimba

I have run six successful open demo games of Discworld RPG.

Many, many thanks for your efforts on this. That's the kind of thing that makes me happy.

They can't buy DRPG in Australia though (except with huge shipping cost direct from SJ Games). I don't even have a physical copy of DRPG because I haven't been able to get it yet. I feel there's an 80% chance at least one of the players would have bought it in PDF and maybe a 20% chance at least one of the others would have bought a physical copy if they could have.

And that's the kind of thing that makes me sad. Or angry.

[Paulon]

When even Amazon isn't stocking the new hardcovers except through third party vendors with limited shipping destinations, it's sad but not surprising that the sales are poor. Hopefully someone will realise that there's still a market for the PDFs even if the distribution system is so completely broken that it's hard to get the physical books for a decent price when including international shipping costs.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Maybe SJ Games will ship enough to Australia on the pallet that they have the choice to distribute direct to stores or sell with a lower postage direct to consumer.

It doesn't quite work that way. We will ship what is needed to fulfill the project + whatever is ordered. We do not have consignment deals in Australia, and shipping excess games is not a good way to control our inventory. The local distributors and stores will have to place orders before any games over the project needs go on a boat.