Report To The Stakeholders

[Andrew Hackard]

Everyone, take a step back. Some posts are starting to get more heated and we need to remember that everyone here wants the best for SJ Games and is discussing these matters in good faith.

If you cannot make yourself believe that, then you should probably take a day or two off from this thread to cool down.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by adm

May I point out that SJGames produces these reports as a courtesy to those of us who support the company, if it becomes a flame war and massive time sink, they are likely to stop. Everyone has given an opinion, now let them run their company as they see fit.

The Stakeholders Reports are not going to stop because of some passionate comments. As long as people can express their opinions constructively, we welcome all discussion, good and bad -- some of the posts here have pointed out ways we can express ourselves better in the future, or things that we see from the inside that aren't apparent from the outside.

[Kuroshima]

Come on guys, SJGames is not a new kid on the block, they're an established company that dates from the early days of the hobby. They don't need Business Economics 101 advice. They already know that the money spent on getting Discworld ready for print is gone. Given that they're not a publicly traded company, I don't expect them to play accounting shenanigans that result in a net loss but that look prettier on quarterly reports. They've already told us they're looking at how to get this book in print in a way that makes sense economically, and I'm sure they have top men working at it.

Another issue that might exist relates to the terms of the license, that only those inside SJG proper know. If the license has terms on requiring payment per printed copy, then printing them might require an extra payment that SJG doesn't want to assume right now. Again, we're not privy to the details of the business arrangement, so while we can only guess, we ought to understand that some decisions by those in the know might not make sense to us.

Oh, and for those suggesting that they turn to Kickstarter for the print costs, well, it's an option, but cutting down the retailer side for this book makes even less sense than it does for other GURPS books: the whole point of a license is to get extra visibility to the fans of the license, and that works best with physical stores. Of those boycott you by not carrying stock on your product and rely on special orders, because you went for kickstarter distribution, then you're in trouble.

As for if Discworld needs to turn a profit, well, not every project needs to, that's true, and SJG could use DWRPG as a way to strengthen the GURPS customer base. However, deciding to turn a project into this requires a lot of careful though, because it's very risky.

Is SJG too cautious? maybe. I however respect them as survivors in a cutthroat market, and they didn't get there by gambling on unreasonable odds.

Finally, what does this mean for other full size GURPS books? Nothing good. If Discword, being a popular and very visible license, has issues reaching the net profit line, then it's unlikely that other GURPS books will do better. I know, those will probably have lower editorial costs (DW is a monster of a book, and it was written in British English because that's what the DW series is written in, and so required a lot more effort to properly edit, according to what Sean Punch said in his livejournal), but still.

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

The US government taxes unsold stock that companies simply have sat in warehouse? Really? That's very strange.

I think it's state-level. I remember reading (read that as: I could be mistaken) that SJ Games has to pay taxes on their inventory for their Texas warehouse.

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

I think it's state-level. I remember reading (read that as: I could be mistaken) that SJ Games has to pay taxes on their inventory for their Texas warehouse.

Here's one report on the details: http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/how-thor...ed-publishing/

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by Sindri

You are arguing a straw man. I'm not saying anything about company wide profits.

I'm using the definition found on Wikipedia. "Net profit: To calculate net profit for a venture (such as a company, division, or project), subtract all costs, including a fair share of total corporate overheads, from the gross revenues or turnover."

Could you define the term as you are using it, please?

Originally Posted by Sindri

The budget supports them.

You are arguing an infinite regress.

A budget is a document - a statement of projected revenue and intended expenses. There must be some sort of revenue for the budget to project and allot to particular expenses. What is the source of the revenue that is budgeted to pay the static costs?

Originally Posted by Sindri

Game stores are a product distribution tool that gives bonus passive advertising. Either they are or are not an effective tool for distributing product. On the other hand their efficacy at passive advertising is limited and even if functional is targeted at a non-ideal demographic for GURPS. A company could decide to use game stores even if they are not terribly useful for themselves as an attempt to help the industry but this needs to be recognized as the same sort of behaviour as running a contest for new designers without getting any IP out of it. A luxury expenditure.

You are arguing a false equivalence fallacy and a nirvana fallacy.

False equivalence: Using the game stores keeps a distribution channel open, which allows the company to sell (quantity not specified on purpose) through that distribution channel, which benefits the company. Running a contest for new designers without getting any IP out of it does not benefit the company.

Nirvana fallacy: So what if the demographic is non-ideal? It's still an attractive demographic.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

They've already told us they're looking at how to get this book in print in a way that makes sense economically, and I'm sure they have top men working at it.

One is tempted to make jokes about the Ark of the Covenant still being in a shipping warehouse in Podunk, Ohio, four years after Indiana Jones delivered it to the government...

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Oh, and for those suggesting that they turn to Kickstarter for the print costs, well, it's an option, but cutting down the retailer side for this book makes even less sense than it does for other GURPS books: the whole point of a license is to get extra visibility to the fans of the license, and that works best with physical stores. Of those boycott you by not carrying stock on your product and rely on special orders, because you went for kickstarter distribution, then you're in trouble.

But the whole problem here is that the stores are already "boycotting" the book; they're not proposing to order enough copies to make the project work. So the idea of using the book to get visibility in stores is apparently already a bust.

So one might as well look at other options. Kickstarter is one, and it's certainly observable that Kickstarter is an effective way to create a buzz about a project before release. It too creates visibility, without the pain of having to deal with distributors and retailers. And I'm sure that Terry Pratchett fans as just as able and willing to look at and support a Kickstarter as anyone else.

The idea that bricks-and-mortar stores are necessary to make your product visible in the market is starting to look dangerously dated.

[Phil Masters]

Oh, yeah, a data point when discussing Kickstarters; let's just say that the healthy state of the current Mindjammer Kickstarter might just make the Transhuman Space line editor a little jealous. Or, for bigger projects, one could consider the numbers on something like the Planet Mercenary game, or Mage 20th...

[RogerBW]

It might be that the benefit to SJGames from GURPS moving to a model of crowdfunding for occasional large hardcopy books (with or without ongoing PDF support similar to what we have now) would be less than the loss to SJGames from stores getting annoyed and dropping Munchkin.

I don't see it myself, especially since the stores have to a first approximation stopped carrying GURPS already so wouldn't be losing if it were no longer available to them, but it's a chain of logic.

[Phil Masters]

Apparently, some French games shops have actually been known to refuse to carry any products from any company that has ever published anything on PDF.

But, well, national stereotypes...