The Future of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game?

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

DF is a failure because it demanded resources that could have reliably been better used.

The thing people are pointing out, however, isn't that the goal of DF was to turn a profit. We're pointing out that your statement above is something that could have been reliably predicted before the Kickstarter even happened. Munchkin is always going to be a surer bet than GURPS. Always.

If the bar was being set so high that anything less than runaway, one-in-a-million success would be considered a failure, that's... a problem.

[sir_pudding]

Clearly "make only whatever sells best" is a horrible business plan, because reductio ad absurdum, the only thing anybody would make would be cancer drugs or weapons or something.

If they only made Munchkin, they'd be betting it all on one cash cow which could fail at any time.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Clearly "make only whatever sells best" is a horrible business plan, because reductio ad absurdum, the only thing anybody would make would be cancer drugs or weapons or something.

If they only made Munchkin, they'd be betting it all on one cash cow which could fail at any time.

Yeah, I don't want to give the impression that I think that's a good idea. I'm greatly in favor of a diverse product mix.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

If the bar was being set so high that anything less than runaway, one-in-a-million success would be considered a failure, that's... a problem.

Personally, I don't think that's what happened.

I think that they made their plans. They said "let's condense Dungeon Fantasy into something that can have a better grab-and-go potential. We're going to learn from our Ogre experience and make it into a very attractive box set, both so you have the "all you need is in the box!" factor and appealing to the sort of folks that like boxes, which includes game stores.

They did their research, they looked at the market, and said "we think that the market will support this product at a $50 price point." And they did this knowing a single DnD book costs $35-50 depending on where you get it, and "the big three" required for characters, GM advice, and monsters costs $100-150.

They set out to make it, and the Kickstarter was launched and fixed the $50 price point.

At some point during the development process, costs . . . up-front, full net-present-value baked-in costs started to pile up.

But price and cost aren't connected. If they felt that the market would only pay in the $50 price point to hit their target, that means they could only make up the baked-in sunk costs in volume.

LOTS of volume. Multiple print runs of volume. At a rate that they didn't think they could maintain or sustain given the ephemeral nature of the game store shelf turnover rate unless the rate of orders immediately following the release of the product was crazy-town good.

So I don't think "before the Kickstarter" is likely (nor do I think it fair). I think that there was a probable series of setbacks in timing and cost that incrementally made it a very low probability of making back the investment.

And even so, they printed it (because as Steve noted, that was also the right decision), increased the street price to $60 instead of $50 . . . but still decided not to reprint it.

Anyway, none of the company commentary that I've seen has evinced that anyone is unhappy with the final product. There have been many allusions to the internal processes and in-work delays being unsatisfactory.

So not fore-ordained from the get-go, but as I noted in my follow-up blog post, there would have come a time where the spreadsheet folks would have said "uh, guys . . . we need to burn through [large number] print runs worth of sales in the first [short time] in order to outstrip the development costs and time value of money."

At that point the wise brand/product manager sighs and says "OK. Staff meeting. My office. Five minutes."

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

The thing people are pointing out, however, isn't that the goal of DF was to turn a profit. We're pointing out that your statement above is something that could have been reliably predicted before the Kickstarter even happened. Munchkin is always going to be a surer bet than GURPS. Always.
. . .

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Clearly "make only whatever sells best" is a horrible business plan, because reductio ad absurdum, the only thing anybody would make would be cancer drugs or weapons or something.

If they only made Munchkin, they'd be betting it all on one cash cow which could fail at any time.

These are both very insightful points.

I had argued before that beer will outsell Munchkin any day of the week.

There's an even stronger argument to be made for diversity than just hedging your market bets.

The reason that everybody doesn't just make beer is that other things are profitable even if less so, so why forgo those profits.

But in any centralized operation, it's sometimes a managerial pain to focus on all the diversity.

Yes, don't get me started on globalism.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Tom H.

The reason that everybody doesn't just make beer is that other things are profitable even if less so, so why forgo those profits.

Also you would end humanity in brief spasm of naked starving drunk people turning everything they get their hands on into breweries, until they ran out of grain, hops and water.

The Paperclip Maximizer is a cautionary thought experiment about the subtle dangers posed by apparently innocuous AI, not an example of an ideal business model...

If everyone just made widgets, supply would outstrip demand and other goods would quickly become more profitable, starting with widget inputs, and basic necessities, but eventually encompassing every non-widget good.

[pestigor]

I was wondering if the state of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is also indicative of the state of Gurps, in regards for getting new players into the fold using the most popular setting in RPG's to sell people on Gurps?

I say this because I want my favorite games to do well so I can keep enjoying new stuff from it.

Is the failure of Dungeon Fantasy an indicator that Gurps the way we've known it is no longer profitable?

I saw the writing on the wall about 5 years ago and bought a tablet and made myself learn how to navigate PDF's (with tables of contents) almost as fast a physical book so I wouldn't feel like a horseman in New York when the car became popular.

In a world of here today off the radar tomorrow is the only way to keep Gurps in the black to make it almost exclusively electronic/POD?

I'm posting this here because this game was supposed to be an indicator of the viability of Gurps, at least as far as I could tell.

What does this failure mean for Gurps and where do you guys go from here?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

So not fore-ordained from the get-go...

While I have no doubt that SJG had a plan that they thought would work, I was rather skeptical from the start (and did not back the kickstarter), as boxed sets are really not where the RPG market is right now; only WotC actually makes them, and I'm not at all sure they're particularly profitable even for them. You do get the boxed board games, but they're true board games with a 4-8 page rulebook, not RPGs, and it's hard to see turning GURPS into Descent.

[finn]

One thing I have decided is that, when I bring my DFRPG box set to a convention and run a game, I will call the game "GURPS Dungeon Fantasy".

Presenting it as a separate game that will not be re-printed will just discourage players to pick it up DFRPG or GURPS DF, even if they enjoyed the game.

I will just call it a "box set of GURPS DF", and "If you are only doing DF, it's cheaper to buy the self-contained box set (if still available) or its PDF version that is named Dungeon Fantasy RPG".

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by finn

I will just call it a "box set of GURPS DF", and "If you are only doing DF, it's cheaper to buy the self-contained box set (if still available) or its PDF version that is named Dungeon Fantasy RPG".

That's disengenuous, there are differences.