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Old 04-13-2017, 07:07 PM   #1001
Paulon
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Default Re: Report To The Stakeholder

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
Personally, I do now believe that a PDF version would be a very good idea. But the fact is, things like Discworld first edition sold quite well despite the non-existence of PDF options back then. So the first question has to be -- What's changed? Are PDFs killing print market volume, directly or indirectly, or is it something more complicated?
Well, the first copy of the original GURPS Discworld I could find in one of my then existing friendly local gaming stores, which one has since gone out of business. I replaced it, IIRC, through Amazon when the first copy got worn to bits, not because of poor quality but because of too much use, mostly just for reading pleasure rather than gaming. Discworld Also was a similar story, though it was harder to replace and my new copy was second hand though in decent shape.

My guess is that for the original editions, going by my fallible memory, PDF format still wasn't something widepread at the time for RPG books, or at least not generally expected, so lack of such didn't affect sales. Of course my internet access was limited at the time, so I wasn't paying much attention to the online/digital RPG scene, just going by what showed up in the local gaming store. My guess based on the current behaviour of other RPG publishers is that if PDFs of the original GURPS Discworld books had been available SJGames would have made more money at the time, but since it wasn't an expected product type they didn't lose anything back then by not providing a PDF option the way they are now.
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Old 04-13-2017, 08:57 PM   #1002
Steve Jackson
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

Kalzazz - What you're describing is the intent of the Daily Illuminator, with its forum discussion threads. News and interesting "stuff." What do you mean by wanting "more of a teaser" ?

What would you like to know about the MIBs?

jcfiala - Ultracorps is up and running and more or less in perpetual free beta. If interest ever snowballed in the free game we might throw more resources at it. Right now it's too awesome to discard and not successful enough to support, and Kira donates her time to manage it because she also loves the game.
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Old 04-14-2017, 05:46 AM   #1003
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

Does SJG post their GURPS releases on RPG.Net's "Glamorous Unrestrained Hype Machine"? I couldn't find any threads, but I didn't look very hard.
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Old 04-14-2017, 06:06 PM   #1004
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As a teaser, I meant like a few sentence teaser or such describing what the Daily Illuminator article is going to talk about, so that clicking it you see not only the link, but a little bit about what it is going to be about

On the MiBs, it would be nice to see more info on what MiBs do, how people become them, what they do to retain standing, how they get tasks, do they find their own tasks or does SJGames assign them, do they cold call local game stores or what? I see the link to click on the website, but I admit I don't feel very enlightened after reading it
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Old 04-14-2017, 06:19 PM   #1005
seycyrus
 
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Is there a reason why SJG isn't trying to join the world of virtual table top gaming?

Working with Fantasy Grounds, for example, would be way to get a stream of cash flowing, without having to do a tremendous amount of work.

Last edited by seycyrus; 04-14-2017 at 06:38 PM.
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Old 04-14-2017, 06:53 PM   #1006
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz View Post
On the MiBs, it would be nice to see more info on what MiBs do, how people become them, what they do to retain standing, how they get tasks, do they find their own tasks or does SJGames assign them, do they cold call local game stores or what? I see the link to click on the website, but I admit I don't feel very enlightened after reading it
This link?


http://www.sjgames.com/mib/mibjoin.html


As someone who recently became an MIB I don't think following the instructions was too arduous. Not as difficult as applying for a job, turning up to a new school, volunteering for an NGO or getting on a convention program.

Just ask specific questions as you go through the process. General questions may get you pointed at text you will need to read.

Depending on where you are you may very well be on your own (or not, you're going to have to ask), I am. I just run GURPS demos (Stores, Open RPG days, conventions and the like are the appropriate places for this).

If you are already doing those sorts of things then the MIB part will be the least difficult.

Last edited by lachimba; 04-14-2017 at 06:58 PM.
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Old 04-14-2017, 08:33 PM   #1007
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

Quote:
Originally Posted by seycyrus View Post
Is there a reason why SJG isn't trying to join the world of virtual table top gaming?
...
No reason whatsoever. See this thread for the first experiment: Storium - In Nomine
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Old 04-15-2017, 04:15 AM   #1008
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

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Originally Posted by Þorkell View Post
FWIW, I pre-ordered at the FLGS in November or December last year. In February I'd heard nothing at all from them and I was there anyway and decided to look at the GURPS titles they had (about five) and there BEHIND the Basic Set was a copy of Discworld. I pointed out this failure of theirs to them and that was it. However, I heard later that a friend of mine had just about the same experience there. But the copy they got first for him was faulty and understandably he was not keen on it so they got him a new one, and put the faulty copy on the shelf again...
Please send the name and city of your store to retailers@sjgames.com with a link to this post. Our team will contact the store and see if we can assist them by providing more info on our sales calendar and add them to our retailer mailing list.

* You don't have a local store? www.warehouse23.com opens for pre-orders a few weeks before a product ships to stores.
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Old 04-15-2017, 11:59 AM   #1009
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Hi there -- I'm a bit late to the party but I'll join in anyway.

First off, big thanks, as always, to everybody at SJGames for the long years of delivering excellent products, and for your exemplary transparency while doing so. Keep on being awesome, I'll keep on buying as much stuff as I can :)

It's really unfortunate that the DFRPG production turned into a headache, I think we were all hoping it would give GURPS a lot of breathing room by generating lots of cash... but I guess it can still happen when it ships so I'll keep the candles lit around the pentagram in the basement, just in case.

About the "failures" part, I'll join in with the few people who expressed being skeptical about why those 2 projects in particular were greenlit.

First, someone here on the thread was asking about the difference between the many people who read the Discworld books, and those who may want to play a game in that world... this is of course highly anecdotal but although I know several RPers who enjoy the Discworld books, absolutely zero of them ever expressed interest playing in that universe. I'm not going to go into the reasons for this, but note that the only reason I bought the previous edition of Discworld RPG was more as a reference/companion book, and less as an RPG book. I never played it. I wonder how many buyers did it for the same reasons...

Mars Attacks is even more puzzling -- like people said, it's really super niche. It's probably lots of fun, but it's still super niche. At this point in time, I would imagine it's best to release hardcover/physical products that people would play ongoing campaigns with (and buy add-ons for), not one-shots... which is what the DFRPG is for. I wonder if the DFRPG production would have been smoother if those 2 GURPS books had been postponed entirely.

Now, GURPS PDFs. I love them. I buy tons of them. However, some people seem to hint at using PDF sales as an indication of whether a given book would get good physical sales. I'm not convinced about that. If all the core fans got the PDF originally, they have less incentive to get the hard/softcover a year or 2 later. This means less buzz, less showing up in weekly "top sales" charts or whatever. I would bet that the loss in momentum and "compounding" effect means poor sales after all. I'd rather see some other process to figure out which books should be released as digital only vs. physical+digital... maybe a system where we can vote on all the titles currently in the pipeline, which then shows which ones have the most interest, and therefore should be considered for a "physical upgrade". I understand that this would mean drastically altering a book's production schedule when it suddenly gets "voted up" for a physical release, so it's maybe not the best way to do it either, but hopefully you get my point.

Phil Masters was also asking about what changed with PDFs in the past 10 years and in my experience, it's the combined decrease of home ownership in many major cities, and the rise of tablet computers. People live in smaller places (most often because larger places are relatively more expensive than they used to be) so they can't store as many books. I moved to digital for pretty much everything (including RPG books, comic books, etc.) partly because of this -- I can't buy a larger apartment or home every time the previous one is full :) I buy physical copies only when it makes sense because space is a limited resource.
Meanwhile, iPads happened. Before, I was hauling a 6kgs backpack filled with a couple comics and RPG books to keep me busy in public transit. Now I can do that with a single iPad Pro, and have a thousand books in there. PDFs were just not that useful before when you were basically reading them at your computer (bleh!). Now they're absolutely necessary. I recently bought the glorious Guide to Glorantha from Chaosium, which comes with PDFs. I can read that on the go, despite the 2 "real" books weighing a ton and being ludicrously giant beasts you can barely hold on your lap.

Anyway, if 2017 is going to be a tough year for SJGames, I guess I'll have to buy more stuff :) (oh and last year I already converted 3 new players to GURPS, who went on to buy a few GURPS books of their own!)

Last edited by lordabdul; 04-15-2017 at 12:06 PM.
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Old 04-15-2017, 02:21 PM   #1010
seycyrus
 
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Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

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Originally Posted by robkelk View Post
No reason whatsoever. See this thread for the first experiment: Storium - In Nomine
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing with my implied point, or trying to counter it. But I read through that thread and from what I saw I unable to determine whether or not it can be considered a success.

Regardless of that, the "G" and the "U" and "S" of GURPS are certainly not captured by what looks to be a specialized niche environment.
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