Report To The Stakeholders

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Thanks, all, for the useful comments. As a direct result of this thread, we had a work session today that will lead to at least a dozen changes on the website. None of them are showy or spectacular, but all together they will help some of the problems pointed out here. And yes, you will be able to subscribe to GURPS-only and Munchkin-only lists (there's already an Ogre list). Car Wars deserves a list too, but perhaps not yet.

Thank you I look forward to them.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

That's great. Will the GURPS list (and the others) be pushed out through an RSS link? If so, I can scrape that feed weekly and it'll get top billing on the GURPSDay list, which gets reasonable traction. I can even start reposting the GURPSDay blog list at RPG.net, ENWorld, and The RPG Site, which I've not really done much of.

That sounds like a really good idea.
That covers a lot of blogging each week and people seeing all that activity will hopefully realize GURPS has an active fan base.

[csm]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Thanks, all, for the useful comments. As a direct result of this thread, we had a work session today that will lead to at least a dozen changes on the website. None of them are showy or spectacular, but all together they will help some of the problems pointed out here. And yes, you will be able to subscribe to GURPS-only and Munchkin-only lists (there's already an Ogre list). Car Wars deserves a list too, but perhaps not yet.

That is great news.

However...

I suspect what's ultimately going to happen is we're going to get separate feeds so it's not a blast of Munchkin. But that's only one part of the problem. The other part that I'm not sure will be addressed is bringing more outside excitement and openness to GURPS. I think the DF Kickstarter and the two new hardbacks were a good step in that direction, but I also see those reaching the already converted. I'm not sure how much reach they had outside of the converted (and how much excitement they had once they got there).

My biggest fear is this will be yet-again another reason why "GURPS hardbacks just don't sell". Vorkosigan Saga, Zombies, and Horror were the last three hardbacks I was aware of prior to Discworld and Mars Attacks. I don't know the numbers for those but I do know I had to order them direct from W23 because my FLGS didn't stock them. And Vorkosigan had some license issues which made it a "blink and it's gone" affair (but it's back so that's good to see). But if I look on Warehouse23 for print versions of GURPS 4e material I get a rather glum look at thirteen available products (not counting the CreateSpace versions).

That doesn't suggest thriving game system; it says "Clearance".

I know this is not the truth. I know there are many dedicated wordsmiths working furiously to keep the system alive. I know there's line editing going, and production. But going digital-only (and one location for digital only) is not going to attract new players and new blood. It's going to keep things in this tight cycle of "not enough money to support the line" and "not enough money to support the hardbacks".

Every so often my FLGS gets new material for GURPS. I can tell because that's when they stock 4E material. Unfortunately it also means that someone else gave up and decided to cash out at 10 - 15% of the cover price. So maybe someone else will be exposed to GURPS in the wild. Possibly. But more often than not it's someone finding that hard-to-find hardback book at a discounted price.

[Steve Jackson]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

That's great. Will the GURPS list (and the others) be pushed out through an RSS link?

Yes. And thank you in advance for reposting!

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Owen Smith

So 9 days out of 10 the Daily Illuminator is just Munchkin noise.

January: 14 Munchkin-specific articles out of 31
February: 14 Munchkin-specific articles out of 28 (mostly dealing with the Munchkin Shakespeare Kickstarter campaign)
March: 10 Munchkin-specific articles out of 31

Total: 38/90 Munchkin-specific articles for the first three months of the year.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

January: 14 Munchkin-specific articles out of 31
February: 14 Munchkin-specific articles out of 28 (mostly dealing with the Munchkin Shakespeare Kickstarter campaign)
March: 10 Munchkin-specific articles out of 31

Interesting. For the heck of it, I tried counting articles with what I consider a significant mention of a product (so each article can filter into multiple categories) and focused on Munchkin, Ogre, GURPS, and everything else from SJG. Here's what I came up with:

January: 22 articles with a significant mention of Munchkin.
February: 24 articles with a significant mention of Munchkin.
March: 22 articles with a significant mention of Munchkin.
Not 90%, but 68/90 for roughly two-thirds is a pretty big chunk.

For other games, Ogre got 26 mentions, GURPS 12, and other SJG products 26 as well.

I also counted articles about Events (conventions and the like) since I tend to tune those out and once again came up with 26 across the three months. It's weird that that number showed up three times. The counts are different across the categories and dates, I swear! :)

I only counted three articles that didn't have a significant product mention and weren't about an event.

Numbers are fun! And sometimes subjective! :)

Anyway, I'm glad to see that SJG is going to look into making it easier for folks to find updates about their favorite product lines. Steps in the right direction.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by Parody

Not 90%, but 68/90 for roughly two-thirds is a pretty big chunk.

Also, roughly along the lines of sales volume. I think that many here forget what a significant part of our revenue comes from Munchkin sales. We would do a disservice to Munchkin if we were to reduce our frequency of posts about the game.

-----

Question: How often do you visit the New Releases page on our site?

http://www.sjgames.com/newproducts/

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Question: Where do you buy our games?

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Parody

I tried counting articles with what I consider a significant mention of a product, focusing on Munchkin, Ogre, GURPS, and everything else from SJG.

Presumably if it wasn't specifically about Munchkin and only Munchkin, the earlier poster might find a morsel of value in the post amid all the "Munchkin noise." That's why I focused on articles specifically about Munchkin, rather than ones that happened to mention it as part of a larger story.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by philreed

-----

Question: How often do you visit the New Releases page on our site?

http://www.sjgames.com/newproducts/

-----

Question: Where do you buy our games?

Primarily look at the new release page on Thursdays, very rarely any other day unless I was offline for some reason.
Primarily I buy them on W23, however I try to buy physical product at my local FLGS even if I have to order it.

As for the Social Media tools I am subscribed to all of them except snapchat.
However I just learned about Youtube from this thread.
I also follow a number of people on Twitter but feel social media is a lousy way to get most news. It is good for trending topics and helps getting word of mouth out there but any item is likely quickly buried in peoples news feed.

This site is the best spot to go if I am specifically looking for something.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by philreed

How often do you visit the Steve Jackson Games front page/Daily Illuminator?

Daily. It's also in my RSS feed which goes to my email and my android phone/tablets.

Originally Posted by philreed

Do you follow any of our social media channels?

Yes. All of them.

Originally Posted by philreed

What can we do to put the news in front of you regularly?

I like the idea of a GURPS mailing list for a couple of reasons: 1) It gets the information to those who know about GURPS keeping the base updated; 2) It allows you to advertise information via social media to those who are GURPS-curious (and that's a lot of people in my expeirence); and 3) it allows your MIBs and GURPSangelicals (such as myself) to say "Hey, check out this link, there is a ton of stuff here that you might like if you liked my demo/game/campaign.

Originally Posted by philreed

The world is a flood of information, and it is our job to make sure _our_ information reaches you. We have clearly failed in this instance, so we are left trying to figure out the best way to alert you to news about new games and expansions.

• Better use of hashtags on social media is one I can think of. While GURPS isn't the meat and drink of SJGames I like to think it might be the ice cream dessert. It comes in a billion flavors and you are bound to find one you love. A couple of mentions in your various social media feeds ought to assist there. But only if people can find them doing searches when they don't follow you. Use "#RPG" and "#GURPS" to broaden the tag cycle - or some other combination (up to 3 or 4 at most).
  
• I think more GURPS-related broadcasts could help to. Nothing long (8 to 15 minutes seems to be the happy medium for most videos). The key is to get a conversation going. Have people talk about their games and what the system can do.
  
• Perhaps set up Q&A sessions about GURPS on social media. Again, get a conversation going.
  
• Use the blogger base. We're not huge (under a 100), but we're loyal as hell and want to see the game's fan-base grow. That is free labor/advertising that can be utilized by the company. All you need to do is to tell one of us (ideally myself or Doug) and we will direct those who want to help however you wish.
  
• I know I get about 400 to 700 hits per post with a good chunk of those coming from RPG websites vs. something GURPS specific. I know Doug is in a similiar boat and Peter gets a crapton of hits from the DnD and OSR crowd because of how he runs his DF game.
  
• Assign GURPS emissaries who know the game well to patrol the net for places to talk about the game. I know I'd be up for such a task and I bet a few other freelancers would be as well.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, I'm not saying dump tons of man-hours into any of these (or other endeavours) when it comes to GURPS. But you know, the loyalists are out there should you need us . . .

Originally Posted by philreed

How often do you visit the New Releases page on our site?

About weekly, sometimes monthly.

Originally Posted by philreed

Where do you buy our games?

Via w23 mostly or Amazon. Some things I can't get from w23 force me to check eBay or Amazon. Occasionally, from my FLGS because the store owner knows I love GURPS classic print stuff and he saves it for me.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by philreed

Question: How often do you visit the New Releases page on our site?

Not very often, since reading the forums keeps me up-to-date on what's coming.

Question: Where do you buy our games?

PDFs from Warehouse 23; Kickstarter projects via Kickstarter and Backerkit; PODs from amazon.co.uk.

Physical GURPS products are ordered from the local games shop, but it's usually hard work to actually get them. The shop are getting fed up of the major UK distributor, since they've become very inefficient in recent years.