I sent this announcement out to various gaming news sites and such earlier in the week, but it just occurred to me that a bunch of folks that I’d love to work with read my journal as well, so…..
Adamant Entertainment has finally ramped up to a full-time thing for me, and as such, I’m in the market for freelance writers. I’m especially looking for folks to work on our Thrilling Tales, Buccaneers & Bokor and D20 MasterKit lines….but if you’re a writer and have an idea for a new line, go ahead and talk to me about it…that’s what we did with Malcolm
Anyway–our submission guidelines are here. Take a look, and drop me a line.
What to do you think?
I think it’s outstanding that business has been going so well for Adamant Entertainment. If you have a moment, I was wondering what your perspective is on the following issues and trends in the gaming industry:
1. The state of Mark McKinnon’s company, “Guardians of Order”. He says “I have talked to company presidents, renowned retailers, distributor representatives, and industry gurus. If there is one thing they all agreed on in 2004, it is the remarkable downturn in role-playing game sales. I’m sure the reasoning behind this trend is complex and varied, but the final result cannot be argued: RPGs were seriously hurt this past year.” Would you concur or is the medium changing it’s major markets from printed material to PDFs and online purchasing?
2. RPGnow seems to be a good resource for getting your product out. What is your opinion of other services, such as Drivethrurpg.com? There’s been some discussion over at RPGnetforums.
As a consumer new to online gaming product, but someone who swore he would gladly by it if it was made available, I’ve ordered a few titles through Drivethrurpg.com this year. Unforunately, I experienced lots of hairpulling frustration with the DRM. Their customer service people have been helpful, but I don’t know if I would order from them again.
3. What do you see as the future for gaming? MMORPGs like Worlds of Warcraft and Everquest II are evolving in sophistication, but they haven’t yet reached a point where the experience rivals tabletop gaming. Do you see a broader market for sales of PDF online product? Has the quality of PDFs and the success of companies like RPGnow and DTRPG lowered the number of scanned books that are bootlegged through file sharing programs and FTP servers? Is the d20 OGL here to stay as the most lucrative gaming system to write for? Have you noticed any cultural and publishing trends that you think will affect what kind of gaming books we can expect to see more of in 2005?
Thanks, I hope you have an great year.
Re: What to do you think?
Apologies for spelling. I’m usually a better proofreader than that.
Re: What to do you think?
Cool–I always like holding forth on stuff that I actually know something about! :)
I’ll split these into three replies, since LJ limits the reply-space.
1) RPGs have been dropping in market share for about 10 years now. The creation of the collectible card game was the first blow–it grabbed its market share from the RPG segment, not the wargames segment, and only grew after that. Plus, the quick-cash turnaround convinced retailers that there isn’t such a thing as shelf-life any more. They want something to sell NOW. RPGs, by their very nature, take a while to sell–but they’ve been pushed into this almost periodical-model sales format, which most companies cannot sustain. I think that the PDF thing has been an outgrowth of the difficulties that RPG sales have in the print market—for most small publishers producing niche product, sales have dropped below the sustainability level. PDF allows niche-product producers to sell directly to the customer…sales are still less than you’d see with print product, but you’re drawing more of the profits. You’re looking at the difference between selling thousands of units in print (but only drawing 35 to 40% on each sale) to selling hundreds of units in PDF (but drawing 70-75% on each sale).
Re: What to do you think?
2) There are really only two delivery/sales-processing services out there. RPGNow and DTRPG. There is, in my opinion, no contest. RPGNow doesn’t use DRM, and has been in business for years.
I am biased. I sell through RPGNow, and I also do some consulting work for them.
DTRPG came about because the Wieck Bros. (the owners of White Wolf) tried to buy RPGNow, and the owner said no. I was sent to the GAMA trade show in Las Vegas last year with wads of cash, with the express purpose of wooing print publishers via drinks and dinners…to get them to offer older out-of-print products as PDFs via RPGNow.
The Wieck Bros. came as well, and through a combination of DRM fear-mongering (“If you don’t use DRM, your products will be PIRATED!!!!”), way more money spent on schmoozing (VIP rooms at strip clubs, etc.), and plain ol’ RPG-Industry-Old-Boy-Network bullshit, they cherry-picked EVERY SINGLE PUBLISHER we approached. Not only that, but a few of the ones who were already with us jumped ship. Of course, now we’re starting to see some come back and sell at both locations, since they’ve discovered that a significant portion of the audience refused to buy DRMed product….but I’m still a bit bitter about the whole process.
In short, I think that RPGNow offers a better service….but DTRPG has more “name” publishers.
Re: What to do you think?
3) You squeezed a lot of different questions into this one!
What do you see as the future for gaming? MMORPGs will get closer and closer to emulating the table-top experience. Once they do, that’s it. Tabletop RPGs will continue as a niche specialty market (like historical wargames are now).
Do you see a broader market for sales of PDF online product? Yes. The more “niche” a product becomes (and RPGs are heading that way), the more direct-delivery to consumers will broaden.
Has the quality of PDFs and the success of companies like RPGnow and DTRPG lowered the number of scanned books that are bootlegged through file sharing programs and FTP servers? I don’t know that it’s had any effect at all…indications are that most pirated product out there is scanned copies of print books that are not available in PDF, so the presence of legitimate PDF dealers hasn’t really touched that. (Which is one of the reasons why the whole DRM thing is ridiculous…pirates will pirate, honest customers are honest customers, and there isn’t really any cross over)
Is the d20 OGL here to stay as the most lucrative gaming system to write for? Absolutely, by orders of magnitude. There are just more people playing d20, and more people = more potential sales. Even within d20 there is stratification–products that we produce for use with generic-fantasy campaigns sell WAY more than products we produce that use d20 for other genres.
Have you noticed any cultural and publishing trends that you think will affect what kind of gaming books we can expect to see more of in 2005? I think you’re going to see more print publishers offering short-format PDFs (taking larger products and splitting them into short subject-focused releases that are priced as impulse purchases. It’s a model that works very, very well (hell, we use it with THRILLING TALES–we sold individual classes at $2 a pop), and we’re seeing the beginnings of print publishers putting their toes in (Mongoose is releasing articles from their magazine SIGNS & PORTENTS on RPGNOW, Paizo Publishing is offering “expanded editions” of DRAGON and DUNGEON articles for 2-3 bucks on their own server, etc.).
There ya go. Hope I answered your questions!
Re: What to do you think?
I appreciate your answers, thank you. RPGNow seems like it’s worth checking out. Thanks!