Final impressions of the review mess at DTRPG

After posting my last post about the featured reviews at DTRPG I have gotten lot of really good feedback. I thought I wanted to wrap some of it up, even though the conversation probably need to continue about the relationship between producer, reviewer and potential buyer.

So, it seems like even though reviews giving less than top marks has been discouraged at DRTPG, it no longer seem to be the case. Maybe it was even thought of as a way to impress upon some reviewers the need to actually provide a review. Whatever the case, that was a terrible idea. I think it poisoned the well, and sadly made a lot of honest reviewers suspect. I will have a hard time not being reminded of that if I ever visit DTRPG.

Should you shop there? Well, I've heard more complaints about them, and am no fan of pdf game books, so I will probably be even more wary of them from now on. I dislike the idea of the mobbing a re-seller, but I am also a firm believer in informed decisions when you shop.

But, what is a poor game designer to do when wanting to sell their stuff? I don't know, really. There are some other sellers of electronic game books, but I have no idea what their policy is about reviews and how big a cut they take.

Then I'd like to say that I think that if you signed up to get free stuff in exchange for a review, you should write a review. That's just polite.

What is a review worth? DrivethruRPG in particular

I was reading a blogpost yesterday on The Douchey DM, and it was about the interaction between publishers and podcasters in our hobby. What Stu posted made me really angry. This is the deal.

So, DrivethruRPG did put pressure on their "featured reviewer" to write positive reviews, implying that since they got stuff for free, they had to give it good grades. That, boys and girls, is corruption. It's basically a by the book definition of bribery!

While this was a few years ago, and their policy might have changed, this still is the same company, and that used to be their mode of behaviour. I cry foul.

If any of you out there review things for DrivethruRPG, and give that product you've gotten for free good reviews because you "should", I call on you to stop at once and shamefully crawl under a rock!

For the rest of us, those reviews on DrivethruRPG now means nothing. They are bought, and suspect since none of us know if this policy is still in effect.

I could sit here smoulder in my righteous anger and declare that I will never buy from them again, but I don't by my game books in pdf to begin with. But, I sure wont buy them from Drivethru if I can avoid it! I urge you to do the same.

Download a pirated scan and send a $10 bill to the writer instead, I'd say.

I'm not a believer in James Mishler, the prophet

I guess a lot of you have read the discussions in the blogosphere lately where "experts" of all kind explain why the hobby industry is doomed, or not. It started when James Mishler laid down his version of things. Naturally people started arguing. This first post, percolated in my mind a bit before I decided what to make of it. Then he replied to some selected individuals and the points they brought up. Now it started to get interesting, since some of the people who replied are pretty thick in the middle of the actual production of games themselves. Now I just read his final word on the matter, and I'm not all that impressed.

Frankly, anyone who waves around words like Great Depression like James does need to chill. His knowledge of how to produce a RPG, and the steps needed and their relative costs, is probably ok. But, an expert on global economy he is not. His view of the greater economic trends is extremely limited, based entirely on the US and frankly something a publisher of books, magazines and games should keep away from. You think you know something about publishing games, being on the inside of the hobby for many years? I think you are right! You think that makes you an expert on macroeconomic problems? I don't think so.

So, would that damn the man? No, probably not. But, the fact that his analysis is really limited and he is obviously talking about things he isn't an expert on (unless he has unmentioned experience in politics and running a big company) makes you wonder how much he is off the mark.

Do I mean that everything James say is false? No, the sad fact is that most of what he say is probably correct. But, a while ago Joseph Goodman posted his analysis of how well D&D4 is selling, and is basically boiled down to "I know more than you since I have data to prove it, but I'm not making that data public". It's a situation most often reacted to by "Put up or shut up". Rightly, people were annoyed by his attitude. Now look at the attitude of James Mishler. He calls Gareth Skarka for "King of Snarks". Dude, who is being snarky now? If you want to be believed, scale back on the hyperbole.

Are roleplaying games to cheap? Well, considering how many hours of entertainment you get from a core rulebook they surely are. Since that is not a very convincing economic argument, how about this one. If the pay for the most well paid contributor to a game book is paid less than it takes to make a living, nobody is going to make a living out of writing game books. That's all there is to the whole debate. Now, you have to decide if you think it makes sense for people to expect to make a living out of writing for games.

How about pdf's then? Well, I've written already about the total cost of a pdf buy. I still stand by those conclusions that it makes little sense to buy a pdf for the prices you pay today if you have to foot the bill for printing yourself and get a less attractive product. You say that is intentional to make me buy the hardcopy book? I think the idea is flawed. Erik Mona and John Wick will soon have had core books out there for a deep discount. Time will tell how that pans out.

PDF books, or how to pay more for less

I guess by now everyone have noticed that the business of traditional gaming products on dead trees are not the place to make big bucks. Not that it ever was a money maker, but the hobby are transitioning to electronic sales for a reason. While I readily see the advantages from a producer perspective I am also kind of vary of this development, and not only for nostalgic reasons. Fairly recently I bought some pdfs and I'll tell you about my experiences and conclusions. How does pdf compare to physical game books? On DriveThruRPG they had a sale when it was time for "GM Day". Since I had just got hold of 7th Sea, I felt some stuff for Flashing Blades might give me inspiration. The adventures where fairly cheap and I bought all I could find, all four of them. They cost $2.10 USD and it felt like a decent deal. Now when I looked them up they were marked at $7 but striked through and reduced to $2.80 which gives me the suspicion that DriveThruRPG is one of those places which never sells their stock for what they claim is "full price". In total I paid $8.4 USD for the bunch. Since I prefer to have my gaming stuff on paper, which for me is easier to cram in a pocket, read without electricity and for making notices on, I decided to have them printed. But, just stealing the resources of my workplace wasn't what I had in mind. Yes, I said steal. How many of you dear readers have a deal with your boss about printing game stuff at work? Without paying? Didn't think so. At my local print shop (the good one, not the bad one where the cranky persons worked) they could make booklets of my pdfs, full letter size so I could read the slightly blurred text. They also gave me the option of getting cardstock for the covers and the front page illustration in colour. Now if this seem excessive let me remind you that this was done to compare a printed game book to a pdf. All in all I paid $32 USD for this. That makes it $10.1 USD per book. Now when I look at those books at, say Noble Knight Games, they will cost you roughly $5 USD. All four plus shipping to me here in Ontario adds up to $26.69 which means $6.67 USD per book. Since none of the books available at the Knight were mint I guess we could add a few bucks to that total to compensate. Still, cheaper than the pdf. Why is pdf sales such a big thing then? Well, it's not hard to see why. Printing costs, warehousing and costs for shipping from the printer is probably going to be a major (if not the major) cost in producing a game book. Imagine if you could get some other poor sucker to pay that cost! Frankly, that is what's key to pdf sales. I wonder how many gamers out there who actually go through the pain to get themselves good looking results, like I did? If the product is just black and white, maybe a plain print out on the office printer is "good enough", since it's "free". Once when I complained on the Kenzer message boards about the idiocy of publishing a 200+ page book only in pdf, someone told me they could get a hardcover printed from that at a local print shop, and without paying a pint of blood. I was damn tempted to take him up on the offer. Seriously, where do they have print shops that can do that? My conclusions from my experiences is that this pdf renaissance is fuelled by companies whose employees print stuff they are not supposed to at work. Otherwise I can hardly understand how it makes economic sense. Unless you have good equipment and pay good dollars you will have a sheaf of black and white papers (probably lesser quality paper than the generic game book, and maybe even not double sided) and not a game book. You just paid more money, for less. Congratulations!