RPGnet Columns
06-25-2002, 06:44 AM
Post originally by Ken Burnside at 2002-06-25 05:44:43
Converted from Phorums BB System
I'm taking a longer time to develop products, which is fine -- Ad Astra, right now, is a hobby more than it is a company. Too keep the hobby paying for itself while I transition it into a company:
1) I sell T shirts. I've got a line of geekwear T shirts that sell well at SF conventions and have my company's URL on them after pithy mottos about destroying planets with math. These not only promote my game site, they generate revenue as well.
2) Because my core product takes a lot of QA work, I sell subscriptions to the playtest distribution circle. I've found that people who've spent 10 bucks for a PDF subscription are about an order of magnitude likelier to tell me where I've screwed something up, rather than have it molder on their hard drive. (I do get people complaining that game companies with playtest products shouldn't charge for them...to which I say "And people who get playtest material for free never send reports on it." More than 80% of my playtest reports have come from people who paid 10 bucks for the subscription.
3) My game comes with a background universe, and will have shipn named after prominent politicians, naval heros, etc. I sell the naming rights for ships on eBay -- win the auction, get a ship named after you. Other prominent names are also auctioned off in that manner.
As to promotion, Ken Whitman gave me a "70% rule". You should spend 70 cents for every dollar you spend on printing on promotions. That can be advertising, that can be going to game shows, and money spent on cover art counts for both.
For Origins, I've got easels and signs to put in the hall where the demos are going, and I've got 5 people running 6 demos per day, starting every 2 hours. I also had the foresight to get some black BDU caps with the logo of the game embroidered on them for the demo-runners to wear; we'll look like a company with a major convention presence, even though, like FireFly, we're a one man show with freelancers.
Finally, my demo team has a lot of laptops, so I'm having them bring the VRML 3-D starmap of the strategic campaign game to show off, along with the JAVA based internet client for playing the game. They're more to generate "oohs" and "aaaahs" than anything else.
The person who does my shirts has a booth at Origins and GenCon, and is willing to give me some of his table space to sell my product. Unfortunately, while my product is complete, it's in need of further blind testing. (It's a wargame -- poor QA kills more wargame designs than anything else. On the other hand, wargames with good QA usually survive the 3 year shelf-life of a typical game product, and can be expanded on for a while.) So I'm making the book as complete as I can. So, I'm doing it in black and white with color play aids, and selling it as a preview release. Only doing 100 copies, which should see me through Origins and GenCon and a few mail orders.
I'm also talking to SF writers who have books dealing with spaceship combat, to see if I can work out a marketing/licensing deal. My background holds close to real physics wherever possible, and the game shows this. (The game also has 3-D movement in vector space with 10-15 minute turns with three-vector solution ballistic intercepts -- I've got some VERY clever people doing math for me.) So doing ship books and campaign books covering major actions in a science fiction novel series is a natural way to expand.
Since i plan to release around GAMA of next year, it's time to hammer the last bugs out and see what kind of licensing I can arrange.
Converted from Phorums BB System
I'm taking a longer time to develop products, which is fine -- Ad Astra, right now, is a hobby more than it is a company. Too keep the hobby paying for itself while I transition it into a company:
1) I sell T shirts. I've got a line of geekwear T shirts that sell well at SF conventions and have my company's URL on them after pithy mottos about destroying planets with math. These not only promote my game site, they generate revenue as well.
2) Because my core product takes a lot of QA work, I sell subscriptions to the playtest distribution circle. I've found that people who've spent 10 bucks for a PDF subscription are about an order of magnitude likelier to tell me where I've screwed something up, rather than have it molder on their hard drive. (I do get people complaining that game companies with playtest products shouldn't charge for them...to which I say "And people who get playtest material for free never send reports on it." More than 80% of my playtest reports have come from people who paid 10 bucks for the subscription.
3) My game comes with a background universe, and will have shipn named after prominent politicians, naval heros, etc. I sell the naming rights for ships on eBay -- win the auction, get a ship named after you. Other prominent names are also auctioned off in that manner.
As to promotion, Ken Whitman gave me a "70% rule". You should spend 70 cents for every dollar you spend on printing on promotions. That can be advertising, that can be going to game shows, and money spent on cover art counts for both.
For Origins, I've got easels and signs to put in the hall where the demos are going, and I've got 5 people running 6 demos per day, starting every 2 hours. I also had the foresight to get some black BDU caps with the logo of the game embroidered on them for the demo-runners to wear; we'll look like a company with a major convention presence, even though, like FireFly, we're a one man show with freelancers.
Finally, my demo team has a lot of laptops, so I'm having them bring the VRML 3-D starmap of the strategic campaign game to show off, along with the JAVA based internet client for playing the game. They're more to generate "oohs" and "aaaahs" than anything else.
The person who does my shirts has a booth at Origins and GenCon, and is willing to give me some of his table space to sell my product. Unfortunately, while my product is complete, it's in need of further blind testing. (It's a wargame -- poor QA kills more wargame designs than anything else. On the other hand, wargames with good QA usually survive the 3 year shelf-life of a typical game product, and can be expanded on for a while.) So I'm making the book as complete as I can. So, I'm doing it in black and white with color play aids, and selling it as a preview release. Only doing 100 copies, which should see me through Origins and GenCon and a few mail orders.
I'm also talking to SF writers who have books dealing with spaceship combat, to see if I can work out a marketing/licensing deal. My background holds close to real physics wherever possible, and the game shows this. (The game also has 3-D movement in vector space with 10-15 minute turns with three-vector solution ballistic intercepts -- I've got some VERY clever people doing math for me.) So doing ship books and campaign books covering major actions in a science fiction novel series is a natural way to expand.
Since i plan to release around GAMA of next year, it's time to hammer the last bugs out and see what kind of licensing I can arrange.