Comments on Electronic Publishing of new RPG game system

[flyingmice]

Flying Mice LLC is looking at electronic distribution of its new RPG. What are the pros and cons of this method of distribution? Are there pitfalls to be wary of? Can anyone here who has published in this medium recommend any particulars? We also need veteran beta-testers to put the game through its paces. Can anyone recommend experienced beta-testers?

Thanks in advance

[flyingmice]

OK, Sorry folks. Apparently you all feel I should have the answers to the questions I asked by reading other posts here. I feel like the guy who farted in church, with everybody's head looking at me and no-one saying a word. I'll go back into the woodwork now!

[Misguided]

Good sources of info would include Jared and Ron at indie-rpgs.com

[flyingmice]

Thanks, Misguded! A very good site indeed. I think it is absolutely hilarious that I have been a GM for almost 25 years now, and have been in IT for many years, owning a huge website and designing computer gear, and I never once heard about this subculture of internet-distributed indie games until two days ago. I have no excuses! How did I miss all this? I guess I just never put the right words into the search boxes.

Thanks again!

[Misguided]

Heh. Don't feel bad. I've been around these parts for a good while now, and people still sometimes talk about games I've never heard of before.

[flyingmice]

OK, here's what I have learned here and on indie-rpgs.com:

1: We are one of hundreds of groups/people attempting to become game designers. This effort will probably fail miserably. This is fine. We don't intend to make a living at it. We make a nice living as designers of computer equipment, which is also creative and fun.

2: Electronic distribution is not going to make us a fortune. This is OK too. See above.

3: Electronic distribution is best thought of either a hobbyist solution (it is very cheap) or as a way of testing the waters/priming the pump for a paper-published game. OK. This sounds very workable. If it fails, it didn't cost much but the time and effort, which were fun anyway, and if it succeeds, it is a fair measure of the probable success of the paper-published game, where the risks are higher and the rewards are greater.

4: Lots of PDFs will proliferate without us being paid. Well, don't see anyway around this. I figure the cheap jerks wouldn't buy it anyway, so it's not a lost sale. We have to live with this.

5: Don't go into this with a fragile ego. There are a lot of very different game systems out there, and ours will not win the hearts of everyone. Fair enough. Maybe some people will enjoy what we have to offer.

6: The paper-published distribution system stacks the deck against Indie games, for reasons which are not attributable to malice, but are business decisions. Yep. We knew this, from having seen only four or five of these fascinating Indie games through the years in traditional distribution channels. This is why we are looking hard at electronic distribution.

Is this a fair estimate? If so we are OK with this, for the reasons mentioned above. Thanks again for the pointer to the forge!

[Patrick Chipman]

Lots of PDFs will proliferate without us being paid. Well, don't see anyway around this.

Maybe. I think the fears of piracy by independent designers are more than a little inflated. (Even in the software business, casual piracy is a minor nuisance -- but one that's easily targeted. It's the big eastern piracy syndicates that cause the biggest problems, but I highly doubt they'll do that to indie RPGs. ;) ) I wouldn't be too worried about piracy; most of the proliferation will be between gamers in the same group, which is what you *want* to happen. If they then want to support your work, they'll buy the eBook.

Here's another thing you might want to note: $10 is considered the average price point for an electronic book, regardless of the value-added features.

[flyingmice]

Thanks, Patrick!

I am more familiar, of course, with software piracy, given my background, but even there it less of a problem than the aggrieved owners of the IP want to admit. I also agree that organized piracy of inexpensive pdf files is not likely to be a frequent issue. It is a problem, really, only intellectually: "This is our IP, and someone is ripping us off!", but in reality we can live with a little of that.

As to the price point, thank you! I was going through various offerings and attempting to assess this very issue, but I was bewildered by the many prices and wide disparity between the amounts of copy included in the PDFs.

Our system is fairly modular, so there are many (40 or so) 15-40 page PDFs. We were intending one "core" package with the important PDFs included in a zip file, with the supplements and options available separately for a smaller price depending on the size. The range of $12 - $5 was what we were thinking. This fits with what you suggest, so I think in this respect we are probably not too far off. Whether or not people think the price point is proper or they feel ripped off will depend on the quality of what we are able to present. Whether people will actually want to play the game is another question entirely.

The system is very close to finish, after two years of development. We were originally intending to go directly to paper-publication, but this will be a better route for us, I think.