To Charge or Not to Charge?
Callan S.:
Don't forget the option of making a quick start set of rules, which are your main rules stripped down. Capes does this and so did riddle of steel (which probably helped push me toward buying TROS). Since it's not a full version of the rules, it gives that teaser taste of them. How much it's stripped down - whether it's got 80% of the rules (I think capes has this) or far less, is up to you. I think it's probably a little better than giving out the entire game as a pdf.
Chris_Chinn:
Two things to take into consideration are:
1. PDFs have no "per unit" cost- any money you make from a PDF is money you get right then.
2. Overseas customers may have no desire to pay for shipping for your books- PDFs might be the only thing they'll deal with, period.
There's three models I've seen people use successfully:
-Low Cost-
John Wick charges $5 for both Houses of the Blooded and Blood & Honor, this was a small enough fee that people had no problem paying for it, and brought a lot of interest. I don't know the numbers on his hardcopy sales, but it did give him both the benefit of direct PDF sales money and still had a wide reach.
Granted, John Wick has also a lot of fame as a designer from his Legend of the Five Rings days, so he can roll on name status in a lot of ways.
-Bundled with Hardcopy-
A lot of folks will send you the PDF at no extra charge if you buy the book. This helps initial players spread the word and share rules with the rest of their group or potential players. Obviously, this doesn't have the same immediate interest building factor, but does make use of the natural tendency of players in spreading info along their own networks of friends.
-Full Price-
A lot of publishers here on the Forge charge full prices for PDFs. "Full" meaning either a price that is sizable but not necessarily the cost of a book, up to the full cost of a book. Because there's no price for printing or shipping on PDFs, this is actually a sizeable source of profit for many folks.
There's a lot of unexplored territory and possibilities with PDFs, but the above methods have worked in general.
For the larger issue of getting interest, the #1 consistently good method we've seen is having a good game that consistently gets good play reviews over time. Everything else tends to flash and fade. Make sure your game is strong, reliably produces whatever experience it's supposed to, and sooner or later you end up with "advocates" - fans who promote your game for you. This has worked much more than any PDF/advertising/quick interest method.
Chris
Stregheria:
Thanks for another great reply. You raised points that I hadn't even thought of. I'm weighing up all the pros and cons in peoples comments and when the game is released , I'll make a final decision based on what I've read.
Thanks guys, you've been a great help. :)
greyorm:
I suggest that all discussion of and concerns about piracy are a huge red-herring you should waste no time on nor concern yourself with.
The claimed "impact" of piracy has been vastly overblown in the commercial media sector for really boring economic reasons (ie: piracy was a great way to get government kickbacks and a great tax break, so studios over-reported losses with a lot of clever juggling in accounting or outright lies about amounts of loss). When during the past decade it became very easy to distribute files electronically, those same companies saw a great way to multiply their reported losses to record levels without actually suffering from those losses*.
The spill-over effect of which is now everyone else is terrified that "pirates" are going to destroy their ability to make money on their products, producing a situation where there is now a lot of money to be made on that fear (as in "You'll lose THIS MUCH money! I can help you stop this...if you pay me."), which simply perpetuates the whole thing.
* Note the exact same occurred in the early days of radio, then when personal tape recorders became available, and then during the era of video tapes -- in no case, despite reported losses, despite claiming the opposite, did the affected industries actually shrink or lose money. Even government experts and economists have argued for years, and again this year, there is no evidence for these losses.
But the actual impact of piracy in the gaming and independent sectors is simply negligible. You may as well be worrying yourself over how many of your readers are going to peruse the text under a 45-watt bulb for all the harm such a concern would prevent and all the good such a concern would do.
Stregheria:
Another side to a fascinating subject; thanks a lot. :)
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