After all the controversy of yesterday’s post, The Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee by Evil Hat and Rogue Games is a bad idea and here is why…, I decided to take another look and this post and make some more comment on it. While we comments about the topic directly in our comment area, we also go great comments from Gary Ray of Black Diamond Game had this blog comment on the whole topic, Dale McCoy Jr made some comments on his blog post and even Richard Iorio seemed to take it as a personal attack, which is wasn’t. I am sorry if it came off that way to you.
Pushing boundary of what we do as RPG publishers is what interests me and is what I am about and I found the Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee as an interesting boundary to push. So after reading all of these blogs, emails and other posts of the subject, I thought of another spin on the the Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee. What if you did the same as before, but instead of sell through Alliance or another like distributor, you as a RPG publisher find the top 5% elite of retail RPG stores and sell your product line exclusively to them. Think of it as what Mac did with the iPhone, you could buy one but you had to get an account with AT&T and if you didn’t then you were not getting an iPhone. I think as a retailer this would give you a little incentive to carry the product knowing that people can’t find it all over town and does make your store a little more “elite” with a good unique product. Many companies have placed themselves in the “higher end” market by using this same or similar business marketing tactic of exclusivity. Apple. Tiffney’s. In-and-Out Burger. Blue Bell Ice Cream. Could this work for your company and better yet does it make the Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee even more “elite” by doing this? Something to think about. Talk to you later…
If any and every small publisher had the kind of pull to have independent retailers order their products directly/exclusively, we wouldn't have/need a Distribution arm. Clearly, that's not the case, as your attempt to foray into retail showed you firsthand.
ReplyDeleteNot trying to put words in your mouth, but from my perspective:
You have an issue with the Retailer PDF Guarantee because it directly occupies the same space as your publishing medium of choice. These companies feature PDFs in a different position within their business plans than yours, and you see their use of the PDF medium in relation to retailers as something that threatens your use of the PDF medium, almost as if they way they use PDFs de-legitimizes your way of using PDFs.
As a customer, I don't care for elite retailer status. At best, it lulls the retailer into a false sense of security and achievement, locking them into the model that "worked" to get them that status and thus potentially making them lose the desire to remain dynamic and attentive to me, the customer.
At worse, if I don't live near one (and let's face it, you can only have one, maybe two, in a determined geographic area for "elite" to mean anything) I'm screwed out of whatever perks the elite store gets. I either have to go out of my way to shop there, or miss out on whatever they have that my closer shop doesn't. Feh.
What the PDF Guarantee does is not punish me for supporting my local store or my desire for a physical book. I just don't get why this is such a bad thing in your eyes.
I think you're overthinking this.
ReplyDeleteI am an RPG customer. I like buying print games. I'll buy PDFs, but for many product types I prefer print if I can get it. I'd really like to get it in PDF as well when I do, for convenience. Therefore someone offering to give me the product in both print and electronic format when I fork over $25+ to them pleases me. Companies that please me are more likely to get my dollars. If I am given both formats when I buy, I am more likely to buy from that company again.
Companies that make me jump through hoops displease me. If a company sold me a print product and said "oh you would have gotten a free PDF if you had just bought it from our special outlet," I'd be on Pirate Bay so fast it'd make your head spin, and after that I'd be unlikely to buy that company's stuff.
Here's what I think both Louis and Gareth (with his "irrelevent" remark) don't get: Brick-and-Mortar stores are still where people still find other people to game with, and are necessary for community.
ReplyDeleteYou might say that online communities are taking the place of the FLGS. I'm part of a local online community, and no (at least here), people still get together at a game store to get to know one another and actually play these games. They get to know one another at these games so they can feel comfortable with these people in their home games. Without the Brick-and-Mortar stores, the gaming industry *will* die, as Louis has been predicting for quite a while.
As well, it's been at those FLGSs that I've discovered more games than not. The OneBookShelf/DriveThruStuff previews generally suck, and I personally have bought very few PDFs because I can't really look through them, like I can a physical book. The Malhavoc books I bought, I bought first in paper, then in PDF. They connected with me and my community through the FLGS first, then got my sale. PDFs aren't the savior of the game industry, and FLGSs aren't irrelevant.
You can sell all of the PDFs you want, but if no one can find players to share them with, eventually they'll get smart and stop buying your PDFs and taking their dollars elsewhere. Without the FLGS/Brick-and-Mortar stores, the industry dies. Either of those kill your business as well as WotC's. Your business can't survive without theirs.