Transparency Agenda Daily September 13th 2016 - Owen KC Stephens MUST be...

[RANT] If one more person tells me you can’t make money making RPGs, I am going to punch them in the [BLEEP]ing mouth!!!

How many times have you heard this one: You can’t make money in the RPG industry. 
Basically ALL THE TIME!!! And who do you hear it most from? People who have failed to make money in the RPG industry.  But here is the question you should ask yourself, Why the [BLEEP] should you listen to any [BLEEP]ing thing they have to say?  All they have [BLEEP]ing proven is that THEY CAN’T MAKE MONEY IN THE [BLEEP]ING RPG BUSINESS.  Not you. 

The RPG Industry is full of failed RPG companies, right? So is the [BLEEP]ing real business world!!! One out of ten businesses fails their first year; one out of ten businesses fails in the next 5 years.  This fact is well known to everyone, so why do we think it would be any different for RPG companies? It isn’t dumb [BLEEP]! The RPG industry and companies are no different than any other industry or business, no matter what some people think or feel.  The reson it looks so severe in the RPG industry is because the RPG industry is so [BLEEP]ing small!!!  Anything you do looks a hundred times more extreme to us. 

If you look at RPGNow.com, there are over 500 publishers listed there right now.  I am willing to bet you 85% of them are out of business or have not released a product in over three years.  Those are people who tried to get a RPG company off the ground and as they found out the hard way, 90% of those FAILED in the first year. Out of those remaining 10% of them, 90% of them FAILED in the next five years.   So at RPGNow you can “guess-timate” that there are only 75 to 100 publishers who are actually active RPG companies.  You can even add Monte Cook and Malhavoc Press to that list also.  The last thing he released at RPGNow.com was Dark Tidings on January 27, 2009. 

There are a several companies that are not just making money, but actually making a profit and expanding their business. Take a quick look: Green Ronin just celebrated their ten anniversary and now has the DC Comics license; Paizo is now tied for 1^st place for top selling RPG; Fantasy Flight Games and Privateer Press started off as RPG companies and expanded into new gaming markets; Mongoose Publishing started off as a D20 RPG company and now has a decent sized staff and various game lines; White Wolf has had ups and downs but still remains in business with it various business arms including PSI and RPGNow.com.  Plus many, many more… Don’t ever let someone else tell you that you can’t be successful in something. Especially if they failed at doing it.

The real funny part to all this is that video games got this same story told to them in the beginning.  Now there are dozens of Hollywood studios fighting over video game properties that want to make movies about.  Why have so many RPG companies just accepted that they will never make money? Because deep down a lot of them are losers and they know it they just don’t want to admit it out loud.  Not me. Not LPJ Design! We are valuable. Not just because I say it. Because I do something to prove it by putting out products people want AND do buy. 

What is the Conan line that is so often quoted to you by gamers all the time: Conan, what is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. Do bad many of us don’t act like that when dealing in people who are trying to drag us down and tell us we are going to fail. Everything you get in life good or bad is because you worked for it consciously or unconsciously. Back to work for me, I have to make LPJ Design more profitable. I hope you are doing the same.  Talk to you later…

The Crossover - Moving from RPGs to Comics…

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a HUGE fan of comics and the comic industry. I think the comic industry is the “other side” of the coin when you think of niche products or services. While it is a niche industry, comics have evolved to tap into the animation, video games and Hollywood movie industry. RPGs should and could do this same thing, on average don’t. The really sad part is that RPG publishers are built perfect for the video game industry (RPG publishers build game setting and build encounters/adventures as the status quo to make a successful line) to come to us and license our ideas. If people could play Tomb of Horrors as a video game how many people would become fans of it? My guess, A LOT!!!! While getting to the video game market is the successful end goal, the first easy step to move in that direction is comic books or even a better choice, webcomics.
After reading How to make Webcomics, I made an initial attempt to do a webcomic based on my fantasy setting, NeoExodus: A House Divided with Grand Theft Exodus. While Grand Theft Exodus didn’t do as I expected, I did see how it could be used to help grow my RPG business and create a whole new business where I could use the webcomic artwork in my RPG products. A webcomic can save you money over the long run, but it does have high start up cost. And that is the thing that will kill most RPG publishers, due to money being always tight as a RPG publisher. A full comic page will on average cost you about $100 buck a page (Look at the Atland or The Guns of Shadow Valley webcomic from an example of what I mean). So you release one page a week it will cost you $5,200 a year. You just need to generate $15 a day to pay for this artwork over a year. When you place your site up for the webcomic you will use Project Wonderful to help generate money for you to offset the cost. Now you have access to new customers is a different business medium (Transmedia anyone?) while at the same time introducing those people to your other related products, like a RPG.

Find a way to develop and create a crossover and you find a way to make more money for you, Green Ronin’s DC Adventures is a great example of a crossover product for DC Comics. Best of all someone had to pay DC Comics for the license. I am going back to doing Grand Theft Exodus sometime in the future. I just have to make sure it works well to grow my business. Just something to think about. Talk to you later…

The Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee by Evil Hat and Rogue Games is a bad idea and here is why…

I have been reading a lot of forums of late of people talking about how Evil Hat’s Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee  and Rogue Games Brick & Mortar PDF Guarantee is a great idea. Retailers love it.  The first thought that came to my mind was, “Of course they love it! You are providing a free service to their customers that they can’t and in most cases don’t want to do.” Retail stores don’t want their customers to go digital with PDFs.  That scares most of them to death.  The mantra I hear the most from retailers is, “If they buy PDfs, then they won’t by from my store.” Well if you give them a reason to buy may be they will buy from you.  For all you retailers that don’t understand what I mean and know what to do, let me direct you to Tates Comics in Lauderhill, FL winner of the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailing award.  They might give you some ideas how to do you business better.  Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of offering the PDF for free if you buy the hard copy is a good idea.  I just think you don’t need to do that on a retailer level.  You could do the same thing by using Lulu.com to do you printing, placing a code on the table of content page, keep a bigger percentage of each sale (by not having to split the money with the distributor and/or retailer) and gaining even more fan loyalty.  If the product is good, people will hear about it.

But back to the digital arena, As a PDF publisher, follower of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Robert Kiyosaki. I think a PDF company needs to service their customers directly and not through a third part source like a retailer.  They are your customers; you should provide them the best service yourself.  To me, Evil Hat and Rogue Games look at the PDFs as an afterthought, something they can toss to the fans as a “nice gesture” as a RPG publisher.  They think their “big money” is with the retailers.  I, of course, don’t think it is the case.  PDF publishing has proven itself not just to be viable but an actual way to build your successful business from the grass roots level.  You need to build your customer base.  Malhavoc Press proved that. Open Design proved that. Paizo proved that. Green Ronin even proved that. Stop looking for retailers to do your work, and sell yourself to your customers. Talk to you later…

How many new editions can you make until people stop buying?

The news of the week has bee Green Ronin's success of getting the DC Comics license so they can make the Mutants & Masterminds with DC Comic Characters.  Now this is HUGE.  That was good work by Green Ronin and they deserve congratulations on getting the license.  But then a few day later, ICv2 had this little article,"Mutants and Masterminds Third Edition" and then I thought, "They are doing ANOTHER edition of Mutants & Masterminds?!?!?!

Now before we get in this I have to make a few confessions:
1) I used to produce products under Green Ronin's M&M Superlink license and the 1st edition of the Mutants and Mastermind game for a few years.  During that time I was one of the most prolific publishers of M&M Superlink material (I had nearly 90 products for their line).

2) I came out and PUBLICLY told people that LPJ Design was NOT going to support 2nd Edition of Mutants and Mastermind and a little while later I was banned by Green Ronin from making any more M&M Superlink products. (I always thought I got banned was because the relationship between Green Ronin and Phil Reed's Ronin Arts PDF company. Phil and I were "enemies" back then and at each other throats making M&M Superlink products. 2002 - 2005 was like the Wild West in the PDF market. But who knows for real?)

3) In my opinion, the reason there was a need for a Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition is that Osseum Entertaiment had stolen all the money from Green Ronin's print run of the Mutant & Masterminds first edition print run.  After three years of stealing, you can figure Osseum stole somewhere in the six figure dollar range from Green Ronin.

But now with this new announcement, Green Ronin is making ANOTHER edition of Mutants and Masterminds.  Three editions in 8 years.  Does that seem like a lot to you?  (Funny thing is WOTC & Paizo kind of did the same thing with OGL 3.0 and 3.5 and Paizo's Pathfinder RPG but at least that was two different companies.) It seems to me that the only business model some of these companies that keep RE-RELEASING edition of their game is to get their "hardcore" fan base to keep buying the editions over and OVER again.  How do you tell someone who supported you the first time you came out with the 1st edition of your product line and bought add-on products for it, and bought your second edition of your product line and bought add-on products for it, that you need them to buy a THIRD edition now?

While this is the basic business structure that video game companies use at least in their defense technology changes every few years (see Moore's Law) so for them there is a little understanding.  But we are talking about niche products with a niche and shrinking fan base.  And let's not even talk about price creep on the products. So here comes the question again: How many new editions can you make until people stop buying?  Talk to you later...