> The big problem with all these models is that they seem to accept as
> gospel that local stores have no role in the industry.
More that, financially, they are no longer a good option for niche games like HeroQuest.
> Don't know about you, but
> the FLGS had a lot to do with why I became a gamer and why I remain
> one today. Drive Thru, and Lulu, and 'we'll only print when every
> surviving fan has ordered their copy' don't leave a space for copies
> to appear on shelves in a shop and people who remember Glorantha
> from their youth coming back to it.
Well, I, at least, would suggest that it's probably still viable to produce the rulebooks and the "popular" supplements like Sartar and Pavis in the traditional way. That gets you your FLGS visibility, with the potential for additional money flowing in from the sales of the less popular books as PDFs, or PODs, or ransom-ware, or whatever it may be. And all of these leave the option for printing in the traditional way if a book proves popular (as SJG did with, for example, GURPS Mysteries).
Of course, I don't know the financial information, and all I know of the sales figures is that Jeff has said "books set outside of Dragon Pass sell only a tenth as well." Whatever the actual figures are, though, that's a damn significant proportion. (And I assume he knows what he's talking about here, rather than pulling it out of his ass, since there wouldn't be much reason to do the latter).
> And if that's true, if we're a dying breed of old fogies without any
> prospect of new blood, then I'd be very sad.
Unfortunately, I think that when it comes to the non-DP supplements in particular, and given the publication schedule over the last few years, the choice may genuinely be "a new way, or nothing", rather than "a new way, or the old way". For the rulebook, and the DP books sure, do it the traditional way... but doing *something* with the less popular ones gives the chance for some much needed cash to prop up the line.
Of course, I'm biased, given my own writings. And I'd rather see the Elf book in regular hardcopy than POD, still less PDF - but I'd rather see it somehow, than not at all. And "not at all" is a pretty good description of the current publishing schedule - you only have to look back over the last few years to see that. The traditional way has *already* failed, from where I'm standing; let's try something else.
-- Trotsky Gamer and Skeptic ------------------------------------------------------ Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Not a Dead Communist: http://jrevell.blogspot.com/
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