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jamazinggames posted:Also, the reason it seemed like none of the game was developed was because no one asked about the game. That was my fault, I put way too big of a focus on the pricing model rather than how cool the game was = \ JamazingGames, can you give me an outside game designer (preferably one with a track record of good releases) who has played your game and written about it?
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| # ¿ Nov 22, 2011 19:05 |
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| # ¿ May 22, 2013 15:07 |
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JamazingGames, are you familiar with One Roll Engine at all?
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| # ¿ Nov 22, 2011 23:30 |
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Same thing happened to Atari. When you relax the standards, the gateways pop open and the market becomes flooded with crap, and you can't tell that it's crap until you play it. One thing that I think I can add to the discussion is that RPGs are a lot like video games in the sense that it's really hard to tell how good they are from a casual level of perusal. Unlike clothes or some other physical good you can't just look at it and go, "Oh that shirt looks like cheaply made garbage." It's like, Mouse Guard is a really good RPG, but who the gently caress is gonna know that from the cover? And RIFTS is terrible, but you look at the cover and it's like a van from the 70s and it's TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL! That means you need to have some sort of barrier to entry to the market in order to keep it from being flooded with cheap horrible crap, which I don't really think RPGs have (5k is really not THAT much money).
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| # ¿ Dec 8, 2011 00:44 |
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Rulebook Heavily posted:
There's already a game that sounds amazingly like this: Nightfall. It's a Dominion-style deckbuilder with solid mechanics and mixing of factions, with the Eternal Night fluff as the wrapper. You should look it up on BoardGameGeek.
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| # ¿ Dec 22, 2011 15:25 |
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I've never understood why a billards-hall style gaming place didn't do amazingly well. There HAS to be a market out there for people going to a social area and playing games. Snakes and Lattes is doing ok...why not something else?
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| # ¿ Dec 23, 2011 17:58 |
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Dr Nick posted:I'm also fairly close to UCI and I know I can get a good customer pool of just college kids if I can get it going. I now know the exact area you are in and he's right guys...getting retail space in Orange County is premium. The thing is, if you pull it off you'll be untouchable.
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| # ¿ Dec 23, 2011 18:35 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Oh god, I remember reading all the horror stories about UO pretty much collapsing under the weight of the players' stupid. How is that thing still running? As a former UO player, let me tell you a story about the UO beta. Back in the beta, the game was basically libertarian's paradise. There was a huge town and it had guards, but the guards were Tough Monsters...they obeyed the same rules as the players, had hit points, could be killed, did good damage, etc. But it took them a while to get you. So anyway a new player in the game spawned at the Britania docks with 100 gold and a robe. And Ultima Online was a game where you literally dropped everything when you died. If someone killed you, they got everything you were carrying. Well a group of players decided to "farm" newbies to get that sweet, sweet, 100 gold. So what they did is they built a huge "rat maze" at the dock out of furniture and other heavy objects that blocked movement but not line of sight. And then they positioned themselves at the far end with bows. And started shooting. A new player to Ultima Online beta most likely spawned into a maze of furniture, the floor slick with the blood of dozens of white-robed newbie corpses, before being filled full of arrows and killed. Then some dude (being chased by a guard) would run over and loot the corpses. After a while, they patched the guards to teleport instantly to a murderer's location and kill them in one hit, because anything less caused players to go berserk and kill each other in creative ways. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at May 10, 2012 around 21:36 |
| # ¿ May 10, 2012 21:34 |
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TOOT BOOT posted:They split the gameworld into two facets around 2000, one which allowed PVP and one which didn't. Ultima Online is one of those games, like Eve Online, that's a lot of fun to read stories about but miserable poo poo to play. And I ought to know...I played it from the beta to 2000. It was terrible.
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| # ¿ May 11, 2012 14:31 |
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Yes, that's really funny to read about, but I don't ever want to stand around for 10 minutes to get a funny gaming story out of it. I would much rather be enjoying myself.
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| # ¿ May 11, 2012 18:12 |
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InfiniteJesters posted:And at any rate tentacle surprise sex jokes at this point in time come across as cheap humor at Japan's expense. Perhaps if Japan didn't keep making tentacle surprise sex stuff? (have they?)
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| # ¿ May 17, 2012 17:21 |
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FMguru posted:That kind of record-keeping and report writing would make sense if it was a globe-spanning operation with 24/7 availability and six-sigma uptime with 30,000 employees, but this is a two-man wargame company. Two guys who've known each other for 25 years and whose desks face each other. It's crazy. This is going to sound lovely at people who've served in the armed forces, and I don't mean it this way, but people who have served in the armed forces usually believe some of the weirdest poo poo possible and come up with some of the worst businesses processes you can think of. Just huge amounts of redundancy, paperwork, and stupid busywork while ignoring the core business problem that's supposed to be addressed. I've been in the business world a decade and a half and I literally wouldn't work for someone who'd served in the armed forces for more than four years or beyond the rank of Sargent. They are always terrible. The huge amounts of bureaucracy, hierarchy, and conditioning that they've been subjected to has professionally warped them. Edit: Just to clarify, I think that the armed forces needs a lot of this paperwork and hierarchy and poo poo. The problem is that people who learn the armed forces system take it into every single situation going forward regardless of usefulness - and it's totally understandable, most of them were young when they went in and very impressionable and ignorant. I just hate dealing with it. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at Jun 16, 2012 around 22:22 |
| # ¿ Jun 16, 2012 22:17 |
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Gerund posted:The purpose of any company, game or not, is to make money for the owners. The idea that Siembieda started Palladium as a money-making company and not as a way to make a living doing something he loved is pretty laughable. And experience has proved that - as far as a money-making venture, Palladium has pretty much poo poo the bed. Your whole premise is wrong in economic terms, by the way. The ultimate purpose of every company is to produce something of value to society. That's what capitalism is. Capitalism says that by creating a market and allowing people to buy and sell from it, society as a whole will get better outcomes than by trying to assign some master government committee to parcel out resources to everyone, or by reverting to some sort of feudal caste system. That's why we (ostensibly) pass laws to prevent companies that produce nothing from being created, or companies that scam people - that 'ultimately exist to make money for the owners'. I know this is merely tangentially related to what you said, but it's really disturbing that the sociopathic "corporations exist to make money (even though all businesses are completely fictional constructs with the goals and priorities of whatever their leaders want out of it)" is now filtering down to single-owner RPG passion projects.
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| # ¿ Jun 27, 2012 18:00 |
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Gerund posted:^^^If only a company couldn't be sued for making non-profit choices by its owners...^^^^ Corporations can be sued because of a very bad 1919 court ruling.
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| # ¿ Jun 27, 2012 19:54 |
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Bieeardo posted:Asking twenty grand to develop that poo poo-simple battle map has to be some kind of joke, too. Are you a programmer?
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| # ¿ Aug 7, 2012 18:01 |
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baquerd posted:I'm a programmer. I would be ashamed if I couldn't poo poo that out in a week (assuming someone gives me the art assets). Doing both iOS and Android increases that estimate, as does the wi-fi connectivity, but the basic board is nothing. All told, a month of a single programmer's time (including testing), so in that regard $20 starts to seem reasonable. drat, I hope you don't come gunning for my job.
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| # ¿ Aug 8, 2012 19:07 |
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I'm pretty sure that's not in the lease.
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| # ¿ Oct 26, 2012 18:22 |
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Boiled Water posted:I don't believe for a second you can sell role playing games based on a cover to any but sad dorks. You don't believe covers sell books and you don't believe that piracy is a problem. I'm guessing college student. You're a college student, aren't you? Never worked in any sort of publishing capacity anywhere, ever, right?
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| # ¿ Dec 21, 2012 15:38 |
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Well that's that. I can't abide by Privateer Press's behavior here. They're done - I won't buy anything from them.
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2013 21:53 |
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Red_Mage posted:I am curious, since we are only hearing one side of the story, why is it so reprehensible to stop selling to a distributor? They didn't do that at all - they told that specific distributor not to sell to that specific store. Right before the Christmas buying season. And won't say why they did it. That's reprehensible.
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2013 22:20 |
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Well obviously the store did something against Privateer's policies. But they don't know what they did, and the company hung them out to dry without any warning and without telling them what they can do to fix this mistake. I'm not saying that this store is a totally innocent victim, but the minute you get a lawyer on the phone and they won't tell you what you can do to fix the problem, they're playing a bad-faith, lovely little game with you.
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2013 22:55 |
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lighttigersoul posted:How is 'calling multiple times a day for weeks and getting nothing' followed by 'and then legal said they'd get back to me, still nothing' slapping that hand away? It's not, you should check these people's posting histories, they'll all have an extensive amount of posts in the Privateer games threads, I'm sure of it. Edit: I hadn't even checked but I just did and of course I'm right. I'm getting pretty good at this! Red_Mage posted:Over the holidays. Uh no, they actually got a hold of a lawyer and his answer was "We'll get back to you." That's not "the holidays", that's being a dick. Think about what your argument would be to support this: "Well we know enough to cut these people off, but we don't know enough to tell them why we did it if they call." Give me a break. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at Jan 10, 2013 around 23:17 |
| # ¿ Jan 10, 2013 23:12 |
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Rulebook Heavily posted:I'm also a fan of Templecon's youtube stuff relating to Privateer's games, but I suspect you're a bit invested in your upset. I've never watched a single Templecon video before and never heard of them before today. I'm not invested at all. Also, I worked big-box retail at the executive level and I've never heard of a supplier calling up the middle-man and telling them to cut ties with a retailer without first telling the retailer that they're breaking policy (or having the supplier do it on their behalf). Now maybe these guys have had run-ins with Privateer in the past - I'm not a soothsayer, I have no idea if they're obfuscating information or downplaying some past transgressions - but I felt that their plea was sincere. They don't know what they've done wrong, and they sincerely want to fix it, and they're getting stonewalled by Privateer and losing standing with their customers. That's really bad behavior and I don't want to support it. Edit: How do they know this is a "delicate business matter"? They don't literally don't know anything! They don't know why this is happening, they don't know if they're in legal trouble, they don't know anything. All they know is that they can't get stock in a very popular game that they sold a lot of customers on. What a lovely situation.
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2013 23:44 |
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It's not professional or normal in retail to cut off a retailer with no warning, Rulebook Heavily. Spin it out however you want - it may be that Privateer Press is in the right - but it's not normal or standard practice, and a LGS hiring a $150 dollar an hour or more lawyer to even figure out if there's a problem is ridiculous. Have you even worked in retail? From what experiences are you getting these opinions anyway?
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| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 00:44 |
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Winson_Paine posted:Did you really just make this argument? Really? Dude, you have been here FOREVER. I know you aren't that stupid. Do not do this. No one here is a pawn of BIG PRIVATEER, there is no conspiracy theory, don't loving do this. Jesus christ. That isn't what I meant at all. I just meant that I smelled a fanboy... Someone who would unilaterally defend Privateer. No conspiracy theories or sock puppets here.
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| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 03:36 |
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Khisanth Magus posted:Probably threw away the C&D order unopened as junk mail or something. That's not how serious C&Ds get delivered, dude. Edit: I guess they can? Also, those same people do not say "We'll get back to you" when you call them. "Have you read and understood the conditions of the letter sent 11/21/2012?" would probably be how that conversation started. Of course, that might be what was said! Who knows? These Covenant guys have exposed themselves as being less-than-forthcoming about some of this stuff. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at Jan 11, 2013 around 18:26 |
| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 18:18 |
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Red_Mage posted:^^^ Edit: Serious C&D's have ended up in my junk mail folder before, amazingly enough the requirements on a C&D are not high ^^^ Oh, we always got them through Certified mail. This was a physical business.
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| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 18:25 |
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Dickeye posted:My favorite part was "I don't work for TC but" followed by things you'd have to be an employee to know. Ha! I think if anything, the store owners have proven that they'll run their mouth to anyone who will listen to them!
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| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 23:14 |
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Tendales posted:For what it's worth, damned near all the regulars at my FLGS talk like this. The sense of entitlement among nerds can be very powerful. Well that's not quite it. The whole "we" thing is less entitlement and more tribal identification. The speaker now identifies with the store - they are a part of the same group, this is no longer a business relationship but a social connection. This does lead to entitlement, because hey we've got a special relationship and I'm not just an ordinary customer, we're on the same team here, so why don't you <do something completely ridiculous for me>? Edit: I changed a hated awkward sentence. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at Jan 11, 2013 around 23:58 |
| # ¿ Jan 11, 2013 23:52 |
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| # ¿ May 22, 2013 15:07 |
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Gau posted:Kickstarter is not going to kill game stores. Game stores and game companies alike need to start focusing more on the community-building aspects of the industry. Wizards has this down, and so do several other companies. We need to start engaging in street marketing: pushing our products to communities of people who want to buy them, and designing products so that can be purchased and enjoyed in this context. Hey Gau, lemme ask you something: Do you see Game Stores ever becoming like Billiard halls, but for miniature/wargaming and social meetups? Without having to carry inventory with bad margins, couldn't they leverage their one advantage over internet stores: that they're a real place, with real floorspace and a real place to play your games in a convenient area? I've wondered why we haven't seen this transformation for years - people need big tables and places to meet other roleplaying gamers and yet no one has gone full hog on "here's a place to rent a table and play a game with awesome terrain that you can't find anywhere else" or "here's a quiet side-room with a nice big table and comfy chairs for your campaign meet-ups." Instead it's "here's free play area, oh and please buy this dusty-rear end Paladium book at a premium price to support me." I'd rather just give 'em money for the rental of the floor space!
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| # ¿ Feb 20, 2013 17:52 |
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