Wed, 10 June 2009 PLEASE NOTE: The audio on this episode is CRAP. Don't judge the podcast by the audio quality here. It improves significantly with episode 2. [1hr 6min] Season 2 kicks off with a "digital delve" into the topic of D&D Insider, PDFs, conventions, and some retail store community basics. Our sound on this was a little wonky -- a combination of Skype and the tendency of Fred's laptop fan to randomly scream at "heavy whirr" levels in the background. All timestamps very approximate. 1 min - Fred and Chris talk about WOTC's decision to take their PDFs off the market. 7 min - Fred talks about the Evil Hat PDF philosophy 13 min - Fred finally gets to the Evil Hat PDF Guarantee 18 min - Catalyst games is trying to get PDFs and retailers working together too 19 min - A bad economy is an opportunity. It's time to innovate. 20 min - Loop back around to D&D again: how has D&D Insider (DDI) affected the picture? 31 min - Wrap-up on the PDF/DDI topic. Send us your thoughts! 32 min - Chris is going to Origins, but Fred isn't. He has a good excuse. 34 min - IPR isn't going either 38 min - Let's give the Forge booth its props: it wasn't easy 40 min - What's the future of Origins? 41 min - Dreamation/Dexcon: East Coast awesome, but not really a big con 42 min - Actual predictions about Origins get made; then we sing its praises 49 min - Wrap-up on the predictioneering 51 min - Let's talk about mini-cons: Good Omens is coming to Endgame in July 53 min - Endgame's minicons in general 54 min - So let's talk about mini-con how-to's for retailers... 55 min - ... only not, because we need to talk about community-building first. 59 min - "A clean, well-lit place to play" 61 min - Going beyond the physical 62 min - The trap of distribution. It's not the one you're thinking of. 64 min - It's all about communication ... and it looks like mind control will be the topic of the next show. 65 min - Cliffhanger wrap-up! Comments[9] |
With regard to PDFs, what Andy decided to do with Maid RPG was price the PDF as an impulse buy at $8, and it's proved to be a very good decision for us. The game is a bit squicky for some, and it appealed to a crowd that is big on piracy, so for both the people who didn't want to be seen with a hardcopy and the folks who just didn't want to part with $30 or so, it proved very effective. Following people's conversations about it on forums and such, I've lost track of how many times I've seen conversations that go, "I'm not spending that much on a game I'll never play." "The PDF is $8." "Never mind. Ordering now." There have even been posts on 4chan along the lines of "I already got it from RapidShare, but I'm buying the PDF because it's only $8 and I want to support Ewen and Andy."
As a consumer, although I generally prefer to get hardcopies, I know there have been quite a few times when I've seen a game that piqued my interest just enough to justify a $6-10 PDF, but not not quite enough to justify a $20+ book. Andy has flat-out said that he won't pay more than $10 for a PDF, and while I'm not willing to make a hard rule, $10-15 is about at the threshold where I want to either get the print version or not bother.
As a consumer, although I generally prefer to get hardcopies, I know there have been quite a few times when I've seen a game that piqued my interest just enough to justify a $6-10 PDF, but not not quite enough to justify a $20+ book. Andy has flat-out said that he won't pay more than $10 for a PDF, and while I'm not willing to make a hard rule, $10-15 is about at the threshold where I want to either get the print version or not bother.
posted by: Ewen Cluney on Thu, 6/11 06:32 PM EDT
Downloaded this and will listen ASAP.
Question, would you guys be cool with, in a month, me sending out this file through The Digital Front feed, so that those listeners that don't overlap with yours get this on-topic discussion as well?
Question, would you guys be cool with, in a month, me sending out this file through The Digital Front feed, so that those listeners that don't overlap with yours get this on-topic discussion as well?
posted by: Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler on Fri, 6/12 10:45 AM EDT
Jeff, that's totally in the works. Fred bought a headset and everything. (He was totally spazzing around his office while we were recording ;)
posted by: Chris Hanrahan on Fri, 6/12 08:29 PM EDT
Funky to hear my name all of a sudden around minute 40 in regards to the Origins thing. Here's the link to the original comment I made:
http://merb101.livejournal.com/42198.html?thread=88790#t88790
I think I'll expand on a blog post.
Great new direction for the show, BTW, and great episode. I've always said I would pay to hear you two talk industry any day, and now I get it for free. That calls for a w00t!
http://merb101.livejournal.com/42198.html?thread=88790#t88790
I think I'll expand on a blog post.
Great new direction for the show, BTW, and great episode. I've always said I would pay to hear you two talk industry any day, and now I get it for free. That calls for a w00t!
posted by: Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler on Mon, 6/15 10:28 PM EDT
Dan, I want to try to get as much of a listenership built for this podcast as possible. I'd be fine with you using a short excerpt, but I'd like to get traffic driven to this episode as well. Any thoughts on that? Maybe an episode on yours where you "review" this one?
posted by: Fred Hicks on Mon, 6/15 11:27 PM EDT
I later thought that a short "Hey, go listen to this episode of THWR" would be a better idea, and you've confirmed it. I'll send an email when that's out.
posted by: Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler on Mon, 6/15 11:49 PM EDT
I expand a bit on the whole "Origins as a big local con" on my blog:
http://dmperez.com/2009/06/16/on-the-future-of-origins
http://dmperez.com/2009/06/16/on-the-future-of-origins
posted by: Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler on Tue, 6/16 01:46 AM EDT
Appreciate the shoutout and kind comments about me, Fred :) Interesting discussion too. I will be sure and pass this link around.
ME
ME
posted by: Michael Erb on Tue, 6/16 12:30 PM EDT
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