Forked Thread: What Generates the Love?

[dmccoy1693]

(unless it's Spica --then buy away! ).

Yes, Spica has done really good stuff. They are the new DGP.

I had to fork this from the "Why the Hatin" thread. It is a genuinely productive thread where we're discussing and not flamewaring each other and I didn't want to ask a bunnytrail question and possibly derail the topic.

I want to know what is it about Spica that garners so much love? From where I sit, I see a company that has published two career books (that are of little use beyond char gen), 1 ship book (that details 1 ship) and 1 book of NPCs (that was a year-ish delayed). Compare that to Jon Brazer Enterprises who has done a book of much greater detail than animal encounters had (albeit shoter), a book of fighters (I get that not all the ships didn't have floor plans, I'm fixing that for future books), a book of mechs and mass combat units, an enhanced character sheet and lists of names and ideas for refs to use during game. I really would like to know what is it about these books those handful of book that endears people so much to them? And more specifically, what can JBE start doing/stop doing/etc to garner similar devotion?

I don't want to sound like I am putting Spica down. Far from it. I think their stuff is good, but I don't understand where devotion comes from?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Hey Jon, I have lots of love for your stuff. When you had your first Creatures of Distant Worlds for free pdf on DriveThru, I picked it up and was hooked. I admit I have not bought your d66 lists yet (well maybe now that you compiled them), but otherwise I have picked up every Traveller gem you have made to date without even looking at the preview or got the hardcopy at my FLGS.

Your published items make a good read, some stuff I can use others not. You have taken Traveller in new direction with 'Mech and Bot. You pushed the boundaries and still kept within Traveller. I have Spica's Career Book 1. I was not so impressed with it (just another career book!) The arwork used in Creatures was a lot better than the god awful rendered people on the cover on Spica's Career Book 1. It took me a while to feel the desire to get Career Book 2.


I have no knowledge of publishing or your life or schedule, I am just a consumer.
You ask where the Spica Love comes from? I do not know. On the one hand, as the saying goes, less is more. I know I buy your PDF's first because they are definately good for the price. For what you charge though, I would rather wait and pop for a five dollar compilation of your things rather than half or a dollar for pre-compilation material. Drivethru puts a surchage on really small orders. On the other hand, price makes a difference. I hesitated buying Spica because their stuff costs more, and I was afterwards was critical having paid that price.

Perhaps if your supplements were larger and still just as meaty. I don't need deckplans unless characters can move around and fight in them. I have JBE love as long you have noncomputerized art for non-mechanical stuff and push things in different directions.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Hey Jon, I have lots of love for your stuff. When you had your first Creatures of Distant Worlds for free pdf on DriveThru, I picked it up and was hooked. I admit I have not bought your d66 lists yet (well maybe now that you compiled them), but otherwise I have picked up every Traveller gem you have made to date without even looking at the preview or got the hardcopy at my FLGS.

Your published items make a good read, some stuff I can use others not. You have taken Traveller in new direction with 'Mech and Bot. You pushed the boundaries and still kept within Traveller. I have Spica's Career Book 1. I was not so impressed with it (just another career book!) The arwork used in Creatures was a lot better than the god awful rendered people on the cover on Spica's Career Book 1.

I have JBE love as long you have noncomputerized art for non-mechanical stuff and push things in different directions.

Thank you Nathan, I really do appreciate those words. Alot. I mean I really do appreciate them.

 

[robject]

I think Spica has been around since before Mongoose Traveller, so "who they are" are perhaps known to more of us. While y'all have more of the Young Turk about you.

That's not a bad thing. It might, however, explain some of the Spica Love. But that difference will fade in a couple more years.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I think Spica has been around since before Mongoose Traveller, so "who they are" are perhaps known to more of us. While y'all have more of the Young Turk about you.

That's not a bad thing. It might, however, explain some of the Spica Love. But that difference will fade in a couple more years.

Fair enough.

 

[kafka47]

Personally, I like deadtree, so when JB Enterprises fulfilled that wish...I was happy. Spica, while, I like the quality...don't want to be stuck with PDFs only...especially when my Hard Drive died and took with the Spica and 1248 stuff which is no longer available from ComStar...

And, while there is a Young Turk feel, that is a good thing...I would suggest collaboration with grognards to make OTU stuff work more smoother but we need the new blood and new perspectives...

 

[DaveChase]

A bit of balance between tooting your own horn and others talking up your product.

Get to far to either side and you will be viewed not as favorably.

Possibly the appearance of churning out small products quickly (even though they are thought out and presentable) versus, a product that appears to have plenty of time taken and are planned out in detail.

Then you have to look at the primary source of your material. FFE and Mongoose. How they are preceived, how their products are taken after being bought and then how you present your products in either similar mean or different means determines some of how your product is precieved.

Finally, The kind of product that is talked about the most is the ones that are either extremely outstanding or poor (whether marginally or greatly). The question comes more to what you want your products to be.
If you are wanting your products and company name on everyone's lips, you need to make some changes (IMO). But if you are wanting your products bought and used and met the needs of those who play in/with this game system. I don't think you need to change much at all.

Honestly, I think that for the market (with out knowing your actual sales figures) that your product is well taken by the players of Traveller.

Dave Chase

 

[dmccoy1693]

Some very good points Dave. It address a few of them, allow me to let you gents in on some of the inner workings of my company some. When I started the company, I had 1 guiding rule: never take a loss. Every gamer has probably known a role playing company that went under because the cost to produce the book was more than they made from it. The TSR Boxed sets are a prime example of that. TSR never made a profit off their boxed set and every boxed set they produced helped push them a little more out of business.

I vowed to never have that happen to me. So I started small. I had a pack of stock art that I used as a GM and some really crude skills at Photoshop. The Creatures series was an easy enough place to start. They didn't make much of a profit, but they made enough for me to buy some better artwork. Thus Mech Tech 'n' bot was born.

The real profits came in when I started the d66 lists. To give you an idea of how much they brought in, the print runs for Mech Squadrons and the Book of Beasts for pathfinder each cost me $350. $700 in total. They were paid for by the d66 lists alone. I didn't have to put in any money of my own to get them in print. And that is how I get books into stores. That is a rather impressive sum of money at $0.33 (the amount that DriveThru gives me for every d66 list sold) at a time.

My pdf sales generate, what is called in business terms, cash flow. Cash flow pays the bills and keeps the company functioning while you're waiting for the more profitable ventures to pay off. This is what alot of young, idealistic role playing company's lack. Most put all their effort and money into 1 or 2 big expensive books and then don't have the money to tide them over while they're waiting for the big money to come in. That is, if the big money ever comes in. Because they didn't build up a name inexpensively, no one knows who they are and don't buy the book.

I am still building up my company. And as time goes on, I will be doing larger, more comprehensive books, but I am still going to be needing that cash flow for a while to come yet. So small PDFs are probably going to be a mainstay for a while. I'm changing them up. I'm putting a pause on the d66 lists for a while. But other, different things are on the horizon. How they fare, we'll see.

 

[robject]

Sounds smart to me. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

 

[aramis]

In my case, what I use in MGT is Ships, CharGen, Trade and Psi.

The Chargen is the most useful thing to me; I can run MT mechanics with MGT characters just fine. (They lose a level of skill over a career, but gain it back, with an extra, from connections.) In fact, my last campaign was heavily shaped by the Career Books... because one of the PC's was a space patrolman, and in having the Space Patrol, it altered the universe...

And, to be blunt, I've never looked at your stuff, Jon... It's just not the kind of stuff I wanted on its face. Spica's stuff, however, was the kind of stuff I was looking for.

 

[dmccoy1693]

And, to be blunt, I've never looked at your stuff, Jon... It's just not the kind of stuff I wanted on its face. Spica's stuff, however, was the kind of stuff I was looking for.

I can respect that. Plenty of good RPG companies I never bought from simply because they didn't make something that interested me.

 

[Plankowner]

I think you might be trying to compare apples to oranges in some ways.

Spica and JBE have very different business models even though they are working in the same territory.

Spica has produced 4 books total; but they were fairly good sized, most in the 30-60 page range and were available in print and PDF.

JBE has been concentrating on smaller PDF only products. Yes, you have produced print compendiums later, I don't mean that as a criticism.

The level of expectation from a $1 PDF is different than for a $10 book. Also the level of content is different. I think if you had not done the PDFs and just come out with the Mech-Tech-n-Bot book, everyone would have had a lot more positive things to say about it, but when it came out, many of the designs had already been seen, one at a time; so the excitement was diluted a bit.

I LIKE your products, I own many of them and I like where you are going with some of your ideas. I haven't said that in the past, so I apologize for that error.

I wish there were more publishers of quality Traveller stuff. There are a couple of newer companies that are getting started (Terra/Sol etc) but they are going the route of building on a particular setting rather than staying generic.

Also, I think that the fact that many/most of the Spica people started out on COTI does play a part in it; but I hope that quality wins out in the end; for You and Spica.

 

[aramis]

Jon: I have not seen anything bad said about your stuff; I've seen several "Not my kind of stuff, but cool none-the-less" kind of comments. Your model obviously is working for you (you keep adding more, so either you're having fun or making money, possibly both), and quite obviously, you're building recognition.

Spica just made 2 really broad appeal expansions. Expansions that seamlessly add to any campaign without a fuss. Expansions that have as much for players as GM's

You have made a narrow appeal expansion (Mek-N-Tek), and a lot of GM aids for that Old School feel... and while not bad, it does lower your visibility by aiming at GM's, and further, by being very "Old School"... but you've gotten a couple of positive reviews on some sites focussed on the OSR...

DGP, like Spica, had very low rate of output, but it was high quality, and aimed for both player and GM utility.

And considering that you quite obviously love what you're doing, keep doing it as long as you feel justified... and don't worry that you're not the new DGP... because that's a precarious place to be, with the insane expectations that puts into fans.

 

[saundby]

You're headed the right way with JBE, I'd say.

I tend to buy in larger chunks than small PDFs, and I have a strong dead-tree bias. I get pdfs as an adjunct to a book. Your free pdf with print version policy is generating a lot of love here, I'm planning on walking into the FLGS tomorrow and ordering one each of everything you have available through Alliance.

The pdfs are useful to me when putting info into my adventures as I build them--I cut and paste text into my own documents to save lookups at the table. So I like what you're doing a lot. But what I read, and use at the table, is paper. I've never gotten comfortable with a laptop there, Which is kinda funny, since I had a Kaypro as my ref's sidekick at the table for many years.

 

[saundby]

I've ordered the Book of Beasts:MoRN and Mech Tech:Mech Squadrons at my FLGS, so I should have product in hand in about a week. I'm looking forward to their arrival. Chris wasn't able to order the D66 compendium yet, I believe the date he had was early Nov.