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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Yes, the Chinese are the only people to not pay employees.
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Nov 19, 2020 23:48
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Mors Rattus posted:All I know is these days I look at "Pay What You Want" and go 'uuuuuuh, could you please actually price this and offer a price break for poor folks who contact you or something, and give them an easy way to do that' I do think that the "pay what you want" model has been, while well intentioned, pretty bad for setting effective prices on what indie RPGs are worth.
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Nov 20, 2020 00:18
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Kai Tave posted:I do think that the "pay what you want" model has been, while well intentioned, pretty bad for setting effective prices on what indie RPGs are worth. I feel like using the payment model of roadside fruit stands and church candles would have been better than pwyw since at least then you put a price on it and you have to actively choose to not pay what it's worth.
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Nov 20, 2020 00:28
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Kai Tave posted:I do think that the "pay what you want" model has been, while well intentioned, pretty bad for setting effective prices on what indie RPGs are worth. PWYW is a good tool to generate visibility and drive interest back to your paid content if people like the free hits. There's a huge market of people selling $1 games or whatever, and in my experience people will just not buy stuff, but will methodically troll through DTRPG picking up every new free thing. So they pick up the free stuff and it increases your popularity in the categories you are selling in, even if only a small % are running back.
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Nov 20, 2020 02:52
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Sodomy Hussein posted:PWYW is a good tool to generate visibility and drive interest back to your paid content if people like the free hits. There's a huge market of people selling $1 games or whatever, and in my experience people will just not buy stuff, but will methodically troll through DTRPG picking up every new free thing. So they pick up the free stuff and it increases your popularity in the categories you are selling in, even if only a small % are running back. I've heard conflicting things from sellers, some say it's helped their visibility while others have said that when they set games at PWYW and then set other games at just a flat price, even $5, that they wind up making more money from the $5 game even if the PWYW game has more overall "impressions." In a general sense it doesn't seem like the additional exposure of a PWYW game drives up engagement to such a level that it results in greater profits.
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Nov 20, 2020 03:28
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Personally, I've had better luck doing PWYW on itch.io. I don't know how much of it is just that there are more people on DTRPG, but people on itch.io tip more often and for higher amounts.
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Nov 20, 2020 03:44
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Leperflesh posted:But she's also boiling what IPR are doing down to just "this is simply an unavoidable aspect of capitalism" which I don't accept. IPR could be a small, very cheaply run distributor paying low wages, but also still not be located so far from any form of medical treatment that a moderately dangerous medical situation is far more likely to be lethal because it'll be an hour for EMTs to arrive. Like, IPR isn't merely a struggling business that can barely make ends meet doing its best... it's apparently a weird cultish minimum wage labor ranch located so far from anywhere that its employees are likely trapped there. This goes past "welp capitalism sucks." It's totally legitimate to say no, I won't support distribution of indie games if this is the only way to distribute them: find a better way, announce plans for reform, or we're out. yeah I think the takeaway here is that even as we're all living under capitalism, IPR aren't even good at playing the capitalism game. WOTC/Hasbro is a poo poo company ethically, but they make dosh.
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Nov 20, 2020 03:51
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Comrade Koba posted:If you check it out on Google Maps it's basically just a handful of houses and trailers plopped down right in the middle of the desert. Does anyone know how IPR ended up there in the first place, was it Burning Man-related or something? Ambulance to Reno is going to end up being flight prices, and I imagine a company paying ten bucks an hour doesn't offer top of the line insurance. Kai Tave posted:Re: DTRPG, itch.io has become more and more a popular place for indie RPG creators, though it as yet lacks the sheer volume of visible outreach that DTRPG has at the moment. Every indication from creators is that while itch gives creators a better cut of sales and is thus preferred if you purchase through them, DTRPG gets more eyes on and so results in greater sales numbers, and so the optimal approach is to put your game up on both sites and ask your friends to buy from itch when possible. That said, if DTRPG did fold while I don't think it would be without collateral, I think that it wouldn't be AS hard to simply move over to itch as the primary storefront in a lot of cases because the infrastructure has already been established. The business angle isn't even justified. They're in a place where a major injury means an air ambulance to Reno at $20k and up for the trip, running a warehouse. Does anyone think there's any chance they have sufficient insurance to weather someone getting hurt at work? Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 04:10
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Liquid Communism posted:Ambulance to Reno is going to end up being flight prices, and I imagine a company paying ten bucks an hour doesn't offer top of the line insurance. Maybe they slip a few crates of freshly-printed Evil Hat books onto the medi-copter to paradrop to local game stores on the way into town?
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Nov 20, 2020 04:58
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Liquid Communism posted:The business angle isn't even justified. They're in a place where a major injury means an air ambulance to Reno at $20k and up for the trip, running a warehouse. Does anyone think there's any chance they have sufficient insurance to weather someone getting hurt at work? I meant that if someone is earning a living because of the services IPR is providing for them it's somewhat more understandable that they might be going to bat for them, not that IPR's own business model is in and of itself understandable or even remotely sane.
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Nov 20, 2020 05:12
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Warthur posted:Like, if some sort of disaster happened which meant Hasbro went down and the D&D rights fell into a legal loophole What if they were auctioned off and bought by amazon
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Nov 20, 2020 05:39
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:What if they were auctioned off and bought by amazon Note: you must engage with D&D every 3 days or we'll flag your account as a bot. Also if you deactivate facebook for any reason we'll delete your books.
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Nov 20, 2020 06:36
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So what other options are there out there for physical RPG books that aren't 'get into IPR's pipeline' or 'PoD through Drive-Thru'? Because I'm pretty sure every book I have on my shelf falls into one of those two categories, with the occasional 'we did a print run for Kickstater and everyone else was out of luck'.
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Nov 20, 2020 06:42
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Liquid Communism posted:They're in a place where a major injury means an air ambulance to Reno at $20k and up for the trip, running a warehouse. Does anyone think there's any chance they have sufficient insurance to weather someone getting hurt at work? On the other hand, when an employee has a crate of FATE supplements fall on top of them and dies on the job, the Nevada desert is right there. Speaking of, do we know why there's suddenly an opening? 
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Nov 20, 2020 07:09
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It's a growth industry, baby! As in you will develop a growth. Like a huge lump on your shoulder that you'll draw a happy-face on because you went crazy living in the desert.
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Nov 20, 2020 07:15
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Comrade Koba posted:On the other hand, when an employee has a crate of FATE supplements fall on top of them and dies on the job, the Nevada desert is right there. Yeah, someone OD'd and died in the CEO's arms apparently. https://twitter.com/IPRTweets/status/1328802992015831040
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Nov 20, 2020 07:28
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Am I monster cause I want to send them a CV just to waste their time? Not that I will, but I want to.
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Nov 20, 2020 07:49
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Liquid Communism posted:Yeah, someone OD'd and died in the CEO's arms apparently. That just says someone died there within the last year, not that it was specifically the previous holder of the position they're hiring for. I'm thinking that if the previous person quit (and is not in fact buried in a shallow desert grave), they'd probably have some interesting stories to tell. Comrade Koba fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 09:28
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Tsilkani posted:So what other options are there out there for physical RPG books that aren't 'get into IPR's pipeline' or 'PoD through Drive-Thru'? Because I'm pretty sure every book I have on my shelf falls into one of those two categories, with the occasional 'we did a print run for Kickstater and everyone else was out of luck'. I mean probably there aren't any, at least unless someone steps up to provide one. IPR stepped up in a vacuum so presumably someone else could do so if they felt so inclined, though ideally they would do so in a less bugfuck location, but that the margins in such a business are invariably going to be thin is pretty much a given so I don't expect anyone to be eager to do so, which means as far as I can tell the market is indeed leaning strongly towards "you do pdfs, PoD, or you crowdfund and do bespoke print runs." Which personally I am extremely okay with, I don't think I've bought an RPG off store shelves in the last 15 years or so but I still own a growing collection of recently developed indie RPGs in both digital and hardcopy form. I understand that for a lot of people not being able to just buy a game off the shelf is a big dealbreaker but times change. I'm not some "print is dead" weirdo, but if the hobby is going to unshackle itself from having to rely on crazy poo poo like IPR to do business then maybe it's past time for the hobby to make some changes as well.
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Nov 20, 2020 12:26
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I mean, that's just the FLGS in general. The two biggest money makers in our store are food and card games. Tabletop wargames, RPGs, and board games are essentially just subsidised by the two things in the store that actually make money, though the owner will tell you that fewer people would be eating there if they didn't have space to play wargames.
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Nov 20, 2020 12:37
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In other news, Gale Force 9 are suing Wizards of the Coast, for much the same reason the Dragonlance authors are (WotC trying to break a licensing contract by refusing to approve products rather than using the kill conditions). https://www.geeknative.com/103191/gale-force-nine-files-court-complaint-against-wizards-of-the-coast/ https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2020/11/update-gale-force-9-sues-wotc-in-excess.html
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Nov 20, 2020 13:37
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Dave Brookshaw posted:In other news, Gale Force 9 are suing Wizards of the Coast, for much the same reason the Dragonlance authors are (WotC trying to break a licensing contract by refusing to approve products rather than using the kill conditions). Are you fuckin kidding me, what is happening over at WotC right now, did someone lose a bet?
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Nov 20, 2020 13:38
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Kai Tave posted:Are you fuckin kidding me, what is happening over at WotC right now, did someone lose a bet? Timeline suggests that Wizards pulled this stunt with GF9 at around the same time as they did with Weis & Hickman - even after comparatively recently being happy to sign a licence extension in this case. So it feels like someone somewhere in the Hasbro/WotC corporate structure handed down a directive that These Licences Must Go and legal were tasked with trying to find a way to weasel out of them.
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Nov 20, 2020 15:23
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Gonna be pretty great when the thing that winds up sinking WotC turns out to be "a basic understanding of contract law."
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Nov 20, 2020 15:44
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RULES lawyer! I said Greg was the office RULES lawyer!
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Nov 20, 2020 15:56
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Kai Tave posted:Gonna be pretty great when the thing that winds up sinking WotC turns out to be "a basic understanding of contract law." I mean Disney is also trying that so let's see
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Nov 20, 2020 16:08
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"Hey guys, we don't have to pay Salvatore for the books he wrote under TSR!"
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Nov 20, 2020 16:15
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Dave Brookshaw posted:In other news, Gale Force 9 are suing Wizards of the Coast, for much the same reason the Dragonlance authors are (WotC trying to break a licensing contract by refusing to approve products rather than using the kill conditions). Ok, whose the wise guy at WOTC and Hasbro ordering this stuff to happen? Sounds like D&D 6th edition movie tie in edition is coming 2022. Comstar fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 16:23
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Kai Tave posted:Are you fuckin kidding me, what is happening over at WotC right now, did someone lose a bet? My vague understanding was, Hasbro, for some unknown reason, replaced their entire WOTC editing department. The new editing department chose, for some unknown reason, to drop all current content rather than starting work over on all the books in progress. The contracts don't actually allow for Hasbro dropping the content.
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Nov 20, 2020 16:28
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90s Cringe Rock posted:"Hey guys, we don't have to pay Salvatore for the books he wrote under TSR!" Disney is currently trying this with the old Star Wars novels they reprinted, so...
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Nov 20, 2020 16:30
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Joe Slowboat posted:Disney is currently trying this with the old Star Wars novels they reprinted, so...
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Nov 20, 2020 16:34
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Yes, the Chinese are the only people to not pay employees. That wasn't what I was saying at all and the situation is kind of unique to China due to how worker and employer grievances go under the law. I was just commenting that was something I saw all the time and was the local equivalent of unpaid internships and classifying workers in such a way that they don't any benefits. Workers and employers have to go to an arbitration board for disputes, if it even gets that far, and it's very much in favor of the employer like in "right to work" states in the US. It's just crazy to see it happen in the tabletop sphere because it's something that usually happened in other industries and tabletop is relatively nonexistent in China. People often fall into a trap in terms of business and investment in China because they think it'll be cheap or "easy" since the dollar/euro/pound goes further but it doesn't, especially if you're not connected and even more so if you're not a PRC citizen. By law it's an incredibly protectionist and anti-worker rights country.
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Nov 20, 2020 16:37
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Tsilkani posted:So what other options are there out there for physical RPG books that aren't 'get into IPR's pipeline' or 'PoD through Drive-Thru'? Because I'm pretty sure every book I have on my shelf falls into one of those two categories, with the occasional 'we did a print run for Kickstater and everyone else was out of luck'. Some of what we consider Indy RPGs are stocked by major distributors now, I don’t believe IPR does the actual printing. I have Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Kids on Bikes, FATE, and a few others in my store that I got through Alliance or GTS. (Not due to any objection to IPR at the time, I’m just learning all this stuff too, just because my shop is too small to do distributor scale orders of RPGs.) Of course general notes about ethical consumption and capitalism apply, but you can avoid IPR which does seem unpleasant in unusual and surprising ways.
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Nov 20, 2020 17:30
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Ultiville posted:Some of what we consider Indy RPGs are stocked by major distributors now, I don’t believe IPR does the actual printing. I have Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Kids on Bikes, FATE, and a few others in my store that I got through Alliance or GTS. (Not due to any objection to IPR at the time, I’m just learning all this stuff too, just because my shop is too small to do distributor scale orders of RPGs.) Huh, Evil Hat does distribute through Alliance. I wonder why they were stepping up for IPR, then? Maybe nostalgia, since Fred used to work there.
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Nov 20, 2020 17:51
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Dave Brookshaw posted:In other news, Gale Force 9 are suing Wizards of the Coast, for much the same reason the Dragonlance authors are (WotC trying to break a licensing contract by refusing to approve products rather than using the kill conditions). Whoever’s bright idea was to just stop accepting drafts needs to be fired and then the person who put them in that position needs to be fired as well
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Nov 20, 2020 18:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:I mean Disney is also trying that so let's see With Disney you at least assume they have terrifyingly competent lawyers who know what they're doing and are trying to use their power to force it through. I don't think WoTC has quite the same ability to infinitely spam plausible legal responses.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:13
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Notahippie posted:With Disney you at least assume they have terrifyingly competent lawyers who know what they're doing and are trying to use their power to force it through. I don't think WoTC has quite the same ability to infinitely spam plausible legal responses. I seem to recall Verizon trying a variation of this when they first came into existence from the Baby Bell mergers. There was a ton of "Yeah, we acknowledge that Bell Atlantic signed this contract, but we're Verizon, a totally different entity that is in no way bound by it." I don't think it worked out for them when their victims had the resources to fight back, but I could be wrong.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:19
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WoTC is owned by Hasbro. I assure they have more than enough money to hire whatever representation they need, above what is currently on retainer.
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Nov 20, 2020 22:03
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Does Gale Force make the entire minis line or just some of them?
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Nov 21, 2020 00:59
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Notahippie posted:With Disney you at least assume they have terrifyingly competent lawyers who know what they're doing and are trying to use their power to force it through. I don't think WoTC has quite the same ability to infinitely spam plausible legal responses. Not so much. Disney just appears to be trying to brazen it out and claim they bought Lucasfilm and Fox's assets but none of the liabilities. Which still doesn't give then rights to publication, so puts them in a nasty and very public case of copyright theft. Whoever in their legal department decided this was preferable to just paying Foster his couple grand has given them a huge PR black eye to deal with. Especially given Disney's whole claim to fame is adaptions of public domain works.
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Nov 21, 2020 03:21
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