Off to a slow start... [Archive] - HERO Games Discussion Boards

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by keithcurtis
> How do sales from the website store compare to retail outlets?

Traditionally, much fewer, perhaps by a factor of ten. Fortunately, most of the costs are much lower, too.

> Could it be that there is no "shelf space" so to speak? Do any other game companies sell pdf products on disk at brick and mortar stores? If so, how do they sell?

All of that is factored into our sales predictions. We expect a PDF-only product to move much fewer units than a hard book. However, SoB so far is selling even fewer than we had conservatively guessed.

>I have rarely bought electronic documents (though I do subscribe to Digital Hero and Pyramid). Mostly for the reasons listed by others.

So, what, if anything, can we do to change that? If there's nothing we can offer to make our most die-hard fans try the line, we probably shouldn't be dedicating any resources to it. We've had fans tell us they want these products- were you all kidding? ;)dw

Agent X

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Originally posted by keithcurtis
> How do sales from the website store compare to retail outlets?

Traditionally, much fewer, perhaps by a factor of ten. Fortunately, most of the costs are much lower, too.

> Could it be that there is no "shelf space" so to speak? Do any other game companies sell pdf products on disk at brick and mortar stores? If so, how do they sell?

All of that is factored into our sales predictions. We expect a PDF-only product to move much fewer units than a hard book. However, SoB so far is selling even fewer than we had conservatively guessed.

>I have rarely bought electronic documents (though I do subscribe to Digital Hero and Pyramid). Mostly for the reasons listed by others.

So, what, if anything, can we do to change that? If there's nothing we can offer to make our most die-hard fans try the line, we probably shouldn't be dedicating any resources to it. We've had fans tell us they want these products- were you all kidding? ;)dw It may be a timing issue. 5th Edition has been out for a while, some people probably "overloaded" on Hero and are resting up for the next round, and 3.5 from that "other company" came out recently.

RadeFox

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:33 PM

To be frank, I have worked many years in the hobby/gaming retail biz, and for a 69 page e-book $12 is an outrageous price. A 70 page book or module in print would prolly cost about $15 nowadays. So we save $3 and inherit all the hassle of having to either game at our computer, own a laptop, or pay the $3 ourselves to get it printed out, sans binding. Not too mention maneuvering through an adobe document is clunky at best, without a lot of bookmarking. :P

I do however also feel that the writers and producers deserve ample compensation for their efforts, but in the case of a lot of Hero's e-merchandise, it feels terribly overpriced.

I guess you need to figure out whether your sell twice as many at $6 then you are at $12, then you'd still make what your looking too. Personally, I am inclined to think you would.

Just my 2 cents, availible for downloand as a .pdf from Hero Games for $1. :D

OddHat

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:38 PM

I agree with Rade Fox. I like the villains, and I'll probably buy it eventually, but I'm a bit put off by the price considering I'll have to print it myself.

$6 and I would have snapped it up by now.

GreyGuardian

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:42 PM

Well it did get posted late august.... most folks are on vacation or moving back to school or ... etc. I would bet it will pick up in a few weeks.

And - I bought a copy. It looks pretty darn good. I'll post a review once I read through it. At first glance, Lots of nice maps and a solid plotline.

as far as reading pdf at the gaming table... It might help if the pdf you produced was tagged so Adobe for Palm could convert it cleanly so it can be read on a PDA. It worked pretty well for the few things I converted but it was far from flawless. - PDA much easier to carry with game books etc. - Just a thought.

Hugh Neilson

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
So, we've had "Shades of Black" up for a bit more than a week now, and to be honest, despite rave reviews from those who do have it, sales so far have been pretty disappointing. As the first release in what we hope will become a new line for us, that's a matter of some concern.

So, let's open up the discussion. Why haven't you bought this product? Not interested in modules? Not interested in this particular module, but might be in others? Not interested in PDFs at all? Plan to get it but don't have any cash? Let us know the scoop!

I bought it, but I have to agree with the comments made here about the printing hassle. I don't, and won't, game at the computer. I would much rather have the product in hard copy format.

Darren, since we're laying our cards on the table, what would this product cost if it were in hard copy? Hero books tend to be expensive - not because they are overpriced, but because they are large. I find them a great value, but if I weren't familiar with the quality, I'd think twice about shelling out the $$ - especially sight unseen! I suspect we're looking at a $18 to $20 product bound (in your Yankee $$ of course; considerably more in Canadian FunnyMoney ;) )

I'm considering Digital Hero, but I sure miss the old PRINTED Adventurers' Club.

Agent X

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:44 PM

$12! for a 69 page E-Book? Mr. Watts, I believe that is your answer. That is just too much and it is hard to believe that the price was arrived at by need to cover expenses except through some abstract opportunity cost mumbo jumbo.

Trebuchet

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:47 PM

I agree with RadeFox and Agent X; I feel it's just too expensive, especially when like many I don't use the Champions Universe anyway. $12 for a "silicon copy" of a module when real tomes like TUV, CKC or UMA cost $25 just doesn't seem like it provides comparable value. In general I dislike (Read: Detest) PDF anyway; I'd much rather have such material as a text file in Word.

If it was $7 or $8, I'd seriously consider it. $12? No way. :(

JmOz

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:56 PM

Cash flow here, I will probably pick it up when I get student loans, but that is more a matter of wanting to support you guys than anythingelse (and having a LOT of extra money).

I actualy like E-Books, and I do use them, but I do think that 12 is a little high for a e-book adventure, a price of 6 (and I think pricing it at 5.95 would do better than even 6) would be much easier for me to handle on a monthly basis and more appropriate for this type of product IMHO

But of course this is all just my thoughts

Hermit

Sep 2nd, '03, 03:58 PM

Originally posted by Trebuchet

If it was $7 or $8, I'd seriously consider it.

If it had been at that rate, I probably would have bumped it up on my 'get now instead of later' schedule.

JmOz

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:01 PM

One other thing to consider:

Do not give modules out to the DH crew for playtesting, the fact that I got a preview of it and Champions Battlegrounds put both items on my wait till I have extra money, instead of scrounge for money lists...

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:05 PM

Okay, several people seem to think it's the price. Fair enough, we're willing to look at the pricing model. Would you be more interested in a book of similar size and general quality, but with considerably less art, for $8 or $9? At that price, we're more competitive with the small D20 publishers who currently dominate the PDF sites. On the other hand, quality artists and writers don't work at those prices. There's a reason those books are as cheap as they are.

We really can't afford to put out any book for $6, and even if we did sell twice or even three times as many for half the price we're still not coming close to paying the artists and writer involved. dw

TechnoViking

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:11 PM

I got three reason why I did not purchase Shade of Black.

1. Cash flow this month (August always bites money-wise for me)
2. No local interest in Champions, but some for Fantasy Hero. SO focusing gaming time there.
3. DOJ inc decusion not to include stats for previous published characters in adventures. I strongly feel that adventures supplements should be self-contained. SoB and Battleground both have this problem. I understand that you don't want to kill sales of books like CKC or CU, but a stat block (minus any background) would help.

I rant further about this here (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7168).

Mike

OddHat

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:11 PM

Good writing and less art (though hopefully still high quality art) for $8 or so would make more sense for a PDF product. I like good art, and I'll pay for it in a bound book; My wife and I purchased White Wold line products almsot as much for Bradstreet's art as for anything else. But a PDF book isn't set up for me to appreciate the art; It's just adding to my print que.

I do subscribe to Digital Hero, but not for the art.

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:13 PM

Originally posted by JmOz
One other thing to consider:

Do not give modules out to the DH crew for playtesting, the fact that I got a preview of it and Champions Battlegrounds put both items on my wait till I have extra money, instead of scrounge for money lists...

Is this actually the case? I'd hate to think people who are fans enough of our product to want to playtest for us were choosing then not to help us stick around as a company. That puts us in the position of having to choose between playtesting publicly (and therefore having better product) and making a living financially.

I certainly understand and sympathize with not having enough money to support your hobby to the extent you'd like to. But if you're really saying you would have bought the product if you hadn't had the opportunity to playtest it, well, that means we'd need to reevaluate how we do things. dw

RadeFox

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:15 PM

I'm confused on how you couldn't pay the artist's and writers at $6, even you sold 3x as many downloads. Are you paying them per copy you sell (some sort of royalties)?? I have a friend who writes freelance for SJ games and a few others, and as far as I know, most game companies buy stuff outright. is Hero different??

If your buying stuff outright, then saying you cant recoup expenditures even selling 3x as many copies for 1/2 the price doesn't compute.

Agent.0.Fortune

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:15 PM

1. This is the only place i have even heard about the product (and I only visit about once a week).

2. I will jump onboard the "I hate PDF/ electronic documents" bandwagon. i even have access to color laserjet printers. Which appears to be the "moment of truth" for many others, however I'm still on the fence. I'd rather pay a little extra to get a professionally bound book than go to the extra effort of hacking one together myself.

3. the fact that I don't have to worry abou the book being "sold out" really doesn't light any fires under my butt to go out and get it right away, especially if there is a snowballs chance in hell it might see the printers.

OddHat

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:18 PM

Lupus

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:20 PM

I haven't bought it because international orders are way too fiddly for my taste. I don't have a credit card, but I can borrow one if I need it (I pay the cardholder back in cash on the spot). But I don't like going through the hassle of international money orders and all that. :) Partly it's not knowing if the thing will really go through, and having to wait all that time to find out if I can even buy it. But also, I'm an impatient bugger. If I spend my money, I wanna see the results. ;) Especially since most of my gaming dollar goes on impulse purchases.

Trebuchet

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Would you be more interested in a book of similar size and general quality, but with considerably less art, for $8 or $9? I suppose that would depend on what you mean by "art" in terms of a module. If you mean you won't have a color cover, spiffy interior pictures of the villains and other NPCs, I'm OK with that. If by art you mean "no maps of settings," no. I consider doing hex maps of fight locations to be part of writing any adventure. If I have to do it for free in my own campaign, then the paid scenario's writer should do it too. It's easy enough with Photoshop or similar software to do a simple lab or street layout.

And yes, if that's what you mean by "less artwork," then I'd buy e-modules for $8.

Just my 2¢ (+$8.00) worth. :)

Delthrien

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:29 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
We really can't afford to put out any book for $6, and even if we did sell twice or even three times as many for half the price we're still not coming close to paying the artists and writer involved. dw

Hmmm... If that's an accurate statement, then it seems you have your answer -- don't do any more. If you're still going to be losing money even with a potential revenue increase (through higher volume) over current anticipated sales then it wouldn't be in DOJ's best interest to continue.

I don't see myself picking up SoB any time soon, mostly because I don't run games often enough to justify picking it up. Even if I ran games more often, the $12 price tag would make me hesitate. For something in the $12-$15 range, I'd hope to have a bound booklet in hand when I walked out of hte store. Interior art, while nice to have, takes a back seat to the meat of the adventure. I'd rather have a good write-up and some roughly sketched (though fairly accurate) maps than something painstakingly done in Campaign Cartographer.

I'm certainly not saying it wouldn't be worth it (everything that I've read/heard tells me it is). I'm just enough of a geezer to want to have something in my grubby paws after shelling out the cash. Heck, even going to a movie you've got the ticket stub and a candy wrapper.;)

My three bits (sorry. inflation)

Charlie

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:31 PM

Originally posted by RadeFox
I'm confused on how you couldn't pay the artist's and writers at $6 even you sold 3x as many downloads. Are you paying them per copy you sell (some sort of royalties)?? I have a friend who writes freelance for SJ games and a few others, and as far as I know, most game companies buy stuff outright. is Hero different??

If your buying stuff outright, then saying you cant recoup expenditures even selling 3x as many copies for 1/2 the price doesn't compute.

We can't pay them at 3x as many downloads because 3x as many downloads at half the price still adds up to less than we paid for the art. The writer in this case (Allen) is being paid a royalty percentage of cover price, but the artists were paid a flat fee. At the rate sales are currently going, it will take many months to earn back even enough to pay that fee (with the company making no money on the deal for our time editing and laying it out, let alone any admin costs for selling and advertising it) and it seems pretty unlikely sales will stay steady for that period of time and not fall off eventually. Halving the price would certainly bring in more sales- it might even bring in enough more sales to increase our overall numbers (though I'm not sure of that), and we're certainly not averse to that. But my point is sales would need to do a lot more than double their current rate before we'd do another book at all.

We're not trying to mislead you here. We're genuinely interested in making material like this available to Hero fans and we're trying to work out how to do that. Unfortunately, our landlords and creditors keep on insisting we give them money for stuff. :p We won't pretend we don't want to make money on these products, but we're not out to rip you guys off. dw

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by Trebuchet
...I suppose that would depend on what you mean by "art" in terms of a module. If you mean you won't have a color cover, spiffy interior pictures of the villains and other NPCs, I'm OK with that. If by art you mean "no maps of settings," no...

I can't imagine we wouldn't have maps. But we'd probably have to ditch the fancy cover and the bulk of the interior illustration. dw

Delthrien

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:35 PM

DOJ might look into doing more "shared" adventures with Green Ronin that can be used with different systems (such as the "Reality Storm" book). Having an adventure that would work with one or more systems would certainly broaden the appeal. Including the stats for both SAS and HERO systems (or even Mutants & Masterminds) might be the kind of thing necessary to make publishing adventures worthwhile.

A sudden and meandering thought... or perhaps just cranial gas. Who knows?

Charlie (again)

Edited because of the aforementioned crainal gas...

RadeFox

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:40 PM

Agreed. You guys do a great job. Though it seems with this type of product, you're going to be in for a losing battle. Because your right, sales will doubtfully increase much (if at all) over the months. Its been my experience that the first month something is on the shelf is a pretty solid indicator of how well it will continue to sell, and its probable shelf space life.

My best advice, dump the art completely. Use skectched maps (because you KNOW our maps are going to be sketched from the one in the book onto a game mat :)), and standard document graphics (borders and the like) to add visual pleasure and make reading the doc easier.

This should make it easier to print out, cheaper to produce, and easier to layout on your end. Not too mention cheaper on ours. With e-books, I would agree that art is extraneous, and that most of us look to solid game worthy content. (Not that we dont love art, but in this case, I think we'd all prefer cheaper. :p)

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:41 PM

Originally posted by Delthrien
then it seems you have your answer -- don't do any more. If you're still going to be losing money even with a potential revenue increase (through higher volume) over current anticipated sales then it wouldn't be in DOJ's best interest to continue.
...For something in the $12-$15 range, I'd hope to have a bound booklet in hand when I walked out of hte store... I'm just enough of a geezer to want to have something in my grubby paws after shelling out the cash. Heck, even going to a movie you've got the ticket stub and a candy wrapper.;)

Gotcha. So it sounds like in general you, like most of the repliers so far, weren't part of the "Hero Plus sounds really exciting" crowd to begin with. If PDFs just ain't your thing, then probably there isn't a PDF-based publishing line we could do to satisfy you, no matter how high-quality the art or writing. And that's fine- like we said, we assumed going in that PDF sales in total would be somewhere around 10-15% of our book line.

So, where is that 10-15% hiding out? Cause sales so far are pointing at numbers well short of that. Let's hear from some of the people who *wanted* PDF material. Or did we mis-estimate how many of you there really are out there? dw

Monolith

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:44 PM

I have not purchased it yet, but this is more of it having to do with bad timing for me than anything else. I have not even posted to these message boards in nearly three weeks due to time constraints. But here are my thoughts on the pdf:

#1: Cost:. SoB costs about 50% more than any comparable d20 pdf product. I can go to RPG.net and purchase 64 page pdfs from $5.00 to $8.00 right now, and we are talking about comparable quality products from people like Monte Cook. It is not hard to image only the die-hards buying SoB when you consider that a printed 64 page book would only cost $14.95 in most retail outlets; and if you purchased it online you would get a 10-25% discount on top of that.

#2: Quality: I have not seen SoB yet, only the preview, but it would seem like the HERO Plus products would be the perfect opportunity to tinker with layout of the book and look at including some color artwork. One of the biggest gripes people seem to have with HERO books is the lack of color and presentation. It would seem that pdf product are the easiest way to give the fans the color they want without having to worry about DOJ paying the high printing costs for color.

#3: Marketing: Three weeks ago I posted something in the Company section about how DOJ should look at exploring the free advertising available to them through the internet. I mentioned posting updates and new releases to www.gamingreport.com and that you should look at doing this at some of the other popular online gamer hangouts. There should have been a “press release” posted about SoB so that even the non-HERO System players would be made aware of the product. All your competitors are doing this. DOJ is just falling farther behind by not taking advantage of it as well.

#4: Retail Sales: I know you would be losing some of the retail sales dollars, but the HERO Plus line should be selling on RPG.net as well as in your online store. There are more visitors to RPG.net in a single day than the Hero Games online store sees in a month. SAS, M&M, HU, DNW, and all the other superhero game system fans would have a much better chance of buying it from RPG.net because it is in the public eye. Those fans do not know it is available, and so will never have a chance to buy it to use in their non-HERO System games.

#5: Playtesting; I brought this up on the playtest board when SoB was released and I will bring it up now. HERO Plus products should not be given to the playtest populous. Adventure modules in general are really only valuable for their story ideas. I have rarely ever used a module as written, but I have used hundreds of pieces from modules within my story arcs. By giving HERO Plus products to the playtesters you are removing a large percentage (I would guess some 200-300 playtesters) of potential pdf buyers from the possible purchase equation.

Those are the thoughts off the top of my head. I just have not gotten around to buying it because I do not have the time to wait for the 4+ MB download to happen. Living in the country and using 56 k it will take me some 25-35 minutes to download it, and that is time I just do not have right now. But I will be buying it when my life evens out some.

Trebuchet

Sep 2nd, '03, 04:55 PM

Darren, is there any other medium you could use to sell e-books than PDF? It appears I'm not the only one who dislikes this format.

And Monolith may be on to something if you're giving the modules free to 200+ playtesters. That's probably justified for rule books and major releases like UMA or Fantasy Hero, but Monolith is right: Modules and pre-packaged adventures are for ideas as much as straight "out of the box" playability. If you can package these in a way that lets SAS, M&M, HU, DNW use them (with conversion) as well as the Herophiles then you've just quadrupled your customer base.

Darren Watts

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:04 PM

Originally posted by Monolith

> SoB costs about 50% more than any comparable d20 pdf product. I can go to RPG.net and purchase 64 page pdfs from $5.00 to $8.00 right now, and we are talking about comparable quality products from people like Monte Cook. It is not hard to image only the die-hards buying SoB when you consider that a printed 64 page book would only cost $14.95 in most retail outlets; and if you purchased it online you would get a 10-25% discount on top of that.

Well, as I say above, we're looking into that. Monte has an entire business devoted to PDFs and much larger sales numbers, which help him spread costs.

>I have not seen SoB yet, only the preview, but it would seem like the HERO Plus products would be the perfect opportunity to tinker with layout of the book and look at including some color artwork. One of the biggest gripes people seem to have with HERO books is the lack of color and presentation. It would seem that pdf product are the easiest way to give the fans the color they want without having to worry about DOJ paying the high printing costs for color.

As for color art, it's something we'd like to put into future products if there are any. Let me know when you've actually seen the book whether you like the layout- I think it's quite different from our standard.

> Three weeks ago I posted something in the Company section about how DOJ should look at exploring the free advertising available to them through the internet. I mentioned posting updates and new releases to www.gamingreport.com and that you should look at doing this at some of the other popular online gamer hangouts. There should have been a “press release” posted about SoB so that even the non-HERO System players would be made aware of the product. All your competitors are doing this. DOJ is just falling farther behind by not taking advantage of it as well.

Fair cop. We haven't had much time or money available for marketing this book. And we used to be on Gaming Report in particular regularly- I don't know why they stopped posting our stuff, but I'll look into it.

#4: Retail Sales: I know you would be losing some of the retail sales dollars, but the HERO Plus line should be selling on RPG.net as well as in your online store. There are more visitors to RPG.net in a single day than the Hero Games online store sees in a month. SAS, M&M, HU, DNW, and all the other superhero game system fans would have a much better chance of buying it from RPG.net because it is in the public eye. Those fans do not know it is available, and so will never have a chance to buy it to use in their non-HERO System games.

I'm not sure what you mean by RPGNet's store, which AFAIK is for hard books only and we are available there. (If I'm mistaken, let me know.) As for RPGNow, SoB is available for sale there.

>...HERO Plus products should not be given to the playtest populous...By giving HERO Plus products to the playtesters you are removing a large percentage (I would guess some 200-300 playtesters) of potential pdf buyers from the possible purchase equation...

Well, I talked about this above. Not playtesting publicly IMO leads to an inferior product. But if playtesting publicly leads to an unprofitable product, then we'll have to reconsider our plan.

>Those are the thoughts off the top of my head...

And I thank you for it.

>But I will be buying it when my life evens out some.

Well, drop me another line once you've looked at it. I'll be glad to discuss it further. dw

Strike13

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:08 PM

I'm in the same boat as a lot of other folks, cashflow. Shades of Black is now number three on my list of Hero Games products I will be purchasing next. Battlegrounds is currently number one. I think I will be getting SOB in the next month. I like the concept of what you have done with this. I will gladly buy more PDF products at a lower price than a book. I don't mind the time and cost of printing it out. Even though I will eventually have all the books Hero puts out it is a rare occasion I can run right out the day it is released and drop $20-25.

JmOz

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by Darren W8atts
Is this actually the case? I'd hate to think people who are fans enough of our product to want to playtest for us were choosing then not to help us stick around as a company. That puts us in the position of having to choose between playtesting publicly (and therefore having better product) and making a living financially.

I certainly understand and sympathize with not having enough money to support your hobby to the extent you'd like to. But if you're really saying you would have bought the product if you hadn't had the opportunity to playtest it, well, that means we'd need to reevaluate how we do things. dw

Not exactly what I ment, I would question the wisdom of putting adventures up, not the Genera Books/Enemies/etc... I also do not think it would have made me pick it up eitherway(as I am not a huge fan of adventures, and was quite broke for the last couple of months)

I also have EVERY intention of picking them both up, it is just a matter of when. I hope you can understand that postion, as I had said in the post beforethat one, the major reason I WILL be buying it is to help support the company I love. (By the way when I am talking about scrounging it is going with out lunch for a week or two to afford it, that is what I did for star hero)

I do think it is aconsideration, wether or not it is a major one is up to other people.

Agent X

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Is this actually the case? I'd hate to think people who are fans enough of our product to want to playtest for us were choosing then not to help us stick around as a company. That puts us in the position of having to choose between playtesting publicly (and therefore having better product) and making a living financially.

I certainly understand and sympathize with not having enough money to support your hobby to the extent you'd like to. But if you're really saying you would have bought the product if you hadn't had the opportunity to playtest it, well, that means we'd need to reevaluate how we do things. dw Playtesters may get a sneak-peek but they also provide you with marketing feedback. They perform you a valuable service. I am put off by the guilt trip thing. I, personally, will feel guilty when I get what I ask for and then don't buy it. Of course, that wouldn't happen because I would buy it. I must be that rare breed of player who actually buys modules. Heck, I bought virtually every module I could find after discovering Hero and I'm pretty sure I would buy any Champions adventure modules that came out for a reasonable price.

You're getting into dangerous territory when you start considering your customers, "fans."

JmOz

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:19 PM

On the issue of art, consider recycling art in the products instead of commision new art (as much as possible), I like art because it helps to break the page up, but only in rare cases is it a major point what the art looks like (As long as it is of good quality and decent revelance)

Jeff

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:25 PM

I'm coming to this late and a lot of it's been said, but just to toss in another vote -

I was excited about SoB until I saw the price. I was expecting $6-8. Mind you, I knew it's been a long time since I bought an e-book, but that was Ultimate Supermage, which cost me less for a whole lot more material.

I would eagerly lose artwork in a gaming supplement for 20-33% off the price. I can't use the artwork. And, as has been mentioned, you can't even really appreciate it all that well in a PDF.

Big pros were:
1) Black Paladin!
2) It's a Hero product of any sort!
3) They're doing a module! How often does that happen?
4) I can download this thing for immediate gratification in the comfort of my home.

The big cons were:
1) $12?!
2) I don't actually use modules - they're for fun reading and for adventure ideas. But (pardon) the exciting previews did a lot toward getting me the adventure ideas already, and fun reading is less of a factor because -
3) e-books aren't convenient to read. I like to have something to read on the bed, out at restaurants, waiting at the doctor, etc.

I wouldn't've let (2) and (3) stop me in this case if not for (1).

As for format, I don't mind PDF's particularly, though Word documents are handier.

JMHammer

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:34 PM

I do think the $12 is a little high for a PDF product of this size. That said...

I'm willing to pay the same for a PDF product as I would for a printed product because I find the PDF product so much more convenient. If I need to print a picture from a page to hand out to my players, I can do so without ruining the binding at a photocopier or tearing the book apart completely. I can load it into my Palm and read it on the train. I can flash certain images or text to my players on a video projector from my laptop while we play. No matter how many times I read it or thumb through the virtual pages, it never wears out.

I liked Shades of Black very much and I'm looking forward to weaving it into a campaign one of these days.

John H

Blue

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:56 PM

One thought that occurs to me is that it came out hot on the heels of Champions Battlegrounds. While I'll buy anything you guys make that there's even the remotest possibility I will use, Maybe folks having the choice between the printed CB and the online SOB made their choice.

I've had SOB a week and have yet to do little more than look at the pretty pictures.

Keneton

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:57 PM

I think that this thread has been helpful to Darren, but I'd like to add another prospective. Allen's work is very good and to me $12.00 is nothing. A movie and popcorn is what we are talking about. This adventure is not a one night D&D session, this thing goes for 2 to 4 sessions!

I will say that as a business person I would reccomend generally shorter books with more help style text. I think you could sell 25 page pdf's with good maps (reusable like battlegrounds) and 3+ new chracters for $5.00. Pound for pound this would produce about the same profit.

Heck, I would write some for you!

The anti pdf gripe is valid for many, and I understand. It kept me away from The Ultimate Super Mage years ago. I still would pay what you ask because I'm a champions addict, a total fanboy, and I like supporting quality work from good people in the gaming industry.

I bought mine tonight.

Bob Pennington
:)

Hugh Neilson

Sep 2nd, '03, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Okay, several people seem to think it's the price. Fair enough, we're willing to look at the pricing model. Would you be more interested in a book of similar size and general quality, but with considerably less art, for $8 or $9?

I may be outside the mainstream with this, but less art would be fine with me. Maps, diagrams, etc. are very helpful, but I don't need a picture of the villains battling the hypothetical heroes. Pictures of new characters are nice, but a good written description works too.

Nato

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:10 PM

Yay! Someone said the pictures are pretty! Woohoo!

don

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:13 PM

For me, it's all about not really liking PDF products. I'm a dinosaur, who really prefers to read paper and ink. Printing out a PDF is more work and money and time then I'm willing to give, seeing as I can buy a book and read it THEN.

Too bad, because I have been liking Hero products, and I'm tempted to purchase SoB. It might happen. But...doubtful at its size.

Don

Dr. MID-Nite

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:22 PM

Well, to be honest, this comes right on the heels of Champions Battlegrounds. Since that will keep my group occupied for almost two months, I'm delaying the purchase of Shades Of Black until then. Plus, with the Viper book basically on our doorstep, SOB has to compete with both of those products. I intend to buy it, but purchasing it right this second makes little sense, as I wouldn't even touch it until the end of October. This isn't about the quality of the product, just common sense. I'm sure I'll love it when I see it, but I just don't need it right this second....as you just released an adventure book. I'm all for published adventures and I plan to buy every one of them. SOB just came too soon after CB, that's all.

Rob

ChuckB

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:23 PM

Personally:

1- Not interested in E-Books

2- I've purchased most of the other DOJ products and I'm pacing myself.

Another factor that hasn't come up yet is that perhaps the sales are sluggish due to the fact that it's summer and everyone's on vacation.

Perhaps sales will pick up when everyone goes back to their job and can download SOB on their work computers ?

Might just be a temporary seasonal lag. How're sales from overseas ?

KA.

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:36 PM

Okay, I just found this thread and feel the need to speak up!

1) PDF Format:
I am no fan of PDF's. I find them annoying to read and slow to download.
However, I am much LESS of a fan of Hero NEVER PUBLISHING ANOTHER MODULE!
We are not privy to the financial realities, but I am pretty sure that the DOJ investors
could have found a better place to put their cash if they were trying to get rich.
So, if they say that it is not currently feasible to print modules, I can believe them without any suspicion.
That being the case, and since I would like to see modules published (and perhaps, someday, try to GET one published),
I am willing to accept PDF's.

2) Art:
I like a pretty picture as much as the next guy, but I don't really see them as necessary for the PDF format,
especially if excluding them would help to lower the price.
Since many people do not want to take the time/expense to print the PDF's anyway, it seems that the interior art/cover art, is something that the purchaser is likely to look at once, and pass over from then on. While the maps are essential, other art seems to be a costly option.

3) Cost:
I don't see how you can reasonably compare any product from DOJ with a product from other, larger, companies.
They have ways to save costs, and a guarantee of higher volume, that makes comparison unfair.
That does not mean that every consumer does not have the right to look at any product and say, "I don't think this is worth the cost." (but if the only standard is word count vs. price, then the only printed matter sold would be the Sunday newspaper.;))

BUT!

I can also see that people who really want printed modules, might be more likely to "settle" for PDF's if the price is low enough.
Any way to do that, including paying the writers a bit less, or reducing the art, seems like a good idea.

4) Playtesting:
I don't think that playtesting is causing people not to buy products. The only way I can imagine not buying something that I playtested, is if I was unhappy with the product itself. I don't think DOJ is looking for unsatisfied customers, so they wouldn't miss those sales anyway.

5) Questions/Conclusions/Suggestions:

A) Is it possible to move beyond the PDF format?
If all that a module contains is text and maps, is it possible to zip it as .txt and .jpeg files?
That would get us around all the Adobe complaints, and possibly lead to faster downloads.
(PDF files always seem like resource hogs to me.)

B) Are there ways to allow for "Non Profit" modules?
For example, could some space be set aside for fans to create and post their own modules? (perhaps in the "Free Stuff" section)
If DOJ was not charging for them, it seems like there would be fewer complaints about download times, etc., and the cost would be minimal.

I am not talking about DOJ "editing" them, or even "packaging" them as PDF's,
just allocating the space and figuring out some way to get the right text with the right maps.
You could even require that the files had to be zipped together in advance.

On the plus side for DOJ, after the "demand" for material is created, there might be a higher level of interest in "professional" modules.

You could also require that all the characters involved had to be original, and that the authors were giving up all rights to them by posting them on your board, then you would not have to worry about DOJ's intellectual property.

Just some ideas,

KA

Hermit

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:36 PM

I do not subscribe to Digital Hero, but it would seem to me that DH subscribers would not object to E products as much or they wouldn't be subscribers in the first place. So, maybe DH subscribers should get a 20% discount or so on HERO Plus Products?
This perk might encourage die hard e-luvin' herophiles to subscribe to DH even more. Meanwhile, Playtesters (who, I believe, are subscribers as part of being playtesters) would have this as a sort of 'we can't pay you... so here's a way of thanking you instead' message going for them.

Just a thought, not sure how workable or practical it would be.

Victim

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:48 PM

1: It requires 2 separate products aside from the main rule book. I wouldn't mind getting an adventure so I can attempt to run something to introduce people to the game. But, since I'm not playing now, buying 2 extra books that I might not use doesn't seem like a good idea. By not putting the villain stats in the adventure, you're probably cutting out a fair bit of the potential market.

2: The price seems a bit high for a PDF, even a high quality one. I don't think a big change is needed. Maybe put it on sale for a bit.

Keneton

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:52 PM

For those of you that have not read the adventure. . . You need to.

Old time champs guys will find this product far superior to the old time pre FRED product. Although I loved that old classic stuff, it was not that great as far as content and/or editing.

Has anyone else looked at the GREAT MAPS in this game!!

By the way these BIGGER companies everyone talks about will not be around in 4 or 5 years. Trust me. if I've learned one thing about this industry, quality will win over glitz in the long run. This is quality, and I am willing to pay $12 for it.

I am shocked at the number of people out there so against a few bucks. As I said before, the PDF thing is a real point, but as to if I get 97 pages of good stuff for 12 versus 14.95 for a lame paths to adventure module like The Speaker in Dreams or such, I'll spend my 12 bucks with Hero and print it myself.

:D

Hugh Neilson

Sep 2nd, '03, 06:52 PM

Originally posted by Victim
2: The price seems a bit high for a PDF, even a high quality one. I don't think a big change is needed. Maybe put it on sale for a bit.

Now picture the thread started by those who paid the full price up front...:eek:

RadeFox

Sep 2nd, '03, 07:09 PM

It wouldnt be bad, they have the email addy/account info for anyone who ordered it, they could easily offer them a discount on their next e-book buy of like amount. (and lure you into another buy!)

badger3k

Sep 2nd, '03, 07:41 PM

Personally I like pdf for electronic documents - my players are in three states and 2 countries, so having documents that can travel and be shared among computers and operating systems (xp, OS X, and maybe linux soon). Something like Word (that no one in my group has or will use) is useless to us.

That said, the one to buy the ebook would be me, since I'm the GM and no one else would have it (at least until after we're done).

The price isn't a consideration now (although it may be in the future). The preview looked good, but when you don't have a credit card, and hate to borrow one to get a product, buying anything online is not easy. That's my biggest problem with the product. I may break down and borrow the card later, but I just bought most of the 5ed books in the last two weeks, so my plate is currently full with digesting the new rules.

I'd also agree that artwork isn't a major thing with me. It's nice, but if its not essential then I don't need it (sorry to the artists out there!).

Captain Obvious

Sep 2nd, '03, 07:52 PM

I have no problems with PDF stuff. I think the benefits of the format equal the drawbacks in most cases. I haven't bought SoB for a few reasons, namely that I just dropped $50 or so on Hero books this weekend, I'll be dropping another $31.99 on a particular Hero book as soon as my order comes in, I don't currently have a gaming group, and I don't have the new Champions yet. Oh yeah, my CD burner is getting more and more chaotic, and I don't trust my computer enough to just keep it on my hard drive after paying money for it.

In a few weeks, the urge for more Hero stuff may kick in again, and since my FLGS can't quite get the idea that I'll buy it if they stock it, I may pick up SoB, whether I have a group or Champions 5th or not.

Grailknight

Sep 2nd, '03, 10:20 PM

I plan to buy SOB but I do have some reservations.

1-Downloads have not been my friend in the past, I would love to buy SOB, USM and PRIMUS but my connection has poor quality and downloads fail more often than not.

2-$12 won't break me but it is more than I expected to pay for something I have to print and which can be lost if I have PC trouble. I would definitely pay $12-18 for such products on CD although I doubt this is really affordable for DOJ at this point.

3-Please rethink your stategy of not publishing old characters and creating minimal new characters in publications. I buy modules for new character writeups. Working up ways to fit in these NEW characters is the source of most of my campaign plots and stimulates my creativity. The main selling point of a supplement is what it ADDS to the existing material and in HERO history this has mainly been characters. Also, on a personal rant, descriptions which say use character X with Y changed set off my buttons. If a character is going to be used in a module then he should be interesting enough to warrant a writeup.

Doug McCrae

Sep 3rd, '03, 03:30 AM

Originally posted by JmOz
By the way when I am talking about scrounging it is going with out lunch for a week or two to afford it, that is what I did for star heroOh. My. God.

I hereby nominate you for #1 Hero Fan, JmOz.

The only downside is that you're totally insane.

JmOz

Sep 3rd, '03, 03:56 AM

It's not that bad, all I was skipping was lunch (And I was eating fairly large dinners), far from not eating at all.

misterdeath

Sep 3rd, '03, 04:47 AM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Is this actually the case? I'd hate to think people who are fans enough of our product to want to playtest for us were choosing then not to help us stick around as a company. That puts us in the position of having to choose between playtesting publicly (and therefore having better product) and making a living financially.

I certainly understand and sympathize with not having enough money to support your hobby to the extent you'd like to. But if you're really saying you would have bought the product if you hadn't had the opportunity to playtest it, well, that means we'd need to reevaluate how we do things. dw

I don't think this is the case. I buy everything after DLing everything for playtesting.

I haven't bought SoB because of the Cash Flow Problem. In the past two months, you've released Champions Battlegrounds and Fantasy Hero.

WotC has released all three core books. Monte Cook has released his PHB.

Plus you've got school starting up, and the end of the summer doldrums starting. Plus, well, the economy isn't that great.

Last sunday in the FLGS we dropped 115 dollars (miniatures are my wife's crack). It was the biggest sunday sale the owner has seen in two months, and matched the previous Sunday's total sales.

I don't think it's just you. Everything seems to be in a malaise in the sales.

Now, granted, $12 for a nice fine quality artwork/writing .pdf still fits my price point. If it were a touch cheaper (8 to 10), then it would have been easier to squeeze in last week rather than this one.

D

Talon

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:15 AM

I just hit Monte's site to check the prices of the PDF's I've purchased from him.

Book of Eldritch Might: $10.95, 48 pages.

If Thoughts Could Kill: $9.95, 64 pages.

I don't know how his pages and your pages equate in terms of word count. $12 for 70 or so pages seems maybe a bit high, maybe not.

I haven't purchased it for a couple reasons:

1) Cash flow, I have a hard time buying anything right now.

2) Not running a Champions game, so module stuff is unlikely to help me (unlike rules stuff :)).

Honestly it's mainly #1; if I had the cash I would be buying one right now just to show support.

Fry Daddy

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:26 AM

Here's my thought on this whole thing ---

I'm a DH subscriber who just renewed my subscription. The .pdf format is no big deal when I know I can burn the book to a disc and take it to Kinko's for them to print and bind for me.

I also playtest and have no problem buying what I playtest as 1) what I see is not the finished product by a long-shot, and 2) I'm a completist.

Spending $12 was not an issue for me. I have yet to see a (GOOD) module from either SAS or M & M for $12.95. They have both put out adventures, SAS costing $9.95 and M & M costing $16.95, but neither is near as good as SoB.

Hugh Neilson

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:41 AM

Originally posted by Grailknight
I plan to buy SOB but I do have some reservations.

1-Downloads have not been my friend in the past, I would love to buy SOB, USM and PRIMUS but my connection has poor quality and downloads fail more often than not.

2-$12 won't break me but it is more than I expected to pay for something I have to print and which can be lost if I have PC trouble. I would definitely pay $12-18 for such products on CD although I doubt this is really affordable for DOJ at this point.

This could be solved by not restricting the number of downloads. I realize there is a concern here that multiple people will download the pdf, but it can be emailed or photocopied without difficulty as well, so restricting to one download really only hurts the guy who bought it and lost it (failed download; HD crash, what have you).

The "piracy" issue, sad to say, may be a reason for poor sales. Everyone in the group wants their own snazzy book, but a photocopy of a PDF looks just like the real printout. Hopefully, that's not the reason for poor sales.

Hugh Neilson

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:53 AM

A few reasons that have been alluded to:

(a) Price: $12 is a lot. Yeah, but this is a 97 page supplement, not a cheap 24 page d20 module. Printed and bound, what would it have cost? Not $15!

(b) Timing: Well, a Champions scenario release on PDF at the same time as the hardcopy Battlegrounds means some people are likely selecting between the two. CB has a limited print run, but PDF's will likely be available forever, right? I wonder if a Fantasy hero module would have done better.

(c) Flow through - when a print book comes along, Hero sells to distributors who sell to retauilers who sell to consumers. How many copies of CB are sitting in distributers' warehouses or on game store shelves? Those copies of SoB haven't been downloaded yet, as these middlemen aren't included.

(d) Resistance to eBooks. This is understandable - you get to print it yourself, and that nice cover just slows down my printer - if I got it in colour, it would likely kill an ink cartridge. Less art, and less fancy art, might reduce the cost without reducing demand. No credit cards makes it tough to buy.

(e) Scenarios tend to sell less anyway, don't they? We all want that spiffy new sourcebook, but only one of us will run that scenario.

(f) P/R - only website visitpors really know about SoB. Maybe future Champions supplements could include an "ad page" directing readers to the web site for this other great scenario "not available in stores".

(g) I think there's also a tendency to view ebooks as second stringers - not good enough to be on the publishing schedule. I've seen SoB - it's good enough to be published by Hero. That means it's better than 90% of the products on the market, in my opinion.

(h) Scenario issues like "no character stats so I have to buy another book to use it", which has been discussed in detail in respect of Champions Battlegrounds.

One thing no one mentions is errata. There were some problems raised with SoB early on, and we all got to download an updated copy. Try doing that with your copy of FREd! Kudos to Hero, by the way, for their fast action in that regard.

I don't know how SoB and Battlegrounds sales compare, or were expected to compare, nor how the multiples are working out. But you'll never have to reprint SoB.

Fur Face

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:54 AM

Hey Darren,

In all seriousness, there has been much debated about PDF vs. paper in hand, price, and all that other good stuff. While these are valid viewpoints, I don't think it really matters that much. Lets face it, most people were talking about scaling the price back $2-4 dollars. This amount is something that doesn't really mean anything to a consumer, but means everthing for yall. If that's what you need to sell it as, then I trust you, because all of you have proven you deserve it.

The PDF format has pluses and minuses, but that comes with the territory. In all honesty, if I need to print out something, I will print out the pages I need, and thats it. If I don't want to print a map, I'll just free hand sketch it. Better to have that ability than not at all. I enjoy the fact that once I have it, I'll never have to worry about pages ripping, bindings coming undone, etc.

If a PDF gives me access to material that I wouldn't otherwise have available, I'll get the PDF.

When push comes to shove, I firmly believe that if the product has your ususal high-standards for quality, then it will eventually be purchased.

I think that when it was released on the heels of Champions Battlegrounds, people had to choose, hence the cash flow problems. That was it in my case. I'll be getting SoB later this month, once I have the money.

Sorry is this is a little wordy, but I used to teach, so there ya go! :D

TheQuestionMan

Sep 3rd, '03, 08:06 AM

The greatest difficulty for most of us if the shear lack of e-currency . I don't have it and don't want to have it until I see something like this . Usually I ask a friend to do it for me and pay him back . It also makes it difficult to get your e-mag and other stuff . Heh I'm broke on a budget and computer poor .

P.S. : SEND THEM TO CONVENTIONS !!!

Crimson Arrow

Sep 3rd, '03, 08:50 AM

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson
A few reasons that have been alluded to:

(a) Price: $12 is a lot. Yeah, but this is a 97 page supplement, not a cheap 24 page d20 module. Printed and bound, what would it have cost? Not $15!

(b) Timing: Well, a Champions scenario release on PDF at the same time as the hardcopy Battlegrounds means some people are likely selecting between the two. CB has a limited print run, but PDF's will likely be available forever, right? I wonder if a Fantasy hero module would have done better.

(c) Flow through - when a print book comes along, Hero sells to distributors who sell to retauilers who sell to consumers. How many copies of CB are sitting in distributers' warehouses or on game store shelves? Those copies of SoB haven't been downloaded yet, as these middlemen aren't included.

(d) Resistance to eBooks. This is understandable - you get to print it yourself, and that nice cover just slows down my printer - if I got it in colour, it would likely kill an ink cartridge. Less art, and less fancy art, might reduce the cost without reducing demand. No credit cards makes it tough to buy.

(e) Scenarios tend to sell less anyway, don't they? We all want that spiffy new sourcebook, but only one of us will run that scenario.

(f) P/R - only website visitpors really know about SoB. Maybe future Champions supplements could include an "ad page" directing readers to the web site for this other great scenario "not available in stores".

(g) I think there's also a tendency to view ebooks as second stringers - not good enough to be on the publishing schedule. I've seen SoB - it's good enough to be published by Hero. That means it's better than 90% of the products on the market, in my opinion.

(h) Scenario issues like "no character stats so I have to buy another book to use it", which has been discussed in detail in respect of Champions Battlegrounds.

One thing no one mentions is errata. There were some problems raised with SoB early on, and we all got to download an updated copy. Try doing that with your copy of FREd! Kudos to Hero, by the way, for their fast action in that regard.

I don't know how SoB and Battlegrounds sales compare, or were expected to compare, nor how the multiples are working out. But you'll never have to reprint SoB.

Many thanks to Hugh for doing this. In summary, a), b), g) and h) have no significance to me, but they might well do to others.

I think c), e) and f) explain why sales might be low, but not why WE haven't bought copies.

For me, it all comes down to d). I am generally a bit nervy about this sort of thing, in particular the defective download problem, I'd also have to cram an Acrobat reader into my home PC (not a huge problem) and it would take a lot of effort to print off a copy (slow printer and very expensive cartridges). I've toyed with buying some of the 4th ed stuff online (Bedlam, Supermage), but just generally shied away from the idea because I want a hard copy.

Same reason I don't subscribe to Digital Hero, when I'd snap it up if it were printed.

I love Hero stuff; I just don't want it electronically. I understand that a lot of products are only viable in this medium. Looks like maybe they won't be viable in this medium, either. CDs would be preferable, but you'd still have the printing problem.

I think cutting down on art and "bells and whistles" might be the way to go. This might enable a slightly cheaper product (no odds to me), but more importantly an easier document to download and print off.

Blue

Sep 3rd, '03, 09:08 AM

Sales Ideas for E-Books:
Keep the price the same, but offer a discount as part of a package when you buy other items from the hero site. (Order FREd and get a few dollars off on SoB, or somesuch).
Give 1 Credit toward Digital Hero with purchase of SoB. Not only might that encourage them to take the plunge but it would get them looking at DH and possibly gain potential sales in that area as well. Once they see a full issue of DH they might be in for good.
I realize that SoB being an original adventure, it's choc full of things that aren't available elsewhere. But it couldn't hurt to throw in something hero gamers would want and cannot get in print. Hard part is thinking of what. If an adventure were based around, say, Dr. Destroyer, you could include a new version of his armor or a vehicle of his or something. The idea is to offer a particular item that GMs would kill to have for their campaigns because they'd want to use and re-use it.

Since SoB is an adventure I imagine you are tapping into the "GM Only" crowd. If it had been a book of spells for fantasy hero (Like the upcoming Grimoire) there might be a larger audience. Of course you're also likely with a product with wide appeal to wind up with people sending it to their friends, which I imagine is why you've gone the Adventure route for the first E-Book.

Lord Mhoram

Sep 3rd, '03, 09:29 AM

I didn't have the "fun money" for it just yet. I work at a flgs one day a week (for store credit for stuff at cost) to feed my habits, so none of the gaming stuff I get comes from real budgeted money. So I needed to wait for the time to be right, and recently I had found farscape season one for an increadibly low price and blew my budgeted fun money on that.

I _will_ get it, it will just be in a week or two.

I also think that the puchasing pattern would be different for pdfs. Paper books you run out and buy, you thumb through and read. PDF you have to download, and either find time to read it on your computer or print it out. There is going to be a delay before you can read/use it anyway- so the motivation to buy it _right_now_ is nowhere near as strong with PDFs than it is with traditional forms of printing. The people I know that buy PDFs are all like this; admittedly small statistical sampling, but something else to chew on.

Tom McCarthy

Sep 3rd, '03, 09:31 AM

I haven't purchased SOB yet for the following reasons:

i) Moneys tight for about 3 months since the car was written off at the end of July

ii) Costs for physical books have been high as convention season occurs, and physical stuff sells out (unlike e-books, which usually are available for years). For example, I just got CB last week. I'm still no through FH, and I know FHG, VIPER, Reality Storm, Alien Wars are coming.

iii) Time's short right now, with family / summer commitments chewing up playing and reading time.

iv) Little sense of urgency. I read it, I playtested it, I'm unlikely to ever run it again (none of my players are ever going to forget it). I will buy it for my collection, but it might be October or November.

I like the idea of e-books and keeping costs down. I had hoped for $10 price tag, but will pay $12 when it's the right time for me to buy it.

keithcurtis

Sep 3rd, '03, 12:20 PM

Originally posted by Blue
I realize that SoB being an original adventure, it's choc full of things that aren't available elsewhere. But it couldn't hurt to throw in something hero gamers would want and cannot get in print. Hard part is thinking of what. If an adventure were based around, say, Dr. Destroyer, you could include a new version of his armor or a vehicle of his or something. The idea is to offer a particular item that GMs would kill to have for their campaigns because they'd want to use and re-use it.

Actually, the map of the Mansion is very re-use-able. With very few tweaks, it could also be used for Star Hero or Fantasy Hero. I know I am planning on using it the nex time my Savage Earth players need to enter a Grand Master's mansion.

Keith "credit for map design to Allen, of course" Curtis

Enforcer84

Sep 3rd, '03, 01:38 PM

I plan on purchasing it as soon as payday rolls round again (15th) ....but I have school starting and its rent time....

JohnOSpencer

Sep 3rd, '03, 02:11 PM

I haven't bought it yet because it was released while I was on vacation, and when I got back there were all these sticky posts about problems with the downloads. I'm waiting for all the problems to be ironed out.

John Spencer

Blue

Sep 3rd, '03, 02:29 PM

Originally posted by JohnOSpencer
I haven't bought it yet because it was released while I was on vacation, and when I got back there were all these sticky posts about problems with the downloads. I'm waiting for all the problems to be ironed out.

John Spencer

Then purchase away! I had no problem with my download and I got it a week ago. Looks very nice, though I've only browsed it.

Ben Seeman

Sep 3rd, '03, 03:23 PM

The download problem has been resolved.

Monolith

Sep 3rd, '03, 05:36 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
Well, as I say above, we're looking into that. Monte has an entire business devoted to PDFs and much larger sales numbers, which help him spread costs.
Well now that I have the module I will take back my comments on the cost. My original statement was made when I read that it was only around 70 pages long. At 70 pages I assumed that $6-8.00 was a fair price based on a published book. But now that I see that the module is 97 pages long I think the $10-12.00 rage is quite fair. I would end up paying around $19.95 for a 96 page printed book, so the price you are listing is well in line.

As for color art, it's something we'd like to put into future products if there are any. Let me know when you've actually seen the book whether you like the layout- I think it's quite different from our standard.
I do not think the layout of the book was much different than a standard issue of Digital Hero. Granted there were some gradient boxes but those seemed fairly standard. I would be more interested in seeing the wasted space in the sidebars removed. The book would probably be 8-10 pages smaller without the sidebars. This makes printing less expensive for those of us inclined to print it too.

I also think that you should experiment with some color in the text and possibly in the background. I hate to say it but graphics-wise books like SAS Deluxe and the entire M&M line are far more eye-pleasing due to the layout scheme. Gamers like flash, especially when dealing with the superhero genre, which is all flash.

Fair cop. We haven't had much time or money available for marketing this book. And we used to be on Gaming Report in particular regularly- I don't know why they stopped posting our stuff, but I'll look into it.
Gaming Report does not post the information. Fans or publishers post the information. Which ever fan was doing it for the HERO updates all of those weeks just got tired of doing it. But I do think it is something that should be continued by someone at DOJ. For something like marketing the company's line a fan should not be the one responsible for that. News bulletins, product releases, pdf sample releases, FAQ updates, and USPD and Spacer Toolkit updates should all be posted to those boards so that fans, and potential fans, can be made aware.

I'm not sure what you mean by RPGNet's store, which AFAIK is for hard books only and we are available there. (If I'm mistaken, let me know.) As for RPGNow, SoB is available for sale there.
Yes, that is what I was meaning. I did not know it was for sale there because I have been offline for quite some time, and I am a little out of touch. I am glad that it is there. Now if I could make just one suggestion about it, I would say change the descriptive text that is being used at RPGNow.

This Hero Plus adventure for Champions pits the characters against the evil Black Paladin, who's begun a dark crusade of murder and havoc with a sinister purpose in mind. The adventure features three new villains and numerous maps (including a fully mapped-out haunted mansion!).

69 pages Authors: Allen Thomas Artists: Nate Barnes

There is nothing there that makes me want to pull out my credit card and buy this product. Maybe it was just because I was raised reading Marvel comics, but I think a description should add some excitement, true believer. :)

Well, I talked about this above. Not playtesting publicly IMO leads to an inferior product. But if playtesting publicly leads to an unprofitable product, then we'll have to reconsider our plan.
I do think playtesting is very helpful to a product, but it could still be possible for HERO Plus products to be playtested. Just pick a handful of volunteers like you did with the Bestiary. The advantage to HERO Plus products is that if something is missed it is easily fixed, unlike a printed book.

Well, drop me another line once you've looked at it. I'll be glad to discuss it further. dw
I just did. :)

Agent X

Sep 3rd, '03, 06:46 PM

If it's 96 pages in length, the data on RPGNow needs to be corrected.

Enforcer84

Sep 3rd, '03, 09:52 PM

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
The download problem has been resolved.

Little off topic, but Great pic on the wedding page Ben. A lovely couple indeed.

Killer Shrike

Sep 3rd, '03, 11:41 PM

Skimmed the 1st page and part of the 2nd only, so apologies if Im regurgitating what others have already said.

For me $12 is negligible; I probably blow $12 a day just on Coffee and soda (2 triple Vente Caramel Macchiatos at 4.55 @ and 3 or 4 screw-top Mountain Dews at a buck each, and a bag of peanuts for .65.....yeah, easily), so throwing down on a cool product is not a concern.

I buy a copy of every HERO Product from a local game store even if I dont want it as a principle thing -- Ill even special order it if necessary rather than just buy it online to raise awareness of the product line at the store and encourage them to stock the product. Currently, at Game Empire which is AFAIK the largest game store in the SD area, HEROs Product is very prominantly stocked and reportedly is selling fairly well, which is very cool. Im not intimating that its due to me by any stretch, but I try to do whatever I can to reenforce the trend.

But, unlike many gamers, I am profitably employeed and so is my wife -- so we do ok, even paying the San Diego Sunshine Tax (high cost of living). Most of my players are not and I feel their pain -- they have to budget or give up niceties like food. So maybe the price is an issue for them.

Not that it matters, because since Im the GM, Im the only one who'd buy it any way. :D

I am also a DH subsriber, and even though I get the playtest docs, I still buy the product as fast as I can, preferrably on the 1st day they are available. Champions BG is a perfect example; Ive been running adventures from the Playtest, but only bcs CBG somehow slipped under the radar at Game Empire and they didnt get any in -- Ive special ordered it and am waiting for its arrival. By the time it gets here, Ill probably be done with the adventures Im interested in via using the playtest -- but Ill still buy it. Fair is fair.

Also, Im not a big fan of PDFs. Ive always found them to be a big hassle and prefer printed product. I recently got a subscription to DH, but initially only to get the Fantasy HERO Playtest. Ive interacted with Dave Mattingly in the past on Haymaker and EZHero and have a huge amount of respect for him as a fellow gamer -- his Haymaker articles really enriched my games, and his editing of my material taught me a lot, so Ive always held him in high esteem, but I still didnt get DH, just because I generally detest PDFs. But, now that Ive got the first 10 issues (and 13 ;) just tonight) Im a DH convert. The material in DH is so great it totally compensates for my feelings regarding their medium. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND DIGITAL HERO TO ALL HEROs GAMERS!!!!!

Mostly for me, its just a busy stretch of time. My wife is starting school (finishing up her 2nd Bachelors and starting her undergrad work), Im wrapping up a new Payroll Budget System I designed at work which needs to be 100% in time for the upcoming fiscal year, and also bootstrapping my new Fantasy HERO website from the ground up. Ive been getting around 3 to 4 hours of sleep every night for a month, working long days and then coming home to do website content.

So, its mostly just bad timing :) Im willing to wager that this time of year is not ideal for many people. The end of summer is always sluggish IME, as people wind down.

Finally, Im sure somebody on these boards could illustrate how its all got something to do with Mars being so close ;)

zornwil

Sep 3rd, '03, 11:46 PM

To answer this question differently, I ONLY bought it on the understanding of the maps included. If that helps put the puzzle together...great...if not...ignore!

zornwil

Sep 3rd, '03, 11:54 PM

I can add on one comment more - if I don't get to browse a book (at least a reference or RPG or nonfiction book anyway) before buying, it's much less likely I'll buy it. I've only bought 1 or 2 of the Digital Heroes because it isn't clear to me there's enough content of interest. With SoB, I should add on something important - the reason I knew there were sufficient maps is because I'm in the playtest group, so that motivated me to buy it. Were I not in that group, I may not have bought it as I may not have been sure the maps (number/type) would be worthwhile.

death tribble

Sep 4th, '03, 03:58 AM

I bought it and as an Overseas player, this is good.

I was able to set up the info and pay for it and get the thing to download quickly. Then I was able to print it.

However people would need WinZip and Adobe Acrobat first in order to get it to work.
Otherwise ok.

acowie

Sep 4th, '03, 05:07 AM

I've bought everything I have ever seen for sale for the Hero system over the past fifteen odd years. I happen to have an understanding wife and a job that means I've got the cash.
I've just discovered the whole Digital Hero/downloadable pdf thing, and the major thing putting me off is the downloading hassle.
I want Hero Designer, all the supplements, all the ebooks, all the Digital Heros, but it's just going to take a million years (possibly an exaggeration) to download.
And the process of ordering and downloading each thing separately, even if I do it at work :-) strikes me as a nightmare.
Could I send you $200 and you send me all the stuff you've got on a CD or two?

Battlestaff

Sep 4th, '03, 05:27 AM

I've been skimming the thread here at work, so forgive me if I discuss something that's already been hit on.

I haven't downloaded any of the items (SoB or Digital Hero) for several reasons:

1) I've only seen a little bit of the product (in the case of SoB just to opening pages), and I want to browse a book before buying it. You don't go to a gaming store, pick up a supplement, browse the opening 1-3 pages, then decide to buy the book. As for Digital Hero, looking at the free promos, if the rest of the books are of that quality, I have no interest in picking up the rest of the book. If it isn't, why isn't it?

2) While I was looking into whether I wanted to buy it or not, I saw listings on the discussion boards about how those who bought SoB already could download something or needed to do something to make the maps more readable. Now, if I buy a hardback supplement, I can see if there's a problem with the printing, and whether I can fix the problem on my own. With a download, I'm at your mercy that the download is compatible with what I have on my computer, and that my printer (piece of #$%%) is going to be able to print out everything.

3) If I buy a supplement, I don't have to do anything else to be able to read it anywhere I want (the living room, resting on the couch, in the bathroom, etc.). If I download a supplement, I either have to read it at the computer or print out using my own printer. That's no fun.

4) If I haven't printed it out, and something happens with my computer (virus, technicle problems, etc.), I can't access the document, or could even have to buy a new one. With a printed supplement, I only have to worry about food, flood, or fire.

That's my two-cents worth. I'm not a total technophobe, I've just had enough trouble with the computer before that the potential problems put me off from paying such a high price for the supplement.

Sketchpad

Sep 4th, '03, 05:32 AM

I haven't snagged SoB because I'm not a big fan of adventures ... personally, I think that adventures should be kept in things like DH and e-products used to focus on detailing the system further, adding depth to campaign settings or allow for alternative campaign settings ... Something like a group book (ie: Eurostar) would make a good book, detailing their tactics, stats and equipment with maybe a short adventure in the back. I'd love to see superhero group PDFs with some info on the characters, allies and enemies, as well as equipment, vehicles and bases ... then maybe have a module in the back that focuses on the group along with some plot hooks. The old Villains and Vigilantes module "Crisis at Crusaders Citidel" comes to mind when I think of the adventure types :) Also, a book on specific gadgets ... like a Robot Handbook, listing several robots for any campaign and having some flavored ones for use in specific genre conventions :)
As far as price ... PDFs IMHO should be low cost, ranging from $7 - $15 at most. I know that I wouldn't pay for anything higher cost than that. Color pics would be nice, though not entirely nesscessary ... gimme crunchy bits and a nice format with some good illustrations of what's going on anyday :)

mattingly

Sep 4th, '03, 06:45 AM

A lot of good comments here. I appreciate hearing everyone's feedback, both positive and negative. The idea of giving out a free DH credit with purchase of an ebook is excellent, especially since it would be instantly redeemable (just download one while you're downloading the other).

As for why sales are low so far, my guesses are:
1) only website visitors know it's here, not game shop visitors;
2) no ability to preview the contents;
3) dislike of electronic books;
4) it's only been a week or so.

For #1, will ebooks be shipped on CD to distributors, the way that some of the previous Hero books were? (I bought my Kazei 5 on a floppy at a store, even though I knew it was avilable for download.) Also, although it would be an additional cost, have you considered making up some posters or flyers for the distributors to send out with their weekly bundlers?

For #2, a few sample pages showing off a map, one of the official reports, and maybe a brief outline, would help to show just how cool the product is. And I love the fact that almost every map has a separate drawing for the "GM's Map" and the "Players' Map."

For #3, you can to point people to RPGNow's print-on-demand feature, where customers can order a printed, bound copy of an ebook for a few dollars extra. I believe that in the near future (say, the next 5 years), ebooks will become much more accepted. And in the further future (say, 10-15 years), that ebooks will actually surpass printed books as the medium of choice. Compare to the CD versus LP paradigm shift. 10 years from now, when we're all reading books electronically, we'll be glad that we've got our Hero goodies already converted, instead of wishing that they'd finally reprint them digitally.

For #4, a lot of hardcopy sales come from presales. Hardcopy books sell most of their print run in the first couple of weeks, but not so for most ebooks. As I understand it, DOJ doesn't want to get into a lot of taking money beforehand, due to liability issues, but have you considered any kind of preorders for ebooks?

--

As for good things about the ebook, none of my gaming group even read the playtest, since we were all hoping to eventually play in it (we rotate GMing duties). But now that I see the actual copy of SOB, it's extremely cool.

Since there's no actual limit on page count, you got to do things you wouldn't ordinarily do. The combat chart (detailing DEXes, SPDs, etc. is already filled in for the ebooks NPCs, with blank lines there for the PCs.

The one thing I'd like to see (and this may seem hypocritical coming from me, since I include almost entirely B/W art in Digital Hero) is all-color art. Since it doesn't cost Hero anything extra for printing, which is the big expense with color, it should be economical. And you could probably find a fan/playtester or two that would be willing to color in the B+W art in exchange for a comp copy of the final product. Once that's all there, the individual customer can choose to print in color or B+W, or not to print at all.

Since this isn't DOJ's first ebook (only the first in-house ebook), how do sales here compare to The Kandris Seal?

zornwil

Sep 4th, '03, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by mattingly
For #3, you can to point people to RPGNow's print-on-demand feature, where customers can order a printed, bound copy of an ebook for a few dollars extra.

....

As I understand it, DOJ doesn't want to get into a lot of taking money beforehand, due to liability issues, but have you considered any kind of preorders for ebooks?

Pardon snippage.

First comment above, excellent idea, I think I would take advantage of that time and again. I would pay a few dollars extra just to avoid the wear and tear on my own printer.

Hey - here's a tangential idea - what if there were some way where if you buy a hardcopy HERO book in a store you could send in some coupon or other identifier from the book with $5 (or some-such) and get the electronic version on CD sent to you? Probably too much overhead, but would be useful and I think this method would reduce piracy - especially if the CD lacked pictures or some-such "niceties".

Re the second comment, I have been involved in e-presales though for physical materials, and if there's sufficient "buzz" around the product they tend to work very well. That buzz may be already here in the HERO personal network sufficiently enough to make it worthwhile, at least as a pilot.

Koshka

Sep 4th, '03, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by mattingly
For #1, will ebooks be shipped on CD to distributors, the way that some of the previous Hero books were? (I bought my Kazei 5 on a floppy at a store, even though I knew it was avilable for download.)

You beat me to it, Dave. My FLGS still has (as of the last time I went over there) floppies of Ultimate Super Mage and Classic Enemies available. If SOB and (hopefully) future Hero Plus releases were released in both all-electronic and disk versions it might help -- both in getting the word out and for those who aren't sure about their connection staying good for an entire download.

I'm not as sure about color art, though. Sure, pretty colors on my monitor doesn't cost Hero anything, but I'm guessing it would be more expensive to get in the first place -- and if SOB isn't selling enough to pay for the non-color art .... Besides, while I can refill the black cartridge on my printer, I can't refill the color cartridge. Since some people in this thread have been complaining about printing costs, I'd think it would be better to stick with a file that's less expensive to print.

Oh, yes, one of the original questions -- I haven't gotten it for cash flow reasons, but this paycheck is going to have about 12 hours of overtime. Payday is Saturday, can you wait until then? :D (And, if no one beats me to it, I'll see if I can write up a no-spoilers or minimal-spoilers review for Pyramid.)

mattingly

Sep 4th, '03, 08:24 AM

I'm not as sure about color art, though. Since some people in this thread have been complaining about printing costs, I'd think it would be better to stick with a file that's less expensive to print.

Yes, but even though the artwork would be in color, and you have a color printer, you don't have to print it in color. Just about every color printer has the ability to print in B/W on a doc-by-doc basis.

Tamashii2000

Sep 4th, '03, 08:35 AM

For me it was/is a Timing/cash flow issue. I will and fully do intend of getting it (and everything else that comes out for the champions line) Just don't have the cash at the moment as 'real life' takes center stage when it comes to bills.

lemming

Sep 4th, '03, 10:42 AM

Put me down as another cash flow crisis victim.

Redoing the budget and I'll try to put in the funds for more Hero product. :cool:

OddHat

Sep 5th, '03, 05:24 AM

Well, I purchased a copy and printed it out. Credit where credit is due; the art is very, very good. My wife loves it, which has been the deciding factor in many of our gaming purchases over the years.

That said, I still would have been more likely to buy sooner for a lower price in an on-line PDF product, even if it meant less art.

The writing is also very good, and that counts for far more in a gaming product's long term value (imo) than the art.

Hugh Neilson

Sep 5th, '03, 05:54 AM

Originally posted by OddHat
That said, I still would have been more likely to buy sooner for a lower price in an on-line PDF product, even if it meant less art.

The writing is also very good, and that counts for far more in a gaming product's long term value (imo) than the art.

The finished product looks spectacular, no question. But I agree that I would have been just as happy with less art, and if that can lower the price, attract more buyers and justify the production of more such products, I'm all for it.

mrswing

Sep 5th, '03, 10:21 PM

Well, I bought it too to help DOJ out - even though I originally had no intention to. Simply because I'm not a fan of magic-centered superhero stories.
Anyway, I generally agree with the consensus: the art is very good, the maps are extremely well done and useful. Didn't need them in color if that means a lower price (probably doesn't for PDFs) but they are first-rate gaming aids.
As for the whole Art In Pdfs-issue: for superhero games I think illos of the new characters are essential. but general 'mood' art illustrating potential scenes from the plot are less so unless there's a good reason for the artwork (showing a certain location/item/event so that the players really visualize the situation).
Finally I have to be honest: I wasn't planning on getting this because of the playtest file. I think that sharing adventures for playtest reasons will lessen sales, simply because once you've read or played it, you're through - you have the info or have had the gaming experience, why go back to it? It's different for rulebooks, especially additions like MMM where art will be essential in bringing the entire book to life. So I would advocate either sharing your adventure material (which you SHOULD keep producing!!!) to a limited group of trusted playtesters, or else adding so much to the adventure pdfs in the way of goodies (the maps are a nice beginning, how about character standups for all the NPCs as well as for some vehicles/items? Just a thought) that buying the pdf becomes essential.
Anyway, I think this current marketing campaign has worked really well :D and I sincerely hope that the Champions Plus-line does become a succesful venture in future!

JmOz

Sep 6th, '03, 04:09 AM

Well,

Donloaded it last night, have not read it except for the playtest version yet BUT

The art is beutiful, and I can see why you charged so much for it.

HOWEVER,

In the future I would STRONGLY consider recycling art opposed to commisioning new art (I would get new covers done for each however)

Graviton

Sep 6th, '03, 07:58 AM

I haven't purchased it for a couple of reasons:

1. We don't use the official Champions universe, although I did buy CKC (both the hard copy and the HD package) and I'm pilfering my brains out.

2. Cash flow. First on my list is USPD (still waiting for some extra $$$ so I can use the coupon I won at GenCon!), then probably Battlegrounds. I love that you guys are producing all this quality material, but I can't keep up!

3. I have no problems with PDFs. But I don't see the same need for artwork as there is in printed material for some reason, maybe I'm getting old. Maps are essential and sketches of new characters would be nice. Apart from that, I don't think any art is needed at all. Perhaps you could use whatever space is saved to include the stats for all the characters involved. And if that lowered the price a bit, then it would help to alleviate Reason 2. :)

DoctorItron

Sep 6th, '03, 09:16 AM

I dislike reading large volumes of text on a computer. Sure, e-books can be printed on a home inkjet, but then that makes the real cost much higher because of ink cartridge costs. And we only wind up with poorly bound, single sided books that smudge as soon as they get near any moisture :(

Tangent #1: Has anyone brought an e-book to a printing shop to get a nice copy? How did it turn out, and did it cost as much as I fear?

Tangent #2: Has Hero ever considered releasing the same product in print and e-book formats at the same time? I'd *love* to have electronic versions of Fred and Champions.

JmOz

Sep 6th, '03, 06:20 PM

Originally posted by Graviton
I haven't purchased it for a couple of reasons:

1. We don't use the official Champions universe, although I did buy CKC (both the hard copy and the HD package) and I'm pilfering my brains out.

2. Cash flow. First on my list is USPD (still waiting for some extra $$$ so I can use the coupon I won at GenCon!), then probably Battlegrounds. I love that you guys are producing all this quality material, but I can't keep up!

3. I have no problems with PDFs. But I don't see the same need for artwork as there is in printed material for some reason, maybe I'm getting old. Maps are essential and sketches of new characters would be nice. Apart from that, I don't think any art is needed at all. Perhaps you could use whatever space is saved to include the stats for all the characters involved. And if that lowered the price a bit, then it would help to alleviate Reason 2. :)

I think for various reasons you need art to break up the flow, but recycled art would work for that just as well as the beutiful work done here

Polaris

Sep 6th, '03, 07:51 PM

DW,

Thank you for this thread. It is neat that you come to the fans seeking feedback and input.

As for me, I have not purchased SoB, and am unlikely to do so. Modules are nice for setting information and character information that can then be taken and applied to an ongoing story. The adventure is of less value to me (especially since my gaming group, like I suspect so many others, are unlikely to follow the story as written, and I will be doing more 'off the cuff' GMing anyway). Black Paladin has never been a character to play a significant part of our story (he has made one appearance... the first game I played Champions, he was a villain in the story).

The more modules offer setting information that can carry over beyond the particular adventure, the better for me. I am not in the least opposed to pdfs (I kinda like them... Kinkos is fairly cheap to get printed and bound).

Thanks again for asking us! :):)

Polaris

Hugh Neilson

Sep 7th, '03, 06:03 AM

Originally posted by Polaris
Black Paladin has never been a character to play a significant part of our story (he has made one appearance... the first game I played Champions, he was a villain in the story).

I'd rather see published adventures use villains people have tended to ignore in their games. If I've used this character a lot, I've probably established some backstory and histpry elements that go beyond, or depart from, the writeup. That can make the scenario harder to rationalize, or even impossible to shoehorn without major changes.

For example, if the scenario centers around the "secret origin" of The Monster, and my players have never seen him in use before, it will likely be an exciting storyline. If I've already revealed a different "Origin of the Monster", the storyline becomes harder to use.

If BP's gpoal in the scenario had already been addressed (succeeded; he's given up) in a campaign, the scenario is less useful. On the other hand, if he's tried and failed before, the scenario will slide in brilliantly. [No, I'm not going to spoil it by indicating what he's up to...buy a copy if you want to find out ;) ]

The big catch, of course, being how to identify the characters most likely to be unchanged in most campaigns. Certainly, the most reviled villains may fit this mold, but what's the likelihood of breaking sales records with a scenario touted to feature characters no one likes! One advantage to using new characters, especially for key roles, in scenarios.

Polaris

Sep 7th, '03, 09:45 PM

Hugh,

Excellent points! :)

As I generally would not use the adventure as designed and written, it would not really be a big issue to me. I like to glean setting and source information (such as locations, NPCs, etc) from adventures. Adventures can also be a help if they spark other ideas by simply reading the adventure.

Polaris

Ghost who Walks

Sep 9th, '03, 04:39 PM

Interesting topic. My reasons are as follows:

1) The vast majority of stuff I run in a campaign I develop myself, or my players do. Sourcebooks are usually mined for ideas.
2) I really prefer holding a book in my hands. Long experience with computers (Has it been 19 years?) has taught me not to trust anything stored electronically.
3) I don't like buying/ordering things online. Sorry.
4) I dislike the PDFs, and avoid them whenever I can.

I apologize for any negativity, but I imagine you are seeking honesty.

bcholmes

Sep 9th, '03, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
So, where is that 10-15% hiding out? Cause sales so far are pointing at numbers well short of that. Let's hear from some of the people who *wanted* PDF material. Or did we mis-estimate how many of you there really are out there? dw

Hmmm...

I don't know your business, or its metrics, but this is what jumped into my head. When dead-tree products arrive at my local game store, they usually have a number of copies in stock. Those copies may get sold weeks or months after they arrive.

The question I wonder is: are you figuring 10-15% based on numbers that went out to distributors, or actual sales? Or are you comparing to your own online store.

(These questions may be considered rhetorical; I'm just tossing out the thoughts in case they aid in understanding the comparisons).

Bartman

Sep 9th, '03, 05:55 PM

Well I'm a little late but I'll toss my 2 cents in as well. I haven't bought SoB because:

1- Current cash flow issues. Babies ain't cheep. And there are several other products which have, do and will take priority.

2- Applicability. I am not currently GMing anything. So SoB is unlikely to be of immediate intrest. To top that off, my current character is hunted by BP. There is a high probability that I will be run through SoB in the next few months. So in all fairness I won't look at the material until my GM has done whatever he may care to with it.

3- PDF. There is a reason I still haven't gotten any of the Digital Hero stuff yet. This isn't a complete turnoff, but it does lower the interest in picking the product up.

DoctorItron

Sep 15th, '03, 02:34 PM

Darren, I purchased the product in part because of this thread. I read the playtest and liked it, so I figured $12 to get the real thing was a fair price. After downloading the file, I felt that the playtest was better than the actual PDF product, solely because of the overly restrictive security settings on the PDF:

1) Commenting is disabled. I can't annotate the document to make notes.

2) Copying is disabled, so I can't grab a chunk of text and make notes outside of Acrobat Reader.

I sent an email to orders@herogames.com ("Re: Question about Shades of Black PDF") a few minutes ago. Please take a look at it when you have a chance. I don't really need a reply, but I think I raise valid points about the product.

I don't think they negatively impact product sales of the Shades of Black PDF because people don't find out about the settings until after they've paid. However, perhaps purchasers of earlier PDFs stayed away from Shades of Black.

(I checked Digital Hero #1 and I can Copy text, so I suspect these security settings might be new.)

Herolover

Sep 15th, '03, 03:41 PM

I hate to say this, but I think part of the problem is that you overestimated the sales on SOB.

I was part of the playtest for SOB and I bought SOB at the $12 price.

1) Playtest
I do not like the argument that “I playtested it so now I am not going to buy it.” If this works for SOB then it should work for all the other items playtested. I think it is more along the lines of “I playtested it, so it is going to wait till I have extra money.” I don’t understand why someone would not buy a module because they playtested it, but would buy VIPER when they playtested it.

2) Price.
Uhh…yes I guess you could say the price is somewhat high when there are D20 pdf’s for $5-8. However, I have downloaded them and the quality of SOB is so much higher. The D20 pdf’s are, for the most part, just simple text put into a pdf and sold. SOB, on the other hand, is the same quality as a HERO book, just put into pdf format.

Basically, I look at SOB and see a couple of problems.
1) Advertising, I really haven’t seen any. Unless you check the HERO boards or website you probably don’t know about.
2) When people see $12 they don’t realize the quality they are getting. Admitted for many this won’t matter since they have to print out the item. For them the extra quality won’t matter.
3) The biggest problem I see with SOB is the limited customer base it will have. I downloaded it because I want to support DOJ and do not feel right having the playtest and not buying the item. However, I honestly do not have any need for the item and if it wasn’t for my interest in supporting DOJ I wouldn’t have bought the item. I think I am like many people in that they really have no need for a Champions module no matter how good it is.

My suggestions
I really like HERO PLUS items because they get me things that I otherwise would not be able to get. Yes, I understand the comments of the people that say they want hard-copies, but what they don’t seem to understand is it is HERO PLUS or nothing at all. I also love the quality of SOB. It is the same as a hard-copy HERO book, just in pdf format. I really like that quality. However…..

1) Unless the item is a major cross-genre item I wouldn’t worry about quality as much, because you probably are not going to have as many purchasers. Example: A pdf on the ULTIMATE ANDROID will probably do much better than a TERRAN EMPIRE adventure. I would recommend cutting down on the artwork and time put into the adventure and genre specific books and put that effort into system books that will have a wide audience.

2) Definitely advertise on RPGNOW and some of the other major internet gaming stores

GreyGuardian

Sep 16th, '03, 06:06 AM

Darren,

How is SoB doing compared to Champs Battleground? (relatively). It could well be that folks interested enough to hit the website regularly are the ones most likely to be writting their own material and thus less likely to need modules.

If sales are still slow it probably has to do with lack of visibility. Or that it came out at the same time as champs battleground and the paper book was a priority for some.

Strike13

Sep 16th, '03, 06:27 AM

I have not purchased SOB as of yet but fullly intend to. I keep seeing every one make the suggestion to cut the artwork out and want to say that I disagree. I have come to expect certain things from Hero and artwork in the products are one of them. I am more than willing to pay the extra for the artwork.

CourtFool

Sep 19th, '03, 09:35 AM

I am in the pro-PDF group. I have not purchased SOB or the Resource Kit only because money has been a little tight lately. You guys are putting out too many high quality products these days to keep up. Quit it!

Polaris

Sep 19th, '03, 11:18 AM

As for .pdfs, I buy a lot of pdfs. It is really quite easy to bring it to Kinkos and have it printed and bound (printing is 7 cents per page, and binding is about 2-3 dollars, depending upon if you want coil or spiral binding... I recommend coil, so that it is easier to flip the pages). I usually pay an extra dollar for the hard plastic covers, rather than cardstock.. but the advantage to cardstock would be that they will copy the cover of the book onto the cardstock for free.

I would not pay 12 dollars for an adventure, have it printed (I am unsure how many pages the SoB has, but if it is 64, then that would be an additional 4.48... more if it has more pages, less if it has less). Binding for 3.50 (counting hard plastic cover, 2.50 without hard plastic)... so the cost is 19.98, plus the time and such to go to Kinkos, for an adventure that, if I used at all (again, not a big fan of Black Paladin), I would probably only use once. If the villain(s) used was a compelling one for our group (Dr. Destroyer or Eurostar), I would consider it... but, really I would only buy the book if it was good for source material (there are just too many good sourcebooks out there for that price that are paper products, or far cheaper for downloads).

So, I think that pdfs are good (I buy a lot of them), but the price is not at all worth it when good setting books can be had for the same or lower price.

Just my opinion...:)

Polaris

tiger

Sep 19th, '03, 11:43 AM

Why I Haven't picked it up yet is simple, no funds=no fun.

As for the others concerns
1) PDF - Owning a bublejet printing it is a bad idea. Kinko is EXTREMELY expensive. Louckly for my my boss has a laser and has has said I can use it just buy the ink.

2) Price - Does seem a bit high

3) Playtesters - As a playtester the PDF file I see has nothing to do with me purchasing it. The final produc is much different than the PDF. I choose the produces I purchase stricly on their use to me as a GM or Player.

4) Need - I base my decission to purchase a module , PDF or otherwise on rather I need it and will use it. If I don't see the use I don't see putting out the money on it.

I do plan on getting it sooner or later, I like BP and have used him quite often.

I would say I'm sure there are other products that have came out that aren't selling as well as others. I think the only the SOB has against it is to many people prefer hard copy to PDF and hate PDFs.

Lord Liaden

Sep 19th, '03, 12:35 PM

Darren, I always respect how DoJ always comes to the fans for feedback. You maintain contact with your clients better than just about any game company around. :)

I haven't purchased Shades of Black myself yet. I've been on the verge of downloading it a couple of times, but hesitated. Not for lack of interest or doubt in the quality, I assure you.

Price has been a factor. I'm watching my gaming budget lately and trying to prioritize. That's partly because the Canada/US exchange rate always jacks up the price about 30%. I'm also factoring in the price of printing and binding the book, because I find it uncomfortable and tiring to read something off a computer screen for an extended period - that's my only problem with long PDF books.

I admit, though, that in the back of my mind I'm thinking about the issues of Digital Hero that I've bought. Five dollars for 64 pages of articles, adventures, maps and diagrams, decent-to-very-good artwork plus a color cover; or $30 for 640 pages of same. When I think about that $12 for a 69-page adventure it feels a little steep. To be sure SoB has higher production values, but the values of DH are more than adequate for me, if that model would have any effect on the price. I also can't help thinking back to the PRIMUS e-book I bought a little over a year ago: $10 for a quality 100-page sourcebook.

When you get right down to it, what's the benefit of charging a higher price for a high-quality book if few people will buy it? My feeling is that something a little less elaborate but noticeably cheaper will sell much more volume, so you make more money in the long run.

Finally, I have to agree with other comments made here: if SoB had been selling at $8 US I would have snapped it up by now.

Monolith

Sep 19th, '03, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by Lord Liaden
I admit, though, that in the back of my mind I'm thinking about the issues of Digital Hero that I've bought. Five dollars for 64 pages of articles, adventures, maps and diagrams, decent-to-very-good artwork plus a color cover; or $30 for 640 pages of same. When I think about that $12 for a 69-page adventure it feels a little steep. To be sure SoB has higher production values, but the values of DH are more than adequate for me, if that model would have any effect on the price.
Just one small clarification here so that others coming into this thread and reading this do not get the wrong idea about the size of the book as I did earlier in the thread. SoB is a 97 page pdf (a cover and 96 pages of adventure and color maps), not a 69 page pdf.

Lord Liaden

Sep 19th, '03, 01:18 PM

Thank you, Monolith. I'm not sure where I read that 69-page thing (I think it was earlier on this thread), but I'm glad you corrected me.

In that case I'd probably have been willing to shell out $10.00. ;)

Polaris

Sep 19th, '03, 03:01 PM

The page count discrepancy is probably my fault... I used 64 pages as an example. I had gone to the online store to try to find out how many pages it was, but couldn't find the information. So, instead of printing at Kinkos being 4.48 or so, it would be 6.79 not counting the cover (the price of the cover would depend upon if it is color or B&W).

Sorry about the confusion, it was actually meant to illustrate.

Polaris

Robert Harrison

Sep 19th, '03, 03:02 PM

I almost never buy modules or background books - I prefer to put together my own adventures and backgrounds. I would have paid $12 for a 96 pg. rules supplement of some sort in e-form. I have no problem whatsoever with .pdf.

Fedifensor

Sep 19th, '03, 07:28 PM

A few quick thoughts from someone who hasn't bought SoB yet:

* Color Artwork - Seems rather pointless for a PDF product. Color covers are to draw someone's eye when they're browsing in a store. But someone buying a PDF product is looking for meat, not glitz. Plus, the 1 MB buffer on my Okidata laser printer makes it hard to print the cover, even though it's printing out in black and white.
* Artwork in general - See comment about about meat versus glitz. There are required pieces of artwork - pictures of the main villains and NPC's, maps, and other things a GM would need. But action scenes, pictures of generic heroes standing around, and similar things are unnecessary.
* Marketing - What is the percentage of registered users on the message boards to the number of copies of 5th edition that have been sold to date? Because if you don't come to the website on a regular basis, you won't know about SoB.
* Timing - D&D 3.5 just came out. That's nearly $100 of books to buy all at once, and it probably got more people playing it to try the revised rules. Right now, I couldn't get a HERO game started in my area to save my soul, and I normally don't buy adventures until I need ideas as a GM.

It sounds like your biggest cost was artwork. I think putting lots of art into a PDF is a mistake - it can raise the price beyond what many people are willing to pay in this economy.

Agent X

Sep 19th, '03, 07:37 PM

I don't get the price. There's no material cost and no shipping cost. I don't know how much the writer and artist(s) were paid but, geez, I'm not paying $12 + $7 to print + $2 to bind. That's $21, the risk of a faulty download, and an hour out of my life compared to walking up to the store and buying something. I have a hard time believing that even a 96 page e-book requires a $12 fee to purchase in order for the company to enjoy a profit margin. If it does, I think you guys aren't doing it right.

Lord Liaden

Sep 19th, '03, 08:07 PM

Hmm... looking over this thread I seem to see a majority opinion developing. Even among people who like PDF books, price compared to a printed book is a factor, and many seem willing to accept a reduction in production values in exchange for a lower price.

There also seems to be a common assumption that as an adventure, Shades of Black will have less long-term use than one of the various kinds of sourcebooks. Perhaps that perception could be addressed in advertising the product.

Lord Liaden

Sep 20th, '03, 02:54 PM

During this past day I've been trying to analyze the reasons for my delay over purchasing Shades of Black, which I really do want to pick up. I've realized that another factor is what I call PDF "shelf life." A printed book will often have a limited stay on game store shelves before being sold out, and with print runs being finite things, you can never be sure when you'll get another chance to buy it. So there's incentive to go out to get it as soon as you can, whether or not you intend to use/read it right away.

A PDF file is always going to be available; you can download it from a site like this pretty much whenever you want. I find that it's easier to procrastinate over buying it, giving it a lower priority than printed books until you're "ready" to do something with it. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was finally spurred to purchase The Ultimate Super Mage by fear that with 5E in print and new Champions books being published, that old 4E file would be eliminated from the website. (That turned out to be a quite interesting and useful purchase which I'm glad I made.)

loraxxx

Sep 21st, '03, 08:31 PM

i posed this question to some of the folks i game with tonight--and the general consensus was that no one wanted to purchase a module in .pdf format because no one wanted to be bothered with printing the thing out, and no one had a laptop.

there was much more interest in purchasing a bound product--i pulled out my new copy of the millenium city source book, and most folks took a look--one guy even asked if anyone new where to find a copy of ultimate martial artist, and since no one could knew where to find one, said he would probably buy one on-line....

nlubofsky

Sep 25th, '03, 10:46 AM

You might want to highlight the fact that it is a 5th Edition product in its description at the online store, because it shows up in the E-Books section of the online store along with 4th Edition products, and less frequent web-site visitors might overlook it when seeking new products.

Nick

shadowlance

Sep 25th, '03, 01:07 PM

I hadnt bought it because I just hadnt gotten around to it. In response to this thread (finally registered to post this mostly useless tidbit) I bought a copy.

Personally I'm disappointed that adventures aren't better sellers. They have always been some of my favorite RPG purchases. I believe that Battlegrounds was a step in the right direction (value above and beyond the adventures themselves). Combined books (source material with fully fleshed out adventures) seem like a good way to get adventures printed. You guys have demonstrated your willingness to print huge page count books. How about a 192pg sourcebook with 1 or 2 32 page adventures tacked onto em? Ought to be able to get that out the door for 29.99 or so (judging by previous page counts). I'd buy it :)

I think its a serious mistake to skimp on art (at least for new characters). In a superhero game its important to have visuals for the various characters (just check out the length of the superhero images thread to see what I mean). If you had to cut art in the PDF stuff back to just cover illio, character pix and maps that would be acceptable...but cutting any of those three would be an error imho.

J4y

Sep 25th, '03, 01:52 PM

I think $12 is a decent price. The problem though is that unless the price is pretty low only people that are going to seriously use it (a small fraction of the GMs out there) would buy it. If the price is low enough and it has some pretty pictures in it and big easy read charts, people who will never use it will toss away snack money and buy it anyway, which is what I think you need happening to have a large enough market for it.

Since I'm not a GM and the rare times I have been I've prefered to make my own adventure, and since I have too many things to spend snack money on, I'd never consider buying it no matter what the price.

keithcurtis

Sep 25th, '03, 03:45 PM

Originally posted by shadowlance
... How about a 192pg sourcebook with 1 or 2 32 page adventures tacked onto em? Ought to be able to get that out the door for 29.99 or so (judging by previous page counts). I'd buy it :)

That's not a bad idea. Champions Universe had an adventure attached. Maybe Terran Empire should have had one, as well as future campaign books. It would certainly make them a more attractive package. Also, and adventure can often get across the feel of a universe far better than many pages of description.

Keith "I'm just sayin' " Curtis

Agent X

Sep 25th, '03, 04:13 PM

Originally posted by J4y
I think $12 is a decent price. The problem though is that unless the price is pretty low only people that are going to seriously use it (a small fraction of the GMs out there) would buy it. If the price is low enough and it has some pretty pictures in it and big easy read charts, people who will never use it will toss away snack money and buy it anyway, which is what I think you need happening to have a large enough market for it.

Since I'm not a GM and the rare times I have been I've prefered to make my own adventure, and since I have too many things to spend snack money on, I'd never consider buying it no matter what the price. How high do you think their operating costs are on a PDF?

Polaris

Sep 26th, '03, 02:02 AM

Shadowlance,

I think your idea is a very good one, but perhaps it should be made into a new thread. I am unsure if the Powers that Be of DoJ are still reading the thread.

Polaris

Steve Long

Sep 26th, '03, 03:39 AM

We're still reading (or I am, at least ;) ). If a thread is of interest to us, we usually keep reading it, as long as it remains on topic.

In response to the idea specifically raised -- adventures in the back of setting books -- I can tell you it's not high on my priority list. I usually have enough trouble fitting the basic setting information in the pages allotted; I'm not going to make our already too-big books bigger by adding material that is, at best, of secondary value to the average purchaser. All our setting books have, formally or informally, lots of plot seeds, so that'll have to do. ;)

Hugh Neilson

Sep 26th, '03, 07:11 AM

Originally posted by Steve Long
We're still reading (or I am, at least ;) ). If a thread is of interest to us, we usually keep reading it, as long as it remains on topic.

In response to the idea specifically raised -- adventures in the back of setting books -- I can tell you it's not high on my priority list. I usually have enough trouble fitting the basic setting information in the pages allotted; I'm not going to make our already too-big books bigger by adding material that is, at best, of secondary value to the average purchaser. All our setting books have, formally or informally, lots of plot seeds, so that'll have to do. ;)

I think a sample scenario in genre books, as was done in champions and Fantasy Hero (IIRC) is a good idea, since it shows how to put it all together into a scenario.

In other books, as suggested by the posters, it sounds like a marketing ploy. OK, now all the Adventure buyers have to buy the genre book to get the adventure, and the Genre Book Buyers have to pay for the extra pages used for the adventure.

"Underhanded" seems a bit strong, but certainly manipulative. And not the above board business practices that I've come to expect from Hero. Exactly as Steve says, it forces many buyers to pay for material that, at best, has secondary value to them.

That could be a great economic division, but it could also generate resentment in the client base, which would backfire big time. For what it's worth, I think Steve's making the right business decision here - and I would have bought the scenario book and the source book, assuming the genre is one of interest to myself and my players.

Polaris

Sep 26th, '03, 10:45 AM

Steve,

Thank you for the response.

I agree that adventures are probably not a key issue for most customers, but it seems to be of big importance to some customers. While I would rather have all the information in a setting book be dedicated to setting material (or genre book dedicated to genre material), it would seem like a reasonable idea to ADD on 32 pages if it will help the book sell (of course, that leads to whether any NEW/MORE people would buy it as a result of the adventure that would not buy it anyway).

Polaris

Killer Shrike

Sep 26th, '03, 11:48 AM

Personally, I think that supplements like Champions Battlegrounds which are collections of several adventures are the way to go. Im much more apt to buy such a product than a singleton adventure supplement. (By the way, small plug: Battlegrounds is a lot of fun -- get your copy now!).

But then, Ive got a shelf full of Dungeon Magazines which Ive always thought were the coolest thing, but which I dont think have ever sold well.

JmOz

Sep 26th, '03, 04:46 PM

One idea on adventure books:

Instead of a book of full adventures, something similar to "Challange of the Champions" and Champions 3-D, that while not giving us a fully fleshed out adventure gives us many ideas for them,

Hugh Neilson

Sep 27th, '03, 05:22 AM

Originally posted by JmOz
One idea on adventure books:

Instead of a book of full adventures, something similar to "Challange of the Champions" and Champions 3-D, that while not giving us a fully fleshed out adventure gives us many ideas for them,

I like that idea. Alternatively, several smaller (one or two night, with less detail) scenarios rather than one large one. Some ideas for expanding the middle, with no real detail, would allow those inclined to expand the scenario, and those looking for a quick filler can take the one or two night scenario and run with it.

I do love the long scenarios with room for other events within as well (intertwine them so you're at the beginning of one, middle of another and end of a third and watch the joy as the players start fiuguring out what's what!)