Off to a slow start...

[Agent.0.Fortune]

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]

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 agree with Jim's statement, though I understand it. I read the playtest of Batlegrounds and bought it as soon as I could (my wife is running it now); I'll pick up Grimore as soon as it's out, and Viper as well. If anything the playtest made me more interested in SoB. though the price has put me off. Even so, I will buy it eventually.

[Lupus]

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]

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]

Errr... Huh?

 

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]

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. 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]

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]

Perhaps...

 

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]

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. )

[Darren Watts]

Re: Errr... Huh?

 

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]

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 http://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]

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]

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 http://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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

PDF is my preferred format for such products

 

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]

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.

[Guest Keneton]

Helpful but. . . .

 

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]

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]

Yay! Someone said the pictures are pretty! Woohoo!

[don]

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]

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