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From the outside of game publishing it can seem like a Great Game is automatically a Great Product, but there's a real gap there. (indeterminate-length thread follows) https://twitter.com/chaibypost/status/1326469927704780801
From the outside of game publishing it can seem like a Great Game is automatically a Great Product, but there's a real gap there. (indeterminate-length thread follows) https://twitter.com/chaibypost/status/1326469927704780801
There are a number of great games out there that weren't great products; the design of the system, the concept and intent and detail, can all be a part of a game being great. And sometimes the inherent greatness of a game's design translates into discovery, recognition, & sales.
But, there are plenty of games out there that are great games but not great products, i.e., they lack some number of attributes that would contribute towards sales, actual commercial *product* success.
(There are even some of these in our catalog. We had to forcibly retire a number of solid good-if-not-great games in the last couple years because they simply weren't selling, and the cost of maintaining them in inventory exceeded the revenue they generated.)
Maybe my favorite example of this from our catalog was War of Ashes: Fate of Agaptus. On paper the idea of licensing an IP from the folks who made the setting and its miniatures game made sense, especially as they continued to look at other ways to expand where that IP went.
And the game design team put some incredible work into making the game (which started from Fate Accelerated but then added *so* much more value) as great as it could be.
The artwork we got from licensing the IP looked gorgeous, too. We thought we had a winner. Then we got the product to market, and it did not sell. There are probably a number of reasons for that.
1st off, Fate Accelerated based games we've made have not had a good sales track record. War of Ashes: FOA was one of the ways I've come to terms with this. I think none of our FAE derivative physical products (e.g., Young Centurions, Do:FOTFT) are in print now; poor sales = why.
2nd, we overestimated the appeal of the IP. The IP is pretty appealing—but, hindsight, you gotta get to know it to realize that. And the potential other directions the IP could have gone didn't pan out. So the whole thing didn't find an audience and just fizzled. Great game tho.
We've also got the in-print Uprising: The Dystopian Universe RPG which got its own KS that funded modestly (1400 backers, $43k) and then the product got out to market and has since practically been at a stand-still.
Again, on paper, this looked like a great idea at start.
Again, on paper, this looked like a great idea at start.
Uprising is set in the same universe as other Dystopian Universe games like The Resistance, Coup, etc. Fun games with a texture we thought would look real interesting translated into an RPG type game. The design work that went into making the game is good, interesting Fate tech!
The book's gorgeous owing to Dale's layout and the artwork we got access to through the IP.
But, with minimal messaging support from the licensor as a minor factor, in the main it turned out that very few people who were into those card games had any interest in an RPG...
But, with minimal messaging support from the licensor as a minor factor, in the main it turned out that very few people who were into those card games had any interest in an RPG...
... and those who weren't already into the card games didn't see much reason to get the game. At least, that's my working theory.
So a big part of what makes a great game a great product is how well you can connect the game with folks who want to buy it. And with that in play…
So a big part of what makes a great game a great product is how well you can connect the game with folks who want to buy it. And with that in play…
…other things that can help make that connection happen are also attributes of a strong product. Graphic design, packaging, back cover copy that tells & tantalizes someone browsing the book in a store or online enough to trigger a purchase or at least to understand what it is…
… and at the end of the day, a great game can exist in a word document, free of all that stuff. But it has to be translated into something that folks find compelling reasons to buy, aka, the work that's involved in *publishing* outside of the design of the game qua game itself.
Now that said there's no magic bullet in publishing. Everything is a gamble. The vast majority of the books and boxed games we've published, we believed were great on both counts when we published them, but the market has not always—nor even often—agreed with us on that.
The gap between "hits" (runaway or at least solid/strong sales successes) & "misses" (moderate-at-best sales numbers all the way down to flops) is pretty significant, and I think better product design & marketing might've saved some of those. But it's all pasta flung at the wall.
Over time, with experience, you can better bridge that gap for more of the stuff you publish — but you won't ever be free of the potential for a flop. The point is to minimize that whenever you can.
