"The 4 Rules of Commercial Sci-Fi Game design." Topic

WolfeGames,

I'm curious on what level of success you are expectiong for your game. In your first post you mentioned your current game is 'relatively successful'. Is your goal to outsell 40k or revolutionize the entire hobby?

It may be a good idea to wait a bit and see if your new approach is more successful before you post 'the rules of commercial sci-fi wargame design'. Once your plan works (have faith ^_^), come back and tell us about it.

"Remember when you got that lucky pair of sixes, and took out the Grebulon Fruxolator's Arm-o-Deth? That was soooo funny, man... I couldn't *believe* you had a card of Infinite Wounding in your Damage Deck...".

Your choice, and again, that's fine. Its not mine, though. I don't want to remember having something decided on luck. Oh, I can bemoan bad luck and celebrate good luck. But I want my games based on skill. And that does NOT mean that there is NO randomness, only that good tactics will outweigh luck in the end.

"I *don't* want to spend the last hour in a post-mortem, discussing how my delayed flanking attempt during the 5th suppressive-fire segment probably contributed to the decaying morale of my Heavy Weapons team"

And neither do I. I think maybe the crux of the matter is that you're immersed in either your own game engine or your own conception of what has to be in order to achieve realistic results. There are plenty of mechanics that can achieve do that while being simple yet realistic and fairly transparent to the player.

To sum it up, IMO a game is a contest -- fun, yes, but a contest nonetheless. And if I win, I want to be able to chortle about my skills that won the game for me, not a series of lucky dice rolls (although those DO have their place). And if I lose, I want a post mortem that will help me win the next time around. When the game is resolved through luck, no amount of planning will make it easier to win the next time.

"I dunno about you, but I'd much rather fire my Blasto-Matic from my Gee-Whiz Astrobike as I dodge explosive Nastilizers fired by the Butt-Pirates of Planet Plaid."

I understand what you're saying and that you're exaggerating for effect. I don't disagree in principle. And I don't particularly care what a weapon is called in the SF genre. But that terminology does NOT make it creative in the sense that it carries one into a possible future environment.

If the game is a heroic game, then all that is fine. We typically play our games in one of two fashions. One is cinematic, which matches up with your description in principle. The other is military which is based on the performance of numbers of troops averaging out over time.

I'm not trying to discourage you from designing what you want to design or play. Nor do I disagree that the mass of SF gamers want something that is flash more than substance. All I'm saying is that "real", in the sense of reasonable, does NOT equate to "not fun".

"And look at how warfare changed from ACW to WWI. Or even WWI to WW2. ==snip== The simple fact is, Big Stompy Robots are fun. Silly, probably. Implausable, possibly. But fun."

My point is that there is a place for both and neither one has to denigrate the other in order to be successful or popular. Occasionally, I want something that is mindless fun. Occasionally, I want something that I have to think about and analyze. And I guess that it rubs me the wrong way when the implication is that someone who wants the latter is somehow inferior to the one who wants the former. Or vice versa, for that matter.

My only expected level of success is to out-sell the first game. That won't be hard, trust me :-)

Sure, I'd like to be the "next 40K" and make millions... who wouldn't? But that's not a very likely goal for an indie, and I try to just worry about making a profit that's worth a year of my time. How much money is that, really? I think that's pretty subjective- for myself, it'd be $30K. I don't have an expensive lifestyle, and I don't really feel like acquiring one.

It's very easy to give critique in hindsight, of course. Maybe this next game will sell even worse than this one, because I made it *too* light and frothy, or cut the meat when I thought I was shearing fat.

It's a difficult art, especially when you have to do all of it at once- the marketing, the art, the game design and fine writing. Especially once you get near the end, and everything gets desperately busy, so that you can meet your deadlines, and have it out before Christmas.

I really hope I never repeat the last 3 months before the release of the first game, ever again... it was nightmarish. This time, I'm working on the art every day, instead of waiting for the end- I'll find homes for every piece, instead of making each piece for a given page, which turned out to be a mistake... but wasn't really revealed as such until far, far too late.

As for Jizzbrand's commentary... I totally agree. My poking fun at "rules talk" wargaming reflects my general frustrations with the hard-core twinkiness of gaming more than anything else- I had an uber-twink as one of my chief playtesters, and he was a Master of Pain, let me tell you! Not somebody you'd want to play Monopoly with, let's put it that way- he was definately going to *win*.

But a very useful person to have around, nontheless- when he finally started to build armies that at least *kinda* resembled the fluff, I knew I was about done with major points changes... and when our last balance arguments consisted of debates about tiny points differentials which were arcane to the extreme and involved lots of theoretical "but if x, y and z were to happen, then...", I was definately done.

The community hasn't really profited very much from its internicene warfare between orthodox Realists and heterodox Fantacists... if anything, it's probably driven many people away from the hobby.

Which sucks, both for game designers and those who remain- a small community becomes more and more of a social backwater, and more and more ignored by big companies. That's why I offered my challenge... maybe somebody has the Answer, and has a realistic sci-fi wargame idea that'll really sell. Or will think of one a few months from now, publish it, and make me look silly for having said not to bother ;-)

WolfeGames -- Even though I cautiously agree with your 4 rules, your game might have suffered for other reasons.

I don't recall hearing about your game or reading any battle reports. I've never seen a demo. Your web site has plenty of self congratulatory bullet points, but not many facts. The rules are $40 + shipping.

If you're selling a GURPS-for-miniatures system, I think you'd want to put on a lot of unique scenario games. If it's a good system you can probably convince other GMs to put on games at conventions -- Gencon, Historicon, Origins, etc.

You might try a 5 or 10 page "lite" version of your rules so that people can test drive them at home.

By the way, none of your rules support your conclusion that realistic SF games won't sell.

Dull games that players can't relate to won't sell. True, but what does that have to do with realistic SF games?

P.S. I buy lots of rule sets because I have lots of interests. (I play stuff ranging from DBA to Battlefront WWII, Blood Bowl to 40K.) I'm pretty sure I'd have bought a copy of your rules if I saw them at a con for under $30.

P.P.S. Your comment about everything being done before is just an emotional crutch. This is always the conventional wisdom until something truly new comes along -- and it always does.

It's a bit like the lottery. The odds of *you* winning are extremely low, but the odds of *somebody* winning are pretty good.

WolfeGames:

Sorry, seems I misunderstood what you were saying.

KenFox:

Wel said. My thought exactly. I never hear about people playing in demos at cons or anything. It's a bad job when I can't remmember the rules that started this post!

JT

KenFox... yup, there were a host of mistakes made.

On the subject of demos... well, I ran a few in the near-local area, but that was about what I could afford to do.

Sorry you don't like the pricing, but I have to make money, period. Let's do the math here, pricing the game at $29.99 per book, since that's your theoretical break-point:

1. The distibutor lops off 60%. This leaves me with $12.00.

2. Sounds great, eh? Now, let's lop off about 27% for taxes... that leaves me with $8.75.

3. Oh yeah, and I have to replace my stock... and because I use an on-demand publisher, that costs me about $7.00 per copy. Which leaves me $1.75 profit for a book.

4. If I sold 1,000 copies in my first year(pretty tricky for an indie), I'd make $1,750 for a year's labor. Y'know, I'll betcha Chinese sweatshop laborers do that well, and they don't have to pay American prices for everything.

... and that, sir, is why the book costs $40, not because I'm some money-grubbing gouger ;-)

And as for the self-congratulatory bullet-points... sheesh. Give me a break! Most game companies don't tell you *that* much about their game on their corporate website- and the points *are* all true... maybe they aren't what you care about in a game system, but I wrote it for the broadest possible audience, including Grandma who's looking for something for Little Timmy's Christmas gift. When you view a typical offering from an Indie, you're usually lucky if they have a website at *all*.

And there is a PDF Sample Game right there for you to download, along with FAQs and all of the other trappings, such as concept artwork, conversion photos, links to the Yahoo Group... free printable PDF templates and a lot more.

If you're implying that I didn't try to provide everything that the Big Guys do, and with a laughable budget, at that... that's just plain *mean*. I had to make my own photography rig, for example, using cheap desk lamps, just so that I could take the conversion photos... find all of the software to make the concept art database easily-viewable to users online, and code the entire website myself. Don't tell me I didn't try.

So why _not_ sell pdfs instead, when at 10 or even 5 dollars apiece you need sell far fewer to break even? Fear of copying? Wolfe, you give away something like 94% of the cost of every book (in your example above), so if every 10th (of your example's 1000) user buys your book for $3.50 and 9 copy it, you've still made about twice the profit! And for 3.50 or 5.00, nobody will call you a moneygrubbing gouger... :)

Traveling to cons and showcasing your game with demos is marketing -- if you don't do it, you are missing a major sales tool. And its a business expense, so it goes against your taxes.

If you can't or won't do demos, do what others have done and build up a demo corps (outriders, men in black, whatever -- there are many examples out there) to do them for you.

Well, as I said... my first worry was that one guy in a gaming group would get it, and then it'd be all over the Internet. That's the problem with PDFs... you never *really* know how many sales you're missing.

That said, you do have a valid point there, when you break it down like that... maybe I'll just do it earlier, and see how it goes, later on this fall. I can keep distributing retail copies, it won't break any distribution agreements... and who knows, maybe I'll even make some money that way.

I'll certainly think about it- the worst-case scenario is that sales of the printed book will fall to zero, which is unlikely, now that it's in distribution. I'd have to bundle the PDF with the contents of the CD... wait a minute... I could just sell the whole thing on a CD, duh. Then people will have the training videos for the ... nevermind, I'm worrying about details out loud.

At any rate, thanks for helping me to review that... and I'm glad that you can see that I'm not a gouger... I'm just trying to make an honest buck, really. Which is much harder than you'd think, in this market, and everybody *knows* it's tough.

The demo-team thing is something I've been interested in, but haven't yet been able to pull off. Maybe... hmm... I think I just had a crazy idea... cool, thank you :-D

I came in late to this discussion so most of this has been hashed out.

At first, I took offense to your initial posting Wolfegames. I, like Seifertma, don't really believe that's a good way to either generate sympathy or future customers.

You see, it's because I don't really know why you posted in the first place. Are you trying to develope more sales for your game? Trying to get publicity through confrontation? Trying to put out a word of warning to other game designers? Please, tell me where you're going with this.

I've been following your game, Silent Dark. The fact of the matter is, it's neither new, nor revolutionary. Vor, has build your own army rules, the old Starslayer ( from Majestic 12 Games ) does too, As well as the Hellion System ( from hellionproductions ) .

As a customer, I chose not to buy into the game because, I speak for me only, I didn't like the art and presentation of the game itself. I'm sure the rules are great and fun to play, but, if I'm gonna plunk down something to the tune of $40 USD bones… I want to get something on par with WARMACHINE, Jovian Chronicles or Heavy Gear.

And, I'll be honest with you. Reaper Miniatures once told me that their publication ( rulebooks, Journal of Recognitions, ect ) sales are horrible. But, they use them to drive their miniature sales. And, based on the example of your production costs, I tend to agree.

Perhaps you may want to look at developing a small line of miniatures to work with your game?

For me, I'm going to opposite direction. I'm doing the miniatures ( coldnavy.xtreme-hobby.com ) and I'm doing them such that players can use their own starship combat rules. It's been the results of my market study that there are a myriad of really great sci-fi ground warfare rulesets out there, Dirtside, Stargrunt, Railgun 2010, Chain Reaction, CAV, Battletech, Vor, Void… You name it!
But, seriously great sci-fi miniatures are tough to come by, especially in the 15mm-28mm range. You have GZG and 40K, plus a little odds and ends from Void and Vor.

I'll be the first to tell you that if anyone came up with a 28mm Heavy Gear or Gasaraki sized and styles Mecha, or Appleseed Landmates, or honest to goodness, non-gothic powered armor, the sculpted and cast to the quality level of Privateer Press? I'd be their best friend.

WolfeGames -- I would pay $40 USD for a book if I can flip through it and check it out. I've paid more than $40 USD lots of times. Piquet and 40K both cost more than $40 USD for example.

The trouble for you is I'm NOT going to pony up $40 USD blind. I need at least a good review and preferably a live game. I bought Necromunda mail-order after playing it once at Origins. ( Not a demo or anything, just a fan running an event. ) I bought "I Ain't Been Shot Mum" at Cold Wars after only reading about it in several TMP discussions.

I'm definitely not unusual; I might even spend a little more than average. Bill had a poll on rule prices a little while ago and $25 USD was roughly the median.

TMP link

Yeah, sorry, the "self-congratulatory bullet points" slam was harsh. I could have said the same thing in a nicer way. My point remains: You DON'T have more info on the Internet than most. Lots of games have fan sites and discussion boards to supplement the official company site. Tiny companies like WRG have more info about their games on-line.

Here's an example of your site that really turned me off:

"It is a revolutionary new game design, because it uses new models to create accuracy of simulation without adding dreary layers of useless rules. G.U.T.S. can be used for all sorts of miniatures-based games, such as WWI, the Civil War, and other conflicts, past and present."

First, you make the claim of revolutionary without backing it up. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Show me how it works and let me decide.

Second, I know WWI. My gaming group plays a good game called "Square Bashing" that represents the muddy, bloody slog that most gamers think of as WWI. I sure don't want my SF game to be like that.

I missed your sample game the first time through your site. The G.U.T.S. sample game is helpful. You should advertise it more prominently. ( I prefer the more business-like approach used in GURPS lite with less humor and more big picture description. ) Your examples turned me off though because you use Cartoon characters and Fantasy monsters. Is this a SF game or not? Who is your audience?

One major thing missing from your sample game is how vehicles work. I don't need details, but I do need some idea how infantry and vehicles work together. This is a big failure in 40K and many other skirmish level rules. Most people looking at new rule sets probably want to avoid a rehash of 40K or d20 System or Savage Worlds or … lots of rules handle vehicles poorly. ( Even though they may be really good games -- and the three I mention are good games. I bought Savage Worlds hard-cover for $29.95 USD. ; )

You don't have to run demos yourself. Hopefully your play testers are excited about the game and will put on demos for you. Or, better yet, find people who want to run weird ( and fun ) scenario games and give them copies of your rules.

Wolfe:

I've been selling PDFs for a little over a year now, made a nice profit at it, and I have yet to find any of my stuff floating around in pirate land. So I really don't think piracy is going to spell doom for everyone who peddles virtual inventory, as long as you make it more convenient to buy it than to steal it. That's the key...most people who pirate do so because nobody made it worth their while to be a customer. Trust me, if it's easier to pay for something you want than to steal it, people will buy instead of pirate.

If piracy still terrifies you because you've bought into that particular hysteria, then there are places which will happily sell PDFs with digital rights management built into them. White Wolf, Dream Pod 9, and some other "big names" are going that route with some of their backlist products on Drive Thru RPG, so you may want to look into that if piracy is a real concern for you. It isn't a concern for me, but that's just me.

You can disagree with me all you want, but I'm the guy who's been there and done that when it comes to selling digital goods.

I also appreciate what you're saying about having to price your game to make money. That's entirely prudent and sensible from a businessman's perspective, but that still doesn't change the fact that you were selling something that the average person would value at $20-25 tops for $40. You, as a publisher, are supposed to evaluate the cost benefits and then determine whether or not it can be done profitably *at the perceived value*. For $40, people tend to expect something more than a book and a CD.

If the answer is no, the project is a nonstarter, and no two ways about it. I'm not trying to get into an argument over what your game's really worth, I'm just telling you what my experience is telling me. If I were in your shoes and $40 was the lowest possible price point for a spiral bound book and a CD, I wouldn't even have gone ahead with the project. You simply have to factor in perceived value and market demand if you really want to make any money.

Also, if you shop around for a printer, then you need to run a quick rule of thumb calculation based on their asking commission: if it costs less or the same to print the same book at Kinko's, then they're asking too much and deserve to be mercilessly beaten with wifflebats.

I hope your second go-around works out better for you.

-Mel

KenFox:

I'm the same, I ain't gonna buy a book because the publisher said it was great! I like to at least hear a few reviews before buying.

JT

Addressing the PDF piracy concern I will throw out an anecdote from last week.

I've been planning on getting Chain Reactino 2 for an upcoming Con game I'm running, and I've got some friends who were interested because they more or less collect rules. My friends have a fair amount of discretionary income, I do not. I'm selling minis so I can afford to go to the Con. Both of my friends bought CR2 before I did. Both bought it as PDF. Either one of them would have given me a copy had I asked. I took some of my money from my minis sale, and bought a copy instead. I did this because a) the rules were of sufficient value to me that I felt they were worth the $14, b) it was just as easy to buy it, as pirate it, and c) Ed has consistently provided a level of customer service that has made me feel that his company is worthy of receiving my hard-earned dollars.

I commented on this lack of piracy to Ed at THW and he said his price point was carefully chosen to make buying it the easiest option.

So in closing, an easily piratable format does not equate to piracy. The people who are too cheap to buy it are the same people that would be too cheap to buy a hard copy.

Rules are about the only thing I won't Pirate. Don't pillage off your own people n all that jazz.

"For $40, people tend to expect something more than a book and a CD."

Alpha-Men

Mel... trust me, setting the price had *everything* to do with the money side, and *nothing* to do with the game's percieved value, even in my ego-inflated brain ;-) I'd say that the book and CD, in a perfect world, are *maybe* worth $25- and when I was originally planning things, that's what I wanted to charge. Again, it didn't work out that way. $25 per copy didn't work- I would've lost money in distribution. And I couldn't afford the $3,000 or so that would be required for a cheap mass-print run, unfortunately.

The next time will definately reflect what I've learned from my experiences. For those of you wondering if this thread is pointless... well, *I* haven't found it pointless, even after taking some hard knocks.

My 4 Rules reflect what I've learned through making mistakes over and over again, and I think that I've pretty well explained why they're good rules to live by, if you want to make money in this business. I sure didn't come here to market my product- as I said, it's in distribution, and I'm pretty much done worrying about promoting it, at least in its current format. And as the Trojan Bunny pointed out, he didn't even remember that it'd come out in the first place... yup, my marketing sucked ;-)

I've gotten some useful feedback on a number of other topics, as well- things that are kind've hard to get without causing a certain amount of controversy, and making people think/react:

1. I should probably rebuild the website, and include some samples from the book, so that the hard-core gaming crowd knows that the design delivers on its promises, instead of trying to be "advertisement-like". What the heck... the first two versions of the website weren't very well coded anyhow, and the current one's a labyrinth of hidden documentation... KenFox had some good points there.

2. The art was a big problem for most buyers. Really, folks... I tried. Originally, the game was going to get published by a minor House that I won't bother naming, before they backed out (they balked at the idea of funding the book's art to a professional standard, ironically enough), so I *thought* I was just going to have to do fill art, not every single image. That's no excuse... it was just reality at the time. Sorry.

3. I've heard good arguments for going to a PDF format, which make perfect sense to me, now that I've seen the alternative. If I can make the same money selling the game for $10, and have the added bonus of being able to make the art in full color... I can't see how this is a loser for anybody. More people might try it, I can revamp the art and generally make the book more attractive... and since the 3D assets have already been created, spiffing them up a bit and re-rendering them won't take that much time, really- maybe a month or two.

4. If I can release the game as a cheap CD-ROM, then giving it away to people interested in demoing it at 'cons won't cost me much at all- I have a spare computer here that I could basically just use to burn demo CDs... Now there's an idea... I can be like AOL, and spread around enough copies for free that I'll get a large enough user-base to attract some serious business for the next game.

5. Pricing could really help the next game sell better, and get me flamed less. Really, folks... I didn't like my pricing any more than you did, but I was kind've stuck. I've seen the light, and will go to a format that I can keep cheap.

So... basically, I started this conversation as way to talk about what went wrong, now that I have enough emotional distance from the whole thing that I can be honest with myself. This may seem strange- most companies don't like to talk about their mistakes. If there's been any message here, it's been, "don't do it like I did- it doesn't work". The Rules reflect the areas where I went wrong- everything from design decisions to marketing.

I'm still waiting for somebody to come up with a convincing idea for a marketable "realistic" sci-fi wargame that isn't SGII... maybe this thread helped get somebody thinking of one, and I've helped them take the first step towards making the Next Big Thing... that would be karma, eh?

So, if this thread seems pointless... all right. I'll quit posting here- I've gotten a lot out of this, myself, and most of it has been constructive. Which may seem strange, but that's my perspective :-)

"The art was a big problem for most buyers. Really, folks… I tried."

OK, I didn't mean to be as abrupt about that as I did.
That's really one of my sticking points if visual aesthetics.
I had no idea you did them. I salute you for your effort in light of your circumstance.

"I'm still waiting for somebody to come up with a convincing idea for a marketable "realistic" sci-fi wargame that isn't SGII"

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but, someone else asked for a relatively fresh look at a sci-fi wargame and I proposed this:

TMP link

Just a thought.

Hey, it's OK... no insult to me that you didn't like the art- you certainly weren't alone.

And I read through your idea... not bad. A little bit of The Forever Option and Screamers there... I'd probably want to expand things a bit, and say that there were humans scattered around the Earth in suspended animation, or something... give people enough to work with that they could expand the story in various ways.

I like to give people room to create their own stories, when I'm thinking about design. Just my perspective, of course. But not a bad idea at all, and one that doesn't *require* a new line of minis- just convert Battletech, Heavy Gear and CAV stuff, and you're all set. It has a good feel to it... I'd happily steal it for a Genre creation using G.U.T.S. as a base, but it'd be bad karma ;-)

Making the robot minis for such a thing would be a fascinating project, too... I hope that your current project is going well.

As for the small mini line... if I ever can get enough capital together... yes, I'd like to pursue that. I tried to find people who'd go for a joint venture during the early days(I'd get 10% royalties or something small like that), but nobody was even slightly interested- the game designer has to take all of the risk, apparantly :-P

Maybe the second book will change people's perceptions on this point, or I'll be able to raise enough to get started. I dunno yet... but I'd like to do so, as it seems to be where the money is- if people like the minis, they'll often pick them up whether or not they like the game.

"I'd happily steal it for a Genre creation using G.U.T.S. as a base, but it'd be bad karma"

You can have it.

It would be gratifying for me to see an idea of mine help somebody out. And, if people have fun playing it, all the better.

If you want, my email is human-machine@xtreme-hobby.com, you can email me any disclosure or licensing agreements that you want... If it'll make you feel better, legaleese-wise. ^_-

Cheers!

WolfeGames: "Mel... trust me, setting the price had *everything* to do with the money side, and *nothing* to do with the game's percieved value, even in my ego-inflated brain ;-) I'd say that the book and CD, in a perfect world, are *maybe* worth $25- and when I was originally planning things, that's what I wanted to charge. Again, it didn't work out that way. $25 per copy didn't work- I would've lost money in distribution. And I couldn't afford the $3,000 or so that would be required for a cheap mass-print run, unfortunately."

You're misunderstanding me.

I'm saying that you needed to look at the perceived value and then determined whether or not the developmental costs would have allowed you to price it competitively. In other words, if the going price for similar products is around $25 and you can't develop the product for $25 or less and still make a profit, then the project is a nonstarter and shouldn't be pursued.

I'm *not* suggesting that you decided to charge $40 because it was a nice round number.

-----------------------------------------------------

WolfeGames: " 3. I've heard good arguments for going to a PDF format, which make perfect sense to me, now that I've seen the alternative. If I can make the same money selling the game for $10, and have the added bonus of being able to make the art in full color... I can't see how this is a loser for anybody. More people might try it, I can revamp the art and generally make the book more attractive... and since the 3D assets have already been created, spiffing them up a bit and re-rendering them won't take that much time, really- maybe a month or two."

Well, do the math...you get to sell at a lower price and keep more of the money for the same amount of work instead of bending over for some outfit that demands a 50-60% commission to start with.

-Mel

One thing which hasn't been mentioned here yet, is that there are a couple of succesful "hard" sci-fi games (hard in the sense of being ok with current scientific speculation, not violating basic physics & devoid of fantasy elements like magic, demons or orks in ill-fitting spacesuits): Cav & Mechwarrior. Yes they have mecha, and I already hear some people grumbling darkly about "realism", but apart from this tiny stretch of the imagination, they're pretty "hard". And they seem to doing at least ok in the marketplace. Hell, if they were 28mm, I'd play them myself. Looking at what makes these games attractive might yield further clues to the making of a succesful straight sci-fi game.

Umm- Roto, WFT? Giant mech stompy things DO fail basic physics, in terms of powerplants, and strength of materials.

Even the relatively small Cav/Mechwarrior/Heavy Gear ones??? Geez, never realized that. I knew Go Nagai's stuff would never work, but Cav, no didn't expect that :-)

Oh, I guess all hope is lost for "hard" sci-fi.

"Sorry you don't like the pricing, but I have to make money, period. Let's do the math here, pricing the game at $29.99 per book, since that's your theoretical break-point:

1. The distibutor lops off 60%. This leaves me with $12.00.

2. Sounds great, eh? Now, let's lop off about 27% for taxes... that leaves me with $8.75.

3. Oh yeah, and I have to replace my stock... and because I use an on-demand publisher, that costs me about $7.00 per copy. Which leaves me $1.75 profit for a book."

Based on my limited experience, I thought the typical
mark-up was about three times. So if it's costing you around $7.00 to print each book, the price point should really be more in the neighborhood of $21.00 to $25.00. You obviously take much more of a hit selling through distributors than selling the product yourself. That's just the way it is.

And I'd also submit a fifth rule: If you're doing this to make money, you're doing it for the wrong reason. :)

Kevin

Future warfare? Read Iain M Banks 'Culture' novels where it's mostly about AI's subverting each other's systems and I reckon about as much fun to game as painting a fence.

Buy what feels good to you if it's New Vietnam or eight foot tall cyber guys don't sweat it.

"Based on my limited experience, I thought the typical mark-up was about three times. So if it's costing you around $7.00 to print each book, the price point should really be more in the neighborhood of $21.00 to $25.00."

Pre-internet, the basic rule of thumb for products sold in game stores through a distributor was that production cost was 10% to 20% of the retail cost, and you kept it as close to 10% as possible if you wanted to make any money instead of just breaking even.

"Giant mech stompy things DO fail basic physics, in terms of powerplants, and strength of materials."

I think this is the inherent problem that we're talking about.

Too many people saying "That's Impossible," and the game deteriorates back to WW2 and Vietnam with rayguns.

I totally disagree with you Arexu, I feel that given a hundred, hundred fifty years, material strengths, power plants and even battlefield tactics will evolve to the point where Heavy Gears or Gasaraki sized one-man AFVs would be feasible on the battlefield.

Even larger sized combat robots (like what we've seen in RoboCop and Terminator 3), could be feasible in the near future... And, THEY would be very tactically attractive to field commanders.

I'm not saying it can't be possible in the future -- nearly all sci-fi posits advances in technology, but what I see in Rotovator's statement of "hard in the sense of being ok with current scientific speculation, not violating basic physics"
to me says current or currently defineable materials, and no mech game I've played (yes, I play them, no I don't think of them as Hard or Realistic Sci-Fi) seems to be held to that standard.

Well, it's not what I meant. When I said "ok with current scientific speculation, not violating basic physics", the emphasis is on *speculation*, that's a bit wider than current egineering knowledge. We're talking sci-fi here, if everything can only be up to the current level of technilogy, "hard" sci-fi is a non-starter, and we should just scrap the concept & call it ultra-moderns or near-future warfare. Which probably means back to tanks & marines :-(

Perhaps we're trying to hard to quantify what "realistic" means in a futuristic-fictional environment.

I mean, let's face it, a hundred years ago, most people would call cell phones, super-sonic jets, nuclear missiles, and manned moon missions as "unrealistic."

We're trying to postulate advances in science all the while burdenning it with common knowledge ideals of realism. In a hundred years, hundred fifty years, what may seem as "realistic" would be fantastic to modern day thinking.

This, I would put forth a correction to Wolfe's #2 rule, which says, "2. Sci-fi games shouldn't bother trying to be "realistic". The market is indifferent."

Rather, Sci-Fi games should strive to be, not "realistic," but "reasonable."

You and I both know that a Warp Drive is "unrealistic," but, they make it reasonable to the point that, for me, it could be somewhat believable and good enough to generate a story.

Many define 'realistic' or 'reasonable' as using some aspects of current battles, namely morale and fire for supression. The 'reasonable' explination is that troops in the future will be similar to what they are today, but with better equipment.

On the other hand there are the 40k style science-fantasy games where chainsaws and melee weapons appear in the battle and troops can charge over open ground with only melee weapons and win the day.

We don't know which will actually come to pass or if future battles will be fought with nano-bots too small to see.

Anyway the differences in these styles is humorusly pointed out in the short story Ground Zero by Tim Sullivan ( warning, it is full of adult language ) :

link

StarRanger, thats a rather amusing piece :-) I never understood in 40K, why, after 38 thousand years, that just about every race in the galaxy reverted to 2-stroke chainsaws in order to kill each other....

I mean, surely all the petrol and 2-smoke oil would be used up by then ;-)

Black Lighting -- actually, we may end up having a warp-type drive at some point. A physicist, Miguel Alcubierre, found a means whereby a warp-type drive could work while still holding true to all of Einstein's rules. It would take a goddawful amount of energy (and negative energy at that) to do it -- but they think it's "possible"

You guys have all missed something about WH40K, I think. It is in fact a future where tiny robots are used to fight wars. Didn't anyone read The Secret Codex, which reveals that 40K is a 1:1 scale game? The aerodynamic properties of rockets that weigh 1g each is what keeps ranges so low, don't you know...

More seriously, I think the problem is some people assume that infantry will always be in the field, and thus basics of human psychology will hold true. If this is your basic assumption, I don't see how you break out of the "Vietnam in the future" problem. If you want psychology to be removed from the game, you have to postulate a change in the combatants: remote-controlled or autonomous robots, perhaps, or widespread use of combat drugs.

To be vaguely on topic, I think you can break "realism" for some basic assumptions: FTL travel works, or Mecha leg joints are stronger than tank turrent joints, or every player is controlling the hive mind of a separate anthill. These assumptions set the tone for your game. Once those are set, though, it's probably a good idea to keep realism intact based on those assumptions.

StarRanger,

The fact remains that GZG has not published a new book in over 5 years, and AFAIK, none are right around the corner either.

If publishing books was a major source of income for them, would they really do that?

As comparison, RPG companies (who sell books almost exclusively) put out at least a book per year, typically several books.

Yes, but for wargaming companies like GZG (or GW for that matter) the core business is miniatures. For whatever reason, wargamers don't buy nearly as many gaming supplements as roleplayers. Also, with games like Stargrunt, which are both pretty complete in their basic version and rather narrow in concept, coming up with something sufficiently new to justify publishing new supplements isn't easy. You can either put out "more of the same", but that has its limits, or risk losing the gritty near-future look & feel your highly critical audience is so attached to.

I would like very much to make a few points here,and I would also really like some feed-back.Unfortunatly I am fairly new to these boards as a contributer,although I have read posts on TMP for a couple of years. The point being, that I usually am ignored by others.Either because you folks don't know me,or you think I'm an idiot... ;p not really sure. :)

For WolfeGames I can tell you this, the formula you are looking for is alot more complicated then you are led to believe.I have been around,involved in ,worked in this hobby for about twenty-six of the last thirty-six years of my life.I've been running my own Game/hobby store for the last five years.I still don't fully understand what gamers really want AND(a very big AND)are willing to pay for.

The often repeated conversation of hard Sci-Fi vs Soft Sci-Fantasy is disscused to death but I think mostly misses the point.I won't bash any games here,differant strokes and all but....
As an example ...in WH40K, as in their own fluff....a seven foot tall 350pd geneticly altered super elite trooper in the 400pds of ceramic composite powered armour,with a minimum of a decade of combat training and indoctrination,thunders across a open battle field firing a rapid fire, 75caliber selp propelled, mass-reactive,implosive rocket round at a normal human enemy, at point blank range and.........

misses his target 33% of the time, and then if he hits his target,33% of the 75cal(thats 3/4 of an inch in diameter)rounds fail to acually render the target, combat ineffective.Not to mention that, then the normal human has a 50% chance of then stabbing super trooper with a combat knife,33% chance of inflicting fatal wound on said. Then there is the 33% chance that 400pds or powered armour fails to stop knife.

What we have above is a game system that talks hard Sci-Fi but delivers soft Sci-fantasy.The concepts they write of are not all impossible, but the outcomes, game and fluff wise are so improbable as to be laughable.

Looking at SGII then, what we see is a game that explores what is probable but shys away from what is possible. Example being....that with all their hi-tech sensors,satelite recon, command,control,and comms,they still can't reliably call for and recieve mortar support fire.Frankly real artillery is much easier and more accurate.I'm EX-Army so I'm speaking from real world experience on that point.

The thing I believe is missing from all Sci-Fi games is internal consistancy . If your going to use real phyicics and possibe science to explain your game world you cannot then completely ignore said same sciences in your game rules for ease of play, or out of laziness, or lack of grasp of basic reality(even if it is your own made up one!}

That to me is the essence of Hard vs Soft Sci-fi.The field is currently ruled by the"It seems to me..." crowd. If just one game system would be fun to play "AND" maintain internal consistency I think we would have a fantastic game and a profitable product.

What say you all?

I almost forgot to mention "Big Stompy Robots!" .A subject near and dear to my heart. Being an old M1A1 tanker I love Mecha walking tanks.Do I think they are probable...no. Are they possible.... yes. Most folks forget about the promises of Zero-G metalurgy so the material science is possibe.Are mecha feasible.Current thought says no ,but that doesn't mean there are no future reasons thay couldn't be.

Battle-Tech always fell down for me because according to the fluff they traveled using FTL drive ships, maintained 40ft tall fussion powered walking tanks,contolled by direct human-neural/machine interface with particle beam weapons,lasers and EM rail guns
but.......could not build basic optic targeting sights so they might resonalbly hit an enemy 40ft to 60f tall target at 500 yds!

Again no internal consistacy.

rotorvator,

You just prove my point: There ain't no money in publishing hard SF miniature wargame rules. Miniatures, yes, but not in the books.

If there was money in it, I really doubt GZG would neglect their publishing schedule like they have.

They could easily put out a booklet of StarGrunt TO&Es and scenarios, DirtSide vehicle designs, consolidated FT2.5 rulebook (though that one depends a bit on how many original FT books are still collecting dust in Jon's basement).

The fact that they do not tells something of how worthwhile such a venture is, _even_ with a good established audience.

Does that look like a market you would like to enter?

Silent Dark might have received more success if it had been sold as a RPG. Roleplayers are much less tight about plonking money on books, as books are pretty much the only thing they buy. Or a hybrid RPG/wargame, like Heavy Gear.

Facts of life sadly, and not only in hard SF. We have a lead addiction to fund, fancy stuff like rulebooks or supplements is extra, particularly when you've arrived at the point where you have gained enough insight in gamesystems to do your own stuff. And you don't really need written fluff, for miniature gamers it's the toy soldiers & terrain on the table that fuel the imagination. To be honest I'd rather check out the original books/comics/movies/art by which new games are almost always inspired than buy a rulebook giving me rulesconcepts I'm already familiar with and a not so highly original background story. For Stargrunt/Dirtside you can get more ideas from reading publications on contemporary military trends, for big stompy robots check out japanimation, etc. The only exception are books with very good quality graphics, which is stuff I buy in general, even outside of my gaming interests.

Kreig Geist,

If you mean that rules should match fluff I'm with you, I've seen people quit WH40K over this, but if you mean games should match current science or assumptions as to how technology is applied, then no, even though that is important for some people (many Stargrunt players for example), most don't lose any sleep over it. Many sci-fi gamers are into "gametype" games, not the kind of "simulation" gaming that is popular with historical people. It should also be noted that you won't become aware of any internal consistency problems until you've studied the game more or less closely or played a couple of times, which in case of a new game means you probably already bought the book ;-) Internal consistency might help you keep players and expand later on by word of mouth reputation, but it won't help in initially acquiring a following.

Wow, this is a discussion! Regardless of disagreeing with several points, I thank Wolfe for starting a heated dialog that brings out interesting and diverse perspectives on SF gaming. Naturally, I want to add my own take and opinion on this genre of gaming.

Simply put, I read Starship Troopers, and although the movie was good in its own right, they left the best, and most realistic, part of far future combat out of the film. Heinlein's classic novel has the troopers flying (stress flying) around in super armor, firing nuclear weapons at the "bugs." I have not read the novel in 30 years, but I believe that is fairly accurate.

When GW released 40K, the first thing that struck me was that, massing your troops to face high tech weaponry would not be an option, or at least not one that any sane commander would choose. Blasting the enemy from as far away as possible would be my choice, but I guess that does not make for much of a game, and the Citadel miniatures are great. It has been explained to me that GW has some rationale about preserving artifacts and environments for the 40K approach to SF war gaming.

As far as game design goes, why try to do what GW has already (over) done; what is the point of that? If you do not have something original (meaning at least a variation or new spin on the subject matter or rules of the games) why would anyone want it? That being said, if it is just for fun, it works for you and no one getting hurt, enjoy.

"""""Here are the 4 Rules:
1. Games are entertainment products. Period.

2. Sci-fi games shouldn't bother trying to be "realistic". The market is indifferent.""""""

damn straight! i think both these rules are actually the same IMO. everything you watch and read is fantasy. even if its non fiction, its FANTASY. do authors and designers cover every butt wiping moment of the heroes? every phone call, all the leg work, every conversation? no, they skip around, ignore boring parts, and give you the highlights strung together. anyone who cries for realism would fall asleep if they ever truly encountered it.

not to mention people who complain about future technologies based off todays tech! impossible! given as little as 50 years something could come along and entirely sweep the market making it completely different in 70 years. ask people in ww1, did they see computers coming? ask people in ww2, did they see nano technology coming? the fact is anyone trying to tell you your wrong past a certain realistic time period is wrong themselves. in the future we could use water as ammunition that cuts through steel. or lasers, or find new clean delayed propellants that use shells again. smart bullets, gauss rifles, rail guns, anything goes because anything can happen and anyone who claims they can see 100 years from now as fact is utterly retarded. there are probables based off of what we know, but never certanties!

""""3. Fiction is far more important that science, when it comes to sci-fi.""""

very insightful. i believe its the fantasy in the science is what appeals to people. scifi is by its very definition fantasy. fantasy is imagination projected into the past. scifi is imagination projected onto the future. there is no such thing as "realistic" in a far projected future because anything could happen!

""""""4. Game designers shouldn't even bother worrying about people who get upset about rules 1, 2 and 3- you can never please them, and they don't spend money."""""""

exactly. if they complain they dont like it, they are not giving you money. if your doing what you like at the end of the day and you arent hurting for cash then your focus should be on those who paid you and how to build that user base to make those who paid you happy. face it, if everyone was already doing what we like, then we wouldnt be doing anything!

"""""The results? The next sci-fi games I publish will have backstories and art direction much more like 40K's, and much *less* effort will be spent on trying to make things "realistic"- it didn't market well, and I had to deal with countless idiots wasting my time."""""

well hey, i say, if you like doing it and you think it will sell then go balls to the wall and damn them all! why are you doing this? because theres something in your head that wants to get out. evaluate the market, and if theres room for you and yours then do it your way. if others can easily interject onto you what they want then you have to consider how "solid" your "idea" is to begin with. if you dont have any vision, then what will you make? a slop of suggestions stitched together? superman, batman, gi joe, ninja turtles, transformers, xmen, all have glaring faults. but no one cares. they stick to a fun fantasy filled vision and explore it to the fullest and we all enjoy.

""""Let the flaming begin..."""""

nah man, no flaming here, all your comments are realistic and insightfull. good luck on your next project.

Glad to see someone bring up Starship Troopers, the real book not the movie. The book always has and still to this day fascinates me as a possible futuristic warfare.

You could really have a great game with that kind of stuff. Elements of it have been seen in many games, but nobody has captured enough of it to truly make it work. You need powered armor, multiple guns onboard, jump jets for limited flight capability, and so forth. That would make a spectacular skirmish based wargame.

Simplified with levels of flight, flight stands, or somesuch, it would still combine ground and air war together in one armored package.

How about someone working something out along those lines? In video games, the Starsiege universe has captured a lot of this with the Tribes line of games: Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, and the latest Tribes Vengeance. Featuring limited flight, powered armor, multiple weapons on the suits.

Great stuff and I wish someone would make a game like it. Miniatures as well.

Hey Mel. Great point about the cost and perceieved value of that pricing from the customers. I agree about figuring out IF it makes economic sense to publish or not. I posted that back on page one of this discussion. I also think that Underling brought up a GREAT point. If you are in this to make money you probably aren't being very realistic. Even the larger companies often don't make much money. Even IF the rules are good you MUST determine IF it's worth your time and effort. Obviously, in this case the author feels it wasn't. I believe he probably should have seen that when he was looking at a 40 dollar retail price. I believe his expectations simply weren't realistic. I'll be publishing soon. My retail will be under 20 dollars and I WILL be also selling PDF's. I will be using Print on Demand. i don't expect to get rich or make much money. I think guys like Ed at THW have the plan. Put up a dozen or more rule sets and you can start to make a little cash based on volume rather than price per copy. I hope to do something similar (even if on a smaller scale).

Thanks,

John

"And I'd also submit a fifth rule: If you're doing this to make money, you're doing it for the wrong reason."

I have to agree with underlingtoo on this point. I'm new to publishing, but I have no delusions. I've known for a long time that the gaming industry is a harsh one as far as returns go. (Can't help but drawing an anology to trying to make money in the game publishing world to playing Ultima Online, where for most of a character's life he could make more money chopping wood and building chairs than adventuring.)

But that's not why I decided to publish. I make games because I LOVE playing games. And, somewhere along the way, I decided I'd share the games I like to play with others. The only reason I even charge money for my games is so that I can, hopefully, make more games. (And buy more minis, although I know 100% of the profits should be put back into the business! :P) Heck, with a huge dose of luck, I might even be able to make my games prettier in the process. (We all have dreams.)

What it really should come down to is love for the hobby. Yeah, we'd all like to be rich and famous, but the reality of it is that we have a better chance of doing it by winning the lottery. If you're looking to get rich quick - or get rich *period* - this probably isn't the way to do it.

I bet that WolfeGames' reasoning was much the same. (I could be wrong, but I'm being optimistic.) But when we put so much of our blood, sweat, and tears into creating and marketing our games, it's easy to lose sight of the reason in favor of the dream.

Okay, enough waxing poetic - here's a "hard" comment about the topic:

There's a lot of talk about what goes into the game, i.e., are the rules more sci or more fi. And granted, these are important discussions. But as important, if not moreso, is the golden rule of consumerism: marketing is the key to success.

All the talk about the nature of a game is nice, but don't forget: most of the people you want to sell to know nothing about the nature of your game. They only know what they've been told, be it from friends, game reviews, marketing materials, etc.

You can see this in action when you walk into your local game store. Sure, there are lots of great games on the shelves, but only a few have the presence of GW games: posters everywhere, a large section devoted to GW product, probably at least one table of GW games being played. In light of this, few smaller publishers stand much of a chance, regardless of the quality of their games or their intended audience.

Add to this GW's ability to market beyond the gaming niche - in retail book stores, toy stores, etc. The GW infernal marketing machine is an awesome thing to behold.

But remember, GW wasn't always huge - but it was like a rabid pitbull. The games it made were good enough to make it popular in its niche, from whence it slowly grew and grew. What made GW successful was only partially the quality of their products - it was just as much due to their failure to give up on them; and even moreso on their willingness to morph them in ways that their customers wanted.

IMHO:

I think it comes down to a simple question: are you in the business because you love the hobby and love your game(s), or are you in the business for money?

If your answer is the former, I'd say stick with it. Make the best game you can make it, but don't compromise your art (yes, I called it "art") for the sake of $$$. (I think one of the reason some folks got upset with WolfeGames' initial post was that it was interpreted as a "I just want money" sellout.)

If your answer is the latter, I think you're in the wrong business. It's a very small niche, full of consumers with limited funds and limited time. And unless you've got either the Holy Grail of games or a ton of marketing capital, you're not going to last against the likes of GW for very long. (And even if you have these, it's a crap shoot.)

Either way, I wish anyone who makes a go at publishing his or her game the very best. :)

Chris (Game Werks)

Wow. This topic's still around? Where's the weedkiller when I need it?

Seriously speaking, for all of you that didn't read the front-page news... we've released Silent Dark as a free PDF. We figured that since we were paying for website hosting anyway, and sales of the game were really weak (i.e., practically non-existent) that we'd just put it out for free. It seems to have been a popular decision- thus far, over 4X the number of people who bought the game have downloaded it :)

I remember a science fiction story written by Mary Shelley (of "Frankenstein" fame). It was an end of theworld story set in the late 20th century (a plague was killing aeverybody), and had the Irish and the English fighting it out with muskets and bayonets.