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"Dux Bellorum Sold Out" Topic


Dux Bellorum

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Personal logo Editor in Chief Bill The Editor of TMP Fezian24 Aug 2012 7:16 p.m. PST

Osprey reports that copies of their new medieval ruleset have sold out; a new printing should be available starting next week.

79thPA Supporting Member of TMP24 Aug 2012 7:43 p.m. PST

That was fast, wasn't it? I wonder what their original run was.

Mako1124 Aug 2012 7:45 p.m. PST

Yea, I always wonder about that stuff too, like how many copies of Legends of the High Seas Pirate rules, and others are/were sold over the years.

Curious to know if the print runs are in the hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of units, for the latter.

jameshammyhamilton25 Aug 2012 2:08 a.m. PST

It is always safer for a publisher to err on the low side with a print run. Games and rules seem to be highly impacted by the cult of the new or Ooooh shiny :) syndrome. Also being sold out at Osprey does not mean sold out in the supply chain.

All that said it is great news for Osprey and shows that wargaming is still a healthy enough hobby.

How many did they print? Good question but I would be surprised if it was not a few thousand.

Tgunner25 Aug 2012 5:44 a.m. PST

It's good news to Daniel too! He wrote Glutter of Ravens, his first published wargame, over 10 years ago. So maybe this will encourage him to make more games and show Osprey that this new line of wargames is worth continuing. Now a days it seems like you have to shell out $50 USD to get new rulebooks that have nice illustrations and color rules examples. Osprey just did that with a set of books that cost less than $20 USD and they are good rulesets too.

Sounds like a win/win situation to me!

John Leahy Sponsoring Member of TMP25 Aug 2012 7:06 a.m. PST

I believe that unless Osprey has it as a large release ala FOG the run is 2000 to 3000 copies.

Thanks,

John

Cincinnatus25 Aug 2012 10:59 a.m. PST

There is also risk in undersizing the print run too. Two separate print runs are not as efficient as a single large one. Doing a small one cuts your risk but if you completely misjudge the demand (which is obvious when something sells out so quickly) you also just cost yourself money. Along with now have the same risk of doing a second print run and finding the market is saturated and you are still stuck with 2000 copies no one wants.

Spreewaldgurken25 Aug 2012 11:20 a.m. PST

"It is always safer for a publisher to err on the low side with a print run."

Actually, no. For one thing, there's the time-lag (often a few months) in printing, from sending the proofs to actually being able to ship the goods to customers, so if you run out too quickly, you end up frustrating a lot of people and thus losing sales. More fundamentally, the smaller the print run, the higher the per-unit cost. It's very difficult to guess correctly what your demand will be, so do you print a small run, and lose a lot of money because your costs are higher… then risk having to guess again and print another small run and lose more…

Or do you gamble and go Big, print a big run at low cost, and then pray that you sell enough to cover the higher overall investment.

I've seen horror stories on both ends. I know a guy who printed 10k copies of his game book, because it was so unbelievably cheap per unit… and then only sold about 500 of them, and ended up losing tens of thousands of dollars. And I know several people who were conservative and printed only a few thousand books, and then sold out quickly, and had to scramble to put together a new order, and sunk all the money they'd just made into a second printing, which then only sold a few hundred more copies, and thus they ended up barely breaking even, after years of work.

jameshammyhamilton25 Aug 2012 12:25 p.m. PST

It is safer to do a short run. If it sells out then you can consider the risk of a reprint. You will not make as much money from a 2000 run that could generate 3000 sales as you would if you printed 3000 even if you look at a reprint but that is nothing to do with safer.

What is certain is that with a 2000 run you cannot possibly lose more than the cost of 2000 units hence it is by definition safer.

There are many people in the games 'industry' who have made far too many copies of something that didn't sell because it was 'cheaper' to make more copies who are now sat on a garage full of unsold stock and a very definite loss.

Cincinnatus25 Aug 2012 1:09 p.m. PST

If you are a one man band doing this as a hobby, then the least risky move is probably the best. But if you are a real company trying to pay the bills, taking the least risky option in the short run can lead to sub optimal return on your time and investment. Do that too much and you go out of business just the same.

Happy Little Trees25 Aug 2012 9:19 p.m. PST

They are a few Print-on-Demand services for the advanced hobbyist to put out their rules. I've bought several RPG books that were never going to end up in a FLGS. I don't think there are any up front costs, but I don't actually know that for sure.

Dave Crowell26 Aug 2012 5:13 p.m. PST

I am sure Osprey are pretty good at estimating the demand for their products and how large a print run should be.

For Dux Bellorum to have sold so quickly and demand to be high enough hat Osprey is doing an immediate second print run says that it must be quite popular indeed.

Good news for Dan Mersey, good news for Osprey and good news for gamers.

Even for gamers with no interest in Arthurian Britain this is good news. It demonstrates to Osprey that here is a market for Wargames rules of the size and format of Dux Bellorum, this makes it more likely that further games of this sort will be published.

Keraunos27 Aug 2012 3:38 a.m. PST

quite a contrast to the reaction to FoG being printed by the same people.

(although not quite the same thing, I think we all knew FoG would be a big seller to the competition market and would kick off with a half dozen suppliments).

But good news, and I have seen copies in our club already – although no game as yet – and I did see a couple of GoR games a decade ago.

Lord Raglan27 Aug 2012 12:23 p.m. PST

Its still available on ebay.

Raglan

Midpoint27 Aug 2012 2:35 p.m. PST

I'm with Sam.

The financial attractiveness of a second run [say 1,000 compared to the first run of 2,000] is much less as the per-unit cost is very significantly higher. These costs aren't so much for the physical materials as for the time taken and the setup/opportunity costs for the printers.

Ideally you'd print the exact number that were demanded in the first run. If you know of anyway to do that you could make yourself rich.

If you are publishing a series of books – or indeed any series of products – then after the first couple you have a stream of data, so I would guess Osprey got a lot better at estimating print numbers for FoG supplements. I would further guess that those numbers have informed the decision about print runs for Dux Bellorum and World of Flame, but I would bet they went for lower numbers.

I should also note that if you can't find a print copy of Dux Bellorum then there is the alternative of the Kindle version.

Oh Bugger28 Aug 2012 5:16 a.m. PST

Got my copy today via ebay so its still about. I has very nice production values.

Wulfgar29 Aug 2012 6:50 p.m. PST

About a week before the general print release, Amazon had sold well over a thousand pre-orders for the Kindle. Undoubtedly the number is higher now. Barnes and Noble was also selling a version for the Nook, but I've seen no numbers for that version yet.

kabrank30 Aug 2012 6:40 a.m. PST

Has anyone looked at using this set for 100 Years War/Wor as the leadership dynamics should still apply?

von pumpernickel02 Sep 2012 12:36 p.m. PST

for those of you with ipads – its available on ibooks, and so is a world aflame :) £9.99 GBP in the UK

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