I've been so busy with Dicey Tales and life in general that I haven't had much time to keep up with whats going on in the gaming industry. Funny thing the "industry" used to be a bunch of companies like TSR, GDW, I.C.E, WOTC, White Wolf and Steve Jackson games. I always imagined these to be regular businesses with an office, a staff, and all the traditional trappings of a small to medium sized business (cubicles, copy machines, water coolers, cure receptionists, etc.). But now it seems that the traditional company is less and less a presence. Oh there are still the Big boys like WOTC and Steve Jackson, but since the creation of PDF software and the "open license", the playing field has really opened up, and in some ways, been weakened.
I was at a store called Gamescape in San Francisco this weekend. Gamescape has been a Mecca for bay area gamers for more than 30 years. It's still every bit a wonderland that it has always been for me, but i couldn't seem to part with any of my money to buy a hardcopy of a game. they were just too damn expensive. and the reason they were so expensive is the same reason textbooks are so expensive- the print runs are so small that the cost of printing them is driven up. I saw the new supers game Icons there. the price tag was like 30 dollars. I winced, and set it back on the shelf. Back in the day I would have picked it up in a heartbeat, but these days I start thinking about all the other choices I have, the more affordable choices I have, and all the other supers games I have sitting at home on my hard drive.
All those thoughts gave me the freedom to say no. but it also helped contribute to the problem in the first place.
No sale = a smaller print run next time = a higher price per copy.
None of that had anything to do with the Icons game itself (although my experience with products from Adamant have been hit and miss), but the fact that Icons was an unknown entity to me helped make my decision to not buy it, a lot easier.
Thrilling Hero Adventures is a collection of Pulp adventures that were all previously released as PDF downloads, which are all sitting on my hard drive- go figure.
Hey Jeffy,
ReplyDeleteSuperhero rpg's are my kryptonite and I did pick up ICONS, since I am a big fan of Steve Kenson as well as a fan of low crunch games.. I got say that ICONS is a pretty sweet read and the random character creation is a lot fun.A nice system and the art is the book is a lot of fun too..
I have yet to GM it, but I will soon...
If I get a PDF and then have it printed and bound it costs me about the same as the book version. PDF is cheaper only if you're reading it off a screen.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of interesting that you mention Thrilling Hero Adventures and Adamant Entertainment in the same post. I checked out how much the PDF for Thrilling Hero Adventures was on DriveThru RPG ($21.99, by the way - you got a deal) and I noticed that some of the names of the adventures it contained sounded very familiar. Turns out that they are actually being adapted by Adamant for Savage Worlds, under their Thrilling Tales line. So far, they've only released The Malay Coins and The Radio Marauders, but I just thought you mentioning those two in the same post was some sort of serendipity.
ReplyDeleteYou can buy HackMaster Basic from Kenzerco for $15 PDF, $20 softcover or $30 for both.
ReplyDeleteIt's a complete game.
http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_94&products_id=670
I volunteer for the company, but enjoy playing the game myself.