Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Hi everyone,

In case you hadn't noticed yet, in the Fantasy section at RPGnow there is a subcategory specifically for OSRIC, right next to C&C and others...

http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=_1_14&

This should be good for visibility and getting the brand name out there.

Dan

Most righteous.

That is pretty cool.

Holy crap. Did one of our publishers do that, or did RPGnow somehow do it by themselves? Anyone know?

I think they did it on their own, unless XRP had them do it. I think they have noticed more and more OSRIC stuff coming out and decided to make this category.

"This product is a 12 page pdf adventure for the OSRIC (Oldschool System Reference and Index Compilation) system, a gaming system that is quickly gaining popularity judging by the number of products released for it."

-- quote from the staff review of Medusa's Hunger.

Odd. I always thought popularity was gauged by sales, but if they're approaching it from the number of products released...

Great news! I think so many people have the download now that sales aren't the only consideration. I know the buzz is strong.

SemajTheSilent wrote:Odd. I always thought popularity was gauged by sales, but if they're approaching it from the number of products released...

Yeah, "popularity" is a relative term. I can see, though, from their perspective why it would get its own category based on product number. Otherwise, all these products go into generic "Fantasy." Clearly, OSRIC is not generic, it is approaching a (relatively) greater product number and getting these into some classification makes it easier for customers to find what they are looking for.

However, here is something to consider. In terms of sales rank (volume) for November as of today at this moment, Goblinoid Games is ranked at #51 out of 282 at RPGnow. All of the other companies who sell OSRIC materials are ranked higher, but also consider that they sell d20 stuff as well. Goblinoid Games only sells OSRIC material (at least so far). Goblinoid Games has only been around for about a month (minus a few days).

So although being ranked 51 is not too impressive, that is based solely on OSRIC sales by a new company. Note that sales rank and dollars earned rank are very different things. I won't say where we rank there just now but suffice it to say it is much lower than 51.

So I guess the point is this...add what I just said to what is probably pretty good sales of OSRIC stuff from XRP, Ronin Arts, and Mob United, and yeah I think it is reasonable that RPGnow would see OSRIC products as a gaining area in terms of both product numbers and sales volume.

Dan Proctor
Goblinoid Games

Very cool news, indeed. Mucho congrats on your success, guys!

Hey guys,

I only now got acccess to the publisher forums, and saw a thread where they did indeed add the OSRIC category based on product numbers. Just thought you'd want to know.

Dan

In Oct and so far for this month OSRIC products have accounted for roughly 35-40% of my sales and for around 12-15% of my revenue. But I haven't released any new OSRIC material in roughly two weeks so I'd expect that to be slighly higher had I continued with my more aggressive release schedule. I hope to rectify that in the next few days.

joe b.

Thanks for the info Joe!

*nods*

I have the impression that for publishers, OSRIC is a qualified success.

I have the impression that profit margins per unit are relatively low. I think that partly that's because of publishers pricing aggressively in order to establish themselves in a new market, and partly because the audience is quite demanding in terms of expected value for money.

But equally, I have the impression that the new marketplace is producing relatively high sales volumes compared to the saturated d20 .pdf market.

I think that the publishers aren't really in competition with each other, in that the purchasers can afford everything that everyone put together puts out.

I also think that we've all finished testing the waters and proving the concept. I think the extent of the market is tolerably well-established and now there might be some potential opportunity for the various publishers to get together and put together a coherent combined marketing strategy.

The idea wouldn't be to sell products directly, but to try to find ways to market the OSRIC concept/system to new prospective purchasers who weren't previously aware of OSRIC, and to raise awareness levels generally among those who have read the name but found that the system slips under their radar.

Any interest?

It's listed as "Fantasy Old-School" on the left-hand menu. That threw me for a bit of a loop.

Here's a direct link.