Now for the list:
Brave the Labyrinth Issue #1 - LL 'zine
Knowledge Illuminates - a S&W Campaign Starter
Teratic Tome - and amazing monster book for the OSR
SlaughterGrid - the latest from +Rafael Chandler
The Grinding Gear - a barely survivable Tomb of Horrors
Death Frost Doom - Raggi likes three word titles, don't he? ;)
People of Pembrooktonshire - three words again...
No Dignity in Death: The Three Brides - well, there is a "three" in the
title ;)
Minor Magiks & Miscellaneous Arcana Volume I - hey, is that my name in the credits? ;)
Dungeon Crawl #2 an old school fanzine
Chronicles of Mhoriedh Map 00 Olden Lands Continent - maps for James Mishler's campaign world
AL1: Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror - an excellent DCC RPG adventure by +Daniel Bishop
Dyson's Dodecahedron - series of 6 issues of a very useful OSR zine by the master mapper himself.
I really hate offers like that. I might very well pay something for these, but I will probably stay away from any item where I have to do the work pricing it. Or am I mistaken? Are these meant to be for free or is there some kind of pricing range that they have set up for them?
ReplyDeleteI'm not paying for a lap-dance till I know the going rate and not paying at all or paying too little just insults the dancer.
You can pick them up for free and then, after deciding what they're worth, go back and pay for it.
ReplyDeleteThey all have suggested pricing on the original listings.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteTo early to tell whether this is a good thing, a gimic, or a fad. It seemed to be kicked off by Raggi at a recent Con he tried this out at and others are joining in on the idea. I find it interesting though, that even Raggi's stuff is not all PWYW on DriveThru. So, it leads me to believe that this is a way to drum up revenue on items that have stagnated in sales.I don't think that's a bad thing, but I wouldn't appreciate a publisher replacing items they would otherwise offer for free with PWYW. It is nice that DriveThru does give a recommended price to guage by. There will be more discussion to come on this subject, I'm sure, but I can't really complain about publishers attempting this approach and I don't feel it's a gamble on the buyer or sellers part. So, that's a win.
ReplyDeleteActually its the release of Evil Hat's FATE Core & Fate Accelerated which started it off, since Evil Hat asked for PWYW at DriveThru who made it available for all.
ReplyDeleteHere's Fred Hicks's reasoning behind it
http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2013/06/pwyw/
Newt, I find it interesting that Fred states that PWYW is not a sales strategy, but instead is a marketing strategy. Yet, all his "reasonings" are based on sales. Bottom line is, if it's not a sales strategy, then why not offer it for free and get the same marketing exposure as a result? This is not to put PWYW in a bad light- I'm just not buying his argument.
DeleteAlso, if you host a really successful Kickstarter like that, it's a very different economic position to do this. It might be marketing, but then the KS backers have paid for the marketing of the FATE Core system to ever wider audiences.
DeleteWhich is fair enough, the man is running a business and has provided a lot of content for even the 10$ backers.
I got the excellent Teratic Tome and now I'am going to get the printed copy, and I also got other thin but I have yet to read through them
ReplyDeleteDeath Frost Doom, Grinding Gear, Pembrookshire, Three Brides, and Dancing Horror are no longer pay what you want. :( Good list, though.
ReplyDeleteI think Pay What You Want is a way of providing product for people to use or check out on the assumption that this is a small cul de sac of a hobby when most people sorta know each other and there's a DIY ethos. Thus letting people look at your stuff and use it is a big part of the reason for making stuff. A lot of it is wanting to get one's stuff out into the world, a lot of it is the assumption that a fellow hobbyist who likes your work is likely to buy the print copy if the PDF impresses - because hobbyists want to support other hobbyists and are collectors.
ReplyDeleteDIY, all the way. It's a fantastic thing.
ReplyDelete