The Trolls have turned to running their own crowd funded projects (Bluffside is their latest) for a bit now. They still use Amazon Payments, but they get to cut Kickstarter out, which I'm sure helps their profit margins (even if it does lose them some visibility).
Now it appears the are doing some crowdfunding via RPGNow, as you get to preorder a book that will be released in dribs and drabs over the course of many months.
Under a sky of blue, lies our vibrant world, where life blossoms in the green spring, or lays in repose in red autumn. But beneath the green, beneath the red, lies the cold, hard ground. Here the roots of things cut the earth, devouring what it holds. Small creatures dig and burrow and worms grow fat on the still dirt. Deeper still lie subterranean worlds, caves, where rock crawls upon spirals of time, creeping from pools of quiet that lap the shores of darkness. And beyond the darkness, beyond all sense, lies a gulf of empty fear, where our demons lurk.
Born with twisted thought, tainted with stains of malice, these are creatures unkempt. Foul of sight and smell, sunk in the darkness of the time's caverns, the dwell in an abyss, in hell, in the Wretched Plaines of shadow and loss. These are the demons. These are the devils.
Kim Hartsfield, author of the wildly popular, Classic Monsters (the poor man's Tome of Horrors Complete - well done and a decent price), returns to bring us Tome of the Unclean. Revisiting those demons and devils of the earlier publications you'll find the Demogorgan, Asmodeous, Amon, Mammoth and more in this, the next volume of monsters for your Castles & Crusades game!
IN THIS INSTALLMENT: This first installment contains 3 Monsters!
Every 2-3 weeks we are going to update your copy of Tomb of the Unclean with new monsters, building the book as we go. (at the rate of a monster a week, say 2 pages per monster, we are looking at a year before this completes - but they get my money up front - do I even get credit towards buying a physical copy?)
Tome of the Unclean, once complete, will contain close to 100+ pages (how can one be "close to 100+ pages?" shouldn't it be "close to 100 pages?") of demons and devils, revisiting old ones and introducing new ones. The book is slated for release in 2014! It will have a cover charge of $19.99 and the digital will go on sale at $14.99. Order today and you pay only $9.99!So, basically I can give you 10 bucks up front for bits and pieces over a year, or I can wait until it's done and pay 15 bucks. Or wait until it's nearly done and pay $10? maybe?
It has to be better then the serial Adventure "Beneath the Dome". Which, by the way, has some really fucked up pricing. The four individual pieces were $2.99 each, but the subscription for all four was $9.99. Yet i you buy the completed adventure, it's $6.99. Apparently, the cheaper version is the "cohesive" version - so you were screwed if you subscribed - paid more, got a poorer package.
The subscription for Beneath The Dome gets you all 4 parts as single pieces, as well as the final completed piece that retails on its own.The final piece changes a bunch of stuff and integrates it all, but somewhat complicates it, so having the individual pieces makes it easier to run seeing as it's meant to be be run multiple times with time passing between each run.
ReplyDeletenot explained at all with the products in question - and i have the first part, which kinda sucked IMHO
DeleteThey tried a similar "off-Kickstarter" (or other established crowdfunding site) crowdfunding project with the Free City of Eskadia (technically a preorder). It even had stretch goals if I recall.
ReplyDeleteWolfgang Baur had been doing this since around 2006 with his Open Design projects. They were run from his own site using PayPal as the payment method. More recent projects were run from Kickstarter. Steven D. Russell has done similar with his Rite Publishing projects.
This is the first I recall RPGNow/DriveThruRPG being used as the preorder/funding method (unofficially seemingly, though I'm sure Troll Lords passed this by OBS to be safe). Toughest thing about the Off-Kickstarter method is visibility, but using OBS might close some of that gap.
Subscription/advance pricing can be really hard to get right, because you risk sending the signal that what you charge later is a rip off or if you change pricing later upsetting the people who thought they were getting a deal and supporting a project.
ReplyDeleteSubscription/advance pricing can be really hard to get right, because you risk sending the signal that what you charge later is a rip off or if you change pricing later upsetting the people who thought they were getting a deal and supporting a project.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have Bluffside and -- for me -- it's "alright," but no that impressive. So . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd doesn't repeat Kickstarters imply that they didn't make any money with the first project? Just curious.
You have a copy of the C&C version of Bluffside?
DeleteI just got the PDF tonight - haven't really looked at it yet
DeleteHow unclean is the tome going to be? I'm going to need an emphatic "filthy" if I'm going to throw in some money.
ReplyDeleteThe monster is wearing shorts. Deal-breaker for me...
ReplyDeleteAh, but they are the infamousInfernal Y-Fronts of Damnable Domination, as that poor knight will find out shortly after the demon overwhelms his pitiful party...
DeleteThis sort of patronage deal was proposed some time ago, somewhere on a blog or forum, and much discussed at the time. I wish I could remember where... the main crux of it was that the method would enable the publisher to release a product as it developed and continually improve it over time. I think the method was discussed as an outgrowth of online serialized novels and such...
ReplyDelete