Gamer Lifestyle

Always an interesting read from a Gamer Lifestyle perspective is Matt Sprange’s annual state of the union address about Mongoose and the RPG industry:
State of the Mongoose Address

This week Hannah Lipsky of Chaotic Shiny released her first Gamer Lifestyle product. Congratulations Hannah. It was a pleasure reading Martial Flavor. I’ll be using at least two clans for my upcoming Pathfinder RPG campaign. Well done.
A few hours ago I received the following question by email:
Hannah’s selling Martial Flavour for $20. It’s a good [...]

I’m looking at two game world products on RPGNow. Both talk about nations, history, races, locations, NPCs, flora and fauna, etc. Both are titled “World of XYZ” where XYZ is the name of the setting. There are many other game worlds available at RPGNow. These are just two.
Now put yourself in the designers’ shoes. They [...]

Many up and coming publishers, designers, and writers aim to release a print product immediately. This is a mistake. They should release a PDF, ebook, or digital version first. Here’s why.
Very low retail penetration vs. the world online
Unless you already have distributor relationships and retailers know your products sell well, you won’t break into retail. [...]

Boost newsletter or RSS subscriptions by offering an incentive. Ditto with products – increase sales by offering something at no charge to attract an audience and the type of gamer who would be interested in your offering.
Free means no risk to check out. It is also a clear signal for gamers to pass around the [...]

Zach has another great post about PDFs as lead-in products. It’s primarily feedback for print publishers, but good reading for all RPG content creators.
http://www.rpgblog2.com/2009/08/pdfs-as-lead-in-product.html

Thanks to RPG Blog II for this useful reference post about Supported Systems at RPGNow.
Game designers take note. This is also a great list for adventure / supplement writers wondering the potential market size and competition levels of  your system-of-choice.

The 100 best selling products of 2008 at RPGNow list is available at RPGCountdown.
http://rpgcountdown.com/2008
For Gamer Lifestylers, this is a great opportunity to check out the competition and trends for the type of products you might be considering building.

Forget all about branding
Marketers like to bandy lofty terms around such as branding and engagement. Truth is, most marketers differ on the basic concepts. Who’s right?
As always, it turns out the customer is right.
At my previous job I wrote down my definition of marketing. I wanted to find out what the marketing department thought the [...]

Yax and I are very inspired by Monte’s newest labour of love and business endeavour, Dungeonaday.com. We spoke with Monte to ask him about this great new project, where he got the idea from, and whether he thinks there’s still room in the market for new RPG products.