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January 31st, 2018, 07:40 #11
I think that is a fairly good summation of it -
If you are new and getting started DMsGuild is probably the best place to start.
If you are established and making some money then the restrictions on DMsG would limit you.
The DMsG is not inherently bad - its just not for everyone.
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August 12th, 2018, 02:58 #12
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I respectfully disagree and will update everyone here with three addendum made to that post.
2b) ^^^^ has ripple effects. It means that not only are there zero (0) paid work-for-hire gigs for designers outside of EN5ider (email me to get on the list for the next open call), it means there's less money (often none at all) to hire developers, editors, illustrators, and layout artists.
2c) ^^^ means the death of specializations. I'm able to do all the things competently except for illustrate and it has taken me 5 years to reach that point (of 60-80 hour weeks, with less than 10 days off altogether, 24 if you count one trip out of the country). That was difficult for me to do and I don't have kids. The underlying issue is that it forces amateur material onto the marketplace (even if the design is stellar, odds are not great that the person can also pay for an artist, competently edit themselves, or do solid layout). This drops customer expectations for quality products and explains how the price ceiling on products at DMsGuild dropped to being a few inches off the floor.
2d) No crowdfunding. Burn up some capital for that DMsGuild product because you can't run a Kickstarter for it (legally, anyway).
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August 12th, 2018, 03:40 #13
DMsGuild makes lots of sense for the Wizards because they do not need to dedicate resources to handling the huge amount of unsolicited submissions they would receive - go to DMsGuild, follow license/agreement and publish away. It makes sense for wannabe publishers because now they do not need to search for elusive approval/license etc - they have it already.
If your product is going to earn you $X but you want to hire artists, layout, design etc and it will cost you $2X then dont do it unless its part of a broader scheme. The fact that you cant do everything you want to because of cost doesnt make it an unfair system - its just a reality. Start smaller, work out what to drop so you can do it for $X. Once you have a presence and a following you will start to earn $2X for your products and people start finding your back catalogue too.
There are plenty of 3PP creating content for 5E and selling them on other platforms including RPGnow/DriveThruRPG.
As to the next wave of game designers, how does this affect them? DMsG is only for 5e. I believe there are lots of high quality RPGs being published today. More or less than other times - I dont know that answer - but I do believe that many new RPGs are better mechanically and in production quality than historical indie RPGs.
The DMsG has its role. It opens up a massive channel to a lot of people with few barriers to entry. Yes you limit re-use of the material outside of the DMsG - so go in eyes wide open.
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August 12th, 2018, 03:58 #14
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Oh no doubt DMs Guild makes a lot of sense for WotC (or I argue, more importantly, Hasbro). It absolutely rules out the possibility that they'll lose the market share to another publisher because it rules out the possibility of another publisher being able to establish themselves in that corner of the industry well enough to do so (lack of branding aside, the numbers make it impossible even for people at the top of the pile).
I'm unfamiliar with any distribution market having obscure or difficult to follow compatibility licensing rules, and though it's been a long time since then, when I got my PF license I think the turnaround was less than 24 hours from submission to getting the license. What elusive approval/licenses are you referring to? The open-handed slap that was the GSL for D&D 4th Edition?
The fact I know it's an unfair system stems from Pathfinder 3PP being able to support entire publishing houses while doing so from a much, much smaller market. 5E has been (as noted in the OP) a huge boon to the RPG community in terms of the player base. Yet despite having a sea of customers compared to the pond that Paizo made, there's not enough capital to go around in their specialized marketplace. That's a reality that was manufactured to be that way.
There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, and the predominant place to buy that material is hidden behind not two, not three, but four pages of clicking on OBS sites (although annoyingly that non-DMs Guild material still appears to exist on DMsGuild despite several messages to WotC/OBS/WotC legal about it).
I'm just going to quote someone who I've helped get off the ground for the next bit. Bolding is my emphasis.
Would you recommend another platform to submit these larger projects? We were largely under the impression that we were beholden to WotC when it came to 5E content. Our first intentions were to publish on DrivethruRPG but upon reviewing the licensing programs available to newcomers we found no options for publishing 5E content. We did post a 5E product there for a day but it was swiftly removed somehow, and we concluded there was no option to pursue it. I still find various 5E products listed there by parties other than WotC and I'm not entirely sure what the situation is. Thus we've so far been relegated to the dismal sales on DM's guild. I would be ecstatic to learn of a better outlet for our 5E content.
The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.
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August 12th, 2018, 04:57 #15
That blog is well over a year old. If you talk to James and others at the top of the pile (which I do, not James, but many of the others) you will find that their opinions have changed drastically, for the positive, about the Guild in that time.
You mentioned 7 people who have been discouraged from getting into the industry because of their impression of the Guild. I know dozens that have been encouraged to get into the industry because of the Guild. And several that it is one of their majority sources of support/income.
There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, ...
That guy represents himself and one other person, and they were ready to hang up their game designer hats because the only place they thought they could publish 5E material was DMs Guild. OBS and WotC have 0 interest in fixing this perception (see above).
The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.
So, welcome to the forums, but if this complaint of the Guild is all you have to add, why don't you take it to a forum that is more related to your complaint?
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August 12th, 2018, 05:22 #16
Welcome to the forums and FG Community Mike.
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August 12th, 2018, 05:23 #17
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I'm doing another show with James this week and before seeing this reply was just thinking about how clever the guild adepts program is at curtailing dissent about the program! I know an entire industry of people that are having a harder time operating in the resulting markets because of DMsGuild despite the increased customer base. It's absolutely great that some of the saplings under the gigantic umbrella Hasbro has propped over the 3PP market are managing to do well, and it's a huge sadness to me because if they weren't in such a difficult place to grow they'd be in such better shape and not nearly as lonely.
Frankly I wasn't aware that Facebook post about DMsGuild was shared here and sought to share it in full. Anyone who's been in the industry since before DMsGuild has an ax to grind (even the folks that have managed to do very well outside of it) because what its done to the industry is reprehensible. My apologies for resurrecting a dead thread, but that post wasn't initially public and it deserves to be shared in its complete form wherever it appears.
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August 12th, 2018, 05:25 #18
All other things aside - why would any IP holder not want to make a cut from products that use their IP or leverage their IP? I cant think of many industries where this doesnt happen.
I'm unfamiliar with any distribution market having obscure or difficult to follow compatibility licensing rules, and though it's been a long time since then, when I got my PF license I think the turnaround was less than 24 hours from submission to getting the license. What elusive approval/licenses are you referring to? The open-handed slap that was the GSL for D&D 4th Edition?
The fact I know it's an unfair system stems from Pathfinder 3PP being able to support entire publishing houses while doing so from a much, much smaller market. 5E has been (as noted in the OP) a huge boon to the RPG community in terms of the player base. Yet despite having a sea of customers compared to the pond that Paizo made, there's not enough capital to go around in their specialized marketplace. That's a reality that was manufactured to be that way.
There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, and the predominant place to buy that material is hidden behind not two, not three, but four pages of clicking on OBS sites (although annoyingly that non-DMs Guild material still appears to exist on DMsGuild despite several messages to WotC/OBS/WotC legal about it).
I'm just going to quote someone who I've helped get off the ground for the next bit. Bolding is my emphasis.
That guy represents himself and one other person, and they were ready to hang up their game designer hats because the only place they thought they could publish 5E material was DMs Guild. OBS and WotC have 0 interest in fixing this perception (see above).
The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.
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August 12th, 2018, 05:40 #19
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It makes plenty of sense for an IP holder to do that and that's why other IP-markets have appeared. Why other companies (like the golems) haven't done so is because it is obviously a bad thing for the industry as a whole. Moreover there's nothing stopping DMsGuild from being more transparent about the existence of a marketplace for 5E content that is not related directly to the IP, and the obscurement of the SRD withholding many of the games mechanics (one archetype per class from the core, no updates, the errata isn't OGL either) is an unnecessary bewilderment (made all the more confusing my legacy terminology).
I have had the exact opposite experience. Got to pitch for the WH40k license, first person to license Shadow of the Demon Lord. Paizo isn't just an RPG business--they do comics, and fiction, and card games, and licensing deals. They just want publishing content for their game to be easy and accessible.
30-40% after you remove the Wizards means the Wizards have over half the marketplace more than 2 or 3 times the next one? That's a massive volume of scale and Paizo's base is split between two systems, one of which is in limbo for the next year.
OBS is complicit entirely with DMsGuild and are equally responsible for it (and maybe a little more so for encouraging IP-markets). It would be fan-freaking-tastic if they wanted to and did something to make the non-IP market more accessible but there's no intention to do so that I'm aware of. The first time I told them about my non-DMsGuild products generating pages there, they tried to sell it as a feature.
I am aware of nobody that's angry or upset at folks that have managed to succeed, but I am disappointed because the mechanisms they're made to rely on to succeed are fundamentally flawed and do everyone involved a huge discredit.
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August 12th, 2018, 06:19 #20
Let me get this right.
You think the OGL is bad because they give you enough t play with for free but they dont give you their whole product for free?
I have had the exact opposite experience. Got to pitch for the WH40k license, first person to license Shadow of the Demon Lord. Paizo isn't just an RPG business--they do comics, and fiction, and card games, and licensing deals. They just want publishing content for their game to be easy and accessible.
Nonetheless - Paizo doing things well is a good thing and not in argument here.
The Wizards have created a way for every man and his dog to published licensed material and you call that bad.
They have not stopped you creating content on your own store or blog or on OBS. Except of course they will continue to protect their PI and IP as they should.
Other publishers have started similar marketplaces. The fact that we dont hear about them is mostly because 5E is the game that most people play most of the time. Most of the RPG industry is 5e.
The RPG industry gets bigger every time D&D gets bigger.
So what if D&D gets the lions share of $$. People choose what they want to spend their money on and they overwhelmingly choose to spend it on 5e.
The Wizards opened up a market for indie publishers and first timers to not only be able to easily publish content for 5e but to also have access to a huge swathe of PI and IP.
This has not in any way prevented publishers from doing their own thing.
If the DMsG proves to be more popular than 3P publishers own products and distribution channels then it probably means they are doing something right.
30-40% after you remove the Wizards means the Wizards have over half the marketplace more than 2 or 3 times the next one? That's a massive volume of scale and Paizo's base is split between two systems, one of which is in limbo for the next year.
Paizo's share is split between 2 systems? Unlike all the other RPG publishers out there that have multiple products? What does this matter? More people still play AD&D than play most other RPGs on the market.
OBS is complicit entirely with DMsGuild and are equally responsible for it (and maybe a little more so for encouraging IP-markets). It would be fan-freaking-tastic if they wanted to and did something to make the non-IP market more accessible but there's no intention to do so that I'm aware of. The first time I told them about my non-DMsGuild products generating pages there, they tried to sell it as a feature.
I am aware of nobody that's angry or upset at folks that have managed to succeed, but I am disappointed because the mechanisms they're made to rely on to succeed are fundamentally flawed and do everyone involved a huge discredit.
I cannot see how this additional channel and additional licensing arrangement is an imposition.
We all now have more opportunity to become publishers and more options about the channels and licensing that we choose.
Thats my view.
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