I had an idea and I was wondering what players thought of this idea?
I've been noticing in my area of the country (Boston) that fewer and fewer stores are offering adorn products. Not so much because no one plays but because sales are not as high as the other D20 stuff. I was thinking maybe there needs to be a grass route upheaval of sorts. Shadowrun has pretty much become a part time company. Why not use this as a posting point for re-envigorating Shadowrun. Here are some ideas I have for a Fan Based system hosted here on Dumpshock:
1. Fan Based Promotional material. I've noticed that there has been less and less promotional material for Shadowrun why not create an archive of fan based promotional material. When someone is running a game they put up a flyer with the snazzy graphics to not only get players but grab attention to the game.
2. A compendium of fan based items like artwork, maps, miniature gallery, multimedia bits like cool sounds, pictures, and all sorts of stuff. Create an ultimate database with all the material that's easily searchable and downloadable.
3. Create a volunteer organization who runs and hosts to corporate sanctioned intro games and tournaments for Shadowrun. Create a login for those folks with all sorts of material available to them online. Either give them free stuff and free subscriptions to fast forward games game newsletter. Also involve Fanpro and Iron Wind Metals in the free stuff and promotion of their products.
4. Open up out of print books in the form of PDF files for those who participate and run games at conventions and game stores. Additionally start a roaming group to run intro games not only at their home stores but different stores in the area. Coordinate efforts with those stores that offer to carry at least 5 base books in their store. Integrate volunteer gamers more with marketing and publishing folks. When a new game comes out create material so that host GM's can integrate some of that new material into opener games.
5. Create an ultimate registry for games and game masters. Create a list and promote it on the main site so players and game masters can meet. Use this and create a more robust coordination effort to run games at conventions around the country. So far only a couple of conventions are really attended by Fanpro folks.
Is it me or does FFG and Fanpro need to do some revamping in the way they run their business. It seems to me they're going down hill in the way they're running the marketing and promotion of their games. It seems like they're very silent and not really looking to position themselves in any way to promote and increase revenues. Without money books don't get written and the story of the game doesn't move along. What does everyone think?