[/edit] <bites_tongue>

on a side note, if your audit of contact information is supposed to include frank trollman, he is indicating you aren't contacting him last i saw.

Frank's one of the people I don't have contact info for. I'll dig it up, and he'll get the info.

Jason H.

He sent a letter to the freelancers and contractors. He said he knew he was missing some folks. He asked that if we knew anyone in particular that he missed we should let him know ASAP. It was clear that the list that got the email (which only JUST came today) was not the full list.

There is no conspiracy here. Again - bad stuff happened and we all know it, but every piece of communication is not an omen of doom. I know everyone is jumpy and suspicious after the actual bad things that happened, but we don't need to make up extra "bad things." In fact one might argue this is one of those "signs they are making good" that people have been waiting for. Again - I'm not defending the bad - I'm just saying, please don't make every bit of news the sign of some nefarious plot.

Can I at least use said Plot for Shadowrun? I mean some of us play more than post...
Though I do scan this trainwreck several times a day.

If this board would only allow images. The tinfoil hat guy at the picnic "It's a conspiracy maaan!"

BlueMax

To close off this tangent (side question: how many posts on DS are needed to be granted PM privileges?) thank you hermit, it was very informative. If by any chance you frequent the CBT boards, we can chat there.

Ten posts

I read through the old threads, and still hadn't remembered anything about contact information being out of date. The financial issues, lack of NDAs or contracts in some cases, didn't remember some lacking information in terms of who is working on the line and how to get them. My apologies for not being completely up to date.

And while it came off harsher than I meant, I was more curious than anything. Dealing with contact information for contractors and outside workforces is something that's a big part of my real life job, so it's one of those things that's harder for me to wrap my brain around (in terms of letting it get outdated). Much like the financial issues were for some of the other posters who are involved with debt collection, this is the one that irks me.

That stuff happens a lot. The DMV couldn't be bothered to pass my new info from the licensing department to the registration department and my company's payroll didn't feel the need to tell HR about my change of address. I think it would be worse if the Post Office wasn't so pro-active these days, I know I'd fail to let a few creditors know and then I'd miss a bill.

No, actually, we can't. Sorry, but if you think stealing is bad I don't see how you can think stealing is ok when the state does it. A lot of ugly things in history occur when people thing doing X was ok because the state said so. And that's all I'm going to say on that, because yeah, this really isn't the time and place for it.

Back on topic, it's good to hear that Catalyst is doing this audit and getting things in order. I don't know about anyone else, but lately to me the forecast for Catalyst's future has, at least to my perception, been getting brighter every day.

Which is good, because I'm of the opinion that Battletech and Shadowrun wouldn't survive another transfer.

An audit is definitely important, but equally important is who is conducting the audit, which I don't know. Hopefully it is an outside auditor. And most important, to me, is what changes going forward in normal business operation.



I don't know, it's survived two transfers already. And most people seem to think that it hasn't gone down the tubes in those two transfers. So there's no reason to think that a third transfer would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Who cares what company's name is on the checks? IMR doesn't even own the game, Topps does. In that sense it really wouldn't transfer at all. If you're worried about a drastic change in the creative staff, in the case of Shadowrun that's already happened.

I updated your status to active "Member" so you should have PM capability now. Hermit, please continue your discussion through PMs. Don't mean to jump on you guys, just keeping things on topic, and as mentioned, within ToS. Thanks.

Huh? I don't think the state steals... They print the money after all, its all thiers', its not mine, my picture isn't on it and they let me keep part of it so i can give it to someone else in exchange for goods and services.

What do you think taxes and fines are.

There is an old joke. Don't steal, the government doesn't like it when anyone moves in on there territory.

And I assume that is what he is talking about.

I've never heard that one. Thank you for sharing. It's hilarious. @=)

Now, to bring things slightly back on topic...

Saeder-Krupp's new motto - Don't steal, the dragon doesn't like it when anyone moves in on his hoard.

Killfist,
If you are going to use my Schtick , give me some credit. I tell ya, I get no respect around here.

Rodney

errr crap
BlueMax

Please that joke is older than your dad.

Sorry I've been away a while, I was stuck overseas by a volcano, came home, got caught up, just in time to watch my city flood. Its been a fun few weeks.

One possibility is that Topps helps cause a change in management of IMR/CGL. The advantage to Shadowrun is that the parts that do work, continue to work, the pipeline continues, and the contracts, such as they are remain in place. The question would be how would the various interested parties view the "new" IMR/CGL?

-M&P

Since the "management" that would need to be changed out are also company co-owners, the scenario you describe is tricky at best.

I believe the differences in our opinions have to do with what we believe the possible results of the current situation will be. I believe many of you who want CGL/IMR to lose the license think there are only two outcomes: IRM/CGL keeps the license, or IRM/CGL loses the license and Topps sells it to someone else. However there's two more possibilities that could happen. No one buys the license, or someone buys the license and uses it for non-RPG products, kind of like what Shadowrun Duels was like.

In my opinion, I think our difference has to do with the fact that I have much less faith in the profitability of Battletech and Shadowrun. If CGL/IMR lost the license and went bankrupt this would mark the third time a company has gone down the tubes holding the licenses. I think that would scare anyone away from picking it up. RPGs and Wargames are already incredibly niche products, and anyone new picking up the license would have to find a way to get the current group of players to buy a whole new large batch of product very soon for the license to be profitable. I just don't see that happening. If CGL/IRM loses the license I think it would be more likely the licenses would be picked up for the sale of non-RPG products and toys and such rather than for a traditional RPG.

As for the comment about the game not going down the tubes during two transfers, your right, it hasn't. Both licenses have made out startling well. But these kinds of transfers turning out well for the game, compared to other times when a game's publishing company has gone under, are incredibly rare. I can only think of 3 games that have managed to pull it off well.

Topps isn't selling the game, they are offering licenses to the IP so that other companies came make a game off of it and send royalties back to Topps. It's a cash cow for them. The upside of this is that we don't have to worry about the IP disappearing when a publisher decides to implode. Topps will just hand it out to someone else who can get the job done and turn a buck. There are downsides to that, but since it seems like Topps has kept a hands off approach to development, we have yet to see the owner impact the lines. If that happens in the future you can blame Loren Coleman and crew for screwing up and giving Topps a reason to worry about their property.

Both games have over 20 years under the belt, and in the case of Shadowrun, shows bigger sales than any other point in it's history. If it goes down now it won't be because of the material or the market, but because of the actions of IMR. But then, it really can't unless Topps decides that it doesn't want to make money off of something, which makes no sense what so ever.

This little "factoid" keeps getting bandied around, and it's ridiculously false. Early editions of Shadowrun sold in the hundreds of thousands. SR4 has been selling well, considering the RPG market of 2005-2010, but that market is *FAR* different from 1989-1999.

Blame Frank for saying that 4th Ed has sold more than all other editions combined. Interestingly, since it seems like SR1 and certainly(?) SR2 were made by far fewer people who didn't have to pay royalties to a licensor, were they therefor much more profitable than the current incarnation?

Thanks for the input!

Well, he repeated it a lot, but Bull originally said it, based on something that he misheard/misunderstood (and wanted to believe, so he just kept repeating it... )



I can't speak directly to that. Bear in mind that the books were also much lower-priced in the early 90s.

Obviously, Game 1 and Game 2, everything else being identical except Game 1 needs to pay someone an additional royalty and Game 2 does not, Game 2 is more profitable.

Thanks for the correction. Does it help any that I'm enjoying this edition more than the previous ones?

I start this off with a comment: "YES, I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air and I am not a member of the industry!"

However, a little mental exercise to determine profitability off some simple assumptions, and my estimated guess for every number in cost here is lowballed.

Let's assume the licensing is $200,000/year + 10% distributor price royalties.
We've seen some numbers bandied around by a few of the writers involved for word counts and the like. To estimate with 3 writers of varying lengths, and some art, assume it costs $10,000 to simply write the book. Not edit, not layout, just write.

Your line developer makes some salary, let's assume a nice simple $60k/year (because it divides by 4 nicely), and it takes 3 months of work to layout/edit a book to final production. That's another 15k in just salary cost.

Your book, so far, has cost 25k. No marketing, etc... just to put together the initial item to feed to a copier somewhere. POD is always rediculously high, so a bad case for actual prices, but let's assume a bulk print of will cost half of that. Augmentation (as a sample) was 178 pages. To make 1,000 (a really low number) would cost 5.70/book. Halve that and a discount for larger bulk with binding, color covers, etc, let's assume $2/book.

You print up 10,000 of these for initial distribution, it's now cost you 45k... to *make* the book and put it one on a shelf in 10,000 stores. Please remember we've done no marketing yet. Let's assume they spend ~10k in marketing, relying on word of mouth after that. (Basically some posters for game shops and some targetted internet ads). So it's 75k to produce the book, give it light marketing, and put it on shelves in stores around town. Base price is 55k + printing costs. Shelf price of Arsenal on Amazon right now is ~$23.00.

Assuming (remember, shelf price needs to make money for the shop too) you're selling these to the distributors for half shelf price, and they're doing a 100% markup, you're looking at ~$11.50/book income to the main company. x 10,000 copies and you're at $115,000. Take off 10% in royalties and the company has gotten a return of $104,000. Remove the 75k for the production and printing and the company has earned 29k. Do this 10 times in a year and you make your license costs. You haven't paid for the lights, the workspace, workers comp, etc.

Now, the argument. 10k is a really low # of sales for the books. And what about pdf sales, that cost the company nothing?! You have to administer the sites for websales or you have to share in profits with those who do.

So, let's say we can sell (equivalently, hardcopy + pdf sales) 100,000 copies of these books, either pdf or hardbound. That's 200k in printing/pdf site maintenance costs, still only 55k for base creation, and the company's grossing 1.15 million in cash. That equals down to (carry the 3, add the 2...) roughly $780k in profit after royalties. Enough to cover the license, buy a small mansion, and get the dog groomed. I think we can assume this is... wishful thinking. If they were selling that much noone would care WHAT LLC had done with the finances after a few books.

As mentioned earlier, THESE NUMBERS ARE PULLED STRAIGHT FROM MY ASS, other then the currently public prices of Lulu.com and Amazon for the books. But it's an interesting exercise. I'd be quite curious to know the # of volumes sold/book, etc etc, but I believe Furluge has the right of it. The profitibility of this game as a cash cow is either rediculously high, which means noone would care what the hell LLC did other then "Take a powder on the withdrawals for a year and we'll call it good", or it's not as high as it's made out to be, and needs to be carefully considered. A new company not holding the publishing rights etc etc to existing books, and immediately turning profit on those books, would need to make a major splash... especially since my 200k/year on licensing I assume to be quite low.

Just what any discussion about business needs, is more totally made up numbers.

Well, it's not like I got into a discussion on different shipping methods and pricing, storage of goods for inventory on demand stores, actual marketing methods and the cost thereof, anti-piracy costs, federal and local taxes, book-keeping and other staff costs, etc etc.

So, yeah, alright, maybe not the best idea in the world, but it helps to show that the 'cash cow' theory is busted. It's a business with reasonable profit margins and expectations, like anything else, and needs product to sell to be viable, and a solid amount of it.

The only one it could be a 'cash cow' for is Topps, and even then, I'm not sure.

Though I'm sure it was answered somewhere in the last 450 pages on this topic I can't remember the answer. IF the license was transferred, could the new licensee sell the products originally created, produced, and sold by CGL? Did CGL 'inherit' all prior versions of Shadowrun for resale?

The Shadowrun license, up until this point (I do not have a crystal ball) is a bundle deal. You get all Shadowrun, or you get no Shadowrun.

Nothing in the RPG market is a "cash cow." I'm not trying to be a jerk, just the simple truth. A yearly salary of 60K? My mind swims with the luxury that would provide.

(In the future, Posthuman Studios will be releasing real numbers -- sales figures, expenses, etc -- to help educate the fan base. Evil Hat is one company already doing this -- it's enlightening. Check out Fred Hick's blog at http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ to see the level of transparency they have!)

That's one of the big contradictory subjects about this whole IMR/CGL mess that people have trouble getting their heads around (or at least, I do). I never had the impression that RPG industry staffers make lofty salaries (though I wouldn't call $60K lofty). But then it gets so hard to imagine, if that's the case, that no one noticed the large sums of money vanishing from IMR that supposedly vanished. You'd think that money would stick out like a sore thumb in an environment like the RPG industry.

It did make some things seem... suspicious. But when you can't look directly at the books, following-up on those suspicions is difficult.

I think that tangent of this conversation is best served with drinks.

Except the Video Game rights.

Haha, I agree!

Wait, you mean ANY part of this conversation ISN'T best served with drinks? I'm working on a drinking game around it. 1 shot per unfounded rumor, two fingers for each 'anonymous insider information' bomb from Frank (per site found and quoted), a beer for every unique amusing tangent, or combination thereof. (Unicorns prostituting themselves to Lone Star to afford Diamond Belly Button rings comes to mind... well, they're mounted, no?)

And... 60k... is luxury? Oh lord, I figured that was one I definately lowballed. JH... you must REALLY love the game.

In the tabletop gaming industry? Yes, a 60K salary is luxury, at any tier -- retailer, distributor, manufacturer.

Okay, I like Dresden but $50/book is a bit much. However, you're right about the transparency. I do wish he was able to spell it out completely, but contracts are private and I can appreciate that. Just... wow. It's nice to see someone do everything but open up the super-duper-secret files to the world.

Thank you. Will do.

Since I don't have the numbers so I can't say how likely it is to go the way you want. But in the past it's been impressed upon me a couple times just how small our a niche our hobby has, and how small the returns are, even if you're on top of the market.

I don't know about you, but I clearly remember just how dark things looked when FASA closed their doors and no one knew what was going to happen. Things could just as easily go back to being that way. If CGL goes under and Topps doesn't get a offer to buy it that they think is worth their time the properties could just as well be thrown in a vault never to see the light of day except when they need some generic material to shill for some other product. (This week on Sci- Err, SYFY channel: Mega Cyberzombie Unicorn with Jeweled Belly Button Ring *Cues clip of a man laying on the ground bicycle kicking a swarm a swarm of cyberzombie unicorns*)

The licenses are basically money to Topps. How much money depends on the developer and the fan base. As long as there is someone out there who wants to give Topps money, I doubt they are going to throw the licenses in some vault. It just doesn't make sense.

If you want to be scared about something, be frightened of Topps taking a creative interest. They should have a financial interest now that it's been called into question whether or not they are getting their due from IMR. But I hope that doesn't go forward into the game line as well. They could always decide to handle development in house as well, which would be another unknown.

Thankfully I don't think those are really options, at least I hope not, but they are definitely more likely than the lines just getting shelved. That is assuming that there are other viable companies coming to the table, but I have to think that someone wants Shadowrun or Battletech.

And yes, I'm aware that the game might end up in worse hands than IMR. We might get D20 Shadowrun and all die of cancer.

What can I say, I'm a little bitter.

I have been doing my own research on the CGL situation and have found some startling information that I will share here.(my sources are highly placed the U.S Government. I could reveal them but then I would have to hunt down the entire DS community and use"extreme prejudice" )

It appears that CGL has attracted the attention of a benefactor and is getting things back on track. Now I was a bit curious so I started digging abit. I was somewhat confused as at first I could find no evidence to support the theory of a benefactor. However, through a contact in an unnamed intelligence agency, I obtained the phone records of all of the "major players" at IMR and CGL and after cross referencing them came up with a name. Phillip Mckraken, a Scotsman who resides partly in London but has a cottage in the village of Drumnadrochit. I tried contacting Mr. Mckraken, but the calls kept getting transfered to an office at this address: Broadway,London SW1H 0BG. i have no idea where it is and don't really care. I wanted to talk to the mysterious Scotsman.

About this point in the journalistic investigation, strange things began happening. A tree fell on my house, my truck tire blew out, and the gas company began hounding me as to a late bill. At first I passed it of as coincidence but as the evidence grew, I began to realize that the more I tried to find data on the link between IMR and Phil Mckraken the more things went awry. I knew then I must be on to something.

Turning to my sources, I was eventually contacted by someone from the covert ops community who at great risk, filled me in on the "whole story".

It appears that on August 20, 1890, a mana spike enabled a slumbering dragon to stir.The dragon didn't fully awaken until 1989. This dragon who calls itself "Brody" appointed the young Phillip Mckraken as its mouthpiece and has been influencing history ever since!!!

This means...Catalyst Game Labs has cut a deal with a Dragon!!!!!!

How much more evil can they get!!!!!I am tempted to return my SR4LE in protest.

But its so...pretty...yes! pretty...We won't send you back...must keep you safe...so very safe..NO!!! NO!!! Get out of my head you Reptilian Bastard!! I"LLL hit the psost key and then they will alll KNow,,They mmustt alll lknow!!!!!!!!

Kanis is um, away for a moment but he wanted me, his good ...friend...to tell you that the above post was just a joke...all in good fun..ha!ha! thank you.

Well, for some real news: InMediaRes only has a couple days left to respond to their involuntary summons on that bankruptcy case, and they are no longer listed as being represented by a lawyer. So, there should be some news on that next week in any event.

Nobody has made a "new" d20 game in ages. It's not going to happen. Put that worry out of your mind.

No lawyer? I always got the impression that was illegal in the USA.

No, just a bad idea in the vast majority of cases.

Thanks for that. The blog impressed me enough to make me pick up their Don't Rest Your Head books and the Dresden stuff. I'd be darn happy to see that transparency with more companies.

As with most things RL & SR... representing yourself is often a recipe for disaster as you have an idiot for a lawyer and your lawyer has a fool in his client.

Just a little edification. These are some real numbers, though they're rounded off for simplicity. (I've been working on some independent game publishing that is in no way related to Shadowrun.) I've tried to keep out any commentary.

Printing a hardbound, 4-color book, of c. 200 pp, using a US printer, at a 3000 copy print run, costs ~$7 per copy. So, that's an upfront cash outlay of $21,000.

If a publisher uses any major gaming distributor, they'll pay the publisher around 40% of the cover price of the book. (So, a $40 book means the publisher actually gets paid $~16. The retailer pays ~$22, the other ~$6 goes to the distributor.)

So, that means the publisher nets ~$9 per copy.

If the full print run sells through, that means the publisher nets ~$27,000. With that money, the publisher needs to pay A) Creative Staff (~$10,000), B)Taxes (~$9,000).

That leaves $8,000 of net profit on an investment of $31,000. (Printing and Creative costs.)

This ignores warehousing costs, which may be substantial. It also ignores marketing expenses and any payments of non-creative staff. Finally, this assumes that the IP is original, not licensed.

Further, it's unlikely that the full print run will sell out in less than a year, if it sells through at all. If it takes longer then, every year come tax time, the publisher needs to pay taxes on the unsold books (they constitute an asset). The tax on these is significant enough that I honestly don't know why more RPG publishers don't pulp a high percentage of their warehoused books.

Yes, there are ways to cut costs. Some, like offshore printing, are more viable than others. Yes, a reprint is far more profitable to a publisher as the creative staff is already paid. Yes, this ignores any profits that can be made on ebook sales (~$200 - $300).

Go work at WOTC... I don't know what they pay their writers but the I.T. guys industry standards so I would say they are at leased competitive with writers pay for newspapers, magazines, etc.