Quote from: EOTB;814596So wait, now the OSR is about why we don't need to play D&D?  Man, things really have come full circle!  

It's like the beer of the month club morphing into a 12-step program.

It makes a perverse sort of sense though in that [paraphrasing from memory here, I'll try and find a source online in a minute] Gygax originally intended for D&D just to show people how role-playing was done and then he thought they'd pick that up and run with it, as a sort of philosophy of gaming. He was surprised with the constant requests in the initial years for more rules and official write-ups. OF course once he discovered this is what the audience wanted and was willing to pay for, everything changed. But I think that "going back to old school" play eventually will lead anyone to these same conclusions.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;814591Have we explored this idea in its own thread? Because that could be an interesting thread. I feel we've talked about things similar to this idea, but not this idea directly.

I'm game; I'll start one in a bit if no one else has.

Quote from: Omega;814563Another mid level one purchased a designers game for a nice royalty fee. Then locked the game up as they just didnt want the game competing with one of their own. Apparently thats happened a few times.

That's not that unusual in any business.

In the 80s and early 90s in Germany circulated the rumour that Schmidt Spiele did exactly this with the translation of RuneQuest so that it wouldn't compete with Das Schwarze Auge.
I never found proof of it. Quite the contrary - Schmidt licensed and helped Midgard getting big box mainstream distribution, and Midgard was system and setting wise a more direct competitor to DSA.
(And RQ was eventually published by Welt der Spiele.)

QuoteI am ever surprised at the amount of fuck-overs that happen in the mid level publishers.

I'd even guess that the bigger the company the more you'll find that line of thinking, up to outright buying and closing down competitors.
Remember TSR burying DragonQuest and later Danjerous Journeys?

Quote from: Lynn;814572I wouldn't venture an opinion without seeing the contract.

If that was a part of his contract, then it isn't a scam as he agreed to it.

From the description it was a new designer and the publisher sprung this on the designer after the KS when he asked why he was not being payed for the KS sales.

Cant find the thread but it went something like this.

"The Publisher will pay the Designer a royalty of X% of the actual sale price of each copy of the Game sold by the Publisher."

And then claimed that the KS copies sold did not count as sold by the publisher. Or sold at all according to KS TOU.

Most places suck to work at when you answer to someone else. This is news somehow?

They were fortunate to work there at all.

I must have missed it: why am I supposed to give a shit how much fun it is to work at Wizards of the Coast?

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;814618That's not that unusual in any business.

That's why when you are selling the IP outright, you need to get a sufficient upfront payment to justify the sale. Royalties or other downstream payments should be upside not the main portion of the value. And if you are licensing the IP get an upfront and include diligence obligations or annual fees so that you ensure that you can terminate the license if the licensee just sits on the IP.

Quote from: Matt;814643I must have missed it: why am I supposed to give a shit how much fun it is to work at Wizards of the Coast?

Employment environment drives employee happiness which drives fun and engaging product which drives more stuff we might want to buy and more fun products to help encourage people to enter/remain in the hobby.

It's a bunch of degrees of separation, but it does somewhat matter to many of us.

Quote from: Will;814652Employment environment drives employee happiness which drives fun and engaging product which drives more stuff we might want to buy and more fun products to help encourage people to enter/remain in the hobby.

It's a bunch of degrees of separation, but it does somewhat matter to many of us.

Except that it only matters to those that want to buy certain product from a specific publisher, cult of the corporation. You can't say that there are not alternatives out there that can't be used or substituted.

Quote from: Omega;814627"The Publisher will pay the Designer a royalty of X% of the actual sale price of each copy of the Game sold by the Publisher."

And then claimed that the KS copies sold did not count as sold by the publisher. Or sold at all according to KS TOU.

I'm not a lawyer, but sadly those terms seem non-specific enough to give the publisher ammunition.

The KS terms of Use are just an added bonus for the publisher.

I am an ex-headhunter so quality of work environment issues were something I've dealt with a great deal.

Ideally, every company would realize that happy employees are the best option, not just for productivity, but for longevity and word-of-mouth advertising.

Sadly, this is not the case with most employers. In general, I have noted that the more desirable the job - if it is a middle level job (40k-80k base salary) - the less the employer cares about employee happiness. Just the opportunity to work in the field or in that company is believed to be enough. You see this in Hollywood and video game companies to a depressing extent.

Of course, that works in the short term and if you don't mind a constant turnover and loss of experienced employees, then its a model a company can make money with. Churn, burn, rinse, repeat does work.

The end result however is such companies create their own competition as the most ambitious employees leave and start their own shops, or the industry gets shaken up when an employers who does value employee happiness hits the scene and gobbles up top talent.

If you want a really miserable job, try working for Disney. If you are a hardcore Disneyana fan, even their working conditions will not phase you - for a while, maybe never, depending on your love of Disney. I've heard similiar tales around town about Marvel and Activision, but oddly not about Blizzard.

Based on my conversations with Blizzard programmers and execs, the Blizzard method is to create a great work environment and hire people who are happy to live at work in the Blizzard cocoon.

And I've seen the opposite, where an Alzheimer's care company was offering a terrible job with terrible conditions and they knew that. So instead, they really did everything to promote work/life balance and support for their employees. Instead of a corporate grind, they somehow created a family team which hung tight against their very difficult tasks.

So...wanna hate your job making RPGs or love your job wiping poop off crazy old people?

Quote from: Spinachcat;814920So...wanna hate your job making RPGs or love your job wiping poop off crazy old people?

Yeah.

Of course, if the other parts of the Alzheimer's job are good enough, you can feel good about the fact that the crazy old lady is somebody's Gramma.

"Whatsoever ye do unto the least of these my brothers and sisters..."

Usually, though, the companies in such cases are absolute hell and wiping the poop off crazy old people IS the good part of the job, because the employee cares about people.  Kudos to that company you describe.

Quote from: Spinachcat;814920I am an ex-headhunter so quality of work environment issues were something I've dealt with a great deal.

Ideally, every company would realize that happy employees are the best option, not just for productivity, but for longevity and word-of-mouth advertising.

Sadly, this is not the case with most employers. In general, I have noted that the more desirable the job - if it is a middle level job (40k-80k base salary) - the less the employer cares about employee happiness. Just the opportunity to work in the field or in that company is believed to be enough. You see this in Hollywood and video game companies to a depressing extent.

Of course, that works in the short term and if you don't mind a constant turnover and loss of experienced employees, then its a model a company can make money with. Churn, burn, rinse, repeat does work.

The end result however is such companies create their own competition as the most ambitious employees leave and start their own shops, or the industry gets shaken up when an employers who does value employee happiness hits the scene and gobbles up top talent.

If you want a really miserable job, try working for Disney. If you are a hardcore Disneyana fan, even their working conditions will not phase you - for a while, maybe never, depending on your love of Disney. I've heard similiar tales around town about Marvel and Activision, but oddly not about Blizzard.

Based on my conversations with Blizzard programmers and execs, the Blizzard method is to create a great work environment and hire people who are happy to live at work in the Blizzard cocoon.

And I've seen the opposite, where an Alzheimer's care company was offering a terrible job with terrible conditions and they knew that. So instead, they really did everything to promote work/life balance and support for their employees. Instead of a corporate grind, they somehow created a family team which hung tight against their very difficult tasks.

So...wanna hate your job making RPGs or love your job wiping poop off crazy old people?

Interesting information!! I've heard similar before but not so specific. What has always been fascinating to me is that even badly run companies can do surprisingly well in the long run, just due to luck, accident of fate, good market position, inertia of some kind etc.

Badly run company <> Not Profitable.

Quote from: Iron_Rain;816472Interesting information!! I've heard similar before but not so specific. What has always been fascinating to me is that even badly run companies can do surprisingly well in the long run, just due to luck, accident of fate, good market position, inertia of some kind etc.

Badly run company <> Not Profitable.

True, but absent anticompetitive forces, a badly run company will eventually be out competed by a better run company. Which will either make the badly run company unprofitable or get management in place who will run the company better.

Also worth noting that

Happy employees <> Profitable Company.

Quote from: Bren;816476True, but absent anticompetitive forces, a badly run company will eventually be out competed by a better run company. Which will either make the badly run company unprofitable or get management in place who will run the company better.

Also worth noting that

Happy employees <> Profitable Company.

I completely agree. My sister was working for a start up in Victoria BC - she was hired as a secretary/assistant and said it was the best atmosphere she'd ever seen. Then she came to work one day and there were chains on the door, with a note that everyone was fired.

Turns out that management had been spending their investor's money like drunken sailors on all sorts of stupid things. My sister was asked to purchase a painting that after doing some research, cost $200,000, her boss said, "Buy it!"

At the time she didn't think much of it, because she thought everything was going really well in the programming/engineering department. Problem was after 2 years they still didn't have a product to sell, so the investor pulled the plug.