Quote from: dar;227008Grubman over at tbp said,

I think Grubman is incorrect.  

Emotional attachment != value in the business world.  The value of a property is directly related to how much potential revenue you expect to get from it.  

Here's a quick way to figure out how much a product is worth, commonly used as a rough estimation tool in business (for stable, established products): take the average of the last 5 years worth of profit and multiply it by 10 and add the salvage value of the assets.

Now, Eric has flat-out said that D6 has done nothing but lose money.  He even wanted to release it as a free, open system.  So all D6 is really worth is salvage value.

I think the $1,000 figure is a much more accurate estimation of the D6 value (if not lower) than Grubman's figure.  In fact, the idea that a product line that has repeatedly lost money over the years being worth $25K is so laughable, I can't believe Grubman suggested it.

EDIT: OK, after reading the thread a bit more, I see Grubman meant $25K for all of WEG.  That still sounds high, considering almost all of the properties have repeatedly lost money, but I'm unfamiliar with Junta and how well it sells.

Game mechanics can't be copyrighted, only the stylistic representation of them- i.e the "fluff". Just look at the recent discussion of the various products coming out that are compatible with 4th Edition D&D that don't have any official sanction from WotC.

The point is, there's nothing stopping any of us from whipping up our own D6 compatible material right now.  True, you can't start selling Star Wars stuff (unless it was a parody), but even if you bought the official D6 rules or WEG, you couldn't make new Star Wars stuff anyway.  

I guess I'm a bit confused about what buying the rules set would allow you to do that you can't do right now.

Quote from: jgants;227099I think Grubman is incorrect.  

Emotional attachment != value in the business world.  The value of a property is directly related to how much potential revenue you expect to get from it.  

Here's a quick way to figure out how much a product is worth, commonly used as a rough estimation tool in business (for stable, established products): take the average of the last 5 years worth of profit and multiply it by 10 and add the salvage value of the assets.

Now, Eric has flat-out said that D6 has done nothing but lose money.  He even wanted to release it as a free, open system.  So all D6 is really worth is salvage value.

I think the $1,000 figure is a much more accurate estimation of the D6 value (if not lower) than Grubman's figure.  In fact, the idea that a product line that has repeatedly lost money over the years being worth $25K is so laughable, I can't believe Grubman suggested it.

EDIT: OK, after reading the thread a bit more, I see Grubman meant $25K for all of WEG.  That still sounds high, considering almost all of the properties have repeatedly lost money, but I'm unfamiliar with Junta and how well it sells.

Yeah, that was my thought $1k-$2k including all the previously printed copies of the books. Nothing more. From his rant it looks like he sold about 600 copies/year so has abou 2500 of each core book left.

Quote from: wulfgar;227101Game mechanics can't be copyrighted, only the stylistic representation of them- i.e the "fluff". Just look at the recent discussion of the various products coming out that are compatible with 4th Edition D&D that don't have any official sanction from WotC.

The point is, there's nothing stopping any of us from whipping up our own D6 compatible material right now.  True, you can't start selling Star Wars stuff (unless it was a parody), but even if you bought the official D6 rules or WEG, you couldn't make new Star Wars stuff anyway.  

I guess I'm a bit confused about what buying the rules set would allow you to do that you can't do right now.

That is a good point Wulfgar.

It might be cheaper to pay someone, say Hinterwelt or the like to come up with a knock-off system.

Quote from: wulfgar;227101I guess I'm a bit confused about what buying the rules set would allow you to do that you can't do right now.

(assuming ownership of old books)
1. Right to call it official D6 on whatever product the company makes
 
2.  right to copy large amounts of text from existing products without fear of issues.
 
3. Rights to sell older books.  It would be good to know the sales figures of books/pdfs of the generic D6 items.  It looks like the pdfs are way overpriced.

d6 does have some brand recognition, no?  It might not be a white-hot property at the moment, but there are enough people who love the system that, with proper marketing and management, it could become a viable line.

I look at the d6 books I picked up on its re-release, and they're bland.  The covers aren't all that exciting, the interiors are poorly done (the background shading in the Fantasy book makes text near the bottom of the page nigh unreadable), the text is full of typos and bad grammar that even MS Word could have picked up, and there was no reason to release three different core books for the system.

I'd be willing to stake $100, even a bit more, to see if it could be done properly.

(edit: pretty much what Nicephorous said...I take too long to post)

Quote from: Mcrow;227097The first thing everyone here needs to agree on must be what the deal must include for it to be a go.

For me it would have to include:

All the files./rights for the D6 brand books and all hard copies of them he has.

That sounds like a fair proposition.

Quote from: Nicephorus;227107(assuming ownership of old books)
1. Right to call it official D6 on whatever product the company makes
 
2.  right to copy large amounts of text from existing products without fear of issues.

Yeah, these are the two biggest things. It would be a lot easier to reproduce the d6 books.
 

Quote3. Rights to sell older books.  It would be good to know the sales figures of books/pdfs of the generic D6 items.  It looks like the pdfs are way overpriced.

Eric said that he has sold 2500 of each of the core books in 4 year so that's about 625 books/ year.

PDFs, Fantasy & Space are silver picks on rpgnow. From what i've been able to find out by talking to some publishers, a silve pick would mean that in four years he sold about 150 copies each of those. Adventure seems to be the better seller and is an electrum pick is probably over 200 copies.

Quote from: KenHR;227108there was no reason to release three different core books for the system.

I'd be willing to stake $100, even a bit more, to see if it could be done properly.

(edit: pretty much what Nicephorous said...I take too long to post)

I agree, if a new printing of the system were to be done it should be a one volume rulebook with possibley some PDF supplements with more genre specific stuff in them. Reprinting the basic rules in all three books was bone-headed and was part of the huge printing costs that sunk the ship.

I'd be interested if:

i) A deal can be worked out which is better value than doing a clone, and

ii) If it's run as a worker cooperative (briefly, one member = one, non-transferable share = one vote).

No doubt there'd be more people on the WEG forum interested in this idea?

What if an existing company wanted to buy d6, and intended to support it?

ie are people only interested in buying d6 'to keep it alive', or even if it was going to be bought by someone anyway?

Quote from: jgants;227099I think Grubman is incorrect.  

Emotional attachment != value in the business world.  The value of a property is directly related to how much potential revenue you expect to get from it.  

Here's a quick way to figure out how much a product is worth, commonly used as a rough estimation tool in business (for stable, established products): take the average of the last 5 years worth of profit and multiply it by 10 and add the salvage value of the assets.

Now, Eric has flat-out said that D6 has done nothing but lose money.  He even wanted to release it as a free, open system.  So all D6 is really worth is salvage value.

I think the $1,000 figure is a much more accurate estimation of the D6 value (if not lower) than Grubman's figure.  In fact, the idea that a product line that has repeatedly lost money over the years being worth $25K is so laughable, I can't believe Grubman suggested it.

EDIT: OK, after reading the thread a bit more, I see Grubman meant $25K for all of WEG.  That still sounds high, considering almost all of the properties have repeatedly lost money, but I'm unfamiliar with Junta and how well it sells.

I am with jgants here. Listen up people, he speaks reason. D6 is just not worth it. I said in another thread I would need to see 5 years of sales and I meant it. Even at that, I would not be convinced. Also, remaindering your books in this industry is kind of brutal. To get $1-3 on a $40 book is not unusual and you might get less.

$1000 for d6...I would be surprised. I would avoid a stock purchase unless it is extremely low price or there is some sort of big surprise in the sales data. It creates liability and we would be better off with some sort of POD approach.

Now, if Zach's 2-3k number is right for d6, all I can say is ouch.

Bill

I would be interested if some of the issues raised upthread can be answered satisfactorily.

I'd contribute.

Seanchai