Quote from: Opaopajr;897612Ooh, that monstrosity was GORGEOUS!

In my circles its character sheet is legendary. Just look at this thing:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kaWFoAPhTRs/UOcxPLtZRPI/AAAAAAAAABU/rKvhm0V1GAU/s1600/Kalei+CS.jpg

Quote from: Omega;897601WOTCs been using artists on Deviant Art. They aint cheap. But they can produce batches of art. WOTC still has a small backlog of unused art. and alot of art they can retread. Like they did with the core books and possibly the FR book.

Deviant Art is a online community, so you get artists from all over there and a lot of them are amateurs. There's no "Deviant Art Price" though.

Wow, sixteen pages over a guy I never heard of who wishes he made more money. I wish I made more, too. Hell, I wish I made what I did before the economic downturn.

There wre no less than two threads over on BGG along the same lines. "Why cant I quit my day job and make a lifestyle from game design?" with one guy accusing other game designers of hiding the big secret, and so on ad absurdium. See my other rants on entry level people demanding pro level paychecks.

Quote from: Brand55;897315Emphasis mine. No one is calling him entitled for pointing out the costs of producing books. We're calling him entitled for demanding that people be able to make a living no matter what they do. That flies in the face of what you just said, so I'm not sure why you're taking his side on this.

Because he never said that? Doesn't seem like rocket science.

Quote from: S'mon;897323I didn't see any demands in the thread, just people saying he's not entitled to be paid any particular amount. In particular that he's not entitled to be paid a living wage for his 'dream job'.

Except he didn't say that.

Quote from: Logosi;897362He also said he deserves to be paid for "living the dream".  that is "entitled".

Also not what he said.

Quote from: Bren;897429Now let's change two words to see how people conclude Chris feels or thinks he is entitled.

Wow. Yes, it's true. If you rewrite what he said, it's like he said something completely different.

The irony is that you didn't even manage to change it enough, since you still haven't produced a quote of Chris saying that he's entitled to anything since Chris' primary job isn't game design and he isn't trying to sell you a $60 hardback.

Quote from: Bren;897429Chris thinks that if people knew how much games cost, they'd be willing to pay more for the games. That idea is based on a fundamental confusion between value and cost.

• What games cost is one number. Cost of a game can be computed based on what the game cost to create, produce, distribute, and sell.

• What games are worth, i.e. their value, is what people are willing to pay for them. That's a different number.

If people are willing to pay more than what the item costs, then creating, producing, distributing, and selling that item is a reasonable economic decision for the supplier. If the cost is more than what people are willing to pay, then creating, producing, distributing, and selling that item is an unreasonable, i.e. a dumb decision for the supplier. Chris has made a dumb economic decision and he blames his failure on his customers instead of on his inability or unwillingness to recognize that stuff, like RPGs, is worth what people are willing to pay and no more.

Generally true, but as the quotes in his blog post and the mass illiteracy in this thread demonstrates geeks are particularly prone to faux-analyzing production costs in order to calculate what something should be "worth". Helton isn't the one creating the fallacy; he's responding to it.

With that being said, perceived worth shouldn't be overlooked here. It's another reason there are so many $60 full-color hardbacks: Despite the increased costs, the perceived value increase of these features make it possible for publishers to stay in business.

John Nephew posted a lengthy explanation of this on RPGNet back in 2000 or 2001 (IIRC) why he was producing hardbacks instead of softcover supplements: He'd run the numbers and, to summarize from memory, concluded that the hardbacks cost a couple more bucks to produce but they increased the perceived value enough that people were willing to pay $10+ more for them. With sales numbers dropping per book across the industry, the only way to afford the production costs of the material (as Christopher Helton says) was to find a way to get people to pay more for them. Half a decade later, everybody was producing hardcovers and it was full-color illustrations that were bumping the perceived value up (although those had a more severe effect on the production costs).

Helton's other major point is that if you want Creator X or Company Y to continue producing supplements and/or new games, then you have to be able to pay them a competitive wage. Because if you don't, the dumb ones are going to drive themselves out of business, the smart creators will take work in an industry that pays them (see Greg Costikyan, John Tynes, Warren Spector, and a multitude of others), and the smart companies will start producing products people are willing to pay for (see Steve Jackson Games).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;897621Helton's other major point is that if you want Creator X or Company Y to continue producing supplements and/or new games, then you have to be able to pay them a competitive wage. Because if you don't, the dumb ones are going to drive themselves out of business, the smart creators will take work in an industry that pays them (see Greg Costikyan, John Tynes, Warren Spector, and a multitude of others), and the smart companies will start producing products people are willing to pay for (see Steve Jackson Games).

And I'm perfectly OK with that.  Produce your product and price it for what you think it should be priced at, and the market will tell you if it agrees.

If the market is too stupid to pay you what you're worth, tough shit for both you and the market.

Something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, period.  It is highly possible that in five years nobody will be producing RPGs except WOTC.  If that's the way the cookie crumbles, well then, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

It's not that I, or most other people in this thread don't understand that... it's that we don't care.  It would not really phase me at all if tomorrow each and every company producing RPGs, including WOTC, left the market and there were no RPG products for sale at all.  It would not affect my gaming in the slightest.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;897531Unless you are a really talented artist, good art is one of those things you just have to buy and it can get into the thousands of dollars (even tens of thousands) to fill a book with solid art.

Can't you just licence the use of existing author-owned works, rather than commission new work? Wouldn't that be a lot cheaper? Necromancer Games were able to licence the use of Frazetta pieces, presumably the very top end of the fees scale, for low print run Wilderlands products.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;897621Because he never said that? Doesn't seem like rocket science.

He absolutely did. He even explicitly states it again just to be clear in the discussion. Look on the first page of comments, third-to-last post. I'll quote it here.

"Everyone deserves a living wage, regardless of the type of job that they work."

On page 2, Faenor even asked if he was being sarcastic and he didn't understand why anyone would think such a statement would be taken as sarcasm.

Quote from: S'mon;897627Can't you just licence the use of existing author-owned works, rather than commission new work? Wouldn't that be a lot cheaper? Necromancer Games were able to licence the use of Frazetta pieces, presumably the very top end of the fees scale, for low print run Wilderlands products.

Yes. There are a host of cheap alternatives to new art. For example a lot of people put out books of gaming art on RPGnow that you buy and are allowed to use in gaming products (but other people are using them too). You can also purchase limited rights to art or resort to public domain art. I haven't looked into licensing anything except Stephen Fabian art (and I never got a response on that) but licensing well known art can get expensive I think. I have tried to license music and that is hugely expensive (plus you have to secure two types of rights to it).

Still if you don't hire artists that limits what you can do in terms of the look of your book. And people can usually pick up on the corners you cut. Sometimes we use a little public domain art in our books to flesh out the corners, but people notice and I've been decreasing it over time because I notice it too. I like having the ability to commission art because it allows me to get NPC illustrations, monsters, etc. Also, for RPGs there is art you simply need sometimes, like maps.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;897621Wow. Yes, it's true. If you rewrite what he said, it's like he said something completely different.

No Chris did not literally say, "I am entitled." He said he deserved to make a living wage working at his dream job.

QuoteThe irony is that you didn't even manage to change it enough, since you still haven't produced a quote of Chris saying that he's entitled to anything since Chris' primary job isn't game design and he isn't trying to sell you a $60 hardback.

Chris said he deserves to earn a living wage doing his dream job. Whether his dream job is his primary job is irrelevant to what Chris said. The only irony here is you complaining about illiterate dumbasses while not actually reading and understanding what Chris wrote.

QuoteGenerally true, but as the quotes in his blog post and the mass illiteracy in this thread demonstrates geeks are particularly prone to faux-analyzing production costs in order to calculate what something should be "worth". Helton isn't the one creating the fallacy; he's responding to it.

Responding to one fallacy: bad analysis of cost should determine value with another fallacy: stuff should be worth more than what it costs despite people not valuing it at cost is Helton's problem. Yours too, apparently.

QuoteHelton's other major point is that if you want Creator X or Company Y to continue producing supplements and/or new games, then you have to be able to pay them a competitive wage.

He doesn't state that as an "if" he assumes that we should want Creators X or Company Y to continue producing supplements and goes on from there to conclude that we should buy more books (even though he admits he himself doesn't do that). His should buy more conclusion isn't directly related to his entitlement mentality, so I didn't comment on it.

Quote from: S'mon;897627Can't you just licence the use of existing author-owned works, rather than commission new work? Wouldn't that be a lot cheaper? Necromancer Games were able to licence the use of Frazetta pieces, presumably the very top end of the fees scale, for low print run Wilderlands products.

One major problem with licensing work is that once the license expires you cannot reprint the product, which may be a big deal if there is demand. Also, if there is demand it will likely make renewing the license that much more expensive. See the issues Marvel has had with reprints of Conan, Godzilla, ROM, Master of Kung Fun, and the like.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;897364The best setup I've seen is one that only allows for upvoting. I feel like posting something like "I agree!" "Me too", etc is superfluous. Sometimes a +1 is just a way of saying those things without cluttering the discussion.

They show up so small on my screen I barely pay attention. Surprised some people find them so distracting. Though there is one thread where I made a dick home and said " tee hee" and that post says 1 person found that helpful, which made me genuinely LOL

Quote from: Brand55;897629He absolutely did. He even explicitly states it again just to be clear in the discussion. Look on the first page of comments, third-to-last post. I'll quote it here.

"Everyone deserves a living wage, regardless of the type of job that they work."

On page 2, Faenor even asked if he was being sarcastic and he didn't understand why anyone would think such a statement would be taken as sarcasm.

Justin Alexander is much like Mr. Pundit in that he thinks that because he wrote something, it is therefore true despite all evidence to the contrary.

QuoteQuote Originally Posted by Logosi

He also said he deserves to be paid for "living the dream". that is "entitled".

Quote from: Justin Alexander;897621Also not what he said.

QuotePeople deserve to be paid a living wage, whether they are flipping burgers, waiting tables or living out their dreams by writing tabletop games. People doing their "dream job" is often used to devalue the work, and it is work, that they do for games. People should be paid fairly and given adequate compensation for their time, effort and work. Just because someone is "living the dream," it doesn't mean that their work has less value. This is something that we need to remember.

I hate to get stuck in "OMG someone is wrong on the internet!" hell, so I'll just say I think what I highlighted in the quote above backs what I said, unless entitled and deserve do not have the similar definition that I thought they did.    /cheers

Quote from: Matt;897637Justin Alexander is much like Mr. Pundit in that he thinks that because he wrote something, it is therefore true despite all evidence to the contrary.

True - but many people share that flaw while never saying anything of any value at all. Justin Alexander may be a goddamn Lefty who probably hates my guts (at least when aware of my existence), and he certainly has a highly inflated opinion of himself, but he does often produce work of real value; stuff that improves how I think about RPGs and makes me a better Gamesmaster. Likewise Pundit (though we've actually been agreeing about some stuff lately!). So I cut them some slack.