Well, I did it. I asked someone to form a game publishing enterprise with me. Tentatively, they said yes. I know I’ve done this once before, with disastrous results due to a number of factors. So what’s different this time around?
First, I’m in a better space mentally and with life in general. Before, I tried to do this at a time when my marriage and (eventually) my mental health were tenuous at best. It’s been a while, and I’ve finally sorted out my priorities; husband, father, friend, prep cook, game designer in that rough order. In fact, most of those involved this time around have other things in their lives that take precedence over our endeavor. This, in my opinion, is a good thing.
Second, the mix of people is little different than before. None of the folks involved are thinking that running a game company will make us rich. It won’t. To be honest, the best it’ll do for the first five years or so is net us a bit of pocket money with which to buy more games. Seems fair to me. Use my hobby to fund my hobby. =)
Third, I no longer have the urge to reinvent the wheel. With my previous endeavor, I was all fired up into creating the “next big thing” system-wise. I need to face facts. The wheel has been done to death. The best I can hope for is maybe to present a shiny new set of rims for the game world to ride on, but why bother? There are many open and cheap to license systems out there just waiting to be used. I should take advantage of that instead of snubbing my nose at them.
Forth, this time we’re going a different route. Before, everything was geared to have a product to be printed; to have a physical thing that a gamer could hold in their hands. Admirable, but costly, and requires a fair number of hoops to jump through. Now, like many others before us, this new and as-yet-unnamed collective is traipsing down the path of electronic publishing. PDFs are cheaper to produce, with almost zero printing hassles on the creative end of things. Neat!
Lastly, as a group, our focus is different. With my first foray, I wanted to give a gamer a huge tome with which he/she could do anything. Now, we’re aiming a touch smaller than that. Small little adventures, collections of foes and traps, perhaps some treatments of generic locations (banks, taverns, warehouses, etc.), and other little projects like that are our aim. Quick bang for not a lot of dough.
Overall, I’m pleased with myself. I have a good feeling that this can work. I hope that the others involved do to.
Peace... RHM
1 comment:
"Second, the mix of people is little different than before. None of the folks involved are thinking that running a game company will make us rich. It won’t. To be honest, the best it’ll do for the first five years or so is net us a bit of pocket money with which to buy more games. Seems fair to me. Use my hobby to fund my hobby. =)"
Dude, you're totally freaking me out here, with this talk of "the first five years" or making any money on this project at all! Maybe after I see an actual product for sale on RPGnow.com I won't have the heebie-jeebies. I know this venture is exciting, but I don't have Word One of anything publishable down on paper yet. We've both got some ideas, but ideas are a dime a dozen. It's the execution that makes or breaks us. I don't mean to be the doombunny of the operation here, but until we sit down, crunch some ideas and develop a plan for what we want to work on, and most importantly, START WRITING THEM, all of this is just a bunch of jibber-jabber. And like Mr. T, I have my limits to the amount of jibber-jabber I can endure.
Did that sound harsher than I meant it? I hope not. I'm not trying to harsh on you at all. Maybe you should come over Sunday. I'd like Pat to be there too. He's good for calling me on the carpet when I start to get off my keel. (Mixed metaphors, -5 points.)
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