[UA] Release schedule stuff

[Greg Stolze]

>>>> holycrow at mindspring.com 04/28/01 11:09pm >>>
>
>>Who buys the argument that the more supplements you put out, the more
>>lively your line looks and the more attention it gets.
>
>But putting out infrequent thick books also gets attention (just look at
>>Pagan). Also, I'm more likely to buy one thick book than two thin ones
>simply >because it's likely to be cheaper.

Not to be snide, but let's take a historical perspective.

1995, or thereabouts.  Pagan puts out a couple books.  AEG is publishing a
magazine.  I start working for both.

1996  Pagan puts out a couple books.  AEG is publishing a monthly magazine
and designing L5R.


Around 1997?  Pagan puts out Delta Green to tremendous accolades and some
commercial success.  AEG puts out the L5R RPG with a supplement every month.

By 2000 Pagan -- following the "a few big thick books a year" model -- has
put out... maybe six books in its vaunted Delta Green series.  AEG, in the
meantime, has grown from "those guys with the magazine" to "serious
contender for #3 company in the business."

Or, to give another example, check out Hunter: the Reckoning.  NOBODY loved
this game before it came out.  EVERYBODY expected it to suck.  You can
still find people on usenet and the WW boards talking shit about it,
without even reading it.  ("Man, you can't BUY that kind of publicity!")
Yet it has handily outsold UA at every single turn.

Admittedly, comparing H:tR -- a WoD core book, backed by the second biggest
company in the business -- with UA is a bit of apples to oranges.  But it's
undeniable that despite some serious strikes against it, H:tR is
succeeding, while UA -- despite its great reputation, its buzz-laden
release, its consistently good (and well-reviewed) releases and its hard
core of intelligent fans -- is floundering.  I'm sorry, but in the current
industry climate, it's not enough to simply be a good game.  You have to
constantly renew the interest of the people you have, while simultaneously
bringing new players in to expand the market and replace the people who
give it up when they graduate from college or move to a city without a hub
of UA players.

Is there a way to do that without lots of releases?  I do not think so.  I
think that if UA drops to two releases a year, it won't go five more years
before Atlas either sells it or shuts it down completely.  In fact, five
years is optimistic.  I'd love to be wrong about this, and I've been wrong
about a lot of gaming stuff in the past -- but that's my considered opinion.

-G.

"Anyway, after that, I became known around the campus as 'the D&D guy,' which
made me the de facto expert on the occult.  I really didn't know that much,
so I got a subscription to Time/Lifes Mysteries of the Unknown series, to
bone up."
		-Tim Toner



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