Federation Commander

Steve Cole · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 3821

Let's find out something about PDFs.

Most PDF versions of books sell for less than the book (it clear is less valuable in the sense that you have to print your own).

While a PDF book takes the same amount of design/edit work as a printed book, you avoid two costs: printing, distribution.

Printing a $10 book costs maybe $2.

Distribution of a $10 book costs $6.

A paper book must be sold on the website for the same retail price as the stores sell it (or the stores won't carry it) so the company makes a lot of profit. (We'd go out of business without the higher profit on the 50% of dollar volume sales that come through the cart.) But a PDF is not sold through stores (which is why stores hate PDF sales) so you can sell it for anything you want.

Companies that sell PDFs and paper copies of the same books report that PDFs are extra profit and do not reduce book sales. Piracy is an issue but this is handled by an employee who isn't designing games but has a couple of hours per day to send nastygrams to ISPs and peer-sharing indexes.

A set of 72 ship cards (color, laminated) would cost about $108 through normal sales, if we could afford to print them in quantities of 3,000, which we cannot. But there might be a way to do it by color-laser-printing, but this requires spending $5000 for a color laser printer.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

Rick Smith · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject:

Hi Steve,

World Works Games sells an entire game system, plus cardstock ships (that must be printed and assembled) for $25.00.

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=54&products_id=256

Now...in your interests and business model, this would probably be extremely detrimental to your sales and profit. I would say that if you ever created a simple "one off" game with a very compact rulebook, this may be the way to go. However, you guys have created so much content over the years, I think it would severely damage your company to start selling things in this manner for your current line.

I'm in no way a business man (just an artist who tries to "make things look nice"), but I can see the potential for trouble.

I know what I'm saying now goes against my original excitement about releasing SSDs in a CD format, but I believe I've seen the error of my thinking. I just get excited about digital media. In this age, I think it may be a very natural thing for most people.

I would say keep proceeding as you have been: ship cards for purchase and fun, free updates of cards online. If your business is working for you, please don't risk breaking it on something you think is too dangerous. I know that a lot of us that enjoy your games would be very sad to see them go away.

Best,
Rick
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UPFY

dave · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:12 pm Post subject:

When I st down to ponder SVC's question seriously I realized I would rather buy the cards under the current model (or as a full set) than pdf.

I have over the years lost many hundreds of dollars of pay-per-download content as well as free content, either through hardware failure or operator error.

Over that same span I have lost very few of my hardcopy books, counters etc. My SFB collection is one of the exceptions, which is why I now play FC. Leaking roofs are not kind to games.

I would probably buy pdfs if they were available, but my actual honest preference is for printed cards.

MajerBlundor · Lieutenant SG Joined: 03 Apr 2009 Posts: 123

I voted for paying $100 for pre-printed cards (in fact, I'm about to do that by ordering a bunch of Boosters!)

I'm perfectly capable of printing out full color PDF files and laminating them. GBC makes a wonderful self-adhesive lamination product and my FC friends were very impressed with my home-made laminated ship cards.

But even making them at home brings the cost to something close to the ADB-printed/laminated cards and then there's the time to actually make them.

For me the only reason to print/laminate at home would be for special scenarios in which several copies of a single ship appear. But since we prefer smaller scenarios with 2-4 ships per side that's not a significant issue for us.

Tim

mjwest · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:09 pm Post subject:

djdood · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:31 pm Post subject:

I voted $25, but I'd add the caveat that I prefer ADB-produced cards for "mainline" ships.

The ships in the briefings are a unique case (kinda exotic, "niche" ships). In that odd case, I'd like the option to color print and laminate the small sub-set I'm actually interested in.

I'd add that this would apply to Captains Logs as well. I'd pay a reasonable fee to access to color-printable versions.

Hmmmm... I know that the "SSD packs" are available from Captains Logs, etc. in B&W. I'd happily pay for a color laser printed version of the same and just glue and laminate them myself (avoiding the pdf issues entirely). I just want color prints and for ADB to get paid and keep cranking them out - the means isn't all that important to me.

I have never used B&W ship cards. The game is beautiful and they just don't fit.
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rockyr · Lieutenant JG Joined: 12 Jan 2009 Posts: 55

I voted on the set, although I would much rather be able to order specific PDFs of the ships I want from any set at $5-$10 per.

R
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Genetically Modified Food

Savedfromwhat · Commander Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 657

I would love PDF's but at the same time why upset the apple cart?

Carthaginian · Lieutenant SG Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 157

In all honesty, I'd rather DONATE to ADB (and a fine group of people) to finance the color equipment needed for ya'll to print your own cards than to have everything out there on .pdf's. If every SFB/FC fan kicked in $5, it's a very doable thing. Wink

Call it investing in our future.

I could see limited interest items (FC Briefings, BoM supplements, Capt's Log reprints) being very good for .pdf's, though. If ADB would offer the CL scans for a small price ($8 splits the difference in the two offered now), people could pretty much buy two items in .pfd for the current cost of 1 item in hard copy and shipping. The .pdf's would mean that the customer gets twice as much game, and ADB gets profit that would be lost to shipping costs for the hard copy.

Savedfromwhat · Commander Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 657

There is another option which is to sell the briefings somewhat like briefing number one with articles and all the scenarios etc, but then include an online access code that allows you to come to ADB's website and download the ship cards. you could continue to sell the books for the same price and the ship cards would be an online only thing for the briefing (of course you could do a seperate B&W book as a special order).

Wolverin61 · Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:03 pm Post subject:

I voted that I'd rather spend $100 on actual color cards, because I really don't know what the pdfs would be worth. Since I don't have a working printer right now, they wouldn't be useful to me anyway. But back when I was playing SFB a lot, I would have loved to have the ssds on a cd so I could just print them out when we played instead of having to lug around a big suitcase full of books and find a copier.

pinecone · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:17 am Post subject:

The problem with paying $25 for a color PDF of the ships is that breifing 2 costs less than that. So you pay a total of 55 bucks for 10 scenarios and two sets of 72 ship (1 in color, none laminated). I see no reason to buy both. That's why I voted $10 dollars.

Mike · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:53 am Post subject:

As I've suggested before, its too bad there isn't a way to allow those who purchase FCB2 to also download color versions of the ship files. I'm sure they are on whichever computer houses them anyway. But, I know, I know, the fear is that files like that will be disseminated for no profit to ADB.

pinecone · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:18 am Post subject:

There could be a code in FCB2 for buyers to use to get the color PDF's if they pay a small fee. It could be made so the code cold only be used once.

nickgb · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 3:24 am Post subject:

I voted $10 seeing as how the dead tree version is $20 (IIRC), usually the PDF version is less than the printed version, so $10-12 seems more reasonable than $25.

I would definitely like to purchase a PDF though to be able to print these out in color rather than copying the black and white pages of the book. And I really like SJGs e23 site, I have purchased a bunch of their PDFs. Their interface is great, and you can always re-download anything if you lose it for some reason.
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Nick Blank