This Deal Is Getting Worse All The Time

For SJGames.  Seriously, what are they getting out of it?

(Well, I think I know.  Let's speculate!)

So, recently SJGames announced a PDF Kickstarter, which I found a very interesting idea, but watching more and more details come out have had my eyebrows climbing through that little remains of my tattered hairline.  I will walk you through my logic.

First, we knew there was going to be a kickstarter for 12 PDFs. I found this an intriguing proposal, though some people bristled on the facebook group. My experience with kickstarters is that they're usually designed for print. You want to print a book, but you want to know exactly how many to print, so you run a kickstarter, find out who your customers are, print exactly that many (maybe with +10% or so, I don't know what the excess would be, to cover late-comers).  So why do it for PDFs?

Well, I think what people miss about kickstarter is the excitement of it. It's a moment in time, this flash of hype and wonder where you feel like you're participating in the creation of a thing  It has the patter and speed and excitement of an auction.  It's a rush. Even if you're just a backer, you want to check in to see that it gets funded.  You nibble your nails if it isn't funded yet. You get excited as it nears its completion.  As it finishes, and then starts to hit stretch goals, you're elated, not just because it's happening, but because you feel like you're part of it. You're part of this greater community making this great thing happen.  You feel emotionally invested.

So why not sell PDFs this way?  I mean, they sit there, gathering dust on the shelves of e-stores, yet pretty much every kickstarter I've ever seen of an established line offers pdfs of older works as part of its line-up.  But, like, why? I mean, anyone could go in and buy those from the e-store at anytime, so why offer them there?  My guess is they're offered because they sell, because running a kickstarter raises the profile of the game a lot.

Then I found out the next thing: the PDFs, all 12, will be $3.  Not $3 per PDF, which is a great deal as most PDFs are at least twice that price, but $3 will buy you all 12 PDFs.

LOLWUT?

Okay. Um.  Alright.  I didn't see how they'll pay for it all, but sure, I'll give you $3 for 12 PDFs.  I'll do better than that. I'll donate more. I calculated what I felt was a fair price: $60.  I'll donate $60.  For the cause.

Then today.  And like the clouds parting and the rays of heaven spilling forth, it made sense: this is to entice us to spend spend spend on back PDFs.  If I'm willing to spend $30, half of my $60, I get $30 worth of PDFs for free.  So I get the PDFs for free.  But if I'm willing to spend $100, not only will they give me the PDFs for free, they will give me discounted PDFs.  How can I say no to that? I, who was planning on spending $60, am now planning on spending $100. Success achieved.

One of the reasons I'm planning on it is that I have quite a backlog on my wishlist.  I mean, why not get those pdfs?  But why didn't I get them before?  Part of it is that they weren't on sale.  Another reason is I didn't have this time-limit.  Part of me is thinking "If I spend that $100, it helps the whole kickstarter and we'll all get more PDFs" so my dollars feel like they're more useful and less selfish now than if SJGames were to offer a -20% off sale, which is essentially what they're offering me.  And why not offer that to me? Those PDFs on my wishlist are making them no money.  But if I spend that $100 now, then they have it now.

There was an article I read in Pyramid #2, ages and ages ago, about a guy's experience in retail, when he held a charity sale.  He discounted everything in his store and noted that some portion (I don't remember if it was 100% or 10% or 50%, whatever it was) went to a particular charity.  It was to help with some recent disaster. Anyway, he never moved more product in his life.  He noted in his conclusion that if you give people a moral reason to buy what they were going to buy anyway, and give it to them on a deal, so it appeals to both their greed and their sense of compassion, you've double-whammied them, and you'll sell ridiculously well.  That article really stuck with me, and I've noticed the tactic again and again: it's Humble Bundle's model, and politicians use it a lot.  I think this is a similar approach (in fact, upon reflection, it is very like Humble Bundle): if you spend, not only are you getting a great deal, and supporting your favorite game, but you are supporting your community by helping those $3 guys get their 12 PDFs.

Whew.  What a great strategy!  I hope it works out, but more than that, I think it will work out.  This is smart marketing!  Especially how they're slowly building it up, and being so interesting that people like me will, without prompting, babble about it excitedly to my fellow GURPSers. I think you owe it to yourself to follow this one closely.  I think this may well lead to a renaissance in GURPS marketing, which could lead to a springtime for GURPS as it joins the ranks of regularly successful kickstarters, but while also returning to its generic roots (I don't mind Dungeon Fantasy, I just don't want GURPS to become "the dungeon fantasy line").  And it's a freaking good deal.  I would definitely follow this if I were you.