I've tried percentage share deals in the past as a contractor and it's not a good means of doing things really. For one, it's highly unlikely that the artist will make nearly enough to make the hard work worthwhile and most experienced artists know it, so you're reliant on good Samaritans helping out. For another, there's the administrative cost of having to keep track of sales and divvy up royalties at regular intervals. This also cuts further into profits because of the fees extracted by companies like PayPal who handle the transfer of fees.

This, I think, is one of the reasons that the vast majority of Indie publishers make heavy use of clipart and out-of-copyright artwork, when they aren't in a position to make their own images.

Me, I'm not in this business to make a profit. I'm in it to make good books. I pay what I can afford for art, which ain't a lot, but I don't ever want to go into royalty operations again. It's probably OK when you're selling a lot of copies, but if you don't sell many you feel like you're cheating someone and even if there's already been a big run, when the momentum wears down to a trickle the paperwork and transfer fees start to become onerous to say the least.

-Ash

If you're trying to publish an RPG project cheaply, I think suggesting deals like this are a good idea. You might not have $100 up front, but an aspiring artist might take $1 per copy. It might be a good deal for both them and you. Or perhaps they might license some existing artwork to you, rather than doing new stuff.

If that's the plan, it's probably best, I would think, to emphasise how much you appreciate artists, rather than questioning whether full-price art is worth the money.

I wouldn't bet that it's cheaper in Europe. The exchange rate is pretty punitive. I've bought art from designers in the States and, because of the exchange rate, found it remarkably cheap.

Graham

If you can't afford to pay artists the pittance they're asking for without whining, you can't afford it. Do something else to make your product visually stimulating. Fred Hicks used photoshop manipulations of cheap stock art for DRYH. Clinton Nixon used dingbats as interior decoration for Princes' Kingdom. Jason Morningstar used montages of public domain photographs in the Roach. There are lots of other examples. Focus on making the presentation of the text interesting enough to sustain itself, and make the game awesome, and maybe you can afford good art for your NEXT project without exploiting the artists you're working with.

Also, recouping your expenses and THEN paying the artists is super-sleazy. (EDIT: That's what 'from the profits' means)

I'm the Art Director (among other things) for a budding indie RPG company. Art Director is just the fancy title for the guy who begs artists for art for our books. I've been running around with my head cut off trying to find art for our next book. This particular issue has been in the fore front of my mind (and wallet) for the last few months. Here is what I have found:

This is mostly from an indie perspective. And an RPG perspective more than a board game perspective.

1. How much effort art takes to create is highly subjective to the artist's skill level and style, as well as your specific requirements. The entire Art community seems to have a very hard time determining what standardized prices for art should be, can be, what their art is worth. It is very much a market where prices fluctuate based more upon demand and what it can bear, than the actual inerrant "value" of the art pieces.
2. Any artist who has done a little bit of art for awhile knows they can sell their art on the internet and get money for it. IE commissions. Which means most artists seem less inclined to take bets on things like share percentages of profits because they can just wait for commissions instead, assuming they have some kind of web presence.
3. The concept of "getting exposure" doesn't seem to mean as much to an artist as it does to a writer or game designer. Trying to trade on the idea of getting credit, free advertising, doesn't seem to appeal. This might be because of #2. It might be because artists want more desperately to be the self-supported on their art.

The rules change if you get bigger or have more of a history, you can prove to the artist that it is more likely they will recoup their personal views of how much their art is worth. Also your advertising becomes more valuable as well.

I think though the real issue is that there is a conception (and not necessarily a misconception) that anybody can design, and anybody can write, but not everybody can make art. So writers and designers are willing to not accept money in order to do their work but people value artists for their rarity and skill. Think about it. How many times have you met someone who could draw and went "ooh, would you draw this for me?". Now how many people have you met who could write and you said "ooh, would you write this for me?"

I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop with this point: Sometimes flat-fees can be to the non-artist's benefit. Depending upon how generic or useful your art is (for example logos), you can re-use the art across several products without it looking cheap. Also there are tricks non-artists can due to re-use the art they've purchased (assuming they have the rights to the art) in interesting ways. Examples including cropping and zooming (on portrait style art) or texturing (for more abstract art). You can also re-contact the artist with their old work (or a new artist if you have the rights) And ask for tweaks and modifications. Usually this is cheaper and easier for the artist than starting from scratch. Another method is to offer up clip-art/out-of-copyright artwork as a base.

Also I agree with Ash on the royalty situation. In my company we're already having to deal with that with our writers so the overhead for including a royalty based artist wouldn't be high, but it is still a lot of tracking and if the artist is sold on the idea of actually making money, you could be burning a bridge. Also I've talked with professional artists who have done RPG work for the bigger name companies. Apparently they have horror stories of companies not paying them, so that particular bad karma might be filtering down to us.

Speaking as an artist who does freelance work, I have an rss feed for the local craigslist creative gigs section and I can't tell you how many posts there are trying to get artists, for comic books and children's books, mostly, with the compensation being no money at all (exposure! great for college students!) or sharing part of the profits when the book is published. I ignore these and drive on. They're honestly pretty laughable for the most part. It says a few things to me. It says that the poster of said ad is ridiculously presumptuous in thinking others will just trust in the fact that a total stranger will make any money on whatever project they're touting. It also tells me that they don't respect the efforts it takes to create decent artwork of any great complexity.

Look, you get what you pay for with regards to art. You're not just paying for a piece magically pulled complete and glowing from ones ass, you're paying for the artist's materials, past training, skills and time. I went to art school, I have to buy paper and ink and replacement brushes, I have to do revisions for you, do multiple versions of a piece, prepare files for uploading, I have a deadline. Being a working artist is not having a minimum wage job, or shouldn't be. It's very very easy for desperate artists to succumb to working for cheaper than they should be for 'exposure' or 'portfolio pieces', but freelance artists in general can be pretty touchy about the subject, because when you start underselling yourself, you're hurting your peers.

What are you really wanting to pay for an artist and what do you expect to get for that amount of money?

To make only a buck or two per copy sold, an indie publisher would have to sell the game for, like, $4-$7. I expect that most of us make $10-$15 per copy, some of us even more. If you spend $100 on art, then, you can expect to recoup that by selling only 7-10 books.

-Vincent

If it's anything like it is here, the indie band posters you're talking about usually ARE NOT PAYING FOR THEIR ART. They are simply finding a picture they like and appropriating it. (I'm actually kind of OK with this, but that's a different discussion)

Posted By: walkerpYes, very valid points.

Why is art so expensive? How much to RPG writers get? Like 2 cents a word or something, right? So that's like $10.00 a page. But a full-page of art is around $100. I recognize that the effort to draw a page of art and probably the impact as well is greater than a single page of text. But ten times greater? And greater to the point that it is not valid for a small press designer to include any actually illustrations in his or her work?

You're not paying per page, you're paying for time spent working on it, basically.

There are a number of ways to get cheaper art, some already suggested.
There's buying existing art from an artist, which you could probably get cheaper since it already exists.
There's buying some form of ''stock'' art, like the guys at illodeli.com are selling (I had my own but I'm re-designing).
There's making your own.


As an artist, exposure as payment means nothing, unless you're already established and you're selling hundreds of books. If White Wolf asked me to do some free work for them I wouldn't (because they can afford it), but that actually means exposure.
I wouldn't mind getting paid with a % of profits, if I think you're actually going to make anything.

Thanks walkerp.

I too am curious about this strange dichotomy between art and writing and design. I don't feel that my observations are the whole reason why.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: jenskot</cite>Artists considering investing in a project might be greater persuaded by a true collaboration. Working with a writer creatively on a project beyond producing art may be attractive. Helping shape the world, characters, and situations can help motivate them to not only work with you but produce better work. Pitch them as if they were an investor.</blockquote>

I've actually tried this method. One artist was on board, and then about half way through the proofing of the art. They came back to me and essentially said 'Well I don't have the time anymore for free projects. I have other people paying me for stuff'. Let me tell you that really felt like I was being played. I had proofs of good art and /then/ they decided to negotiate price with me slightly over a barrel as they knew my deadlines and knew how long I had. Walking away and looking for a new artist was just another setback. So I negotiated.

Mind you that wasn't the reality. I knew the artist on a more personal level and they weren't trying to steal money from me. I just misjudged how much they wanted to be apart of the project. This led me to another idea:

Artists get a sense of accomplishment quicker and easier from commissions than in doing work for books or games. Being apart of the project, waiting days/weeks/months for deadlines, for writers to get a story done, not as satisfying as receiving requirements, producing the art, and getting paid. Writers, designers, etc, on the other hand, are used to how much we have to delay our gratification. We can't just throw our games up onto the internet and have people admire them. Well books can to some degree, board games not so much.

I don't know how valid this idea is as I've only pitched the investor idea to about 5 artists, and only one every actual bite, and then turned around on it. Also don't take from this that artists are fickle. We've likely all had some experience with a writer or a tester coming onto the project, saying they are all in, and then dropping out a month alter when they realize the work they've dedicated themselves to.

Nojh,
Listen to yourself. "How DARE an artist take regular paying work instead of laboring for me for free!" [edited out pointless comment] You found a single artist who didn't know what a bad deal they were getting, and when they found out, they followed the lead of the other artists who rejected your bad idea outright. This is not the fault of the artists, it is the fault of your BAD IDEA.

Look, I don't know why writer's work has been so devalued. The answer is not to devalue the work of other creative folks. I think it's why a lot of writers who are really serious about game-writing have broken off and done their own thing. It's probably a lot more fulfilling and at least as profitable for them.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Remi</cite>Nojh,
Listen to yourself. "How DARE an artist take regular paying work instead of laboring for me for free!" [edited out pointless comment] You found a single artist who didn't know what a bad deal they were getting, and when they found out, they followed the lead of the other artists who rejected your bad idea outright. This is not the fault of the artists, it is the fault of your BAD IDEA.

Look, I don't know why writer's work has been so devalued. The answer is not to devalue the work of other creative folks. I think it's why a lot of writers who are really serious about game-writing have broken off and done their own thing. It's probably a lot more fulfilling and at least as profitable for them.</blockquote>

I find your summary of my comment inaccurate and somewhat insulting.

I won't argue that joining a hobby company isn't a bad idea from an economic standpoint. But I was very clear from the get go that all the people on the project have day jobs (so did the artist in question so I knew I was not stealing from their lively hood), that we're primarily volunteer, and that while we're working with the idea of making a profit, the reality of it is that most RPG companies don't make profit. Most indie games don't make profit. I thought I had found an artist who wanted to create a game, not make money, like myself and my friends in our company. I was wrong. In this way I felt betrayed (although I thought I made it clear the the feelings of betrayal were unfounded, and I knew it rationally, but it still felt like betrayal). Perhaps that is where Remi saw the "DARE" part of their comment.

I like to believe that I am a writer who is serious about game-writing. I am not requesting work from major companies. I am apart of my own companies and I do find my work fulfilling. But I don't find it profitable. In order for it to be profitable, I need to sell books. One aspect of selling books is to have art in them because that is what the RPG industry expects. In this way, Remi, I feel your statement regarding indie writing being profitable is false.

But perhaps Remi is right after a fashion. It is the expectation that games require good art, created by the professional game companies, that is the issue. Artists know the value of their work because they can easily access other avenues for getting economic value for their work. Game writers, designers, we have no avenue for ascertaining the value of their game outside of publishing it with art, because without the art, as expected by the public, a majority of game players (including ourselves) won't even consider trying to play the game.

All that being said, I do wish there were artists who were in it for the "BAD IDEA". Who understood that they were volunteering their time, their skill, to make something for the gaming community, rather than just being in it for the money. Even artists who game, who have told me int he past they'd love to help make an RPG, have told me they need money for their art. Is the only value of someone's product in money?

(Okay that last question was pandering. I know money helps make the world go 'round and that everybody aspires to get paid for what they like to do.)

Posted By: walkerp(also posted atthe RPG Haven)

It seems to me from my very limited experience and from listening to other small press designers that art is the biggest expense in a game's budget.

I'm not sure this is actually true.

It might seem true because the writer isn't being paid anything per se, but that just seems like crooked accounting. Not to mention editing, layout, and all those other things.



Cheers,
Roger

I asked a very similar question on the Forge a few years ago, after seeing a number of absolutely gorgeous indie games (like Burning Empires) hit the market. That thread is here if you're interested. Good comments and good insights from many.

My wife and I recently started a local convention. Part of our vision was a recreation of the play-focused cons I used to attend in Sweden back in the 90s, and one of the aspects of those cons were the glitzy convention programs. I recently found a few that I'd saved and were amazed at the production quality. Well, HammerCon being in its first year and operating on an out-of-pocket budget, we knew we couldn't spend megabucks on artwork. So I went on DeviantArt and posted this on their forum. For $50 we got a really snazzy image which we used in our convention program (PDF and colour print) and on flyers - even a bit of thrown-in art direction and logo work. What we didn't get was unlimited publishing rights, nor did we take away author's right to resell it to anyone else. It was a good deal for us and, I think, a pretty good deal for the artist (an established professional).

There's also http://www.illodeli.com, which offers similar prices and usage rights.

I'd love to see author/artist partnerships as I think aesthetics are often overlooked by indie game designers, with many notable exceptions (Don't Lose Your Mind is a fabulous piece of art, for example). As mentioned in the Forge thread, the problem is likely that the author has initiated the idea of the game and is invested in it, while the artist typically isn't as much. If you can get an artist excited about a project when it's still in the conception stages, a profit-sharing method might well work. If not, I strongly suggest negotiating single-use licenses for artwork that's already been produced rather than commissioning it all from scratch.

Posted By: lachekI asked a very similar question on the Forge a few years ago, after seeing a number of absolutely gorgeous indie games (like Burning Empires) hit the market.

I think it's important to make a distinction here. Burning Empires, like its spiritual sibling Mouse Guard, is a licensed product based on a graphic novel. Those gorgeous images were all taken from a pre-existing comic book. I don't know what deal the author worked out with the comic's owner, but it's usual for such a deal to include the use of artwork. It's a great deal if you can get it, but swinging this kind of agreement with a property that's of a high enough quality to be worthwhile takes quite an effort. Hell, it's hard enough to get a response from most people, let alone a firm yes!

-Ash

I guess I should also state that my views are talking about beginning, amateur, part-time, and semi-professional artists. Like Mark W said. You pay pros. Pros do it for a living. They need to make money. Their level of dedication is usually such that they can make a living. If a pro is willing to do one piece of art for you because they like you, awesome. But don't expect them to keep at it.

It'd be the same thing with any asset you attempt to use to help you make your game. Professional editor. Professional publisher. Marketer. Web designer. Etc. If they are professional. If they present themselves as professional, you should expect to pay them. Up front, per share, in gold dabloons if thats how they want it. Because you're getting a professional. (Although if an artist demanded I pay them in Spanish doubloons I'd probably back away very slowly. ;)

I'm not a professional game designer/writer/art director/marketer/web designer/artist/etc. I may get paid for it (hopefully) but I don't present myself to others as such. It is misleading as to my value.

Posted By: DestriarchI think it's important to make a distinction here. Burning Empires, like its spiritual sibling Mouse Guard, is a licensed product based on a graphic novel. Those gorgeous images were all taken from a pre-existing comic book.

Burning Empires was mentioned only as the catalyst which caused me to think about the arrangement, as I felt the ante had been significantly upped on indie RPG production. It is definitely a special case. It was also mentioned as an illustration of how important the artwork is. BE has been praised as a marvel of game design, but everyone I've tried to "sell it" to have balked at it due to the complexity of the mechanics. If it wasn't for the production values, I have a hard time seeing how it could've made the impact it did (Origins Award, etc).

IMHO, high quality, coherent art is very important in RPGs. I love razor-sharp systems as much as the next guy, but a good illustration does more for jogging the imagination and ensuring creative coherency between players than any descriptive dice mechanic does. For some more self-important horn-blowing, see The Dreamer's Genii - no way that game would've emerged without ThomasHVM's illustrations. It was an "Artists First" game, but I personally think it would've been even better if we'd gotten a chance to work on it in concert.

I'd love to see more author/artist teams partner up on indie game development. It happens in the computer game world often enough, I see no reason why it wouldn't work for the this community.

Posted By: walkerpIt just seems like art is an element that is not as accessible to the small press world as competent page layout, production and distribution have become. I'm trying to hone in on why.

Roleplaying as a hobby tends to pre-select people who are into writing. You write a character, you world build, you write a setting, you write an encounter. Lots of writing. So you already are starting with a population predisposed towards more writing skills.

Layout... people get away with a lot on layout. For the most part, things merely need to be readable. Good layout is much more rare. Still, you can sit down with a layout program and learn decent layout with some time. 1 & 2 column format is not an intensely difficult thing to learn.

But art? You can't do a lot of cheating with art. There's no template, and no program will "draw" the art for you. So illustration is going to be the least represented skill in the whole population. (Maybe anime conventions swing the other way- a lot more artists than writers?)

People have already mentioned why that's a marketable skill, the effort and supplies that go into it, and the fact anyone really solid in it, probably will charge a solid going rate. There's also the fact that artists can sell art to a vast market of media- you're not just competing price-wise with other rpgs- you're competing price-wise with anything that might use illustrations- comics, magazines, advertising, webpages, etc. That just drives the prices up overall.

Remi, as an artist who participated in Game Chef Artists First, I have an issue with you saying that you "Art directed" Game Chef. You put time and effort into it, you were a judge, but you did neither art nor directing of art, as far as I know.

The reason the distinction is important to me is that it's easy to find people who'll sit around a forum and complain/gush about artwork, as is evidenced from.. well.. any forum in which art is even tangential.

Yeah. Just want to emphasize, you obviously did a crap-ton of work for AF and it was mightily appreciated. :)

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining and I haven't heard a lot of complaining in this thread (though I'm not denying that it's a phenomenon).

I would be curious to know if the proportions are actually different in the anime scene, as it would make sense. Neko Ewen?

I have taken % deals in the past. They have not panned out. Not one. One came really close to breaking even to what cost per image would normally be. So that was nice.

I wouldn't automatically say no to a % deal. I think at this point, something has to come up front (or preferably, payment on delivery of artwork... I like to work a bit hungry). But I wouldn't say % of profit. That means you have to recoup your losses first. That puts me on the waiting list. % of sales is the way to go. Even if it is a lower %.

And yes, I do a lot of commissions. The nice thing about commissions is that I then can sell the 2nd use rights cheap. $20.00 for 2nd use rights of (usually) single figure, no background, FULL color. That is pretty cheap, IMO, but I've made my money on the work, anything more is gravy. It is nice to get a check for $200.00 (10 images) every once in awhile. Much of Savage World's fantasy companion was 2nd use rights.

If you have a low art budget and you are commissioning original artwork, my advice, if you approach me... make it simple. One figure, simple background like mist or smoke... is a lot quicker than a full on battle or tavern or space station scene with 15 spaceships coming and going.

Ash, I only said good writing is invisible. If somebody writes well, information is conveyed clearly and concisely, as you say, and that information becomes more important than the prose style. You read it and say "Aha! I understand! That's an interesting idea!" far more often that you remark "This mofo can write the pants off Stephen King!"

Writers are not popularly acclaimed for their prose style -- it's the stuff they write about that people actually talk about. People will put up with bad writing because they enjoy the content (in fiction, see: the "fantasy" genre) far more readily than... I was going to say more readily than people will put up with bad art for what it depicts, but I'm not sure I'm ready to stand behind that one... Let's just say art tends toward better quality in games with a bigger budget, but the writing's trajectory is not so smooth.

Art is supposed to convey information, too, but it does so in a very visible way. It's there to be looked at. Good writing, especially instructional writing, conveys information and gets out of the way while it does so.

So anyway, it just seems to me that people recognize their artistic shortcomings more often than their literary ones. Or maybe it's that if you write a game, you're going to practice your writing a lot more than your drawing and end up getting better at it? Most everybody can write enough to communicate at a basic level, so maybe it's just natural to assume if you can write a game system, you can write the text that explains it.

I dunno, maybe I'm wrong. I hear "I wrote a game, now I need to buy art and layout" a lot. But I guess there are writers getting hired for games too.

I've done three percentage sharing agreements now, and they're all a pain in the ass. Not so much that I don't think they were worth it, but still, giant pain in the ass. Artists are hired guns. Pay 'em for their work and move on.

Posted By: Luke WheelArtists are hired guns. Pay 'em for their work and move on.

Same with writers?

Posted By: Johnstone

Posted By: Luke WheelArtists are hired guns. Pay 'em for their work and move on.

Same with writers?

Writers are a bit stickier. If there's actual content creation going on, then I think they should take a share. Otherwise, they're hired guns.

For example, Sean Sakamoto and Robin Laws got paid a flat fee for their fiction contribs to Blossoms. Whereas Sydney Freedburg earns a percentage of the sales of Bloodstained Stars.

Sean and Robin were paid out when they turned in their work or soon after. Syd has yet to see a dime.

-L

Posted By: Luke Wheel

Writers are a bit stickier. If there's actual content creation going on, then I think they should take a share. Otherwise, they're hired guns.

Well, there's *always* content creation going on, isn't there? :) If it goes into the book at the end, it's content.

Perhaps you mean that the writer should consider a percentage if they have creative control over the content? That is of course different; that's more akin to getting prior approval from the publisher for a personal project of your own. If someone approached me and said 'I want you to write a fantasy game, go nuts!' I might be willing to consider a percentage because I could write what I wanted. If someone approached me and said "I have this fantasy game and a few basic ideas that I'd like you to flesh out" I'd want firm, guaranteed pay. The reason behind it is pretty simple; in the former case, any work I create can be recycled into my own project if it is rejected. In the latter case that becomes much harder because I'd be following someone elses' template.

-Ash

FWIW, I did profit-sharing deals with artists, editors, and layout folks for both Truth & Justice and Zorcerer of Zo (as well as making spot-buys of particular pieces of art). Profits were figured after costs for print runs for the quarter were paid.

Generally, the agreements lasted around a year or two, before dwindling sales numbers started reducing the bang for the buck for the folks sharing, then I'd offer them a lump-sum buyout.

It worked fairly well -- I got no complaints from anyone. Figuring the numbers, over the course of a year/18 months/two years, people made out SLIGHTLY BETTER overall than the would have by simply taking a flat fee. . . but, of course, that money is stretched out over time.

Still, I think profit-sharing is a good, quick way to get stuff onboard a game if the company/creator/publisher is undercapitalized.

Posted By: Joshua A.C. Newman

Nojh said,

Most indie games don't make profit.

UR DOIN IT RONG

I don't know of an indie publisher who doesn't turn a profit.

Hey, JACN, I was going to say the same thing earlier and then realized that I actually didn't know what I was talking about.

But, yeah. I've made a profit (excluding trips to Gencon) on both of my products, and that's with:

Perfect
-Almost no convention presence while it was in publication (total of 3 cons, 2 of which were >100 participants)
-Investing $500-600 into the project before building an audience, playtesting extensively, or building buzz
-Living in Canada, working with US printers and a US audience
-Pulling the product in under a year, while I still had stock

Ribbon Drive
-Spending $1500 on the product before selling a single copy
-Comping 15 copies out of the gate
-Selling a tiny game at $30 a pop
-Living in Canada, shipping multimedia products across the US border

So, I can pretty safely say, if I'm making a profit... then most indie publishers must be making a profit, too.

Posted By: Joshua A.C. Newman

Nojh said,

Most indie games don't make profit.

UR DOIN IT RONG

I don't know of an indie publisher who doesn't turn a profit.

I think the key here is 'don't know'. If you've heard of an Indie publisher, chances are it's because they're popular and widely spread enough to have made a profit. Also, how many Indie publishers share their sales data? Some do, certainly, but not all. I'd not like to make a blanket statement on how many do and do not make a profit because of two factors: firstly the definition of what is Indie and what isn't is extremely vague, and secondly because there is a dearth of statistical information from the lesser publishers, those who are most likely to make a loss. Could be that either one of you is right, and it would be interesting to know, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

-Ash

I think the key here is 'don't know'.

... and I know an awful lot of game designers and publishers. Like, I don't have enough fingers and toes.

Some of them have made mistakes. Most of those were in the "too many copies, too much color, then went to Diamond begging for scraps" variety. And most of those were years ago. Tehy wer doin it rong. Many of these are from a long time ago and the techniques and technologies are better known now.

Posted By: Joshua A.C. Newman

Nojh said,

Most indie games don't make profit.

UR DOIN IT RONG

I don't know of an indie publisher who doesn't turn a profit.

Yes you do.

James
Blank Shield Press. <------ Not making a profit.

[ETA, because purpose is not here served by brevity:]

And who the hell are you to tell me I'm doing it wrong?



James

You're right, both of you, in different ways.

Ashok, we're all prone to errors. Some errors are costly. Distributors like Diamond pretty much nuke your chances of turning a profit if your volume is low. The stories I've heard — lost stock, disappeared money, lies about printing status in favor of pitching something new and shiny — they really raise my blood pressure. There are places for middlemen, but it's not your job as a publisher to make sure they're fed. If they're not offering you a profitable service, you don't use them. That equation was less obvious even four or five years ago. These days, though, it's pretty uncommon, at least in the Forge diaspora, to make that kind of mistake.

James, by no means do I discount your experience. I don't know what your publishing objectives are, and I got no beef with people whose publishing goals don't include making a profit. What I should have said is, those indie publishers who choose to make a profit, do. If you do want to turn a profit and it's not working, then let's talk about how to fix that. (Golden Advice: Do What Luke Does.)

The question of the size of the profit is another matter. I don't design and publish full-time. I design other stuff too, but game publishing is a chunk of my income that I really couldn't do without. Several designers make much more money than I do. None make more than I wish I did, and none of us make what we'd like to, but welcome to the world. But the problem is not margins, for instance; no one else is sucking all the money out of my work. I make an unheard-of (for most publishing, but not for indie publishing) 57% off each copy of Shock: that sells. If I were to sell through distribution, that would be more like 10% for a small increase in sales. If I were to be generous and say that retailers would increase my sales by 25%, I'm still making waaay less money. It only starts to make sense if a) it doesn't cost me anything to sell through retailers (cuz it can!) and b) it gets to people who weren't going to buy it from me or the Un-Store. That is, it's better than posters, cuz I don't have to pay for them and people get to play instead of just get sold to.

I'm a third-tier indie publisher at best. If I can do this, then you, too, can make your publishing do what you need it to do.

As long as it's not "make you fabulously rich". I mean, maybe it can, but you'd be the first.

Re indie publishers being profitable: Joshua, I assume you're not taking into account your time? And not just writing but testing, editing, order fulfillment, the whole shebang.

I have yet to see a single indie publisher anywhere build their own time into their profit model.

"You're not paying yourself for your time" gets me in a rage. That's a dumb and terrible assumption. If rpg publishing weren't a profitable use of my time, I'd knock it the hell off. If it weren't a profitable use of Joshua's, he'd knock it the hell off too.

All told, lumpley games pays me about $20/hour - and that includes, yes, writing, testing, editing, fulfilling, and supporting my games, and that is, yes, pure profit into my pocket, after all my expenses, even cons and shit. $20/hour for supporting my games and for designing Apocalypse World and Storming the Wizard's Tower, hooray, but also $20/hour for writing this forum post, can you believe it?

So please! Please, for the sake of my blood pressure, I beg you! We pay ourselves for our time. Stop saying we don't, it's crazy.

I invested some time into lumpley games before it started paying off, back in like 2001-2002. A couple hundred hours, probably, over those 2 years. But that time was an investment, not unpaid, and over time it has paid me back like crazy. Choosing to invest it into lumpley games instead of into Civ-fucking-2 was the smartest thing I ever did.

Investing your time into a game design is a risk, of course it is. There's no guarantee that your game will pay you back. But that's the same as every risk you make in publishing a game, and the solution is the same: don't invest anything you can't afford to lose. Don't pay more for printing than you can walk away from; don't spend more time than you can spare.

But seriously. I'm a busy guy. I'm always looking for shit to ditch out of, obligations to abandon. If game publishing didn't pay me for my time and effort, I'd drop it in a heartbeat.

-Vincent

Posted By: lumpleyChoosing to invest it into lumpley games instead of into Civ-fucking-2 was the smartest thing I ever did.

And on that note... I think it's pretty important to think about what kind of time game design/publishing chews up. Like, are you doing game design instead of a different job? Or instead of a different hobby? Or instead of a different art project?

Because the kind of time and energy you're putting in, whether its revitalizing or draining, what else it's replacing in your life, makes a difference in how you view your endeavor. If you weren't game designing, would you be putting that same time/energy into playing video games, or into a second job? Because, obviously, game design is paying big in one of those situations and not the other.

If I weren't doing game design with that time, I'd likely be doing something else that was less profitable. Probably it wouldn't be profitable at all, and instead would be costly - playing video games, watching movies, cooking lavish meals for myself. All nice things, all far less profitable than game design.

Joshua, Vincent: I think you guys are maybe reading into my question something that wasn't there. I'm all about nonmonetary compensation for work! Most of my real-world work is in nonprofits these days, and I derive enormous value from that work in excess of the money. I also own my own business so, yeah, I get the difference between being an employee and being an owner. So, please, try to read my question a bit more charitably.

Paul, I reread your post.

I'm all about nonmonetary compensation for work!

Vincent just laid that out: we get paid in money for our time and effort.

Now, as for the nonmonetary part:

Time is valuable to me as a limited resource. I can spend it living my life (that is, making stuff, eating, fucking, biking, watching the moon) or I can watch TV and waste it. Sometimes I watch TV and don't waste it, but it's a very calculated risk.

Are you proposing that my business model should also include eating, fucking, biking, and watching the moon?

Making stuff is the payoff, man. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's solid, satisfying fun. The whole time, it's paying me. The game design part pays me in money, as well as the learning and creating that are, themselves, satisfying.

Joe, it's not that I'm an artist. It's that I trade on things that I do. If I could be a professional eater, fucker, cyclist, and moon-watcher, I would do those things, too. (OK, I know that most of those things can be done professionally. I invite you to explore those markets without me. Except the moon one. If you figure that out, let me know.)

If the value of my time is in dollars and profit was defined solely in dollars, and it was my objective to maximize my profits, then if I weren't making money on games, I have to stop making games. Presumably so that I could do something less enjoyable to make money to buy more time. The arithmetic isn't very good.

Fortunately, I both make money making games and profit by doing so, gaining satisfaction that I would otherwise have to pay for.

Those hours are often an investment. Sometimes I don't want to work on a game. I've got a great idea for what I want it to be and I don't have any idea for how to get it there. Those times are a drag. But it's still valuable time, living my life, even if the payoff is merely in dollars (investing in making a good game) rather than being an immediately enjoyable moment.

Lightbulb. Thanks, Paul.

-Vincent

Ah, yes. When I write an agreement along these lines, it includes a definition of "profit". But you're right: it's a portion of the net that we're really talking about.