thread: 2005-07-19 : DitV: a Year's Sales
On 2005-07-21, Vincent wrote:
"OTOH - if you could be guaranteed that a review would generate 4-8 sales, it would still make sense to send out review copies as well."Giving one away to sell 4 is pretty slim. There's some history here that let's not go into, and I'm not going to take sides - but for so little return, whatever a designer decides to do makes sense to me.
Me, I give review copies when I feel like it, knowing that it's not a real money-maker. Mostly it depends on how the would-be reviewer strikes me. I gave one to you and some other folks, I didn't give one to some other guy and some other folks, just because I felt like it at the time.
Some of the folks who buy the game are going to write reviews too, it's not like you don't get reviewed if you don't give books away.
Oh, that reminds me, I want to talk about giving books to "big names" too. Like giving your game to (for instance) Kenneth Hite - it probably won't make you any money, and if you treat him like an opportunity you're dehumanizing both you and him. That's why there are such bad feelings about it on both sides - each side is exploiting the other, so everybody resents it. The whole transaction is ugly.
My advice is to give books to those guys only if it's personal, only if you genuinely don't care what or whether they're going to write about your game in public. You owe yourself that dignity.
I gave a copy of Dogs to said Mr. Hite, for instance, because of his reaction to kill puppies for satan - my ego wanted to show him what else. Whether he liked the game or even noticed it, let alone wrote about it, was entirely beside the point; I put the book in his hands and I'd had my say.
...I'm pleased as punch that he liked it, don't get me wrong, my ego is all psyched and validated. But look: Matthijs has sold as many copies for me as he has. Judd's sold probably ten times as many! My interactions with Kenneth are just personal, not economic.
