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Phinias
02-02-2001, 10:57 AM
You have mentioned on a regular basis that community building is a key aspect of the Skotos model. I couldn't be happier about that.

Emphasizing community is definately going to keep your customers involved, and help them to see the value of their monthly fee.

A dedicated, well-supported community is also an excellent opportunity for marketing "add-on" purchases, especially if you begin to cultivate popular licenses.

You already have a Skotos store, so my question is, are you going to be expanding this on a game by game basis? I'm not just talking about Marrach t-shirts and maybe posters of the fabulous artwork; I mean selling, maybe through an affiliate program, books about the history of castles, the mideival mind, or fiction that is compatible with the theme. Movies that your customers have mentioned as demonstrative of the setting. Period clothing. And so on.

If you do, will the game's developer receive a percentage of these royalties as well?

This is obviously more important with the licensed games: I might want the books for reference when I am playing Og or Paranoia, for instance. On top of the actually Og roleplaying materials themselves, I might be interested in prints of Cave Art or in Julian Jaynes book about conciousness and the bicameral mind.

Even more important than that is when I find out that Jeff Crook is an author, and that he has made a dynamite game that I love... I'm going to want to check out his books, and it would be great to be able to buy them directly from the web site of his game, almost right from Jeff himself. This is going to be cool because I know Jeff a little bit - I've talked to him on the boards, maybe even in the game. In addition to his books, Jeff could also put up items for sale that he feels complement his game in one way or another, items that might help me understand his exotic setting a little better.

Finally, as an aspiring StoryBuilder, I would appreciate the opportunity to supplement my possible supplemental income. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

Thank you for your time,

BJ

ShannonA
02-02-2001, 05:19 PM
Originally posted by Phinias:
You already have a Skotos store, so my question is, are you going to be expanding this on a game by game basis? I'm not just talking about Marrach t-shirts and maybe posters of the fabulous artwork; I mean selling, maybe through an affiliate program, books about the history of castles, the mideival mind, or fiction that is compatible with the theme. Movies that your customers have mentioned as demonstrative of the setting. Period clothing. And so on.

That's a wonderful idea, and something that I'd love to do if we can shake free the resources. Not necessarily to make money for us, but to show our community members other cool things they might be interested in.

I'm filing it under cool-things-we'd-love-to-do-at-the-web-site. I'd already been planning to at least link in the RPGs, but the expansion of the idea offers interesting possibilities.

If you do, will the game's developer receive a percentage of these royalties as well?

That's hard to say and would depend on what our economic models looked like. However, if we create any original stuff (like a Qigung mousepad or a Horizon Station poster or a Arcana t-shirt), then yes our designers will get a cut. I'm working out the final contracts for some of this now.

Shannon

Atama
02-03-2001, 01:18 AM
First off, I love my Marrach mousepad! http://www.skotos.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

Secondly, I think it would be great to tie in things that Skotos Several and others tied into the game have done, I know I've read some of Jeff's books (any Dragonlance fan has I'm sure) but something like a list where we can at least know what kind of stuff to look for by our favorite Story Builders and Tellers! (Like Wishbringer, I loved that game Brian!) Hehe, in this small community, folks like these are celebrities, and the players fans... why wouldn't we want to eat this stuff up?

KathyN
02-03-2001, 09:31 AM
I love my mousepad too! It's got a good surface and the picture is great! Looking forward to wearing the T-shirt too! I'd be interested in tie-in items. I've heard of Og but don't know much about it. And some of us are still rooting for buttonmen!
Kathy

GaioMacareg
02-05-2001, 10:17 AM
If anyone's not familiar with them, www.cafepress (http://www.cafepress) is a great service for this kind of thing. Virtually every online comic uses them, and so do many other online sites. No stock to wory about, you can have an unlimited number of shirt and mousepad designs, and new ones are as simple as e-mailing a digital image. The downside is that they don't offer black shirts yet. Still, it costs nothing to setup and maintain so it is an option if funding is an issue.