Evil Hat Productions» obs

Evil Hat Productions» obs http://www.evilhat.com/home Turning Passion Into Great Games! Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:45:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The RPGNow Pulp Sale is ON http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/368544.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/368544.html#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 22:40:59 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/368544.html the RPGNow Pulp Sale is ON!

SOTC is available there for $10.50, along with a bunch of other swank PDF merchandise from other publishers. Have at!]]> the RPGNow Pulp Sale is ON!

SOTC is available there for $10.50, along with a bunch of other swank PDF merchandise from other publishers. Have at!]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2008/05/the-rpgnow-pulp-sale-is-on/feed/ 0 Deals and Steals for Doctor Jones http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/367797.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/367797.html#comments Wed, 21 May 2008 16:42:55 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/367797.html Spirit of the Century PDF is available for just $10 at YourGamesNow, through May 27th.

RPGNow is going to be doing some sort of promotional dingus for pulp games, so stay tuned for that. (They're the ones driving that particular bus, so I don't know their specific plans.) And I feel I would be remiss if I did not also mention that Adamant Entertainment is offering every product in their THRILLING TALES line for One Dollar apiece, from May 21st through May 27th:

]]> Spirit of the Century PDF is available for just $10 at YourGamesNow, through May 27th.

RPGNow is going to be doing some sort of promotional dingus for pulp games, so stay tuned for that. (They're the ones driving that particular bus, so I don't know their specific plans.) And I feel I would be remiss if I did not also mention that Adamant Entertainment is offering every product in their THRILLING TALES line for One Dollar apiece, from May 21st through May 27th:

]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2008/05/deals-and-steals-for-doctor-jones/feed/ 0 SOTS on OBS http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/349173.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/349173.html#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:16:58 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/349173.html
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=55152&src=LJ&affiliate_id=24139]]>
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=55152&src=LJ&affiliate_id=24139]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2008/04/sots-on-obs/feed/ 0 Leap Day PDF Sale on YGN http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/334771.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/334771.html#comments Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:44:04 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/334771.html DayWeek Sale over on Your Games Now, running from the 29th through the end of the period around GM's Day (March 5th-ish, I believe). Both of our PDF products there are being sold at over 30% off:

SOTC is $10 instead of $15:
http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1821

DRYH is $5 instead of $7.95:
http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1822

Similar things will be happening over on RPGNow from March 4th-6th as a part of the GM's Day celebration.]]> DayWeek Sale over on Your Games Now, running from the 29th through the end of the period around GM's Day (March 5th-ish, I believe). Both of our PDF products there are being sold at over 30% off:

SOTC is $10 instead of $15:
http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1821

DRYH is $5 instead of $7.95:
http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1822

Similar things will be happening over on RPGNow from March 4th-6th as a part of the GM's Day celebration.]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2008/02/leap-day-pdf-sale-on-ygn/feed/ 0 RPG.Net Link Roundup http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309250.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309250.html#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:15:51 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309250.html First Things First

Why I love Don't Rest Your Head and its Madness Talents:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=8046476#post8046476

He's using his powers to stop time, peel off someone's face, and LITERALLY READ THEM LIKE A BOOK.

So hot.

Spirit of the Century

Penny-Arcade spawns a thread about Spirit of the Century.

Someone from the Endgame shindig declares: "My Copy of SOTC Is Now a Tome of Power!"

Another declares: "It's Official: SOTC Rocks My World!"

Don't Rest Your Head

Don't Quench Your Thirst: Using DRYH for moody vampire gaming. This one sort of blossomed into a discussion of other White Wolf settings and other concepts done up through the DRYH lens.

Don't Cross The Line: DRYH as an engine for examining issues of superhero morality.

RPG Sales

Someone Just Got Their Copy Of REIGN through IPR and is pretty happy about the experience.

OneBookShelf customers bitch about purchase difficulties.]]> First Things First

Why I love Don't Rest Your Head and its Madness Talents:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=8046476#post8046476

He's using his powers to stop time, peel off someone's face, and LITERALLY READ THEM LIKE A BOOK.

So hot.

Spirit of the Century

Penny-Arcade spawns a thread about Spirit of the Century.

Someone from the Endgame shindig declares: "My Copy of SOTC Is Now a Tome of Power!"

Another declares: "It's Official: SOTC Rocks My World!"

Don't Rest Your Head

Don't Quench Your Thirst: Using DRYH for moody vampire gaming. This one sort of blossomed into a discussion of other White Wolf settings and other concepts done up through the DRYH lens.

Don't Cross The Line: DRYH as an engine for examining issues of superhero morality.

RPG Sales

Someone Just Got Their Copy Of REIGN through IPR and is pretty happy about the experience.

OneBookShelf customers bitch about purchase difficulties.]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2007/11/rpgnet-link-roundup-2/feed/ 0 Lazy Research: Sudden Sales Dearth at OBS. Theories? http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309189.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309189.html#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:03:43 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/309189.html
Thoughts?]]>
Thoughts?]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2007/11/lazy-research-sudden-sales-dearth-at-obs-theories/feed/ 0 Digging in the Digital Dirt: OBS Sales http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/302650.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/302650.html#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:36:23 +0000 fred http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/302650.html
Here are the top ten publishers whose products have also been on Spirit of the Century's to-date 113 sales, currently averaging 32/month (Spirit of the Century is now "Silver" -- it'll need to sell 138 more to hit "Electrum", or 388 more to hit "Gold", so higher ratings are a ways off even at current sustained rates):

#1 20 Adamant Entertainment
#2 13 Postmortem Studios
#3 12 Green Ronin
#4 11 LPJ Design
#5 10 The Forge Studios
#6 9 Wizards of the Coast
#7 8 Hotz Stuff
#8-11 7 Bailey Records, Malhavoc Press, V Shane, White Wolf

Don't Rest Your Head's top 10 features some similar names, with 75 units sold to date, currently averaging 20/month (26 more to hit Silver).

#1 15 LPJ Design
#2 8 Malhavoc Press
#3-4 7 Alderac Entertainment Group, RPG Objects
#5-6 6 Highmoon Media Productions, UDON
#7-13 4 Chaosium, Clint Krause, Green Ronin, Precis Intermedia, Skortched Urf' Studios, White Wolf, Word Mill

Moving on from those stats, I'm also looking at the on-site marketing data. There are two ways to push yourself, really: "front page impressions" and "banner impressions". The front page bit is a small text blurb and your cover image showing up at the top of the front page of a storefront; the banner is something that you can get 8 times as many impressions of for the same cost (in publisher promotion points-- which you generate "for free" off the sales you make month to month), but shows up at the bottom of pages instead, and thus is less likely to be seen.

So, front page impressions. Some of these numbers might be mildly screwy (the data didn't look right at one point), but here's the performance I've seen to date. You'll see the total # of impressions for a given blurb at a given storefront, the number of clicks those impressions generated (where the person who saw it actually clicked through to the product), and the percentage of the impressions that those clicks represent.

Don't Rest Your Head (dtrpg) 5505 64 1.16%
Don't Rest Your Head (rpgnow) 8341 122 1.46%
Don't Rest Your Head (enworld) 804 16 1.99%
Don't Rest Your Head (flamesrising) 48 7 14.58%
Don't Rest Your Head (rpgnet) 130 3 2.31%
Total DRYH clicks: 253

Spirit of the Century (dtrpg) 3239 79 2.44%
Spirit of the Century (rpgnow) 5764 89 1.54%
Spirit of the Century (enworld) 545 14 2.57%
Spirit of the Century (flamesrising) 43 5 11.63%
Spirit of the Century (rpgobjects) 28 22 78.57%
Spirit of the Century (rpgnet) 34 1 2.94%
Total SOTC clicks: 254

Neck and neck! That's amusing.

Next up we've got the banners. Interestingly, DRYH's banner is the clear leader here. I think it's because the presentation is a bit more dramatic, it involves less reading due to fewer words in the text, and it creates a mystery by not constantly identifying what the game is -- you've got to click to find out what they're talking about.

DRYH Banner:

IMPRESSIONS: 98335 CLICKS: 485 RATIO: 0.49%

SOTC Banner:

IMPRESSIONS: 100000 CLICKS: 379 RATIO: 0.38%

As far as the ratio of impressions to clicks goes, the banners don't fare as well vs. the front page impressions -- but in terms of the volume, the actual number of clicks, they're generating more -- which was what the conventional wisdom had been suggesting. Bravo. :)

OBS also offers a "sales source report" which basically tries to give you information on where your sales actually originated.

Don't Rest Your Head's sales sources:

52 sales from FrontPage
15 sales from Unknown
3 sales from evilhat (i.e., came direct from Evil Hat's website)
1 sales from googleadwords
1 sales from Internet
1 sales from MySourceCode
1 sales from PDQfooter
1 sales from XXX

Spirit of the Century's sales sources:

78 sales from FrontPage
16 sales from Unknown
5 sales from evilhat
2 sales from PDQfooter
1 sales from 12to24footer
1 sales from A Mailing List
1 sales from ENWorldReview
1 sales from footer
1 sales from ICE
1 sales from Internet
1 sales from MySourceCode
1 sales from Newsletter
1 sales from RPGShop
1 sales from Specials
1 sales from The Guild Companion
1 sales from TheLeGames

So here, at least, it seems pretty clear that the lion's share of sales simply come because the product is on OBS's sites. Folks go there, and then go looking for the product, rather than (say) coming to evilhat.com first.

That's it for the data I've got to share today. Share your thoughts; what do you make of it?]]>
Here are the top ten publishers whose products have also been on Spirit of the Century's to-date 113 sales, currently averaging 32/month (Spirit of the Century is now "Silver" -- it'll need to sell 138 more to hit "Electrum", or 388 more to hit "Gold", so higher ratings are a ways off even at current sustained rates):

#1 20 Adamant Entertainment
#2 13 Postmortem Studios
#3 12 Green Ronin
#4 11 LPJ Design
#5 10 The Forge Studios
#6 9 Wizards of the Coast
#7 8 Hotz Stuff
#8-11 7 Bailey Records, Malhavoc Press, V Shane, White Wolf

Don't Rest Your Head's top 10 features some similar names, with 75 units sold to date, currently averaging 20/month (26 more to hit Silver).

#1 15 LPJ Design
#2 8 Malhavoc Press
#3-4 7 Alderac Entertainment Group, RPG Objects
#5-6 6 Highmoon Media Productions, UDON
#7-13 4 Chaosium, Clint Krause, Green Ronin, Precis Intermedia, Skortched Urf' Studios, White Wolf, Word Mill

Moving on from those stats, I'm also looking at the on-site marketing data. There are two ways to push yourself, really: "front page impressions" and "banner impressions". The front page bit is a small text blurb and your cover image showing up at the top of the front page of a storefront; the banner is something that you can get 8 times as many impressions of for the same cost (in publisher promotion points-- which you generate "for free" off the sales you make month to month), but shows up at the bottom of pages instead, and thus is less likely to be seen.

So, front page impressions. Some of these numbers might be mildly screwy (the data didn't look right at one point), but here's the performance I've seen to date. You'll see the total # of impressions for a given blurb at a given storefront, the number of clicks those impressions generated (where the person who saw it actually clicked through to the product), and the percentage of the impressions that those clicks represent.

Don't Rest Your Head (dtrpg) 5505 64 1.16%
Don't Rest Your Head (rpgnow) 8341 122 1.46%
Don't Rest Your Head (enworld) 804 16 1.99%
Don't Rest Your Head (flamesrising) 48 7 14.58%
Don't Rest Your Head (rpgnet) 130 3 2.31%
Total DRYH clicks: 253

Spirit of the Century (dtrpg) 3239 79 2.44%
Spirit of the Century (rpgnow) 5764 89 1.54%
Spirit of the Century (enworld) 545 14 2.57%
Spirit of the Century (flamesrising) 43 5 11.63%
Spirit of the Century (rpgobjects) 28 22 78.57%
Spirit of the Century (rpgnet) 34 1 2.94%
Total SOTC clicks: 254

Neck and neck! That's amusing.

Next up we've got the banners. Interestingly, DRYH's banner is the clear leader here. I think it's because the presentation is a bit more dramatic, it involves less reading due to fewer words in the text, and it creates a mystery by not constantly identifying what the game is -- you've got to click to find out what they're talking about.

DRYH Banner:

IMPRESSIONS: 98335 CLICKS: 485 RATIO: 0.49%

SOTC Banner: