Publishing Advice - Renewable Games initiative

Posted by: Graham W On: Oct 6th 2010 edited

Hello, Collective Endeavour.

Out of interest, do you think that Renewable Games are possible in the UK?

(I've linked to a Story Games thread, which has a bit of relevant stuff, and click through to get to the thing itself.)

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Oct 6th 2010

I think in theory, yes.

Jason flags up a few problems that he'd have in the US (dispersed community, more difficult to meet publishers) that I don't think we'd have in the UK.

That all said, I'm not sure I'd want someone to trade in their 1st edition copy of Dead of Night for a shiny 2nd edition copy - it seems a shame, as the 1st edition is full of its own charms! But I'm not against it in principle.

What do you think Graham? Is it possible? Should we do it? Who would we pass the recycled books on to?

Posted by: Gary Bowerbank On: Oct 7th 2010

Is there any information that can quickly be landed on this thread? The link to storygames requires a log in.

Cheers!

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Oct 7th 2010 edited

Over at Story Games Jason wrote So Janus, the Italian RPG publisher and all-around nest of genius vipers, has a Renewable Games Initiative. The deal is - if they release a revised edition, you can return your well-loved copy of, say, Don't Rest Your Head to them. They will "cancel" it and trade it for a new version at a discount. The canceled game is then given away to a library or game club, of which Italy has many.

Posted by: Graham W On: Oct 7th 2010

I think it's definitely possible. It gets round a problem: if, for example, I feel like adding a bit to Play Unsafe, I can do it without feeling I'm screwing over everyone who's already bought it. This way, they get a way of getting the updated copy.

As for what to do with the old copies: I'm not sure. Perhaps throw them in a big box and auction them as part of the Dragonmeet Charity Auction.

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Oct 7th 2010

Or find a school with a gaming club.

Posted by: Gary Bowerbank On: Oct 8th 2010

Its almost worth selling them at a price equal to the value of the discount, so that you're getting the full value of the new book, and another person is getting the goods in their hands, spreading the love.

Not sure how I feel about that though, how it would work, or if it would just encourage people new to the game to just buy an old edition cheap, rather than buy the new one.

The only real issue I can see with giving books away free to schools is that some of the content of some of the games round here could be a little dodgy as far as parents and teachers are concerned.

Otherwise the scheme sounds rather cool - assuming there's a decent market for free stuff among people who might play the game / read the book.

Posted by: Gregor Hutton On: Oct 8th 2010

Hmm, I'm not totally sold on this, but I do think that beat cafes and so on are a good place to put (good) game books you no longer want. A bit like the excellent cafe game exchange.