A friend of mine spotted an entry in Previews (the Alliance games/Diamond Comics monthly catalog) for one of your competition's products preprinted.

I recollected that you were also planning to go this route and told him that I'd ask if there is any date set on when they might appear.

For myself I vastly prefer  PDFs, they give me a great deal more flexibility in regards to how much of each page I print up, but it seems that others would rather have a physical product that can be purchased in game stores. (Our local game store does not offer a download purchasing system, though I have heard of others that do so for a fee.)

The Auld Grump

Hmmm, which competitor would that be? I have had a nightmare of a time getting these things to print until recently. Most companies won’t touch the production costs with a ten foot pole.

The aggravating thing is that I can't talk about it. What I can say is this; YES we are actively creating printed versions of our product(s). One such product is literally at the printers as we speak but I can’t give a release date. One bit of info that might interest you is that every pre-printed release includes a full, interactive CDrom with the PDF version of the set included (I probably shouldn’t have said that much ). I'm going to see if I can wangle some info for everyone here. It’s killing me.

Wow! CD-ROM included. That's really cool. A co-worker and I were discussing your whole idea of pre-printed sets over lunch yesterday. Initially I didn't think you could do it in a way that would make economic sense for you as I didn't think they'd sell all that well. My co-worker thought you could easily tap into a much larger market by doing pre-printed stuff. His thoughts were that gamers would really like the higher quality and sturdiness that could only come from pre-printed work. After a couple of rounds, I think I agree with him. Something like Skull Cove and Gothic Realms would go over huge at a good sized con.  

The one area we couldn't agree on was grid sizing. He's a diehard clicky player (mostly heroclix), but just bought a bunch of mageknight dungeons and was bemoaning the fact that  Skull Cove was on 1" squares and not 1.5" I promptly smacked him and reminded him that it wouldn't be all that hard to reisze the necessary pieces.

I would probably never buy pre-printed. I think I've said this before, but I can't remember.

I can see the attraction, especially for people without access to computer/printer/cheap ink, and the inclusion of the PDFs on disc make it more attractive, but I still like the idea of just download and go. Not that I've had time to do much but the download part, but that's another matter.

I'm assuming the pre-printed stuff will be simply printed to good cardstock - or are you trying to have it die cut and all that jazz? Now that would be expensive! Well, laser-cut would be cheaper than dies, of course, but still.

 D

Interesting.  I think I'd buy the sets if they came with the CD-Roms.  I mean, you'll still get your pdf set and for a few bucks you get a printed set on top of it.  That alone saves a lot of time and money.  Then you could print out any extra stuff that you needed.  If Denny & crew can do that and still keep a reasonable (i.e. low) price tag on it then I'm all over it.

Im negotiating for release details so that I can give you guys the low down. I'll keep you posted

Microtactix - they are printing Dirt Cheep Keeps. (Though going to their website I can find only a reference to selling CDRoms, so he may have misread the entry.)

It really didn't look all that attractive to me, and I was not overly impressed with either of the two cheep products that I have purchased, relegating them to accessories for World Works products. .

Adding the CDRom sounds like a great idea!  I would still be unlikely to make the purchase of preprinted sets, but it is decidedly more tempting with the addition. Thanks for letting us know. I will definitely be taking a look.

The Auld Grump, still no time to model, darn it!

*EDIT* Oi! Me spelling was atrocious!

I agree about conventions:  if you attend any, be sure to take along a pallet-full of pre-printed materials, along with an assembled, configured, demo of the products!  You'll sell out, and be calling the wife for a second pallet to be delivered, overnight express...  

If you take a set of the pre-printed to a convention vending table, set up a finished set, with mini's, and a nice display set-up of the products, you'll move plenty of stock.  If I saw you, set up as described, at a convention, I'd be looking for the closest cash machine, and re-calculating my 6-month budget for the house, wandering with a distressed look upon my face, and a healthy dose of anxiety all over my mug...    ;)

I've been to a few conventions, as a vendor, with a vendor's table.  I lost money, big time, but with your product, you'd make plenty of money, with a good display of your products on the table.  Cheers, Denny!