...do we think there's a trend for the new and shiny to shift significantly and the rest to tick over? I guess that assumes that there's a definite community of "people who are interested in our stuff" who pick up the latest at cons or online in between.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

I think new and shiny will always have an advantge over existing stuff. I know I went with the avowed intention of getting Solipsist (partly because David wrote it). I wish I had had more spending money as there were a bunch of things I'd liked to have picked up.

Such is life though.

Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie

Also there was a "home con" advantage at work here. Solipsist was written at Conpulsion in the first place, and lots of people I know live around Edinburgh. Had Solipsist launched at GamesExpo, for example, I think you'd have seen fewer sales, because it would just the "new" factor and not the rest of it.

Total sales of Solipsist at the con were actually 20, because I hoiked the last two off the stall to sell to the people who were playing my game of it on Sunday afternoon.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

From the numbers I have seen since I have been doing sales sheets etc. the new stuff will always do better than more established games. Saying that i thought it was weird that A&A didn't do more as it was also new & shiny.

One of these days I will crunch some numbers and give you some proper trend ideas.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

It's interesting to compare with last year's sales figures.

Note that everything that was on sale last year sold less this year.

Sales, on a how-many-units-we-shifted basis, were up on last year. Last year we sold 33 total, this year 49 (stop me if I've added this up wrong).

If we took Solipsist out of our sales figures for this year, then two things would happen: firstly, our sales would be a couple of books less than last year; secondly, David would say "Why have you taken Solipsist out of the sales figures for this year?".

Sorry to hear about your post-con breakdown, Iain, although not surprised. Try camomile tea.

Graham

You I know I actually scrolled up to see what I'd missed about Iain having a breakdown Graham ... you sod :P

There were fewer people than less year, there is no getting around that, which may explain the lower sales. Also, how many of last year's products were new at the time?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Easter fell on Conpulsion weekend this year which lowered the number of people at the ocn too. And while it appeared quiet, we still made excellent sales over the weekend.

Avenues & Alleyways only sold 1 on its own, but it surely drove sales of the bundles of a|state (at £38 a pop). A lot of people locally have a|state, though, and I think Avenues & Alleyways will keep ticking over sales at the con for years to come.

I think the sales show the long tail to be honest as "old games" keep selling.

I did talk to a few people who were amazed that we had held Conpulsion on the Easter weekend, so I'm sure there was an effect from that.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

...having the con outside of term time would mean having to hire Teviot at commercial rates (i.e. >£2k). That is a non-starter.

The last weekend of term time is the normal con time and it happened to fall on Easter (since Easter moves about).

Other options are having it not at Teviot... but that's not always been the best in the past. Or having it during term time... again, not a great idea.

Its not a big problem, Easter will not be so early again in our lifetimes, it was just an unlucky break.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/