Thanks for posting this Gregor - it was a very interesting and useful discussion.

I think you've missed one of the main points we discussed - what is the Collective Endeavour for? What is our mission statement?

We agreed that our mission was to foster UK-based games design by helping people take their games from inception all the way through publication and selling and demoing their own games at national conventions.

I think that point is key, and it maybe explains the whole "must live in the UK" point. You can engage and post and get feedback wherever you are in the world. But you will not be able to benefit from the whole gamut of what we offer, which is helping you take a game the whole way and selling it at UK cons.

Well, I pretty much agree with everything that has been said by Gregor. Thanks for posting such an extensive list of what we discussed.

For me, the most important thing is participation. This is not about getting cheap representation at a con. It's about participating in this community, about doing things for the benefit of everyone here, not just yourself.

Secondly, positivity and knowledge are another two keys facts. If you're going to be on a booth, then you should know about all the games that are available. OK, so it's fine if you only have a passing knowledge of, say, Cold City, but I would expect everyone at the booth to have a working knowledge of at least 50% (at least) of the games that are on sale. You should be able to talk about our games, demo our games and so forth, with equal enthusiasm when compared to your stuff. That's not to say you must like everything. Obviously, as things expand, there will be some games that people will have less of an affection for (however, at the moment, I enjoy every single one of the games produced by members of the Endeavour). But positivity is key: don't gloss over certain games just because they are not your personal favourites, don't give them a bye because they are not 'flavour of the month'. Every game on a Collective Endeavour booth has equal validity, whether it's already sold 500 copies or has just sold 5 copies.

Regarding Gregors comments on being rude and/or abusive on the booth, I would put things more strongly and say that this will not, from my point of view, be tolerated. Being snarky and rude to someone at the booth is just not on. No matter how they react, every should remain as polite and accodating as possible. OK, so there will be times when someone is being a dick: deal with it. Bitch about it later on in private, rant about it in a private email, but do not rant to peoples faces. Doing that to booth customers will damage the entire Endeavour, it will negatively affect every single one of us. And I say this as possibly the most antagonistic twat in the Endeavour!

That's me for now!

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Thanks Andy and Malcolm.

I think we can now open this up to the rest of the forum for any questions or comments.

By the way, I'd like to keep this post quite focused, so if something drifts it's probably best to spin it off into a separate thread and link back to this one.

Anyway, open house now.

Might be worth thinking of some low-level involvement possibility to go alongside frontline booth babes like yourselves. Such as having some blurb that summarises all the Colective members' games that people can take away, but not all those games are featured on the stand. Asking people to be familiar enough with 50% of other members' games to run them is a big deal now, and if the list expands it might become a practical impossibility.

I'll also reiterate my question of where control of policies rests. Do the original members form a sort of inner circle that can adjudicate such matters when they're not busy summoning Yog-sothoth? Good to be clear about such things.

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

I would agree with all comments made so far and back up Malc and Gregor on the 'If you are on the booth be nice' part of the deal. The face we present to the public is incredibly important. Being friendly and approachable is going to let us introduce more people to our games and ultimately sell them our products.
Since we are small at the moment the impact of one bad apple could have a severly detrimental effect.

I would like to talk more about the 'loyalty points' idea and how that is going to work and also, like Tim, about who controls the 'policies' that will govern how we operate.

I will spin off these later but I have to go and run a game just now.

All the best

Iain

Lead Developer Mob Justice RPG

'The Giant Brain' has launched.

Hi Tim

I've started a thread on literature that would highlight all the members here, not just the ones on the booth. Good idea.

On control... I personally don't feel that I want a secret inner circle. I'd rather that we all worked together in a mutually supportive way and made decisions collectively. Others may disagree!

Naturally, the members with forums here would have slightly more sway, but I'd like to see it only over issues to do with their forums.

However, there might be cases where we need to have a focal point, or even just someone to complain to (and a nominal rod of justice). So I'm happy to cede power to Matt for the website, and say Andy for being the final word on arguments, since he is the most reasoned and impartial of all of us!

But worth debating, from my recollection of the talks at GamesExpo I think that was the way we were thinking. But I may have been projecting!

Also, could Andy start a thread on branding? He mentioned on StoryGames about perhaps putting CE brands on books, and I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm willing to listen. :-)

Control/authority was something we kinda danced around at the pub - we never really put our neck on the line and made a decision.

My feeling is that, as a collective, we should all be equals. But, I think this works as a theory but probably not in practice. I guess this could be where "loyalty points" could come in (although I'm not sure if this is what you originally meant by them) - they earn you the right to have a say in what the group policy is.

The only thing we have close to an "inner circle" (which sounds horribly cliquey, so I shan't use it again) are the founding members, who make up the sum total of the CE at the moment.

But the second anyone else comes on board this will become meaningless, and instead we'll just have a group who happen to have done this more than the newbies, and I think this will be a good thing. We've all proven we're willing to offer advice to newcomers, and take it in the same good grace.

Let me grab this opportunity to express that I'm interested in joining the collective as a member.

Since my Gamechef 2006 entry I have only been notebook designing tidbits and ideas, but that has to stop. Now.

I have already expressed interest in taking the CE Zine forward, which is still something I am willing to do.

I'm Danish, yes, but very, very UK based :)

So - what do I do next?

Per
darkplaces.squarespace.com

Post! That's it. Post about your game, post about other people's games. Start threads, contribute to other threads. Get involved!

Seriously, all you have to do to become a member of the Collective is to engage with the community. If you post regularly and help out and discuss things, you can count yourself as a member and be eligible to buy into cons when you're ready to.

There are no application forms, no membership fees (except for sharing of costs when the time comes), no interview process, just a willingness to be a part of our little community.

Per: What Andy said, welcome aboard.

A clarification on "Loyalty Points" -- Games Expo awards points for buying a booth at the con, so that in future years you are (a) guaranteed a place/priority, and (b) over time it is cemented that you are in a good spot to suit your needs. With the pleasantly surprising success of Games Expo 07 I reckon more people will try to be there next year, and not everyone will be satisfied. As we were Contributing Sponsors this year we have more clout than lower grade sponsors or non-attendees when it comes to next year. Informally this is also the case for Dragonmeet, which is another con that is getting more popular than the space can allow. You can benefit from the fact that we have established booth presence at these cons year on year.

Aah, I misinterpreted them. I thought you meant like nectar points or clubcard points for individual members. That makes much more sense!

That is fine, I thought the same as Andrew there. That point needs clarification in any literature we produce.

Cheers

Iain

Lead Developer Mob Justice RPG

'The Giant Brain' has launched.

I was just reading through our mission statement and realised that it's out of date. Does somebody want to draft some new text based on this discussion?

Failing that, I'll hack at it and move some stuff around in an arbitrary fashion. ;)

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I think AK was going to do something. Andy?

I was indeed, but it's been a hectic few months since Expo! I'll get to it in the next week or so if that's ok with everyone, based on what we've discussed here.