Hey Ash - good to see you posting here.

To give you a non-committal answer - we're not sure yet. The current thinking is that until we really know what we're doing (in general, rather than specifically at Games Expo) we'd like to keep the numbers down on our stall at cons, probably sticking with the 5 of us who attended Dragonmeet for the time being.

Fair enough. I guess I shall just have to make do with the sample game that's being run (hopefully - if something horrible doesn't happen to that). If you guys do decide to do something for the Expo, drop me a line.

Ash

Hi Ash,

As Andy pointed out, for the moment we'll not be expanding the CE con stand presence. Once we're up and running and have a few cons under our belts, we can re-assess the situation and see where we stand.

However, I think this raises a valid point in that we should offer greater clarity on the site. Obviously, anyone and everyone is welcome to join the forums, contribute their feedback and ideas and so forth. Being part of the CE con stand is a slightly different matter, as this requires buy-in and so forth.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Not to push, but what about having a little rack or something for *flyers* from other small press outfits?

The other option, of course, is for other people to do joint stands as well.

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

I don't think any of us would be averse to talking up other folks games or pushing them in the direction of relevant events.

I think the feeling in the group is that we'd rather build slowly and get it right than get ahead of ourselves by bringing in too much too soon.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Just to say a me too, to the posts above.

I think I'd like, in time, for the CE to become a place that will get gamers into making their games, selling them and representing themselves at Cons.

But we need to walk before we can run. Dragonmeet was our first con under the banner and while there will be a few cons where we'll be spreading the word in ones or twos (I'm thinking of Andrew at Conception, and the Scottish-based folks at Conflagration in Glasgow) there will only be a few this year where we will all be together (possibly Conpulsion in Edinburgh and the Expo).

Once we've been through those I think we'll take stock and see how it's working out.

I would love for games that are getting talked about in our games design forums to be published and be on the booth at Dragonmeet in December this year. That's my aim. (I'm looking at you Rich and Graham...)

As for the Expo, I think we'll stick with who we had at Dragonmeet and we're happy to have leaflets and talk about other games (we were putting other IPR games and ones like My Life With Master at DragonMeet). But for official con buy-in at the Expo, we're just going to stick with what we have. I think that will fill our table fully up.

Ash, have you thought of getting in touch with Grim at PostMortem? Or Robert Rees at Carnel (the fanzine)? Robert had a fanzine table a few years ago at Dragonmeet and they might spring for a joint table? Tim Gray is another one who might be persuaded if you can come up with a plan?

I think something like this needs to be put up on the site, maybe in the members section, so everyone knows what we're about.

We certainly don't want to become an elite clique, because that's against the ethos of indie games and, so maybe we need to spell out a bit more clearly what we stand for, what we intend to do and how people can become a part of it.

Obviously the first and most important step to becoming part of this community is to become a part of this community! Posting here and giving help to other designers is a great way.

Just so I know, what ARE the buy-in and other requirements for being a part of the CE?

Ash

That's a very good question and one that we've been talking about amongst ourselves. I don't think we've come to a clear conclusion yet.

If I start at the beginning that seems the clearest way I can think of it. I would say that we banded together to enjoy the financial benefits of being in a group, and to provide a neutral space (i.e. not on anyone's company website) for helping other people work through their game ideas to getting them fully published, i.e. to genuinely be more than a "front" for us to shill our stuff. That's the truth.

So (i) an open forum for us to talk about and develop our own games, and for others to learn from our mistakes and experience. And a door for others to walk through.

(ii) Gain financial advantages in sharing costs, e.g. tables at cons like Dragonmeet and Conpulsion, which are tough for small publishers to bear on their own.

An added advantage has been being able to demo each others games and cross-promote quite successfully. I think this has been a key feature.

So, that's all great. I got to know Joe at Conpulsion, Matt at GenCon and Jonathon from Dragonmeet (though Jonathon is really busy with work these days I'm afraid). A few e-mails later and we had a group together (all a bit fuzzy I just remember lists of awful website names).

Initially we've all shared the costs equally of the web space, the book racks, the banner and table cloths and the costs of our con attendance. It really has been an equal split.

It's worked well. The problem is how and when do we scale up?

The forums are the easiest answer. Come along, join up, participate and you're part of the show. We're all making an effort to be here (even me, and I tend to stay off fora these days). So these will grow if there is interest and die if there is not.

Being part of the booth presence and having a blog/being a mod here? I don't know. I think that will be linked to the forum actually.

I can see over time people leaving and others joining and I hope these sort of things would occur naturally.

At the moment the conclusion we've come to is that we're locked into being "just us" until GamesExpo. I think we'll then look at planning for Dragonmeet in December.

If people want in that would seem a good time to plan. We could then have a bigger presence at Dragonmeet and I'm hoping that by then there will be some games developed off these forums growing wings and flying. If people joined then I imagine it would be free, except that they'd have to share the costs of another year of webhosting, shared materials and con attendance.

So, what does that mean for other small publishers in the UK? Again, I don't know.

On the one hand I think we should band together as best we can.

On the other hand I do not want to see this become some sort of establish trade organization that has fees and tries to represent everyone.

What's worked for us is having similar games that we can cross promote and are enthsued about.

If the forums keep going and we have people enthused about games then they'll be the ones on the booth when others get tired.

If it's just about spreading costs then I don't think it's going to work in the long term.

But that's just my take.

I'll echo what Andrew said: could you do a summary of that position and put it somewhere near the front of the site?

It'd be fine if you just want to say it's a closed group of people who know each other, so operating on social glue. Be upfront and no-one will bat an eyelid.

Re forums, in the light of wanting more people to participate:

* Just making sure you know this - someone who's not logged in only sees the original post in a thread, not replies.

* Not to knock anyone's hard work (Matt?), but although the site is pretty the forums aren't terribly user friendly. E.g. not behaving the same as forums elsewhere. A view with subthread responses grouped and indented would be nice. And when I reply I have to scroll right down to find boxes cos the layout goes wrong.

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

good points all. I'll focus on the web ones.

The site is very much a work in progress, so all feedback is useful. Drupal, the software we use, has a few interesting quirks that I'm still working out. It doesn't always do things how I'd have chosen, but it was somewhat quicker than building something custom. When I have a spare moment I'l be fixing a few issues (so let me know what browser your layout issues are with).

Forum stuff is the way Drupal handles things, so to some degree we're locked in. However, The not viewing replies thing was a pre-launch setting, that I hadn't removed. You should be able to see all discussion when not logged in now.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

At Dragonmeet there were 5 of us on two tables, but with other boothers helping out it was about double that. If we cycle a bit more and keep the booth presence lean I reckon that we could have 10 publishers on 2 tables at Dragonmeet next year.

OK, so say the 5 of us are still there, could we find another 5 people who, from July onwards, would want (a) to be under the same banner (and that's a big thing, some people might not want to be tarred with the same brush), and (b) be committed to being an active member?

I can think of 1 straight away. Iain come mid-year might want to say "I'm striking out with my own games" and commit to using his profits on being part of the con buy-in.

But, it's all speculation. We'll see in June.

And if it all falls flat on its face then we've only ourselves to blame..

I think we need to spin this off into a new discussion about the CE as a whole - is there anyway we can split the topic?