Comments on: Rackham’s Cry Havoc magazine to move online

By: Keirof

Keirof — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:54:09 +0000

For me, it’s just more spin from these guys as they ride their dying horse to its final rest.

I sold all my CH’s on eBay a year ago.

By: Jeff Cope

Jeff Cope — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:11:59 +0000

Perhaps once FFG has the new Organized Play program in place it could be an outlet for such items? That would be nice.

By: Gitteau

Gitteau — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:57:41 +0000

It will be cool to be able to get the content (especially the campaign/mission stuff for AT-43) in a timely manner, but I’ll miss the cards very much. I suspect it will pretty much mean the end of limited-edition or campaign-specific cards, as I can’t see them being distributed in any other way. I also wonder how much the quality or amount of content will diminish.

By: keltheos

keltheos — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:29:10 +0000

The only thing I’ll miss in a paper version will be the card inserts for use in the games. They were always a nice addition (when they applied to the game you played).

By: Jeff Cope

Jeff Cope — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:42:12 +0000

This seems to be a move that worked for Mongoose. According to their recent State of the Mongoose (grains of salt included) the print version of their Signs & Portents house organ rarely sold more than a couple thousand copies, but their now getting more than 60,000 downloads of the PDF version. I would imagine Rackham will see something similar happen.

I will miss the print version though…I’m actually in the process of trying to track down back issues to complete the run right now!

Jeff

By: Osbad

Osbad — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:19:36 +0000

Suits me. As with Zac, there were large chunks of the magazine that never interested me and were, due to translation issues, an interminable read. Putting it online suits me!

As for the payment thing, then in all likelihood after printing and distributing the paper product, they would probably lose money on such a small print-run magazine. Putting it online will likely save them money, even if they don’t charge a sou.

Of course they will probably reduce the volume of content as well as they no longer have a set number of pages to fill every couple of months.

I’m in favour.

By: mathieu

mathieu — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:50:53 +0000

The choice makes sense, they probably don’t have enough people left to write a bi monthly magazine. I won’t really miss the paper version as I stopped buying it a while ago, so overall I think I’m going to enjoy that move.

By: a_thousand_hats

a_thousand_hats — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:29:57 +0000

On a kind of related note: if they were to charge for content would you buy?

I’m interested to know as so many niche magazines are going online and it seems that the revenue stream for the production of them is reduced to just advertising income and not from the cover price.

I know in-house mags are part of the marketing budget so don’t necessarily have an advertising stream but I’m thinking more genre-related titles that cover multiple company product lines.

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:22:11 +0000

I agree. I liked the magazines but there were always large portions of it that I had no interest in. This makes it so I can always get only the information that I want.

By: Caern

Caern — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:56:37 +0000

I’m going to miss the print version because I simply prefer things in print, but with all the distribution headaches they’ve had and the inaccessibility to Cry Havoc many regions struggled with, this must be a generally positive move.