Is forum traffic down?

[Sureshot]

I wish I could disagree with what Dave has written above but I simply can't. Most of what he wrote I think does not help increasing forum traffic imo.

[Killer Cyborg]

Okay just ignoring the stuff about the culture and moderation of these boards for a moment, I think the single biggest thing driving the decline of traffic here is that Palladium has been around for a long time, its game lines are pretty old and its last big breakout hit was Rifts, and almost all of its new products are books for old lines that get bought by old fans.

So of course traffic's going down. They just straight up don't have enough new fans to make up for the gradual decline of old fans.

I agree completely.

I would disagree, obviously. Sembeida does business like this is still the '80s. There is no online presence from him, and he is essentially the company. He rewrites almost all work given to him, according to both him and most of the freelancers. The staff all agree with him that he does most editing, etc etc etc. You essentially have a one man company, in spite of there being (4 last time I checked) other full time employees.
A one man company who's old enough to have grand-children playing. Many of us dont like to admit it, but you kinda [lose] touch with the crowd thats 20 years younger than you. And you really loose touch when the crowd is 40 years younger than you.

If you want to ignore how poorly the company has treated its customers for the last 25 years (which would seem ridiculous, but why not)....
And you want to ignore the open hostility of the only employee to visit (AlexM), the Mods, and the fans...
And you want to ignore 25 years of everyone involved with the company, including Sembeida himself, saying he basically does it all, and all by himself......
The next obvious problem is you've got an artistic endeavor where the artist has aged 2 generational shifts beyond his target audience. (and I wont even begin to start with the "da schoolsh deez daiz" rants)

So... you think that if Palladium had more of an online presence, that they WOULD have had a breakout hit since Rifts?
Or that the Rifts product line would be a lot more popular?
And that the lack of new fans is simply because of bad customer service and poor online presence, instead of a lack of new products that appeals to newer gamers...?

[Kryptt]

It's more of a combination of things. I've noticed today's consumers (not all) like regular releases and new ways to play. Right now rrt has brought in a lot of new customers. You'd think it would give PB incentives to put out products that look like they were designed this century instead of the boring 80's textbook format that PB seems to be stuck on, including reprinting typos instead of fixing them with each subsequent reprint. I agree that it doesn't help when there's a huge generational gap between the CEO and his new customers. As a father I see it all the time with my son and how out of touch I am with what his generation is into. It's probably why Kevin is having such a difficult time getting his new found consumers on his side and why PB and all if not most of their products get such a bad rep. Yes the community here doesn't help matters either. In fact it only makes it worse. Either someone new who doesn't agree with the party line gets put down or when that person gives facts some members here just ignore it.

PB is adding more to DTrpg but it may be to little to late. In the latest rrt update Kevin says he plans on PB staying in business another 34 years. If so (which I hope they do) then PB needs to adapt to new trends in the industry and not rely on what worked in 88'. Because right now PB is barely able to stay afloat as is, but as operating costs increase PB will end up going out of business eventually.

[Rallan]

So... you think that if Palladium had more of an online presence, that they WOULD have had a breakout hit since Rifts?
Or that the Rifts product line would be a lot more popular?
And that the lack of new fans is simply because of bad customer service and poor online presence, instead of a lack of new products that appeals to newer gamers...?

Well there's no denying that Palladium Books never really figured out how to effectively use the internet as a marketing tool, or that they completely missed the boat on the ebook revolution that swept through the rest of the RPG industry.

I doubt a more effective online presence would've magically turned everything around (Nightbane is a perfect example of a poorly supported post-Rifts product that went nowhere, and it petered out early enough that we can pretty definitively say that it had nothing to do with Palladium using the internet badly), but it could've given PB slightly more sales and helped them retain a slightly bigger fan base over the years.