I’ve been doing this gig perhaps a bit long…

…because when I saw this:

…I immediately assumed that it was going to be political.  Turns out Steve Jackson simply wanted to make a professional point about the benefits of disclosing the state of one’s business, both the good and the bad:

The… question, for my fellow publishers, is a straightforward one. Why am I (almost) the only one who ever writes a report like this? Over the years I’ve seen a few, a very few, frank after-action reports from other game companies…

[snip]

Yes, it takes some time. (My argument is: it’s an investment both in your fans and in the health of our art, and in fact, creating an honest review of the year it really helps the SJ Games whole management team.) Yes, it’s scary to admit your mistakes. (But it makes it less likely that you’ll repeat them.) Yes, if you tell your competitors what did and didn’t work, it might help them compete. (Yes, yes, it just might help them. So what? I’m good enough that I can help my competitors without endangering myself. And I’m a game fan. I want other companies to do well, provided they do right by their customers . . . who are often my customers too. Please note that I’m still doing just fine after ten years of playing my hand face-up, and a lot of the hard-nosed “businessmen” of yesteryear . . . well, they seem to have left the building.)

Good points there, by the way.

4 thoughts on “I’ve been doing this gig perhaps a bit long…”

  1. Steve Jackson is cool. I met him in person a couple of decades ago at WorldCon in Chicago, at an @ party (back when that meant something).

  2. Odds of any taking up the challenge? I could see a couple ultra small companies doing it but definitely not the biggers companies. Downside with SJ is how reliant they have become to Munchkin, I hope they are able to develop another source of income to pick up the slack if Munchkin begins to fade.

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