Machine Age Productions

This got a little long when I was writing it as a comment to Chuck Wendig’s blog post over at Terribleminds. So, if you want a little foundation,read here first.

I recently purchased the new NOFX album. They were selling the CD for $8 on their website. I was at the mall, Hot Topic had it for $8.99. I got it there. It was convenient and cheap. I had a talk with my wife on the way home, so I didn’t listen to it. I checked, the FYE was asking $8.99.

I got home, and I downloaded the whole thing. My car stereo, my biggest source of music, has a USB port. Carrying an 8gb USB flash drive is far easier than carrying the hundred plus CDs it can store.

Why didn’t I just download the album legally? I thought about it. I went to Amazon. Amazon wanted $9.99. iTunes wanted $9.99, and I was afraid Apple might raid my house or sue me. I’m not paying $10 for the digital version of something I just bought legitimately for $8. That would be stupid.

NOFX has declared that their albums are going to be sold in the $8 range for the foreseeable future. Why? Because they feel it’s fair. A CD only costs a dollar or two to manufacture. The albums cost about $40,000~ to record and produce. After all that’s said and done, they make a good living selling their work at that range, and they don’t feel they need more to keep making great music. In short, they’re not pissing on us and telling us they need the money to stay afloat.

In contrast, if I look for something from even similarly-sized indie labels, FYE is asking $14.99-$19.99. Those labels use the same distribution. Often, these labels share producers. They share sound engineers. You ask them, “Why so expensive?” They’ll give convoluted, abstract answers about how piracy hurts their sales, why it’s so expensive to market CDs, why blah, blah, blah.

• First off, don’t punish me, the consumer, for piracy. I’m trying to give you money. Slapping me in the face because someone downloads your shit, that’s just terrible.
• Second off, bullshit.

Greedy people need to make money off of creative people. With major releases, a number of people have to become wealthy from them, or they don’t happen. When Lady Gaga releases an album, executives that don’t even know one of her songs have to make millions on their investments, or they won’t back another album. Maybe piracy’s hurting art. Maybe. However, as far as I’m concerned, greed is hurting art. I’m not paying twice the amount for something, just because a bunch of businesspeople want to get rich off it.

I’m a creative professional. If you know me, you know I’m releasing a game called Maschine Zeit in the very near future. In preorders, I’ve exceeded my budget. I’m still going strong with them. Why? A few reasons. One: I’m offering a product that people think is cool. People think it’s cool because I think it’s cool, and because I stand by it. Two: I’m giving additional value that can’t be offered in a PDF. I’m allowing participants to be personally involved in the process. I’m giving them ways to become invested in the company and the work.

I want money. I really do. I’m making it. I feel that if I’m passionate and hardworking, I will continue to make it. I am aware of the fact thatsome people will download my game. Are they thieves? Fuck no. They’re potentially devoted fans at best. Somewhere in between, they might buy a product, or they might post a review. Awesome! At worst, they’re not really costing me anything. I am not losing a copy of the book. If they weren’t going to buy it, that download isn’t going to change anything. If they thought about buying it, but only had $5 in their budget, and the game was $10, I’m still not losing anything. That downloader is still a person. They still deserve a modicum of respect, particularly since they haven’t cost me anything. I’m not going to burn bridges with a hateful attitude. I’m not going to send cease and desist letters. Because down the line, that person might buy something from the guy that wasn’t a total dick to them.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Back in 1995, a friend of mine had this really cool book called “Vampire the Masquerade.” He loaned me a copy. I couldn’t find it anywhere, this was before the advent of the internet and I was 13 and not quite as resourceful as I am now. The book wasn’t readily available to me, so I took a few dollars to the local library and I photocopied damned near the entire thing. I was an evil pirate, and I destroyed publishing. Now, those Vampire the Masquerade guys delivered quality stuff. I loved it. So, when I had the chance, I started buying their shit. That didn’t stop. I did a little mental math. Since 1995, I’ve purchased over 300 products by White Wolf. I’ve been a member of their paid fan club for eight years. This is numerous thousands of dollars in product. Had White Wolf talked shit on me for copying that book when I did, I wouldn’t have done that.

On the NOFX kick, I’ve purchased over 20 of their CDs. I’ve paid to go to numerous live shows. When I was younger, my friends and I taped their stuff and distributed it amongst each other. We ripped our CDs and copied them to CDRs when that technology became available. If they called me a thief, I would have called them assholes. I wouldn’t buy their product.

In summation: Charge a reasonable amount for your product. Create good shit. Connect with people. Be passionate about what you’re doing. If you’re doing those things, you probably don’t have a lot of time to whine and moan about people stealing your stuff. However, if you’re one of the many people that a) doesn’t create, b) doesn’t connect with people, c) have a passion for the product, and d) understand reasonable pricing, you probably have plenty of time to decry theft. If you’re not doing those things, maybe you should reassess your career in creative endeavors, because you’re an artifact of a time we’re leaving behind. I won’t miss you.

First, here’s our daughter with our new convention banner:

You’ll notice the artwork of the wonderful Ruth Lampi on our wall as well. Now we’ve addressed that…

The Kickstarter hit $2,000. That’s awesome. In fact, it’s at $2,105 right now. This means that the contributors will soon be deciding on an exclusive supplement for the game. The final day of the campaign is Friday. Do you think we can make it an even $2,500? I do. So here’s my teaser, and it’s a doozy:

I’m already writing a new game. I literally have the design document open in another browser tab. This game is wholly different thematically from Maschine Zeit, but I can damned near guarantee you’ll dig it when you hear about it. I’m that confident about it. I’m writing this game, in addition to putting in work on a Maschine Zeit supplement, in addition to the supplement I’ll be writing for the contributors’ specs, and in addition to editing and concept work on the first Maschine Zeit adventure kit.

If I hit $2,500 in preorders by Friday, contributors will become a part of the process.

What do I mean by this?

I mean, I’ll set up an email list with contributors, if they wish to be included. It’ll be a one-way thing. I’ll send them the initial design document. I’ll send them drafts and outlines. I’ll send them art proofs. I will be open to input, if people want to see certain things in the finished product, I’ll weigh them for potential inclusion. They’ll get the layout/publisher proof of the document. Then, when it’s all said and done, the contributors will be credited in the product, and they’ll receive the final PDF.

Snappy, right?

If you’ve been wavering, considering preordering, now’s your time. If you were considering raising your amount for a better package, now’s the time. If we hit this goal, you’ll be a part of our next Machine Age Production.

I ran a demo last Friday at Showcase Comics in Bryn Mawr PA. One of the players just recently started a Vlog, and did a pretty thorough review of it. You can check that out here. The degree of attention he pays is great. He had one sort of gripe, and a completely cool and fair one at that (my lack of an equipment list, in favor of a horror movie equipment system.)

So go. Look. Hear what people have to say.

Expect an update either later today or tomorrow about the final push for the Kickstarter campaign. We hit $2000. That means contributors are going to be able to decide upon a supplement I’ll be writing soon. I’m going to offer something supercoolspecial for the final push, I just have to get some ducks in proverbial rows first.

We have good news, and not-exactly-perfect-to-an-outside-observer news.

I’ll start with the not exactly perfect to an outside observer news:

Our release date for Maschine Zeit is getting kicked back to August. Ohnoes, right! That’s what evil publishing giants do. They go and put out release dates, then they butcher them and throw them into the pit and stomp on them and make them watch Waterworld and Paulie Shore’s entire career. It sucks to be the consumer, right?

That’s not actually the case with Maschine Zeit. We’re pushing back Maschine Zeit’s release date because we want to get a bit more visibility. Trust me when I say, I think we’ve got that visibility lined up. I believe that this effort is going to really help Maschine Zeit take off. We’re still working on schedule. We’re almost completed. We’ve got a badass piece of work here, I can’t wait until you get to see hold it.

What does this mean to you, the fan? It actually doesn’t mean as much as you might think.

• If you’re a part of the Kickstarter campaign, you’ll get your book on schedule. Schedule is a slightly loose term. We’re going to have a layout-ready PDF somewhere around the beginning of May, give or take a week or two.
• As soon as we have that, contributors will get their PDFs, and I will finalize the print order. Our print run is going to be bigger than we initially imagined, because of the excellent response on the Kickstarter campaign, and because of a few developments with distribution channels.
• If you preordered through Kickstarter, you’ll get your book as soon as we get it.
• If you didn’t, you still have a few chances to get it before the August release date. Those chances will come in the form of direct sales at conventions, and a few other offerings.
• If you want to get it after August, you’ll be able to get it pretty much anywhere you want to get it. You may have to order it, but you’ll be able to buy it in Barnes and Noble, at Amazon, at your FLGS, et cetera.
• Most importantly: If you want the book before August, your best bet is to pre-order it via Kickstarter.

More directly good news:

• Shortly after the release of Maschine Zeit, I expect to release the first supplement for it. I already have the cover art commissioned, drafted and paid for.
• Soon thereafter, I’m considering the second game for Machine Age Productions. This might be a new setting using Maschine Zeit’s system. It might be a licensed game. It might be a new thing for an established system. I don’t know yet.
• I have someone working on prototypes for a custom Maschine Zeit dice set. This wouldn’t be your momma’s game dice set. It’d be a unique, extremely arthaus-style offering. A little pricey, but by far the coolest d100 set you’ve ever seen.
• We’re at $1,510 for the Kickstarter campaign. We have a little over a week before May 1st. If we hit $2,000 by that date, I will write an exclusive supplement to-be-determined by the contributors. They would receive that supplement for free, as a thank-you for their contribution. So if you have friends wavering on the idea of pre-ordering, coax them into action.

So how’s that for an update? Sorry, updates have been a little slow. I’ve been busy writing nerd games.

Our friends over at Alltern8.com featured Maschine Zeit after playing one of our demos. Read it. Love it. Rock the fuck out.

I know I give a bit of shit to Apple.

But here’s a little thing for Maschine Zeit’s Apple users. It’s a Maschine Zeit screensaver. To install it, just drop it in your Library/Screensavers directory. I’m told it should definitely work on any OS X 10.6+ machine, it may work on 10.5 or earlier, but we haven’t put it through tests.

Let me know what you think!

Here’s the Maschine Zeit character sheet, courtesy of Chris “Mr Gone” Leland and AK “Drake Noble” Whipple.

Our editor, Jennifer Brozek, just won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Editing for her Grants Pass anthology. Our best goes out to Jennifer for her hard work and dedication. If you meet her at a convention, buy her drinks or something. We’re pleased to have such amazing talent working on making Maschine Zeit the best damned game it can be.

On that topic, we’re at $1,365 for the Maschine Zeit kickstarter. I’ve recently announced that if we break $2,000, I’ll write an exclusive supplement to be determined by the contributors. So if you are considering ordering Maschine Zeit, this is your chance to take a particularly deep role in the development of the game line.

Today, we’re featuring a short story by Sean Hogan, and some art by Ruth Lampi.

Jason stood on the underside of the station. Tilting his head upwards, he gazed down toward earth as his radiation detector scanned the area ahead. He had seen pictures of earth as a child but much of what his memories said was blue and green was now brown. His moment of nostalgia was shattered by the sound of mic feedback shrieking.

“Jason, comeback, comeback Jason.”

Jason cringed and gritted his teeth. “Jesus Christ Hank, turn down your mic!”

“Sorry Jason, how’s this?”

“I don’t know, I can’t tell if my ears are bleeding in this suit.”

“We’re making our way through the interior of the crew quarters now, anything interesting on the surface?”

“The scan hasn’t picked anything up yet but I think- Whoa, hold on a second.”

The monitor lit up and displayed signs of radiation thirteen yards ahead of his location. Jason smiled and switched his magnetic boots to walk. “I’ve got a reading and I’m heading to the location now. Looks like we have some irradiated aluminum.”

“Sounds like money in the bank Jason, keep me posted.”

Jason moved across the hull, securing his safety line with a cam rivet and carabiner every five yards. He had always thought the safety precaution was cumbersome and unnecessary during training. That was of course until they took him out on his first walk-about. That was when the realization sunk in that magnets were the only things keeping him from flying off into space or combusting in earth’s atmosphere. The detector’s indication light lit up when he reached his destination, and after a series of beeps the scanner confirmed his suspicions. He spotted a large patch of irradiated aluminum. Jason secured another cam a yard away from the site and began the extraction protocol.
Using the index finger of his utility glove, he marked the two by two yard square with a green A. Detaching a tow line from his suit, Jason secured it to the metal square. Jason switched his magnetic boots back to stationary and removed his cutting torch from its holster. Turning on the gas, Jason snapped his fingers together to ignite the lighter in the thumb of the utility glove. Lighting the torch, Jason began an L shaped cut. Jason reached the corner of his cut when Hanks voice roared along with the cries and shrieks of a thousand voices.

“Jason! For the love of God answer me!”

“Hank what the hell is-”

“Jason, this thing, this thing has got us held up in one of the cabins! This thing is huge it’s-” A tremendous crash cut him off, followed by the unmistakable whine of rent metal.

“Oh dear god! It’s here it’s-”

Instinctively, he brought his hands up to his ears, only to clasp his hands around his helmet. The noise dissolved into static, then vanished. Jason stood frozen, then suddenly a giant cluster of wires ripped through the slit. The cluster arched, like a human arm grasping for him. Screaming, Jason deactivated his magnetic boots leaped from the station. His safety line let him free fall several feet before snagging. He laughed nervously as the thing grasped at nothing and then disappeared into the station. His laughter turned to screams as the thing took hold of the safety line, hauling him back toward the station’s jagged maw.