The last time I wrote about ProFantasy business was at the end of 2011, during the world economic downturn. Our market is primarily in the US, where there has been a steady recovery. That said, I think our business depends far more on factors unrelated to the economy, and more to the tiny sector of the market we inhabit, and to some extent our own endeavours. I will continue our proud and misguided tradition of ascribing most of our success to our own endeavours rather than those outside factors.

Outside Factors

On those outside factors, first, there is evidence of the steady growth of the tabletop RPG hobby alongside the continuing of mainstream acceptance of genre media (super hero and science fiction movies and paranormal romance). It’s become easier than ever before to publish table top RPGs and there are more games and players than ever before. GenCon, which features the world’s largest concentration of tabletop roleplayers has grown year on year for the past four years by 10% a year. This year saw the succesful launch of D&D 5th Edition, which has given everyone in the hobby a boost.

Sales

This graph shows that despite the absence of new version of the software for which users have to pay, sales continued to increase slowly. December 2013 saw the release of Character Artist 3, our first updated add-on for a while, and that included a free upgrade to CC3+ when it was released. The huge spike at the end was our Jan 15 CC3+ early adopter launch – the first new, paid for upgrade since 2006.

This graph gives a clearer picture of total annual sales. Our margins were cut in 2013-2014 as we invested heavily in the new version, employing Joe Slayton on a permanent contract to improve CC3+, but the successful launch of 2015 showed that risk to be worthwhile.

CC3 sales are a pretty solid measure of new customer acquistion, which you can see increased. The 2015 orange spike is CC3+ upgrade sales – high in absolute terms, but also high as a percentage of CC3 sales to date. It’ll be interesting to see if they match the total upgrade percentage of CC2 + CC2 Pro to CC3.

Our website vistor base has fractured a little, with customers looking at our blog, forum facebook and other social media outlets. Our biggest community success is the forum – the quality and quantity of maps posted there increases month on month.

More Trends

In 2010, download sales were 25%. This has increased in 2014 to 75%. In part this is a general trend, but our download guarantee had an immediate impact when we introduced it. Media is still useful for our very modest retail sales, but we are taking steps to further eoncourage download purchases over media purchases.

The average order level increased by 10% from 2012 to 2014 driven by improved take-up in bundle sales.

The percentage of women buyers remains stubbornly at around 10% (based on comparing first names with a list).

You can get an idea of our sales spikes on product releases here.

Next up, the relative sales of our most of our products for 2012-2014 – I am surprised that City Designer 3 has overtaken Dungeon Designer 3 as our best-selling add-on.  The relative popularity of fantasy over modern and SF settings continues.

Predictions

Oh, dear. I will go out on a limb and say that this year will be our best yet (in terms of sales and margin) unless there is a huge event outside our control. I think, unlike the CC2 to CC3 transition, CC+ full versions will outsell the upgrade, though the upgrade will do well. We’ll get one new product (in addition to the subscription) out, and we will have run our first Kickstarter.

CC3+ is faster, easier to use and creates more attractive maps than ever before.

Speed: CC3+ runs twice as fast as CC3 – and the speed difference is even greater with effects on. A combination of hardware optimisation,  and eldritch programming sorcery means more map-making, less waiting – simple as that.  On most machines, you can use CC3+ with effects on, all the time.

Style: Award-winning cartographer Mike Schley provides you with a complete new attractive map-making style with a host of new symbols and tools. Nothing new to learn, just better looking maps.

Effects: You asked for PhotoShop-style effects, now you have them, with faster, better, streamlined and consistent filters your maps will look better than ever before. You can test your effects on the drawing before applying them. And, again, CC3+ is doing the work.

Ease: A context-sensitive floating cursor lets you know what CC3+ is thinking. Attractive, larger icons suit modern systems. The Print Wizard makes it easy to export your maps at any scale, tiled across paper . CC3+ gives you better and cleverer editing, clearer icons, and improved export.

Integration: CC3 improves and simplifies the map-making process. It puts roads, rivers, symbols and other map-making tools up front and center right where you need them. Whichever map making style you choose, the tools you need will appear, visually, and ready to go.

Clarity: We’ve fixed bugs, plugged holes and cleaned up the interface. CC3+ is Windows 8 able, and it’s cleaner on the inside and outside.

If you want to be ready to roll out spectacular dungeons in TJ Vandel’s OSD Dungeon style with the start of the new year, you can now subscribe to the Cartographer’s Annual 2015 at a special pre-order price of £26.50/$38.

If you are a current subscriber of the Annual 2014 and haven’t received our special re-subscription offer by email, please contact us and we’ll set you up with the extra subscriber discount.

This weekend is Dragonmeet, London’s friendliest gaming convention, and as usual Profantasy will be there with me (Ralf) manning the booth. Look for Pelgrane Press and us close to the entrance to the dealer’s hall (booth 29). Check out the map of the hall.

Dragonmeet is in a new venue this year, the ILEC Convention Centre & Ibis Hotel on 47 Lillie Road, London. It’s easy to reach via the West Brompton tube station.

I’m looking forward to my annual visit to London, ProFantasy HQ and Dragonmeet. Hope to see you there!

And there is the last month of 2014’s Annual already: The December issue is available from your registration page.

Build a wonderful village diorama, designed by community member Old Krom and embellished and documented by Joachim de Ravenbel. Hundreds of symbols and dozens of bitmap fills are there for you to use in your own Dioramas projects as well. Take a look at a photo gallery of the finished village below. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2014, you can do so here.

Coming soon: The Annual 2015 re-subscription offer and December bonus content!

It’s been a while since our last newsletter – we’ve been focused on getting CC3+ ready for release. This month features an exclusive offer on a great piece of map-making kit – The Noteboard, an update on CC3+ and video resources.

News

• CC3+ Update the latest on CC3+
• The August,  September, October and November issues of the Cartographer’s Annual’s are available
• The Noteboard Offer – not all maps need a PC
• Pelgrane, meet ProFantasy – maps for a tabletop RPG company
• ProFantasy Spiel’14 convention report by Ralf Schemmann

Resources

• User Maps – July to November amazing inspiration from CC3 users on the forum
• Video mini-Tutorials for CC3 and add-ons check out Ralf’s video tutorials
• Dungeon Designer 3 Battle Map Video Tutorial
• A map for 13th Age in the Mike Schley style The Mike Schley style is included in CC3+

Map-making Articles

• I Love Maps – by Benjamin Descovich using CC3 to create a map for a novel

Special Offer: Until next Monday you can get 17% off two or more Noteboards from thenoteboard.com or amazon.com. That’s 2 for $20. Use this voucher code at payment: ACR7CVRC

We love maps here at ProFantasy Software, but not just the computer generated kind (which we really, really love). We also love hand drawn scribbles, dungeon tiles, battlemats and Google Maps. So, when two of my game group brought this wonderful accessory to our gaming session, I was impressed. All tucked away, it looks like this.

It’s The Noteboard, a durable, portable dry-erase whiteboard, which folds into a pouch which you can use as an eraser.

In use, it looks like this:

I rushed onto the internet to buy one and, long story short, Ralf, Mark and I bought the company from the founder.

Here is a video review of the Noteboard over on Play Unplugged.

The second from Korvar the Fox

The next version of Campaign Cartographer, CC3+, is in late beta. We were hoping for a release this year, but that’s looking less likely. You can read about the new version here.

We’ve got two show-stopping bugs to deal with before we release the CC3+ beta to a wider audience.

Who is this audience?

We released Character Artist 3 this time last year, and until 1st January 2014 offered free CC3+ upgrade protection to purchasers. Character Artist 3 users will be able to download the beta version and give us feedback as soon as our two big bugs are dealt with. It’s impossible for us to tell when that will be, but I hope it’s in the next couple of weeks. If you are in this category, we’ll send you an email, and update your registration page with the new version. When the new version is finished, you’ll get a new update.

When this wider beta test is completed, we’ll release the upgrade, but we absolutely don’t want to release it until we are sure it’s solid on all operating systems.

We’ve been following Alyssa Faden’s wonderful map-making work on the internet and have extremely please to now see her great artwork in the Annual 2014. With the November issue, you can create overland maps in Alyssa’s style, including her signature floating clouds.

The Annual issue includes more than 250 symbols, 16 bitmap fills, 40 drawing tools, as well as a 6-page mapping guide to follow along.

As a subscriber you can download the November Annual issue from your registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2014, you can do so here.

The bags are packed and we are ready to head out across the pond to Indianapolis. What for? GenCon of course, the best four days in gaming!

As always ProFantasy will be sharing the booth with Pelgrane Press. Like last year we are right at the front of the hall: Booth 101 across from Paizo and Pathfinder. Come find us there, to get the latest products and news. See you in Indy!