The news is now out (see the press release linked below). I have sold the controlling stake in IPR to a company called DOJ Inc., the publishers of Hero Games. There was a lot of commentary about this when it was announced, and one of the main questions was whether it was a hostile takeover. It was not hostile. IPR is a privately held LLC and there is no way for anyone to buy shares that the owner does not want to sell. I was ready to move on from IPR and I found some willing buyers and we made a deal.
I founded IPR back in 2005 as an alternative to the fulfillment consolidators that were around back then (tellingly, almost all of these consolidators went bust in spectacular flame-outs in the years since). I had just published Bulldogs! and I was looking for a way to sell and market the game that wasn’t going to net so little profit it wasn’t worth my while. I’d been hanging around the Forge community at the time, and networking with some other local designers in the New York City area. One of these designers, a fellow d20 open game licensee, helped me develop IPR’s model and get it launched. We started with three d20 publishers (Galileo, Open World Press, and Blue Devil Games) and two Forge-inspired indies (Bob Goat and Adept Press).
From these humble beginnings I began to build the business, gathering over 90 publishers under the IPR banner and gaining several new partners along the way. IPR became one of the primary channels for small press producers to bet their books into the hands of fans and a recognized part of the game industry.
Throughout, I was the driving force behind IPR and always held a controlling share in the company. A bit over a year ago, however, I was starting to feel a bit burnt out on IPR. It really is a lot of work to keep a company going, especially when it is a side job as it was for me. I have a lucrative day job that I won’t be leaving any time soon, and after the first year or so, IPR took up all of my spare time. As the company grew, I hired a shipper to take care of processing and mailing my orders rather than spend my whole weekend stuffing envelopes in my attic. I also brought on customer service and eventual management personnel to lighten the load. Still, all of the decisions rested on me.
I originally started IPR in order to have a market for my game design, and after the first edition of Mortal Coil was published I found that I had no time for game design any more. I got into the hobby to design games, not to run a fulfillment business, and it became clear to me that it was time for me to move on from my role at IPR. The guys at DOJ already operated my warehouse, and they were doing more customer service tasks all the time. It seemed a logical choice to offer the company to them. They saw the logic as well, and we struck a deal which was recently closed.
I’m quite happy that to be moving on. I feel quite gratified that I was able to start a business and grow it into a great success. It’s not something I knew I could do, and now I know that I am capable of this. I will most likely never do something like this again. I plan on concentrating on my other business, Galileo Games, and this year has seen the aggressive monthly release schedule I hope to maintain. I’ll discuss my plans for Galileo in a later post.
For now, I want to let everyone know I am very happy and satisfied to be handing off the reins to DOJ, and I wish them the best of luck. I know that they will do a great job managing IPR, and I plan to be a client of IPR for the foreseeable future. I also have kept a few shares, so I will not be out of IPR entirely. It’s just no longer my sole responsibility, and that is a great relief.
Links:
Indie Press Revolution
DriveThruRPG
