Providing an avenue of entry for new players to thus grow your player-base is a marketing problem. It's practically the definition of a marketing problem, given that marketing is about raising awareness of and increasing the paying user-base for a product.
Edit: more text, to avoid a double-post on the same topic...
At the end of the day, any new product idea needs to go past two gatekeepers: David Chart needs to believe the product will be of benefit to the product line. And John Nephew needs to believe the product is going to make at least as much money as it costs - both in short-term and long-term gains.
The onus is on you (us) to convince David and John that it's a good idea from their respective perspectives. I can appreciate both perspectives - and as such I can understand why John won't give it the green light. There's no point in convincing me that looking at it from a business perspective is the wrong approach because a) I'm not a financial stakeholder in Atlas Games, and b) the person who you do need to convince on this (John) is legally obliged to look at it from a business perspective.
And please just trust me on the kickstarter thing. It is a cool thing, but it is not even close to being the magic bullet it pretends to be.
We just look at it from a different angle. For me it's a product problem, as the line is missing something. We still see the same problem though.
We have this discussion, but hopefully some other people take note of it too...
My feeling is that Atlas Game is not taking all the steps it could to broaden Ars Magica base.
And I feel this is sad because it is condemning the game to die in the long run.
It's not a question of throwing money for publicity or investing heavily in projects that won't sell.
Relying only on actual players to introduce the game to others limits its reach, unless we include them in our groups: just a taste might not be enough to get the going of the game.
Word of mouth is all good also, but when someone gets its hands on the corebook on his own, reads it, and feels he doesn't get the complete picture on how to play the game, he'll probably just put it down and never look at it again.
Ars Magica is an old game, with an old system that tends on the heavy side.
It is not an easy sell to the younger generation of gamers: they're not as patient as the older generation was (believe me, I've been teaching those kids for 15 years now!).
If they don't understand an app on their phone in 2 minutes, they erase it.
Almost every new game that comes out has a kind of "Quickstart Pack" that lets players start playing almost right away.
It will never be that easy with Ars Mag of course, but we should have something that makes it easier to introduce the game to new players.
I've backed 56 different projects on Kickstarter, talked to creators and project managers alike.
While I totally agree that Kickstarter isn't a miracle thing, it does work when it's done well.
Rite Publishing has been using a crowndfunding model for years for lines with a fan base but not a huge market.
Their Amber Diceless reboot on Kickstarter, Lord of Gossamer and Shadow, recently got 30,000$. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/937759598/lords-of-gossamer-and-shadow-diceless-role-playing
Hell, the Arcanum, a 30 year old game that has been out of print almost as long got over 6,000$. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159628170/the-arcanum-30th-anniversary-edition
I suggested this approach as a mean for Atlas Game to not take a chance on a supplement that might, or might not sell.
If it's not financed in advance, it's not made, that's all, you lose some time all right, but not that much money.
If it's financed, you have a new gateway to the game, and some sort of publicity at the same time.
If it's more than financed, you can have an even better product that will stand out.
It's not clear to me why they would need to be changed at all?
The story seeds are already perfectly useable regardless of whether some, all, or none of the players have read them. That is what currently happens. How they are used might change from troupe to troupe, but that is a troupe problem to deal with rather than an author problem.
We just look at it from a different angle. For me it's a product problem, as the line is missing something. We still see the same problem though.