Eclipse Phase: Sexy

[HorusZA]

Eclipse Phase is now available for ordering from BattleCorps.

BattleCorps:/BattleShop

I went for the Book/PDF bundle. Considering the amount of graphics the PDF loads surprisingly quick. Good job!

 

[Cadfan]

So Cadfan, do you approve or disprove of CC stuff? It's hard to tell, you're giving mixed signals? Personally, I think all this open-source/CC stuff can only be supported in the long run by payment, otherwise a lot of this stuff will dry up. That's why I am critical of these movements in general since they ignore basic economic theory. That's why I think WoTC replaced the OGL with the GSL.

"Approve" isn't really the right word. Posthuman has the right to make whatever call they think is best. I don't view it as any different than deciding to sell your product cheaply in pdf form, or to sell it only in brick and mortar stores while setting a price floor, or any of the other myriad decisions they could make about distribution. It is what it is, and I figure they have some plan to earn money off of their work. So to the extent that "approve" suggests liking or disliking, I don't "approve" or "disapprove" of other people's business models.

I've played a number of miniature wargames which offer their rules for free online. They're a great example of how to do this right, business wise- the rules are free, but you'll want miniatures to play. The rules cost $30 to $40, but the miniatures are likely to add up much, much higher over time. It is obviously far too difficult and costly to offer miniatures as a free sample. But a pdf can be distributed inexpensively and operates as a lengthy glossy advertisement for your other work.

It sounds like KM is thinking of optimistically (CC is the future, commercial projects are "old hat"), while you have either the cynical view, or else are the type of audience that is the truer version (people want free stuff, and if you give your stuff away most people won't buy it at all and take full advantage of it). So what is your take of CC or other open releases. Are they a viable business model, or doomed to failure?

If you've got a way to profit from your work, they're viable. The wargame companies I mentioned above (Infinity and Anima Tactics, for the record) seem to be doing just fine.

CC licenses or other open releases can fill a number of functions. They can act as free samples, to encourage you to desire other, non-free products. They can act as a signalling mechanism of your company's corporate image- new, hip, internet savvy, not like those old dinosaur companies. Probably more. I'm sure that, done properly, these things can help your company.

I'm just less convinced that KM's vision of a CC project is viable- the vision where companies release CC products that people could obtain for free if they chose, but where they voluntarily choose to pay for hardcopy anyways. There may be a window right now where this works, because the internet hasn't fully worked out how to deal with large CC works, because most people haven't quite got it through their heads that this product is available for free, because there's no obvious place to go for a free copy, and because the initial flush of enthusiasm for CC hasn't worn off yet.

But eventually there will come a day where releasing a CC version of a game just results in the immediate creation of a website with a URL like freeeclipsephase.com, that contains nothing but a distributable, free copy of your game. Or a website with a URL like CCLibrary.com, that contains copies of all kinds of free materials and which functions as a distribution center for these things.

Once that internet infrastructure is in place and becomes well known, the first thing that people do after hearing about a CC game is to rush over to that webpage and download a copy. After browsing it, a few things will happen. First, the chance of getting impulse purchases will have been crushed. Impulse purchases will become impulse downloads. Second, the added value of a physical copy will fall. Purchasing a physical copy will be motivated purely by the added value of a physical copy, not for the value of the rules. And third, to the extent that you need a copy of the book at the table to play, it is possible that between the right to print copies and the right to remix the game, there will be the ability to create short, printable copies of the rules actually required at the game table. A DM screen or character sheet of sorts.

 

[Andor]

For my own 2¢ I note 2 things.

1) They have not actually released an electronically distributeable free copy of the game, they have simply made it legal for someone else to do so. People being people this probably makes it inevitable that someone will do so, but that's still not a bad thing because...

2) As handy as an electronic copy of something can be, people like dead tree products. Games in particular are a lot more convenient when you can reference the rules at the table without an extension cord.

Baen Books makes an awful lot of their products available for free electronically and rather than reduceing sales, it has driven them. Both the sales of other works by those authors, and sales of the free books themselves. Both because people like dead tree books, and because educated consumers really do grasp that financially supporting people who give them nice things is a good idea. Check it out.

 

[I'm A Banana]

See, that's a great example of my 5th point then. You don't think its copyrightable, but I think that since copyright doesn't always function on single phrases taken in isolation, the collection of ranger power names, in context, might be.

Man, once I get my law degree in intellectual property, this discussion will be a lot easier.

I think it might be more akin to being allowed to eat one marshmallow now, or being allowed to eat one marshmallow later, while being told that there's no real rule that says you have to wait if you don't want to, and you can go ahead and eat the marshmallow now or later as you see fit, but really your Mom is going to be very disappointed in you if you didn't figure out that secretly everyone wanted you to wait. I'm not a fan of bait and switch.

Understandable. But I don't see anyone telling you that you're going to be shamed into buying EP. My main point is that it would be smart of you to contribute to the thing that brings you joy if you want it to bring you more joy. I'm not making a moral case as much as I am an "enlightened self-interest" kind of case. If you just want to get the game, my disappointment won't come about because secretly everyone wants you to pay, but because if you contribute something, things will be better.

I'm not exactly sure about Shem's "cool" comment, but that wasn't even raised before your first post, which already seemed kind of on the defensive about it.

You don't need to be defensive, you just need to realize that there's an externalized cost to this free pdf that you might not be paying. You might pay it indirectly in the form of "no new EP supplements" at some point in the future. You might not -- your sale might not matter to them if they can get enough people who like the game talking about it. If you run a game with 4 other people, and two of them buy the book because they love it, you've made them two sales by giving away one book, and I'm sure they'd be happy with that arrangement.

There's no shame in grabbing apples from a tree that offers them, but if you don't take care of that tree or plant more seeds, you've got an externalized cost that results in you not getting any more apples.

You can do those things with a free copy. And a simple fansite policy would have accomplished encouraging these things just as easily, without the obvious and rather large side effect of offering me a free copy of their book.

Yeah, but I think offering people who wanted free copies of the book was part of the plan all along. It certainly wasn't an unintended side-effect. The theory generally goes that if you hit the largest market available (which free helps you do), some portion of that market will want to pay for the good stuff. Even if it's only 5% of your market, if the market is big enough, that can be quite a take-home. And for a small publisher, I'm sure they don't need that huge of a market or that big of a percentage to take home a tidy profit.

I don't think this is a "side effect."

That doesn't mean that you should just take a free copy and run, though. It's better for you if you contribute something back, because then you'll keep getting stuff back. If you're interested enough to find and download it, you're probably interested enough to (for instance) publish your "Cadfan's Eclipse Phase House Rules Document" in a PDF on ENWorld's Non-D&D discussion boards, no? From the former, you get a game, from the latter, you get more game.

You don't have to, but why wouldn't you want to?

But when something is explicitly and intentionally made available to me for free, I don't have a problem taking it. I figure that whoever made that choice knew what they were doing.

It sounds like what you really want is a patronage system. If that's really what Posthuman wants, they should just post their entire ruleset online, sell hardcopies for those who want them, and put up a paypal donation box.

They haven't done that.

No, you're misaprehending the argument. I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing, and are totally fine with you getting a free copy. I don't particularly mind it, either. I don't want everyone to pay to own the book if they really want the book, but can't spare the dough.

I want you to think about the ramifications of your actions, though. I want you to know that if you give nothing back, you're potentially hurting yourself in the long run.

If you're comfortable with that, then that's your cost. You've paid for it by taking the risk of having less cool stuff in the future, hoping that enough other people will pay for it to support your non-purchase. You've essentially socialized your purchase, redistributing the cost amongst everyone who DID buy a copy. In a way, Shem and Clueless and everyone else at GenCon who got a copy, bought you your copy. (This is the same way going DDI-only works, too. Though you pay a monthly fee, content is derived from the published books, so those who buy the publish books subsidies your database access to a large degree. Your $10 might pay for the guy they hired to program it and the interns that enter data, and might not show a profit for a few years.)

If you're not comfortable with that scenario -- and, seeing how defensive you were before anyone said anything about what you should or should not do, and how you keep acting like you're being guilt-tripped into a purchase back-door-style, evidence may suggest that you're not entirely comfortable with that -- then give something back. Take the time to rip your house rules to PDF and tack on the CC stuff. Maybe keep a story hour (I would be very interested to hear how this game plays at the table, for one!). CC publish what quests you send the PC's on, or their character sheets. Maybe even buy a copy.

But the decision isn't that of Posthuman, or of me, or of anyone who bought the book.

The only person who can decide what they want to contribute to the game is you.

You don't have to, but I don't think I fully understand why you wouldn't want to.

It sounds like KM is thinking of optimistically (CC is the future, commercial projects are "old hat"),

I'm not quite so utopian, though I do tend to think that the current copyright system in a lot of the world has outlived its original intent of encouraging new artwork, and that CC goes a long way toward helping that, while still providing a reason for an informed and educated consumer to actually purchase the product itself. It's use in a game book is interesting since a lot of a game book's text is, by the nature of the book, not protected. I think what EP has done here that is noteworthy is create a transhumanist setting that is basically free to use and re-use as long as you tell everyone where you got it from. EP seems to be a very literary game, which can lead to some very interesting stories in their world.

 

[heirodule]

Eclipse Phase on their twitter account said that it would be Ok for someone who bought the PDF to share it with their buddies.

When you search torrent sites for the game, you find one place with the following quote

Note: This torrent is a legal download, made possible by Eclipse Phase's Creative Commons (noncommercial-attribution-share-alike) license.

Posthuman Studios and Catalyst Game Labs are going the Creative Commons license route because we love our fans, and we want you to share the game with your friends. You are also encouraged to play in our sandbox and use, modify, and remix this material for your own purposes in accordance with the license conditions. Write fan fiction, port the game to a different rules set, adapt the setting to your favorite novel series, post an in-depth campaign setting -- and share it with others. Full details on how this CC license works, including appropriate attribution and exceptions, can be found at: <a href="http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense">http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense</a>

If you like the game and/or setting, please contribute to the cause and buy the PDF (only $15), the hardcopy of the book ($49.99), or the hardcopy book and PDF bundle ($59.99). Your support will ensure that we can continue to produce quality Eclipse Phase game material under the Creative Commons license.

I think this game is kinda like shareware. I'm buying the hardback, but the torrent seems to be good to tie one over until its out.

I'm posting this in good faith that this is actually all fine, and doesn't therefore violate ENworld's prohibition on encouraging piracy

 

[Cadfan]

Man, once I get my law degree in intellectual property, this discussion will be a lot easier.

Yep. You'll agree with me, at least on the nature of the law if not on its purpose or utility. Did you know that you can even copyright arrangements and organizations of uncopyrightable material? The copyright can be held in the organization rather than the underlying items organized. Copyright is organic and resides almost everywhere that creativity is added to a system.

And that's why I'm skeptical of the ability of a lay person to create a safe scrubbed copy of 4e. It would have to

1. Scrub all of the obvious IP
2. Scrub all of the nonobvious IP that most people don't know counts as IP
3. Make decisions that avoid or survive legal challenge in the places where IP status is unclear
4. Anticipate and avoid future changes to our relatively antiquated law of game IP
5. And still end up with a usable, worthwhile copy of the game.

And the person doing that would inevitably be someone with a strong ideological belief in a particular stance on intellectual property that is likely to be disagreed with heavily by established producers of intellectual property. Such a person is likely to have difficulty working in an environment where the goal isn't to get things "right" in an ideological or even objective sense, but rather to get them "right" in the sense of "within the vaguely defined boundaries between two positions, each of which believe themselves to be right, close enough to the position of the other side that the other side doesn't feel moved to mount legal challenge."

You don't have to, but why wouldn't you want to?

Because I game to enjoy myself, not to participate in an online community, and I can do that just fine without "giving back?"

I don't know what else to say here about the whole moralizing aspect except that I don't believe you about your own motivations. You repeatedly claim that you're not trying to make this into a moral issue, that its really just an issue of whether my actions benefit me, and my own self interest, but your language from the start has been peppered with morally weighted phrases and terminology. You come across as a sort of camp counselor, explaining to a child that sharing is good for you AND me- an argument couched in self interest, but one through which the child no doubt sees.

From my reading, you clearly convey a moral take on the subject, and I believe my reading to be fair and reasonably objective.

I'm posting this in good faith that this is actually all fine, and doesn't therefore violate ENworld's prohibition on encouraging piracy

You should be ok. If indeed this was posted by Posthuman or Catalyst, it ought to be scrubbed of the six copyrighted images, and therefore a completely legal, creative commons licensed download. You didn't post a link, but if I am able to find and download a fully legal, distributable copy of Eclipse Phase, I'll come back and post it in this thread. The only torrent I've checked so far isn't moving.

 

[coyote6]

I went for the Book/PDF bundle. Considering the amount of graphics the PDF loads surprisingly quick. Good job!

Adam Jury's got mad PDF skillz, wot.

He's done some fairly amazing things with SR PDFs -- IIRC, the original SR4e PDF was up near 80-90 MB, and was sluggish as heck to load. The version I have now is down half that size, and it has a bunch of art, background, and the like, which tend to balloon file sizes and murder load times. (I haven't checked in quite a while to see, so it might be even more optimized now.)

I sometimes wish White Wolf would hire him to trim down some of the Exalted PDFs.

 

[Cadfan]

For what its worth, I downloaded a torrent of Eclipse Phase. It contains a creative commons explanation page attached to the torrent, purportedly from Posthuman Studios (it proclaims that its text is copyrighted by Posthuman). It contains the details from their webpage about their licensing, including references and links to the portions of their website that contain more information about the individual artists.

It also specifies which artwork is NOT creative commons. But when I opened the pdf of the text the pages specified had artwork on them. Either there was other artwork that was redacted, or they screwed up and included a full pdf copy of the entire book, including the artwork they specifically set as not being creative commons.

At this point I've concluded that my copy is legal, notwithstanding the confusion about the artwork. Unfortunately I can't seem to upload a torrent file as an attachment, probably due to ENWorld policies. But you can find it if you search around a bit. Just don't fall for the many torrent scams out there- don't install anything new other than the official bittorrent client software, and be aware that the file size you're looking for is about 40 mb.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

The authors themselves have posted links on rpg.net for free downloads of Eclipse Phase.

They have also updated the CC at their website specifying that the artwork is included in the CC as well.

So you're home free.

(Too lazy to find the post at rpg.net (it's in a thread called "Eclipse Phase: How is it?" or something) but here's a link to a download at ENworld)

 

[NoWayJose]

As an aside, people have compared Eclipse Phase to works of Richard Morgan, Alistair Reynolds, etc.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the influence of Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels -- which has to be one of the top best sci-fi books ever.