Mearls' Latest Thought on the Industry

[Crothian]

He has a point, but it's one that holds true in the other direction too. How many ideas would simply never have been published at all if not for the PDF market? Would we have seen products like Elements of Magic or Year of the Zombie or The Bestiary: Predators if the only recourse was to either sell the idea to an existing print-based company, or found such a company yourself? Possible, but not likely. I think the PDF market has given us far more than it has taken away.

Ya, there are some gems of the PDF market (I'm not sure I agree with your picks there but that's another matter). Instead of being PDFs though, Mearls is saying they would have been on messaage boards and shared ideas and I think improved by the community. So it is possible the gems could have been even better.

 

[jgbrowning]

Ya, there are some gems of the PDF market (I'm not sure I agree with your picks there but that's another matter). Instead of being PDFs though, Mearls is saying they would have been on messaage boards and shared ideas and I think improved by the community. So it is possible the gems could have been even better.

How is "the industry" responsible for each individual's decision to actually purchase a PDF?

The fundamental point he's making is flawed. The "industry" hasn't prevented anything from happening Crothian. The "industry" hasn't prevented any open source movement, but apparantly, people actually like having other people do work for them and they don't mind paying for it either.

It's not "the industry." It's the buyers who created a market, created a demand. The industry is a response to what people want out of the d20 movement. When the people decide to not buy PDFs anymore, then we'll see if there really any desire at all for "an open source movement."

I don't think there's a network of gamers large enough to support an open source movement for any amount of time. We're a small bunch demographically.


joe b.

 

[jdrakeh]

PDF publishing hurts innovation, particularly for d20. Rather than use the Internet as a medium to spread concepts and test ideas, the RPG industry has instead turned it into a massive shopping center. The impulse for widespread collaboration, sharing, and improvement, precisely the sort of factors needed for an open source movement to take root and produce useful results, have been undercut by the rush to sell PDFs

I see a lot of freelancers collaborating on a wide variety of PDF products every day in my capacity as RPGNow's head reviewer and, during my short stint as a designer, I collaborated with a number of other designers and publishers on different PDF products. I have seen absolutely no evidence to suggest that PDF products as a whole undercut anything (quite the opposite, actually).

Now... that said, I think that there are some PDF publsihers who undercut the things that Mike mentions, but I also see these publishers as a minority and not at all representative of the PDF industry as a whole. If there is evidence to support Mike's claim that PDFs as a whole are undercutting innovation and collaboration, I certainly haven't seen it.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I dunno, I think the free capital system can be a pretty big motivator as well.

Like all things, balance.

I like to see PDF publishers using and changing OGC data, compiling it from different sources to do different things. I'd like to see more of it, and I don't think there's anything about the PDF industry itself, nor OGL, that's limiting that sort of work.

It seems to me, from the early days of the internet, about the same number of dedicated hobbyists were willing to work for hours on end for no pay and little to no reward to release home-brew subsystems and settings and additional content on the internet..

Unfortunately, dedication to one's ideas is only part of the battle.

PDFs, and the PDF "industry" allow for niche publications to be ... rewarding. Not economically supportive, but that's sort of the general state of RPGs in general. Not even people working at WotC can avoid getting canned at Christmas. A handful of people, for various reasons, make a living income from RPGs ... but I, personally, think that the long-term will show more growth than not from it.

Especially as things begin to slow down a little. More steady niche publications, greater personal focus, etc.

--fje

 

[Dragonhelm]

PDF publishing hurts innovation, particularly for d20. Rather than use the Internet as a medium to spread concepts and test ideas, the RPG industry has instead turned it into a massive shopping center. The impulse for widespread collaboration, sharing, and improvement, precisely the sort of factors needed for an open source movement to take root and produce useful results, have been undercut by the rush to sell PDFs.

Innovation stems from the arena of ideas. In gaming circles, that's typically a message board like this one.

By sharing ideas, the creative thought process begins. One person comes up with a good idea, and another has a suggestion to make it even better. Pretty soon, they expand to the point of innovation.

PDF products actually enhance our ability to have innovation. While it's true that many PDF publishers put out whatever they can to make a buck, there are some truly clever ideas out there that you can't find in any sourcebook. Add to that the capitalist nature of it all. More products equals more choices. More choices means that you have to do something different and innovative to get noticed. The more products that are published, the more that generate discussion in the arena of ideas.

If anything, what PDF publishing does is create competitors for the big companies. Typically, they're not going to draw a significant amount of profit away from those companies, but they are a force to contend with. The thing is, if companies put out generic print materials and PDF publishers put out innovative PDF products, the flow of money may change.

In short, the nature of capitalism will create innovation in the marketplace. For community purposes, it's the sharing of ideas that drives innovation, not whether PDF products are sold or not.

 

[Endur]

I would prefer that all on-line gaming products be free. In the absence of all on-line gaming being free, I have no problems with people selling pdf's.

 

[tetsujin28]

Because many of the items that people would talk about on message boards and share simple ideas with they are now just turning into 5-10 page PDFs. Instead of people talking about this inovation and sharing ideas they are just puttign it out for sale. THat's what I got from what he said.

Good Lord! How dare they make money from their ideas? Why, that's...that's...capitalism!

 

[tetsujin28]

I would prefer that all on-line gaming products be free. In the absence of all on-line gaming being free, I have no problems with people selling pdf's.

Indeed.

Dear Mr. Mearls,

Please provide the labours of your hard work to all the rpg community, for free.

Thanks.

 

[Odhanan]

I don't agree with Mike on this one. I think the proliferation of products may camouflage innovation, but it does not "impede" it per se.

When you've got publishers able to get materials out for a low cost, you will have many publishers launching many products out there. Then, after a while, publishers realize that's not because your material is just "out there on the market place" that it will sell automatically. That's called a rationalization of the market. Then there are two basic paths publishers choose: 1/ you publish safe materials. That means publishing series for instance: The "Essential Guide to ..." series comes to mind. 2/ you work really hard on the presentation and "digestability" of original materials (i.e. marketing, packaging, layout...). And you have of course all the paths in between available as well.

There is a proliferation of products, and most products are in fact "safe products", that's true. But I suspect there is more creativity in PDF production than in print. Why? Because the financial risk is inferior, which makes it more likely for a publisher to take a risk in PDF rather than in print and more likely for the little publisher to get his material on the market place.

That's my take on it.

 

[Aaron L]

Well, if the posting of homerules and new ideas suddenly dries up, maybe then we can say that PDF publishing has hurt innovation. I havent seen much of a decline, however.

It just sems like a wierd, blanket statement to me.