10:1 illegal downloads

[Enerla]

• If someone cannot afford the books, and they pirate, good, because they may just then BUY the actual books, they sure as hell will not, otherwise. Piracy = free advertizing! Computer game companies know that (but won't admit it). Also, see how Electornics Art were forced to back down from their asinine DRM garbage last month, as fans hammered them for it, it ruined sales and never stopped piracy.

I think the problem is different, lets see some example.

You don't have money to buy most books, so you team up with fellow polish players to buy PDFs and share in community who are poor.

Wizards see 1:5 ratio of owned / user books there.

You also run a lot of demo games, where when you have to you share books. You can show about 1000 people playing in these games. Most of them start buying D&D products.

Maybe not the PDFs the DM of demo game had to send them, but a LOT of books.

And you get an 1:10 ratio on PDFs and for every pirated PDF a LOT of extra hardcopy sales, since these demo groups attracted loyal customers.

Baad baaad pirate dm, he not only pirates books but uses it a lot of time, even to promote the game in new communities which create extra sales.

But even this scenario says: PDF sales are unfair.
Why?

If only 10% pays for them, and the 90% doesn't and yet it is good for the game, Wizards can check: what would happen if people would pay for hardcopies, services, etc. but PDF releases for demo groups would be free, and would come with a delay (so people who want to be in the first few to own a book should choose the hardcopy)?

If the later would mean far more new customers and far more profit than the current 1:10 ratio, then I would pull sales of all PDFs from all vendors, and then just offer the PDF for free later (would check if 3E is good or bad business, and if it is bad, it would be 4e only).

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Enerla,
well yes, what's most important, is NOT the sales of the books, it's the popularity of the game.
WOTC execs don't get that, like most corporates who only understand money.

The popularity of the game, how many folk actually *CAN* and do play it, is crucial.
The bigger the user base, the better. That defines how strong the product is, how long it will last, and how much money you can make if you are smart, rather than just being a greedy chicken with its head in the sand :/

Odd example:
in 3D art, "Poser" is often looked down on by pros (more fool them, some damned excellent pros use it too), it's cheaper than the expensive pro apps...but it is vastly more popular than all the pro apps because it's cheap (free even for a version of it) and it's easy and fun to use .
It's "content" (splatbooks and 3rd party content, in D&D terms), is staggeringly enormous.
So, Poser trundles along like a juggernaut, with a user base the pro apps can only dream of.
Similarly, more and more folk are turning to Blender, a free 3D app that can produce stunning work, it's as good as some of the pro apps but currently held back by a lousy interface (which is being worked on). Blender is sort of "Open Source"...means fans can produce patches, improvements and do it better than some of the very expensive pro apps.

As said, WOTC has lost the plot, they are doomed. It's like the nitiwits in the 1800s who wouldn't convert to steam power! :/

 

[Obryn]

I'm sure I'm wrong BUT how do they tell the pirated vs. legal? Am I missing something of has WotC been allowed to operate under the Patriot Act? I mean someone please explain how they can accurately come up with a number. I'm sure I'm missing something, I know "the man" can get this info but WotC.

Step 1: Look at Scribd download counts, since they have been helpfully provided.
Step 2: Check the various torrent sites and see at least how many seeders/leechers there are at a given point in time.
Step 3: Look at your own PDF sales figures.

Voila!

You will end up with a low estimate, since you're still not taking rapidshare, Usenet, etc. into account... But you will have something of a number.

I think 10:1 sounds perfectly reasonable. Then again, I also think 20:1 or 50:1 sounds perfectly reasonable.

-O

 

[The Little Raven]

Then again I believed there were 6 Million D&D players around the world, and that WOTC was selling to them. Now we know the lie in that.

No, we know the lie that you claim exists in that statement. There's a world of difference between "what Treebore thinks is true" and "what is true."

 

[armorclass10]

Step 1: Look at Scribd download counts, since they have been helpfully provided.
Step 2: Check the various torrent sites and see at least how many seeders/leechers there are at a given point in time.
Step 3: Look at your own PDF sales figures.

Voila!

You will end up with a low estimate, since you're still not taking rapidshare, Usenet, etc. into account... But you will have something of a number.

I think 10:1 sounds perfectly reasonable. Then again, I also think 20:1 or 50:1 sounds perfectly reasonable.

-O

Thanks, I was thinking it was something along those lines, but IMO that's not the most accurate. I agree with you, the estimate would be low for sure.

 

[am181d]

I would have assumed the ratio was much higher. Honestly, 10:1 doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me when you figure that downloaders include (a) people who illegally download AND buy the hardcover, (b) people who illegally download but would never buy the hardcover, and (c) people who illegally download to determine whether they'll buy the hardcover, along with (d) people who illegally download things they would otherwise buy and also kicked your dog.

I *suspect* that group (d) is still the biggest of these four groupings, and it may even be the majority, but even if we're talking 60%-70%, that still leaves 30-40% that's either expanding the hobby at no cost or leading to or happening concurrently to WotC getting additional hardcover sales. Plus a bonus 10% for legal downloads, and that's not so bad.

 

[Asmor]

I would have assumed the ratio was much higher. Honestly, 10:1 doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me when you figure that downloaders include (a) people who illegally download AND buy the hardcover, (b) people who illegally download but would never buy the hardcover, and (c) people who illegally download to determine whether they'll buy the hardcover, along with (d) people who illegally download things they would otherwise buy and also kicked your dog.

I *suspect* that group (d) is still the biggest of these four groupings, and it may even be the majority, but even if we're talking 60%-70%, that still leaves 30-40% that's either expanding the hobby at no cost or leading to or happening concurrently to WotC getting additional hardcover sales. Plus a bonus 10% for legal downloads, and that's not so bad.

Anecdotally, in my experience groups a and b vastly outweigh the others (even removing the dog-kicking restriction from group d). When it comes to RPGs, in both 3rd edition and 4th I think everyone I know who plays (not counting new players who are still learning the game) has complete or near-complete collections of the PDFs and routinely share amongst themselves. Few of them would ever buy the books for a variety of reasons (e.g. poor college student, or college student who has other hobbies and vices they prioritize over RPGs).

I play in a 3rd edition game and two 4th edition games, with very little overlap between the three groups. Several of the players in the third edition game have a dozen or so books-- a collection built up over many years and particularly by the liquidation of 3rd edition product. Besides myself, there's only one other person in either 4th edition game who owns any of those books, and he's an outlier in the groups demographically (I met him here on ENWorld, and he's a couple decades older than everyone else I play with).

 

[catsclaw227]

Then again I believed there were 6 Million D&D players around the world, and that WOTC was selling to them. Now we know the lie in that.

So WOTC has convinced me they can be trusted to tell the truth as much as any demon/devil I would meet on the streets.

Wait, we have a proven lie? Something they've owned up to, or has been proven in a meaningful way (and not just conjecture)?

Hmmm.... looks to me like you've just falsely accused them.

 

[catsclaw227]

I;m guessing the ratio is higher, only because it's really tough to estimage the Usenet or Rapidshare downloads, as others have said.

Even checking torrent seeders and leechers can't generate accurate numbers. Are there people that download and then never seed, or maybe even delete their torrent? I am not sure how that works, so I don't know, but the 10:1 seems awfully low to me.

 

[Imban]

Even checking torrent seeders and leechers can't generate accurate numbers. Are there people that download and then never seed, or maybe even delete their torrent? I am not sure how that works, so I don't know, but the 10:1 seems awfully low to me.

There's a "complete" stat on BitTorrent trackers. The one for a copy of the 4e PHB2 that I'm looking at right now reads "Target file downloads: 2340" which basically means 2340 people have completed the download of this torrent at some point or another. It also currently has 47 seeders and 0 leechers, but that number has no bearing on anything except perhaps whether or not it would be a wise idea to begin downloading the torrent yourself, since it's just a metric of how healthy the torrent is.