10:1 illegal downloads

[Enerla]

Lets see the problems.

Pro Torrent side "fading away" because criminals don't post type argument. ~ edited: Make your points without attacking other people please - PS~

About pirates party is small: Where such pirating works because court finds it legal there are people who try to support this, and there are both parties and other organizations to do so. Of course some people in such circles pirate, but some of them are just annoyed because US based companies try to stop them using the rights they pay a lot of money for. (And if this adds to any other anti USA feelings and they as concerned citizens will boycott american products then that can lead to a drop to GM sales in Europe... your economy needs that)

The fact that they form a party for it, and can openly show with their name that they pirating shows, they don't have to fear legal consequnces for many good reasons.

But I doubt that in USA if you would form a party for people who only want to represent people who owns a gun, and everything that party does would involve questions around owning a gun, you would find them empty and void of values and void of values. Probably they wouldn't hit 1% without any focus on any real values.

But it wouldn't make all americans who buy a gun a "wannabee murderer and a criminal" because what they do (possessing a gun) is illegal in many european countries, or would it?

About honesty of WOTC in the case of supporting suppliers: Less money you spend online, more you can spend in local stores. If you need PDFs to make your books portable, searchable, etc. you need it. If you buy them for full cover price? You won't have money for hardcopy. If you get it for free? You will.

If you say: People who support the game with a place to play, local demo groups, etc. can get a discount on books so their added exenses won't make them less competive, and this would help stores to compere with Amazon, and they would make sure PDFs don't get a cent away from these stores BUT all PDFs would send people to the stores (since books would have registration data to register books for D&D Insider, CB, for official events, etc. and they would encourage you to buy hardcopies since it protects your eyes) that would be a sign of support for small stores.

So far only Wizards say: Better if you pay for a subscribtion fee, instead of spending your money at a local store, and if you want to ue notebook for DMing, you better pay inflated price (preferably tied with subscribtion) even if it means you won't have money left to support your local store.

You can guess how much it helps local stores. Claiming that they care about them when they make their decisions we all know? You can see how much honesty they have.

They claim that piracy means: less pdfs sold, since their book obviously sold in good numbers and wouldn't sell any more copies without repring now, and so on. But come on: By shutting down PDF sales, will they sell more PDFs?

Can they get more PDF sales this way?

But with no 3.5E supplies offered right now, people won't recommend buying 3.5E products and combining them with Pathfinder RPG, they can move distribution platform to D&D insider and get more profits (and less competition) this way.

 

[Treebore]

So, Treebore, what's going on lately? Don't take this personally, or as an attack, but by indifferent observation, it appears as though you are really bent on calling WOTC liars. It's come up in two or three different threads in the past few days.

Normally, your posts are insightful and objective, but lately....

Its simple. For years WOTC has been portraying themselves as being such a HUGE company that they had a customer base 6 million strong, they even say as much in the court documents posted. However, when you do the numbers, hundreds fo thousand core books sold come no where close to supporting a market 6 million strong, so WOTC has been lying about how big an industry they are.

Plus they claim that 4E is out selling 3E, well according to Dancey and several newspaper type articles I have seen linked to, the 3E PH sold over one million copies in the first year alone. Ryan even says the 3E PH sold 300,000 copies in the first 30 days. So yet another lie WOTC has been caught in, either now, or back in the 3E days, because it was their news releases cited in the articles I read today.

So yes, I am calling WOTC a lying company. Why? Because they are.

Plus look at the pirating thing. They claim it was this huge thing that was devastating their bottom line, yet in the court cases I read they site 1,000 downloads of one book. 1,000. That is a pittance compared to how many copies of the print PH2 they sold, yet they talk/claim that it was huge numbers that were devastating to their sales.

1,000 is not devastating. Even assume 1,000 as an average for each of the 8 pirates, 8,000 is not a huge number. I know physical stores that wish they had only 10% theft to deal with, and WOTC cannot prove that those 1,000 DL's resulted in lost sales. To do so they have to find all those people who did the illegal DL's and find out if the bought print copies or not. I doubt they can do that, let alone are willing to do it.

So I think they shut down PDF sales as a cheap and easy and provable way to show how the pirating caused them financial damage, because their stated reasons are complete baloney.

So yes, I don't consider WOTC to have any integrity what so ever.

 

[Edgewood]

the guy who used the mens rea argument

Naw, I'm still here. Send me a PM if you would like to discuss further.

 

[Grazzt]

Its simple. For years WOTC has been portraying themselves as being such a HUGE company that they had a customer base 6 million strong, they even say as much in the court documents posted. However, when you do the numbers, hundreds fo thousand core books sold come no where close to supporting a market 6 million strong, so WOTC has been lying about how big an industry they are.

Except, 6 million D&D players doesn't have to mean 6 million 4e D&D players. They are likely guesstimating players across all editions of the game. (Maybe chalk this one up to the grand Marketing Dept at WotC.)

Plus they claim that 4E is out selling 3E, well according to Dancey and several newspaper type articles I have seen linked to, the 3E PH sold over one million copies in the first year alone. Ryan even says the 3E PH sold 300,000 copies in the first 30 days. So yet another lie WOTC has been caught in, either now, or back in the 3E days, because it was their news releases cited in the articles I read today.

I've heard the "4e is outselling 3.x" from WotC as well. Also heard by non-WotC peeps (not Dancey, but others) that it isn't. This isn't really a lie per se...it's the Marketing Dept again. They aren't gonna come out and say "Yeah- the game is cool, but it isn't doing as well as 3.x". There may be peeps discussing this internally (if it's true), but you'll likely never hear about it outside WotC.

(Hey- at least it's not as bad as before 4e came out when they were telling us how crap 3.x was, and how 4e was gonna be the greatest thing ever.)

So I think they shut down PDF sales as a cheap and easy and provable way to show how the pirating caused them financial damage, because their stated reasons are complete baloney.

This I somewhat agree with. I think they have other reasons they aren't stating for pulling PDF sales...like bringing them back in house and offering the stuff via DDI maybe.

 

[Wicht]

It struck me just the other morning, as I was thinking about all of this, that when WotC says there are 6 million players in the court documents, they have to be counting players of all editions. That means if you are still playing 3e or a spin-off of it, then WotC 'legally' counts you as a member of the D&D community. They are trying to make people think that when they say D&D player that this refers to 4e but they never actually say so. It is a bit of duplicity but it also means, if you think about it, that WotC is giving some validity to those of us who have stuck with older editions.

And to when someone says that Pathfinder is not actually Dungeons and Dragons, I can simply respond, Wizards of the Coast still considers me a Dungeons and Dragons player.

 

[mudbunny]

It struck me just the other morning, as I was thinking about all of this, that when WotC says there are 6 million players in the court documents, they have to be counting players of all editions.

So I was the only one who, when reading it, though that it was obvious that they were referring to all D&D players, no matter the edition?

 

[catsclaw227]

I assumed they meant 6 mil D&D players in general. Not that there are 6mil 4e players. These count active players as well as once-a-year with the ol' high school buddies as well.

This is pretty standard statement to make, though. In marketing, when talking about your "user base" you include all versions of your product. "We've got 500,000 users of our software" almost always means 500,000 users of all versions combined.

So this isn't a lie, it's a typical reflection of a customer base.

 

[catsclaw227]

Its simple. For years WOTC has been portraying themselves as being such a HUGE company that they had a customer base 6 million strong, they even say as much in the court documents posted. However, when you do the numbers, hundreds fo thousand core books sold come no where close to supporting a market 6 million strong, so WOTC has been lying about how big an industry they are.

Just so that we are clear, you don't agree that there are 6 million D&D players out there of all editions?

Did you consider that, even though you prefer and almost exclusively play C&C (from what I recall), that you are considered part of the 6 mil because you own WOTC D&D books?

These type of people count in their numbers as well.

Very typical count of a user base includes users of all editions (versions) past and present.

So yes, I am calling WOTC a lying company. Why? Because they are.

<snip>

So yes, I don't consider WOTC to have any integrity what so ever.

OK, I get you are ticked off and you don't like it, but why continue to call them liars at each opportunity? It comes across as very personal, like you have been specifically called out and slighted by them.

I suppose it's none of my business, but I sense something more here.

 

[Imban]

So I was the only one who, when reading it, though that it was obvious that they were referring to all D&D players, no matter the edition?

Since it was an assertion in a court document rather than in a press release, I thought they were unambiguously referring to their estimate of all D&D players, too. In a press release, I would have read it as a deliberate attepmt to say "all D&D players" and have people think "4e D&D players".

 

[Raven Crowking]

Is there any real difference between suggesting that WotC prove a claim before accepting it, and suggesting that anyone else prove a claim before accepting it?

The "10:1" factor may be correct. It may also be wrong.

People use statistics to make a point all the time, and often they are statistics that are made up on the spot. 80% of all people know that.


RC