Arcane Power: How long before the pirated copy appears

[mach1.9pants]

Well using my (limited) torrent search tools, it is still not out now, 2 days later. I found out that if you search some torrent sites put your exact search term as found no matter what it is, the tricky beggars! The 'Arcane Power Full Version DVD' listing gave it away as false to me.

So I was wrong with my 24 hour guess.

 

[Iceman75]

If an ostensibly expert navigator of darknet private file exchanges is capable of finding only about 25 people sharing an unverified file more than 24 hours after the book officially went on sale, I believe the analysis that WotC will draw from this is "We won."

Of course the file will appear on the casual pirate sites. But I hold in my hands a copy of Arcane Power, ordered for $20 from Amazon with standard shipping, delivered before any pirate PDF is available. Every potential customer like me, who wants to have the book within a day or two of its release, will be able to draw the conclusion that they can either get it for sure by laying down $20 or they can wait an indeterminate amount of time for an inferior scan to show up. This is in of itself an enormous win for WotC compared to the recent business, where it was actually _faster_ to get the pirate PDF than it was to hit the LGS or bookstore on the day of release.

And when they are still making $0 from those pdfs or spending money chasing after them I'm not sure that sane people call that a victory. My book is on the way and would be paying them $5-8 for a PDF if they offer it for that price. Oh well, to bad for them. I haven't seen it ... yet.

 

[pawsplay]

I was able to find it in minutes.

 

[Barcode]

This thread is getting waaaay too close to the edge (in terms of where/how to find pirated material - an ENworld no-no and a ban-worthy offense). Keep it rhetorical, please.

And thus, unfortunately, completely unverifiable. Good thing it's just a gentleman's wager...

 

[Remathilis]

And thus, unfortunately, completely unverifiable. Good thing it's just a gentleman's wager...

Sadly, that's the rules of the game.

I too am interested my usual suspects (+ a good google search) discovered nothing...

Ironically, this thread is the 17th google hit on a search for it ;-)

 

[Kishin]

Yes, there are parts of the net that aren't for the masses.

Would you like some sort of cookie for mythologizing self-aggrandizement?

"It's not for you, EnWorld!"

 

[Shemeska]

Well, thirty seconds and one search later and I found it, but to heck if I'm actually downloading it to confirm. It might be Arcane Power or it might actually be Pakistani Midget Porn. Neither catch my interest enough to break the law to find out.

 

[El Mahdi]

Whether or not the amount of pirating of Arcane Power is less than previous 4E books or not, I really don't see any scenario where it will affect sales of hardcopies of Arcane Power.

• People that pirate books exclusively, will not buy the book no matter what. Resulting in no increase of sales from this group due to limiting or eliminating pirated copies.
• People who pirate the books in order to get a preview and see whether they want to buy them, will probably result in a wash. Some will just go ahead and buy the book, others won't because they can't preview it. The two groups would probably nullify themselves out resulting in no increase or decrease.
• People who pirate the book in order to have a digital copy of the book they were already going to buy, will still buy the book. They just won't have their desired digital copy. This will not increase or decrease hardcopy sales, however since some of these people may have bought a pdf, that's lost money for WotC.
• People who don't pirate the books, but do buy the hardcopies, will buy the book anyways. But only if it's a good book and they are interested in it. No increase or decrease of sales because of the crackdown on pirating.
• People who don't pirate the books, and don't buy hardcopies of books, won't be buying this book either. Again, no increase or decrease in sales.

I really don't see how a lack of pirated copies will have any affect on sales of hardcopies. The only thing that will have a difference, is whether or not the book is of interest to customers or not, period.

If sales of this book fall off or increase, I'm sure WotC will draw any conclusion and make any statement they want about how pirating, or lack of, has affected the sales, but it will be complete crap.

Limiting or eliminating pirating will have no affect on book sales. Thinking that it will only blinds them from looking for the real reasons.

 

[Nifft]

It might be Arcane Power or it might actually be Pakistani Midget Porn. Neither catch my interest enough to break the law to find out.

How could you possibly say no to midget porn?!?

Anyway, IMHO the interesting number will be how well Arcane Power sold vs. Martial Power, over time -- including once the PDF is up & out there. It'll be interesting to see:

1/ Week of release sales numbers (did the delay of the PDF translate into more early sales?)

2/ Two months later (did the delay of the PDF translate into more sales overall?)

Cheers, -- N

 

[catsclaw227]

How could you possibly say no to midget porn?!?

Anyway, IMHO the interesting number will be how well Arcane Power sold vs. Martial Power, over time -- including once the PDF is up & out there. It'll be interesting to see:

1/ Week of release sales numbers (did the delay of the PDF translate into more early sales?)

2/ Two months later (did the delay of the PDF translate into more sales overall?)

This.

How could you possibly say no to midget porn?!?

But not this.

(unless of course, you know, you're into that stuff. Then... ummm.. This.)