Are we gamers an ungrateful lot?

[catsclaw227]

I'm a programmer by trade myself, & I have argued that nigh all software should be free. In this sense: There will always be people willing to pay me to write software that doesn't exist. Or to modify existing software to do things it doesn't. Once I've written it, though, I'd prefer that as many people as possible benefit from it. I may charge to write it, but I don't want to charge for copying it once I've written it. I don't want anyone to charge for copying it.

I might promise to not distribute copies myself, so you can try to keep it a secret if you wish. I can compromise on that point for a price.

That's how it'll work when I'm put in charge of the world.

This is a great threadjack topic, for sure and I'll make one comment [Edit: ok, two comments] before getting back to our regularily scheduled programming....

In my case, if my employer asked me do develep something that gave them competitve edge, I imagine that they would cringe at the idea of freely distributing the thing they needed to get a leg up. Our business isn't the software, but what we gain as an advantage for the creative use of software developed (if that makes any sense).

I am for providing a free/shareware licensing model to allow individuals to use a product for their PERSONAL use, but once a corporate or businesss license is required, then I believe that it should be paid for. Similar to the way communityserver.org sells/provides their Community Server product. [/threadjack]

When I have been given a free product, and it doesn't meet my needs or I don't like it, I simply get rid of it. What's the point in raising h*ll with the people that gave it to you?

 

[Alzrius]

I don't know about ungrateful, but gamers are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I don't know about ungrateful, but gamers are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

And your leaping kitty strikes fear into my heart.....

 

[jontherev]

Uh, no. How many people download movies and music for free, illegally, because they bitch about the price...even though the price of CDs has pretty much stayed the same since they were invented!!! I don't really have a problem with checking something out before you buy it, but if you like it, THEN BUY IT!!! Support the artist who created what you stole. So, like I said, it's not just gamers...

 

[Mouseferatu]

Your writing is worth whatever you can get for it. Personally I dont care much for writing done only for money and fame. But if your concernd about what the company does with it I would suggest finding out how they will be relesaing your work before doing it.

I'm sure there are a few exceptions, but for the most part, in the RPG field, there's no such animal. Anyone who gets into the field seeking money and fame is deluded. The pay is crap, and even if every table-top RPGer in the world knew my name, I don't know if it would qualify as "real" fame.

We do this because we love it, because our love of the game, and of the subject matter, helps to make up for the crappy pay and low level of recognition. I could make several times what I do now if I were willing to do, say, technical writing. But (aside from the fact that I'm not really qualified, at least not without a lot of extra reading), I would hate doing it. The extra income wouldn't be worth the loss of enthusiasm for the subject.

Now, all that said...

What difference does it make to you what an author's motivations are? Certainly, if the writing suffers, that's one thing. But a good writer won't let it show, if he's doing a particular gig for love or money. Assuming it all comes out the same, why do you care whether he put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, for the money or not?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I don't know about ungrateful, but gamers are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

You come here and say that to my face! You better do come up, or I'll get my voodoo doll of you

I'm a programmer by trade myself, & I have argued that nigh all software should be free. In this sense: There will always be people willing to pay me to write software that doesn't exist. Or to modify existing software to do things it doesn't. Once I've written it, though, I'd prefer that as many people as possible benefit from it. I may charge to write it, but I don't want to charge for copying it once I've written it. I don't want anyone to charge for copying it.

I don't think that would work too well. For one thing, I'd guess that many will be miffed that they have to pay for software, but after that gets the same software for free.

Sure, customised software isn't affected by this too badly, since others will probably have no use for your softare. But it is a problem with softare that can be used by many people. Especially if it's powerful software that has lots of man hours in it.

It boils down to: Why would someone pay thousands of tacken to get, some very useful and powerful software package and then everyone else gets it for free? The idea of selling software licenses is that you can break up the cost for standard software. It might have taken a couple of hundred people several weeks each to create the software, but people can get it for a hundred tacken or something like this because it will be sold to many, many people.

You can't always count on some rich philanthrope sponsoring the design of powerful software so everyone can get it for free, or people willing to work for free designing that software.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Download the CD then buy a T-shirt from the band, that makes the band a lot more than they get from thier probably record deal.

I like the CD's though.

 

[Storm Raven]

Download the CD then buy a T-shirt from the band, that makes the band a lot more than they get from thier probably record deal.

Even if the band gets nothing from the CD, then not buying the CD hurts them in the long run. Unless their music is marketed (say, by a label selling CDs), then the liklihood is that you will never hear about them, and never have the motivation to buy the t-shirt. If the label makes no money, then in the future bands get no recording contracts, and they play in local bars until they decide to get real jobs because they can't make any money.

 

[Morrus]

A books value (aside from content or ideas) is in its construction which as I said is an important reason why I would buy one. Also the value of the book form is its economic support of supply and demand of the materials used for creating it (ie paper and ink) plus the distribution costs. So I know I am paying for a product which cost money to make and ship to me and for this I get a phisical representation of said product for my money.


Digital Media is for the most part "worthless" this is not necsarily because of ideas in it (which are difficult to value anyway) but because it does not have a physical form and as such has no worthy economic value in my opinion. This is because it is so far removed from supply and demand that it really does not even belong in an econimic system .

Each EN Publishing PDf costs roughly $1,000 to produce. That's an average. Death of a Demon Lord cost over $2,000 in total. We hire good writers, pay a good editor, contract good art and maps, pay an excellent layout/graphic design guy, and then pay RPGNow etc. a large commission to sell it for us.

By "us", of course, I mean "me". *I* pay for all that. Personally.

If I don't recoup that cost on each and every product, I am losing money. My money. The stuff I use to pay for my house, my food, my car. The supermarkets have this irritating habit of asking me for money when I try to remove edible foodstuffs from their premises.

Fortunately, enough people place a value on what I produce that I haven't died yet, and EN World, which in a "worthless" and non-physical manner (which costs me $450 per month just to host) allows you to post this opinion, still exists.

If my output has no value, and I am not paid for this, then I don't produce any more. I can't, 'cos I'm destitute. And starving.

Your "ideas" dry up pretty quickly when nobody is producing them.

Digital media has value. You'll find that out if you buy one of my PDFs for $5, and sell 1,000 of them. The courts - as manifested by large bailiffs - will make that value very clear to you, whether you agree with it or not.

And I'll be able to eat.

 

[Cameron]

Complaints over free stuff... Heh...

I have to echo the words of the poster that said that people nowadays have this sense of entitlement that is just insane. They believe that they are entitled to everything under the sun, whether they have worked for it or not. Is this a direct result of bringing up real-world politics, a subject that we ask you avoid on these boards? I don't know for certain, but I strongly suspect it.

By and large, IMX, this form of entitlement has bled over into the RPG scene. In fact, from the amounts of complaints that crops up with regards to envious players playing the "broken" card, I'd say that the issue of entitlement is becoming endemic to the game. Why do I say that? Well, think about it. Why does one complaint about how good another player's character is? Why does one even care? Well, because the other guy is outshining the complainant. Why is that an issue? Because the complainant feels that he is entitled (there's the word) to a share of the spotlight. He doesn't want to work for it. Oh no. He just wants it. It is his right. So the other guy must be the disruptive player.

Hate them or love them, Tracy Hickman and Margeret Weis had the right of it (albeit in a simplistic way) when they wrote that there must be a balance between Good and Evil, and that if Good dominates, it breeds arrogance ("because I'm Good, I must be right, and so anyone that thinks different from me must be wrong, and so must be Evil"). Replace Good and Evil with rights and responsibility, and you'd get the idea.

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Now, speaking as a writer and a campaign setting designer, I do it for the fun of it. I certainly don't do it for the money. For every JK Rowling out there, there are tens of thousands of writers starving to death. It is too fickle an industry for me to take it seriously as a vocation, so I do something else for a serious living. What I write or design, I generally distribute free to the people that are interested in them (usually just my friends). Oftentimes, if it is not proprietary stuff (i.e., original settings or stories created by myself), I post them on the Internet for the enjoyment of all.

I'm not saying that everyone should be like this. I am just saying that is what I do.