DriveThruRPG Exclusivity

[Dana_Jorgensen]

I believe GoO had about 4? titles on RPGNow now they are at 36 and counting.
And FFG? and FGU? and HDI? and GDW? and FFE? and Dork Storm? and Feder & Schwert?
and the offerings AEG and Chaosium and DP9 will shortly have?

I guess we just see this quite differently.

Steve

GoO had significantly more than that a mere 4 titles. There were at least a dozen, maybe 18. Probably would be more, but that depends on how long ago they signed their contract with DTRPG. Same goes for all the vendors formerly selling through DTRPG. Without knowing how long ago the contracted with DTRPG, we really can't even begin to calculate how that deal may have influenced the growth of their catalog listings on RPGnow.

FGU, well, you could find yourself with problems there. Those games are so old that the contracts with FGU likely didn't include electronic rights. On top of that, many of the games are in a state where the actual game authors now control the game's copyright, while FGU owns only the trademarks involved with the title (just go talk to Jeff Dee over the endless struggles with publishing a revised version of Villains & Vigilantes)

GDW got sued out of existence more than 10 years ago by TSR. By all rights, those publications should be listed under Quicklink Interactive, not GDW. Hell, the Traveller stuff should be listed as publications of whatever Marc Miller's current company is, and licensed by QLI.

FFG, FFE, & HDI, I admit you brought into the fold of PDF publishing, but it took you six months to organize those contracts. RPGnow has for years brought in that many previously print-only publishers one by one. Please stop trying to play up 6+ months of covert business activity as a sudden and shockingly successful push into the market.

Feder & Schwert... Never heard of them. I assume they're one of the foreign language companies you have as vendors? I'm not impressed; RPGnow has a polish and an italian publisher doing business with them.

As for AEG, Chaosium, and DP9, please, stop counting your eggs before they hatch. Signed contracts aren't worth much until both parties are living up to their end of the agreement. And as I recall, there have been a few false starts in online publishing from at least one of those three.

Now, as for not being able to comment on the ownership of DTRPG, can we now assume you're backpedalling from your previously vehement denails of WW ownership of DTRPG?

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

There are plenty of unanswered questions but this one has been. Clark over at Necromancer has stated that the reason they have decided to use DTRPG was that Necromancer had to do 0 work. All they had to do was provide the files they gave to the printer and DTRPG would convert and optimize the files for distribution, run the store, decide on apropriate pricing and send back a check every so often. This way Necromancer could focus on writing books and not worring about anything whatsover in regards to PDF sales. (Except maybe dealing with the PR problem that this has caused) I am not saying this is neccesarily difficult work but some people are not interested in doing it themselves.

Not much of a benefit. I believe RPGnow also offers much of this as a fee-based service for its vendors. Of course, looking at the pricing, I can't help wonder how many vendors are allowing DTRPG to decide the pricing for them.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Dana and Kaiser, I can appreciate wanting answers to some very pressing questions, and certainly don't mind them, but adding insult is not the best way to go about it.

Sorry, I'm just tired of listening to Steve trying to pass off six or more months of covert, behind the scenes business activity as some sort of miracle that occurred overnight.

 

[Cergorach]

As for AEG, Chaosium, and DP9, please, stop counting your eggs before they hatch. Signed contracts aren't worth much until both parties are living up to their end of the agreement. And as I recall, there have been a few false starts in online publishing from at least one of those three.

Chaosium now has four products at the DTRPG site.

FanPro is also very nice catch, besides doing the english version of Das Swarze Auge, they also publish Battletech and Shadowrun.

I am disappointed that the one Dragonlance book at DTRPG was removed, apperently they didn't have the rights to publish it electronically (right when i was gouing to buy it)...

 

[johnsemlak]

I am disappointed that the one Dragonlance book at DTRPG was removed, apperently they didn't have the rights to publish it electronically (right when i was gouing to buy it)...

Yeah, I was thinking about getting that one as well.

 

[Kosala]

Ok, I thought I might pop in a few statements here.

Firstly whether WW owns DTRpg or not is not the issue. Companies are allowed to start subsidiaries in related markets you know. Even if DTRpg is unrelated to White Wolf and it just happens the Steve Wieck is involved with both...what does that have to do with it? He is allowed to be involved in two companies if he wants to.

Has the involvement of his and White Wolfs in this venture made it easier to get names on board that previously stayed away from services like RPGnow? Of course it has. No suprises there. Sword and Sorcery already publish Malhavoc Press books, its no surprise that once White Wolf joined in the act, Malhavoc followed. Although I point out that I do not know this for sure : people should start factoring in the possibility that all publishers working with the Sword & Sorcery label probably did not have a whole lot choice in the exclusive move. Again I am speculating here and this is not fact. But I would think it logical.

So stop insulting the companies. These are people who have worked hard at bringing great product to this industry over a long period of time, I think they have earned a little breathing space and latitude from the rest of us.

Having said that, I do believe that the service and concept of DTrpg should be dicussed heatedly as people have been doing here, just lets try and do it without needing to blame the companies for things that we have no way of knowing for sure.

On the subject of DRM, I have posted before that it seemed to work very well when I tried it. With the exception that you do need to have a internet connected computer to authourise Adobe. Desslock pointed out a seeming flaw in the DRM system in his post before.

We know that Adobe DRM is not foolproof. I think the move for most companies that joined DTRpg had to do with the fact that they got a whole lot of PDF conversion services for no effort, and the fact that DRM goes someway to protecting their IP if not all the way.

Personally I do not believe that the piracy of PDFs goes any significant way to reducing overall sales for a PDF company. But I can understand how the fear of it can lead to a little commercial paranoia on the side of companies.

I would like to see that the competition between DTRpg and RPGnow serve to increase the quality of both services. I do frown upon the exclusivity that DTrpg has with several large players, that limits the industries growth if future services similar to these cannot snag those labels to join their site. And although I see the business sense from the side of DTRpg, I do believe some finger wagging and "tsk tsk'ing" their way is in order for that move.

 

[The Mad Kaiser]

All they had to do was provide the files they gave to the printer and DTRPG would convert and optimize the files for distribution, run the store, decide on apropriate pricing and send back a check every so often.

So are you ready to tell me that taking a pdf (a pdf fully ready for the printer), slapping on the unpopular and worthless DRM, and putting it on a page is so "service intensive" that they can only service 'print' publishers? Take away the DRM step and you have RPGNow.

Are any of the OOP scanned products OCRed? I have never seen anything that would indicate that. Scanning a book without OCR takes at most an hour with a good system. Less than that if you are willing to de-spine the book for a sheet-fed scanner. (I'm sure Dana knows the real numbers)

And besides, so far everything I heard from print publishers (except Malhavoc) is:

"We don't care about pdf, we care about making books."
"We never sold many pdfs anyway, and we saw a chance to sell with the big boys."
"We don't really think about pdfs sales as anything but extra sales."
"This is a way to get books where print book aren't shipped, and still get paid."

It's obvious these print publishers are ambivalent about pdfs at best, and haughty at worst. I can understand if print publishers are too chicken, too lazy or too ignorant to appreciate pdf publishing. I don't want to hear the lame excuses of publishers, I want to hear Wieck answer those questions.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

There are plenty of unanswered questions but this one has been. Clark over at Necromancer has stated that the reason they have decided to use DTRPG was that Necromancer had to do 0 work. All they had to do was provide the files they gave to the printer and DTRPG would convert and optimize the files for distribution, run the store, decide on apropriate pricing and send back a check every so often.

This contrasts with previous statements claiming that it is the PUBLISHERS who determine the price of their books.

we really do not care at all about pdf sales, we sell books....

That's not a good thing to say in front of a couple hundred people who buy PDFs. For one, it sounds disingenuous -- I really don't believe you "don't care."
For seconds, it seems haughty.

While I cannot comment on the complete ownership of the companies,

Why? That only sounds suspicious too. Why would anyone trust a company that hides it's ownership?

I'm not trying to be snarky, that's a real, honest question. What if I told people "I can't comment of the ownership of my company." Wouldn't that make you suspicious?

Lastly, I'm really trying to be fair here, but it does seem that Mr. Wieck is dodging the Kaiser's questions. I'd like to see some of them answered myself.

 

[Leopold]

There are plenty of unanswered questions but this one has been. Clark over at Necromancer has stated that the reason they have decided to use DTRPG was that Necromancer had to do 0 work. All they had to do was provide the files they gave to the printer and DTRPG would convert and optimize the files for distribution, run the store, decide on apropriate pricing and send back a check every so often. This way Necromancer could focus on writing books and not worring about anything whatsover in regards to PDF sales. (Except maybe dealing with the PR problem that this has caused) I am not saying this is neccesarily difficult work but some people are not interested in doing it themselves.

I can honestly say to them "I understand"

Since I hate any type of 'protection' as it is for products they are focusing on their core business which is making killer products for us to buy rather than scrambling to do PDF's.

It seems that if it were upto them they couldn't give 2 rat ****'s about PDF market.

 

[Leopold]

Not much of a benefit. I believe RPGnow also offers much of this as a fee-based service for its vendors. Of course, looking at the pricing, I can't help wonder how many vendors are allowing DTRPG to decide the pricing for them.

It's not, because honestly they don't care about PDF's.

Necro's always been about the fans and the books, PDF's are nice but from browsing through the boards if they had to pay for it and do work on it, they wouldn't have done it.

More money for 0 work? How could someone not pass that up?