DriveThruRPG Exclusivity

[Dire Bare]

Might I suggest you also start using a company rep's dishonesty or ignorance as well? After all, the DTRPG rep is strongly exhibited being on or the other when it comes to DRM.

Dana, you have consistently and unapologetically misrepresented DriveThruRPG EXACTLY as Steve has charged.

I have seen ZERO evidence that Steve has lied or misrepresented in anyway.

But, as I mostly lurk and already tire of this discussion I've taken so little part in, as Steve said, "Have a nice life Dana" . . . I'll just add, "With one less customer"

 

[Steve Wieck]

Drm

If I may, Steve, even though your post was directed elsewhere, I would like to pose MY answers to your questions.

As a publisher? I don't care what you choose to do. Not my business, not my concern.

But as a potential customer (who spends upwards of $100/month on PDFs), I happen to care a lot because of a combination of factors, though these don't matter to you. What should matter to you is that I am a potential large and frequent PDF buyer who refuses on principle to have anything to do with DRM.

Sigil thanks for your posts here and on rpgnet. If only I had a dollar just for each of your DRM posts trying help us see the light I probably wouldn't need your purchase dollars

Ultimately there are a lot of companies involved who would never have considered going digital delivery if file security measures were not involved. In time I am only certain that things will continue to change. Some publishers will want more or less or no security measures/restrictions on their e-Book titles. Fan response and market economy and individual publisher strategy will determine how and when those changes happen.

Steve

 

[Steve Wieck]

Interesting.

Steve: Confirm? Deny?

If this is true, it would not look good for your ability to correctly inform the would-be consumers.

Does anyone out there with access to 7 devices want to TEST this? I am tired of claims on either side; the truth is elusive.

We will double-triple verify that the "unlimited" setting used for encryption is actually "unlimited" and let everyone know.

Steve

 

[Shoon]

This is something that really needs to be said.

If I were the host of RPG Now, I'd ban Mad Kaiser Games from the site.

Mad Kaiser, you're one of the rudest publishers I've ever seen. You really deserve the label "unprofessional"; and it indeed fits that, in your profile, you've defined Mad Kaiser as "one of the unprofessionals".

I'm not big on DRM, and I enjoy RPG.Now, but, as a company, I'd really not like to be in the same site as the one you're in.

I could say you just lost a costumer, but with such worthy titles as "Shok and Awe", I'm not sure if you've ever had a costumer in me to begin with.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

So I believe you [Dana] were out of line, yes since you are in no position to announce policies of DriveThruRPG.com and by making such statements you foster inaccurate information.

Besides, as you well know, since we use the same OSCommerce pacakage as RPGNow, we must be able to deliver normal pdfs or any other type of file type.

So if I am understanding this correctly you do then have the means to deliver non-DRM PDFs. So if any of your publisher-clients decide to sell non-DRM PDFs they would be able to? Please confirm or deny this as I'm sure many fans over at Monte Cook's board would be interested in knowing that they could ask him to make this change. Right now it is assumed by most that this is not an option that any of your clients have.

 

[Sledge]

Steve here does not seem to be intentionally trying to mislead, but I must agree that some of his posts have seemed to contradict each other. This is a "new" site, and they can legitimately claim to not be ready for more than X publishers because they don't yet know what they were doing. I think the question people would really like answered is did the companies that supposedly signed on for the DRM security do so given an impression by DTRPG representatives that DRM is actual secure and would limit piracy? Given that DRM is not secure I am very interested to hear if there was a belief that it was. Also since several publishers have stated the DRM was not their reason for joining and because Steve posted:

Besides, as you well know, since we use the same OSCommerce pacakage as RPGNow, we must be able to deliver normal pdfs or any other type of file type.

Why is everyone being forced to use DRM? Will this change? Since 3 or 4 publishers have mentioned that DRM was not the reason for them (at least one seems to think that DRM is the only type of pdf format out there) how many publishers insisted on the DRM broken security?

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

So I believe you were out of line, yes since you are in no position to announce policies of DriveThruRPG.com and by making such statements you foster inaccurate information.

Besides, as you well know, since we use the same OSCommerce pacakage as RPGNow, we must be able to deliver normal pdfs or any other type of file type.

Thus far, all evidence indicates you have forced every vendor to use DRM. This signifies that you are using Adobe Content Server exclusively, and therefore all PDF products must be DRM enabled.

Sorry, Steve, but you've been insulting us from the first posts you made on behalf of DTRPG by assuming each and every one of us was a person who would listen to you in essence tell us "2+2=5", when we can look at all the facts you're trying to keep silent about and see for ourselves that indeed "2+2=4".


What facts have I been trying to keep silent about?

White Wolf's involvement with the company for one. Why vendors are forced to use DRM for another. Why both your company and its vendors seem to be painfully unaware of the fact that DRM doesn't work in the first place.

James gave us his side. To sum up, WW is sold on the myths and legends of Adobe's DRM and he wasn't willing to allow "his baby" to suffer such indignity.


Either James is misremembering the events or you are misinterpreting/misquoting him. James had no idea we were intending to use Adobe Secure Content Server when we spoke about RPGNow back in January of this year.

And proof that James is wrong is? And just because you didn't mention it to him does not mean no one else did. Oh, by the way, thank you for confirming that you've had every intention of using Content Server for more than six months. You've just validated my statement about all DTRPG vendors being forced to use DRM.

But above you made it pretty clear you don't know what proper services are, what with the assumptions on how RPGnow works.


So you're saying RPGNow doesn't have tools that allow publishers to enter or modify their own prices and title catalog pages?
And you're aware of what my job entails beyond DriveThruRPG.com and the jobs of everyone else involved? You magically know how we spend our days and whether we really have time to service new publishers as opposed to say making sure the site we just launched is running as fast as possible?

See, you're just proving my point. Anyone with knowledge into web-based administration systems knows that most of those "tools" can be built by a competent 1st year comp-sci student in under an hour each. Anybody who did their research about the system ahead of time would know this, too. And they aren't tools, they are necessities. And I know that Adobe Content Server is supposed to come complete with a set of similar tools. You can't fault anyone but yourself for not putting them to better use.

As for your job, I can make educated guesses, I've been involved in publishing on and off, inside and outside the RPG industry since 1985 and involved with internet business since 1994 and e-commerce since 1998.

Unless DTRPG is a company with only a single employee, there's really no excuse that cuts it. As I said, RPGnow handles all its online business and runs a real store with a crew of three. Getting your site running as fast as possible is the responsibility of only one person, your system administrator. It should be his responsibility alone to handle everything, including the decision to order more bandwidth if necessary.

You've already contradicted yourself twice between the vendors supposedly setting their own prices and the backpedal you've done about WW ownership of DTRPG.


Please point out (meaning quote my posts) either contradiction because I am completely unaware of where I have been anything but honest about either one.

Okay:
1.) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1584192#post1584192

You specifically say that White Wolf does not own DTRPG.

2.) http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1590444#post1590444

You say you cannot comment on the ownership of either company.

There's one example of contradicting yourself.

Now, for the other...
1.) http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/ForumResponse.htm

Clearly says the vendors choose their pricing structures.

2.) while I can't find the specific post ATM thanks to the merging of too many threads at the hands of one of the moderators (sorry, but when a half dozen threads with a few pages each becomes a single thread with 20+ pages, I lack the patience to sift through them all with enworld's search-unfriendly color scheme), there is a post on these very forums that states that Necromancer Games has nothing to do with the PDF business other than handing files over to DTRPG and accepting the checks when they come. The post did specifically state that they allowed DTRPG to decide the pricing for them, which contradicts your little response FAQ

I'd like to conclude that once again, you completely ignore the subject the phrase "completely professional gaming e-Book site". How about telling us why you bothered only apologizing for the "professional" remark to one individual in private, rather than publicly to everyone, or why that phrase continues to appear in press releases released AFTER that apology, continuing the insult to over 200 different companies?

 

[Beale Knight]

James
RPGNow.com (The Unprofessionals)

heheheh. I haven't been reading every post on these threads but I'm glad I caught this. So far my small time operation has netted a few hundred bucks and sold past the hundred mark on one of my products, all by way of RPGNow.

Small time operations and limited production resources does not mean unprofessional.

Wes (one more unprofessional, I suppose)

 

[Dinkeldog]

Okay, gang, that's two. Knock off the insults. Keep things civil. Learn how to disagree politely. If there are any questions, see Morrus' comments on p. 8.

 

[Cergorach]

Thus far, all evidence indicates you have forced every vendor to use DRM. This signifies that you are using Adobe Content Server exclusively, and therefore all PDF products must be DRM enabled.

I think it should say "All speculation indicates..."
Just because they use Adobe Content Server doesn't mean that the DTRPG webshop isn't able to handle regular files, it would suprise me greatly if it didn't.

White Wolf's involvement with the company for one. Why vendors are forced to use DRM for another. Why both your company and its vendors seem to be painfully unaware of the fact that DRM doesn't work in the first place.

You do understand that someone can own two different companies and that neither company owns the other? It is possible that one company owns the other, but sometimes it's legally better to own two seperate companies. It's possible (and very likely) that the owner would use his influence in both companies to make both perform better.

We don't know that Vendors are being forced to do anything, S P E C U L A T I ON...

We know that copy protection on DVDs doesn't work, but that's still not stopping any DVD manufacturer to include the 'protection'.

And proof that James is wrong is? And just because you didn't mention it to him does not mean no one else did. Oh, by the way, thank you for confirming that you've had every intention of using Content Server for more than six months. You've just validated my statement about all DTRPG vendors being forced to use DRM.

So what if they intended to use ACS, that doesn't mean they forced anyone to use Adobe DRM. Your reasoning abilities need... an upgrade.

See, you're just proving my point. Anyone with knowledge into web-based administration systems knows that most of those "tools" can be built by a competent 1st year comp-sci student in under an hour each.

Yeah, they probably could, but it would be a buggy mess, that wouldn't work very well together. You stick with your frontpage skilzz, let the professionals handle programming... *grins evily*

As for your job, I can make educated guesses, I've been involved in publishing on and off, inside and outside the RPG industry since 1985 and involved with internet business since 1994 and e-commerce since 1998.

That would explain the .com bubble bursting...

You specifically say that White Wolf does not own DTRPG.

You say you cannot comment on the ownership of either company.

There's one example of contradicting yourself.

I believe he said:

While I cannot comment on the complete ownership of the companies, I have already stated that I'm involved with both, so I thought I already put that to rest?

That means that WW doesn't own it, but that he isn't allowed to say who does exactly.

That's something else then your making it out to be.

Now, for the other...
1.)Clearly says the vendors choose their pricing structures.

2.) while I can't find the specific post ATM thanks to the merging of too many threads at the hands of one of the moderators (sorry, but when a half dozen threads with a few pages each becomes a single thread with 20+ pages, I lack the patience to sift through them all with enworld's search-unfriendly color scheme), there is a post on these very forums that states that Necromancer Games has nothing to do with the PDF business other than handing files over to DTRPG and accepting the checks when they come. The post did specifically state that they allowed DTRPG to decide the pricing for them, which contradicts your little response FAQ

Then the vendor still chooses their own pricing structure, they choose the DTRPG pricing structure. But i think that Necromancer Games were a bit more specific than that, i think that they specifically asked to make the electronic products not compete with their print books.

I'd like to conclude that once again, you completely ignore the subject the phrase "completely professional gaming e-Book site". How about telling us why you bothered only apologizing for the "professional" remark to one individual in private, rather than publicly to everyone, or why that phrase continues to appear in press releases released AFTER that apology, continuing the insult to over 200 different companies?

If i say that your an XXXX or a YYYY, would an appology be neccessary to the whole ENworld community or just you? The professional site remark affected RPGnow directly, not it's customers or users.

It was also explained why the line was still being used in a press release by Eden.

If you want to find something at fault, you don't have to search far, people are imperfect beings, some more then others. I just wished some of those some more would shut up for once... *grins evily*