File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[dreaded_beast]

After a quick stop over at Zeropaid.com, a website that deals with news regarding file-sharing and the ramifications of it, I started wondering if file-sharing has any affect on the RPG industry.

Steps have already been taken to crack down on file-sharers by the music industry. The movie industry may follow suit soon enough, although this is just my opinion. According to the music and movie industry, file-sharing has has some affect.

Granted, the RPG industry is probably nowhere near as large as the music or movie industry, but it is probably affected in someway by the file-sharing phenomenon.

Has file-sharing had any significant affect on the RPG industry and how large do you think it is?

 

[Planesdragon]

Has file-sharing had any significant affect on the RPG industry and how large do you think it is?

I do believe that it has. I would venture to guess that, out of the total number of pirated PDFs out there, one-quarter of them aren't buying the book or PDF because they already have it.

I won't even hazard a guess as to if the number of sales of anyone's book has actually increased because of piracy, though I do know that record sales rose in a fairly corrolative ammount to Napster's height.

RPG piracy is especially infuriating because there's a perfectly legal way to trade the crunchy bits of every non-WotC book out there. *sigh*

 

[Umbran]

According to the music and movie industry, file-sharing has has some affect.

The problem is that the folks reporting that are the ones who are likely losing most of the money. Especially in the music industry, where only a small amount from each CD goes to the artist. There's a pretty decent argument that music artists lose very little from pirating, while the middle men lose a lot.

In RPG publishing, the middle men are getting a smaller chunk of the pie, and so one would figure that the loss means more to the folks who actually do the work.

 

[Henry]

First of all, I want to remind EVERYONE who responds to this thread to please be civil, and be mindful of no discussion of politics or religion.

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That said, there are two beliefs on this issue. One belief is that it does not affect much or at all the RPG industry, and only helps when rare or out-of-print games are made available to the public who wants them. Another is that it is very harmful to an industry that already works on a shoestring budget, and has no beneficial effects at all.

My personal opinion is that the people whom it hurts most are the small-press publisher, and followed closely by the RPG industry as a whole. Here's why:

The small-press people see sales (maximum) of 5000 copies over the lifetime of one product, in rare circumstances going higher than that. PDF publishers will see an average of 100 to 500 sales TOTAL of a product, only slightly more if it's absurdly popular. Whether or not illegal file downloaders would or would not have purchased a copy is irrelevant; if the legal channel is the ONLY venue for it, then they won't have the copy anyway, and the owners will have a sharply accurate picture of the true sales figures and popularity of their products. If it wouldn't matter that downloaders wouldn't pay for it anyway, then it won't matter either if they are denied the product they are after.

The other problem is WotC's (the industry leaders) skewed sales projections concerning the copied products reflects poorly on their sales figures in Hasbro's eyes; conceptually speaking, if EVERY person who HAD an illegal copy of a given WotC book had at least one LEGAL copy of that book, sales figures would likely be drastically higher, and the producers of the #1 leading RPG would see the RPG line as much more popular than it is currently. In other words, if people actually PAID in a scale reflective of the work's popularity, sales figures would be higher than they really are.

This is not to say I believe electronic copies are inherently a bad thing; personally, I believe if I own at least one copy of a book, I should have access to an electronic version of same. Some vendors offer that at a premium, some do not, but I think it would be more helpful to gamers as a whole if it were offered as such.

This is my take on it, and goodness knows many other posters here have had different takes on the subject. But realistically looking at the issue, PDF sharing can't help a small publisher who decides whether he eats Ramen Noodles or chicken based on the sales of his 5 most recent books - while the file sharer who's eating his chicken is cozied up to the latest pirated online copies.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I won't even hazard a guess as to if the number of sales of anyone's book has actually increased because of piracy, though I do know that record sales rose in a fairly corrolative ammount to Napster's height.

Well, I did some filesharing back in the late 90's (I learned of it because it was becoming an issue, then I stopped doing it because the issue was too convoluted). I will say that during that short bit, I learned of nearly 2 dozen bands that I had never heard of; I learned of them mostly because they had done covers of songs I was looking for. At any rate, I ended up buying at least one album from many of them, and some of them I became a fan of and bought all of their albums.

Now, is this a "standard"? Ideally, it would be. It's presumably a primary defense/justification that many of these programs are put online for. But to be honest, I don't think it is the standard. Such a standard would, I believe, paint the world in brighter colors than it really is.

Of course, I've seen this from the other side, as well. For instance, I've bought several copies of Metallica's Ride the Lightning. Two cassettes, both eaten, one vinyl, destroyed at a batchelor party, and two CDs, one stolen and the other scratched up by my idiot brother. So here I am, a person that has bought the album 5 times, but without a single copy. So I download 3-4 of the songs from that album that I really really really liked. But then I turn on the news and here I've got Lars the Whiney pouting over how Napster deprives him of his due earnings and that everyone using it are thieves.

Sorry, Lars, but I done paid you 5 times for your work. I've earned it.

RPG piracy is especially infuriating because there's a perfectly legal way to trade the crunchy bits of every non-WotC book out there. *sigh*

Yeah, but if you paid any attention to the UA-SRD thread, you saw how even that rubs some folks the wrong way, with several people (including Andy Collins) comparing this "perfectly legal way" to filesharing, suggesting that it amounts to the same thing.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I downloaded some RPG-related PDFs, but I can honestly say I purchosed those that I wanted to actually use and then deleted them all.

So the file sharing I've done has not hurt the RPG industry, and in fact might have helped it margionally, since I'm not sure I would have bought those books if I hadn't previewed them first (local RPG shop did not have them).

 

[pdkoning]

Filesharing RPG pdf's is not explicitely bad in my opinion. I think of it as a 'preview' for the real books.
But there are some problems however, if everyone uses these 'free' previews, and do not buy real books, there is a huge problem.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I suspect that the 'small press' RPG publishers hurt the worst are those who produce PDFs. It is simply too easy to put them out on the web.

World Works Games had a fair amount to say about it a few months back, when the owner found out just how much of his stuff was avaliable.

I am personally against file sharing - a group of my friends put out a folk music CD, and the person who burned the CDs for them also put it out on file sharing... It was available illegaly even before they had the CDs in their hands. I gather he is going to settle out of court, they had his signature on a contract saying he wouldn't distribute the material himself and they tacked it back to him before starting legal action.

On the other hand the recording studios really do treat their 'properties' like dirt, and the laws were created to support the industry, not the artists. If it weren't for the little groups being hurt along with the industry giants it likely wouldn't bother me nearly as much. And as the technology to make your own digital recordings becomes more widespread the little groups will be taking up more and more of the amage. (And I listen to folk music - there are few if any big stars in that field...)

The Auld Grump

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I've got a PDF copy of almost every book I use in my campaign. I use the PDF copy at work, and the book at home. To me, I pretty much need both. Heck, in many cases, I'd pay for PDF copies of books I already own just for the convenience.

So, just having the PDF doesn't help me. I won't use it if I don't have the book at my gaming table. On the other hand, I like being able to work on my campaign just sitting at my computer at work, with no books.

I'm a strange case I guess.

 

[TheGodPan]

Part of the reason that RPG file sharing has picked up, I believe, is the large amount of material out there. Back when it was all 2nd edition, you know what was coming out, and you knew whether it was going to be good or not. OGL has given us some great stuff, but also some crap I wouldn't want to have spent my money on at the store. Of course, the same goes for WOTC now. Much of the OGL stuff out there is of much higher quality than normal.

Really, I don't use PDFs much anyway. I understand that it's the only way some people publish, but it's not useful, and other than a few products (like the Ultimate Book of Templates) I never look at them other than to see what's in them. I have in fact purchased a couple of PDFs (Cry Havok and Templates), but I would rather spend 30 bucks for the hardback than stare at my screen all day.