File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[woodelf]

And of course, if my aunt had gonads, she'd be my uncle.

um, she does:

\Gon"ad\, n.; pl. Gonads. [Gr. ? that which generates.] (Anat.) One of the masses of generative tissue primitively alike in both sexes, but giving rise to either an ovary or a testis; a generative gland; a germ gland. --Wiedersheim.

 

[woodelf]

One question I do have for the "preview" file-sharers: Do any of you find yourselves "backed-up" in your planned purchases? How many have found yourselves in possession of so much material that you want to buy that you can't possibly do so in a reasonable amount of time? Or, more possibly in my mind, at such an expense that you can't feasibly afford it all?

I'm not looking to rip on anyone for this; I'm just curious how often the desires of the "previewer" aren't possible due to the facts of the sitaution.

My RPG desires always exceed my budget. Always have. Frex, i stopped into the FLGS a couple days ago specifically to spend some money. Just among the things i thought to check for and they currently had in stock, i found myself deciding between B5 D20; A/State; the 4th Everlasting core book; Codex of the Immortals (for The Everlasting); tLotR RPG; Hearts, Swords, Flowers (for BESM); FREd; Fantasy HERO; StarHERO; UNTIL Powers Database; the latest two supplements for Mechanical Dream; the latest two supplements for Ars Magica; Love & War; Crime & Punishment; and a new TV-show-oriented RPG whose name i forget. I figured i could afford $20-30, or maybe stretch that to $40 to get a single book. And, at the rate RPGs are produced, my "to buy" list grows much faster than i buy stuff--probably add at least 5 books to the list for every book i buy. Previewing (legal or otherwise) has nothing to do with this, one way or the other: i probably add as many things to the list because of looking at them as i cross off the list once i get a look at them.

 

[woodelf]

Having paid for numerous pdf's (including crimson contract's) I have to admit that I can see why people would pirate. The question is still whether it hurts the publisher, because as much as someone might want to look at the sheer number of people that seem to have "stolen" their product, I think that the publisher would have to admit that sales of that level are not realistic for their product. Most of the pdf books out there are good buys at 2-5 dollars. However I have yet to purchase a pdf I would have paid 11.95 for. If it wasn't around $5 it wasn't worth it. Even a book like Crimson Contracts is really only useable in a very small amount in a single campaign.

You need to buy different PDFs. I'll concur that i've found very few D20 System PDFs that i think are worth $10-12. I've seen slightly more, though still not that many, that i think are "worth" $10-12, but that aren't worth that to me personally. But i've spent as much as $16 on non-D20 System PDFs, and felt i've gotten a bargain. Despite the fact that i really hate reading on screen. There are a *lot* of really excellent PDFs out there. And, don't take my comments above to mean there aren't some great D20 System PDFs out there--i honestly think there're probably more PDFs than books that're worth their price (even if you have to pay Kinko's to print out the PDFs), when it comes to D20 System stuff.

But, yeah, paying $10 for a book you're gonna use 5pp of is a bit silly. So don't buy those PDFs. Buy the ones you'll use most of the content of. Don't buy The Complete Book of Horses [fictional example] for a one-time horse-riding character. But if you're gonna play a campaign (or, really, even a session) of Donjon, it's a bargain. RPGs as PDFs are a steal. Broad-topic RPG supplements as PDFs are a bargain. Narrow-topic RPG supplements are often not worth the price, unless you have a particular interest in/use for the topic.

 

[Lazybones]

I had a nice long post here this morning but the board slowdown ate it.

The gist is that I agree with The Sigil and woodelf. I think that people obey laws for two reasons:

a) fear of punishment
b) belief that the law is just/necessary/useful/whatever.

There's also a "c", but I didn't list it because I think it's linked to Motivation B. That's obedience because you were socialized to do so.

While some posters have focused on either A or B, I think that most people fall somewhere on a line graph between the two. Also, I think that your place on that graph isn't absolute; you can be moved along the continuum by developments in the world around you, your experiences, and your perceptions.

I think that the crackdown of the RIAA (to use on widely publicized example most of us are probably familiar with) on filesharers has been counterproductive because while it appeals to Motivation A, at the same time it undermines Motivation B. The RPG industry is a good counterexample; I think piracy is less of a problem in this sector because its consumers have a stronger belief that the producers of content are entitled to their profits, and the perception is that the actual producers (as opposed to "greedy, faceless corporations") get a larger share of the consumer dollar. I'm not saying this perception is true, nor am I saying that those who infringe copyright by file trading are justified in their behavior; my comments focus more on what's happening than the abstract ethical aspect of it (which I've discussed earlier in this thread).

History has shown that fear of punishment alone is not sufficient to deter behavior. As it becomes easier to break the law and get away with it, Motivation B becomes increasingly important. As Sigil noted, however, I think that the producers have lost that battle, at least for the current generation.

 

[woodelf]

Kalanyr, if you think my assessment is an extreme, then your views are the opposite extreme. He did lose more than $1200. Based on repeat openings, he's got a lost of 1200 people with stable IP addresses. That right there alone represents the willingness to steal $14,000, not a mere $1200. Publishers only hurt themselves by trying to quantify how many downloads would have represented buyers, since that relies on the false justifications that the thieves offer up as an excuse for their activities.

Even then, it gets a bit fuzzy. I'm not gonna believe anybody who says the folks who opened it more than once a week for multiple months weren't stealing in a meaningful sense. They clearly had use for the product, and saw sufficient value in it, whether or not they had the economic means to purchase it. And the second group, which looked at it multiple times over a 6mo period probably, likewise, fell into a group that should've bought it. (Especially if they behave anything like me: opening a file once could represent multiple days of reading.) But any of the less-using groups i think are much more questionable as losses. Those, to me, look more like the level of interest of browse-in-the-store-but-don't-buy. IOW, people who evaluated the product reasonably, and then came to the conclusion that they didn't want it. So, your estimate here (quoted above), seems fairly reasonable (without finding his post again to see which groups you included). Your first response to his estimate of losses (~$35k) seems unrealistic. And i have no idea where he got his estimate of $1200 from--it seems downright bizarre, in light of the numbers he provided.

 

[Kalanyr]

I'm guessing the $1200 dollar estimate is because he probably doesn't get full price on every copy sold, the publisher probably gets a share, as does whoever sells it etc.

Sorry about my lack of responses in the thread the last couple of days, this is still really interesting but I'm bogged down in assessment hell.

 

[Gundark]

I will admit to having downloaded RPG books, but this doesn't represent lost sales for those companies - I wouldn't have bought them, anyway,

Well those that I know have downloaded books say that they would not have bought the book anyways. I admit that I have downloaded a book or two (I'm not proud of it), and these are titles that I would not bought. So while it might hurt the print industry a bit, I don't think that hurts that much (not saying that it's right). Using a scaned book is a pain. This is why I don't buy/use PDFs. If I want the book I'll buy it. That said I think it hurts the PDF industry more.

 

[woodelf]

Just wait until the next step in copyright evolution occurs at the hands of big business. Now the push is to have copyrights last the life of the author or first entity to buy it; in other words, a copyright on a new disney movie wouldn't burn out until the company ceases to exist.

Can't remember if it was this thread or another where i mentioned it, but i still think that, even if we didn't shorten the term of copyright, limiting copyright to actual people would improve the situation vastly. Immortal beings simply shouldn't be allowed to have copyrights limited by length of life. And, IMHO, corporations shouldn't have copyrights, period. Let the actual person who created it own it and license it to the corp.

My personal view is copyright should last 20 years with infinite renewals every 20 years. Initial copyright fee is $0, while renewal fees are based on an escalating scale. This way, big business can maintain its media copyrights at an ever-increasing cost. In either case, copyright should end with the life of the entity holding it, meaning the material becomes public domain if a business goes under without being bought out.

best of all, just imagine what all the revenues generated from those fees could do for the Library of Congress in its efforts to restore and digitally archive the incredibly vast collection of trademarked and copyrighted works it possesses, and the fees would cause big business to eventually start weighing the fiscal value of the IP it owns with each renewal. As things currently stand, IP value is assigned a general bulk value to everything a company owns, since money that would be spent on a simple cyclic renewal process is instead dumped into industrial lobbying for copyright changes.

hmmm... interesting idea. But would we really be in a better situation if corporate behemoths can maintain copyrights indefinitely, while the individual author can only afford something for a few years? It seems to me that the damage long-term copyrights are doing is being done by large corporations, not small-time authors. Unless the cost increased to values that'd actually make a megacorp think about the value of IP, i don't think it'd improve the situation. And i mean things like, Disney should be paying $1M+/yr, each, for old copyrights, because it'd take costs of at least that magnitude to make them consider letting a copyright lapse. And the only people who, arguably, actually need long-term copyrights--poor, struggling individual artists--would actually be worse off.

 

[woodelf]

This is an old argument that I have little use for. Comparing and RPG book to a movie is apples and oranges. The fact is, most of the RPG books I buy do not provide even 2 hours of use. They sit on the shelf and sometimes get used if I need a quick idea.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and suggest you're buying either the wrong RPG books, or too many RPG books. I've gotten more use than that out of supplements for systems/settings i never intend to play, and i certainly intend to "get my money's worth" out of all the RPG books i buy, even if i haven't done so yet. Heck, just reading most RPG books could take 2hrs of, presumed, enjoyment.

While I do buy PDF books, I would never pay more than 10 dollars for them.

1.) My credit is at risk by making online purchases.

I understand there are online-only pseudo-credit cards you can now get, for just that reason. Basically, it's an account, sort of like paypal, but that behaves like a Visa, so you can isolate yourself from fraud and theft. Sorry i don't know more--i've been meaning to look into it myself.

2.) I have to print the book and bind it at my own cost (time and money).
3.) Even with printing, the book is not as useful as a normal bound book (ie. most bound books has indexes, PDFs do not.)

There's no reason they couldn't. Only one i've produced so far has an index.

RPGs ARE overpriced, in general. It's not exactly the rising cost of paper. It's the intentional use of pricey paper. For example, I work for a medical publisher. We just reprinted a 500 page medical text book (5000 copies) for around 12k. It costs us $7.00/ book to print it and we charge USD 50. Even with all the associated costs (warehousing etc), then we're still charging 20-25 more than the minimum we need to pull a profit.

Um, math? If you printed 5k copies, and it cost ~$12k, the per-copy cost is ~$2.40. Anyway, how is pointing out that RPG books, which presumably have a significantly smaller market than medical texts, are cheaper than medical texts, in any way supportive of the argument that RPGs are overpriced?

"When someone asks if you are a God, you say YES!" Ghostbusters

You know, after all these years, i'm still disappointed that at no point in the 2nd movie did anyone ask Ray if he was a god, thus giving him an opportunity to say 'yes'--and probably be told by the others 'when someone asks if you are a god, you say NO!'

 

[woodelf]

Well, one of the points of this thread is that people had radically different ideas of what is "cheating", and what is "acceptable". After all, I note that you qualified your statement to say "in any real sense", a nice fuzzy phrase that can conceal a variety of sins.

I'm in academia, and this is a real problem. I tried to give a set of tests as take-home", using the honor system, and I had a full third of the class cheat (9 out of 27). There were several cases of copying another's work completely (including diagrams and scracthed-out work), and more limited cases of copying selected problems. I don't know if a random reader would consider these as cheating in a real sense ("Hey, I only cheated on one test", or "Hey, I didn't cheat on the whole test"), but I consider the act and the current culture serious enough that I would willing have a student expelled for this level of cheating. To be complete, I consider that those who gave other students access to their papers to cheat a culpable as well, and deserving of the same level of reaction.

After seeing your next post on this: that's ridiculous. Not your behavior--theirs. Though i am skeptical of your claim that you are under-reporting cheating, just because i can't conceive of cheating exceeding, or even approaching, 35% in academia as a whole. I certainly never ran into any evidence of it, personally, in 7 years of full-time undergraduate studentness. I sincerely hope my experiences are more representative than yours. (Though i realize they may not be.)

as for take-home exams: only professor i had who used those extensively did so precisely to make them different from conventional exams. He told us outright that not only could we use our notes and textbooks, we could use anything we wanted from the library, we could ask each other, we could even work together. We just had to show all the work. He probably would've allowed internet resources, too, if they'd existed at the time. I presume he reasoned that successfully solving the problem, even if by having the solution explained to us, was of greater educational value than conventional testing. Often a dozen or more of us would gather in a library and work the problems out as a group. Usually still took us a dozen or more hours, working together, to complete an exam, so it's not like they were easy.

OK, sorry 'bout the tangent.