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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeoneer" data-source="post: 5381408" data-attributes="member: 91777">I agree with this and it actually goes back to my main point in those posts a couple of pages back.  This is what I propose:1) Content piracy (ie rules, books) is very difficult to stop because it is so easy.2) There are people pirating your content who would never pay for it, even if there wasn't any other way to get it.3) Making your content free (or very very close to free) maximizes the number of eyeballs on it.4) Ergo, you should make your content free (or very very close to it) and then find ways to generate revenue from people who WILL pay through value adds and supporting products.  Failing that, sell ads.On Point 2, I hope that no one seriously contends that these people do not exist.  The only question is how many of them are there.Implicit in Point 3 is that the set of people in Point 2 is only going to increase, because those people who are playing for free will expose new people to the game.  Free-to-play makes the barrier to entry for these people very low.The swelling number of players/eyeballs/pirates means that if you do Point 4 you may well make more money off 'auxiliary revenue sources' then you ever did charging people for content.Here is a thought experiment for everyone: imagine that Wizards releases the VTT and it is awesome.  It has every feature you could ever wish for and a couple you never would have thought of.  It's fast, very easy to use, it looks great, and allows you to play D&D with like-minded people all over the world.  Furthermore, imagine that Wizards charges $10 a month for it.  Assuming that the VTT is very successful, its revenues could rapidly outstrip those made from traditional splat books.  At that point, the content becomes purely a hook to get people to use the VTT.  In such a scenario, why would you not make the content free?</blockquote>

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