Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
I just don't see why they even bothered with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6761451" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Fair enough, but that what you said was not correct, for whatever reason, was something that did need to be said.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're making a number of allusions and "might be's" to carry your point, even though they don't actually conclusively demonstrate anything. The idea that "the difference between a blog [...] and a newspaper editorial is largely ethereal now," for instance, is your opinion, and one that's fairly easy to refute. What someone writes on Wordpress is not the same as a New York Times editorial piece, and yet your statement there would presume that any difference between them is "ethereal." <em>Not</em> anything can be reduced to one guy saying what he thinks, since as I noted previously there's a difference between an article that is done in the name of an institution and one person giving their personal opinion on something, even if using that particular institution's platform. Moreover, you don't know that the content is edited, approved, or paid, so mentioning those as <em>possibly</em> conferring legitimacy is disingenuous.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure why you're bringing up issues of digital format; that doesn't seem relevant in the slightest.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>That doesn't mean it's not true. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Please do not presume that I'm speaking to your motives. The fact was that your overview of the situation didn't present both sides of the reactions to Kickstarter's statement; that this was convenient for the point you were asserting is self-evident. That was the salient point; if you didn't like the rhetoric about having "forgotten" to do so, then that's fair enough, but largely immaterial to the wider issue of a lack of citations regarding differing opinions.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Kickstarter does not "function" as a store; rather, it's "treated" as one. This is not a semantic difference, so much as it is a technicality (which is also not a semantic difference - irony for the win! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />). Even if the two things seem very alike, they're not alike.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No, we can't. People treating it like a store is relevant, because that goes to the heart of the argument with regard to people thinking that it's a retailer, which in turn influences their thinking with regards to it supposedly "competing" with brick-and-mortar stores. Given that there has not been any hard data to speak of in this regard, this entire debate is still in the realm of opinions, and therefore the perceptions in that regard are an important part of what's being debated here.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Except that we have already established that this isn't the case, as per the above.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The mention of Amazon was purely as an example to illustrate the larger point, which you don't seem to have responded to. Switch it out with a pre-order placed on Paizo, for instance, and the point remains exactly the same.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>No, it hasn't. Even if we leave aside that you've expanded into an area reserved <em>solely</em> for online retailers when the topic is focused on brick-and-mortar stores, this still ignores the fact that pre-orders and patronage pledges might look alike, but are still different. To whit, you're not actually charged when you make a patronage pledge unless it reaches a specific amount of funding within a specific amount of time, which isn't the case for a pre-order, where the money changes hands immediately. Moreover, you're wrong to state that Kickstarter has "taken over" anything, as pre-orders are still held all the time by companies, distinct from patronage drives; this "function" is still very much intact, which wouldn't be the case if Kickstarter was a competitor.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I never said that it wasn't similar. The point being that these areas are similar <em>but still different</em>, which serve to highlight that the two are not the same, and that these differences are important in that regard.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, that's less important than the fact that it could be done, directly undercutting your presumption that Kickstarter necessarily serves the same function as a retailer because there are pledges whereby you <em>must</em> receive a reward when you pledge. The fact remains that this isn't true; I don't think it's popular either, but that's not the point - you can treat thing X as thing Y, but that won't actually make it into thing Y.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Likewise, I'm not saying that people can't treat Kickstarter as a storefront, but even though that method of using it (and thinking about it) means that you'd expect it to act as a competitor to brick-and-mortar retailers doesn't mean that's necessarily so. Given that there's no hard-and-fast evidence to suggest otherwise, that means that the "it must be competitive" argument stems from the presumption that a non-retail outlet is being thought of that way, which doesn't follow.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which means that it's not acting in competition with any other stores either, particularly since any books that they Kickstart wouldn't be available from any other outlets anyway.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In fact, what I made was a lovely rational argument, since it neatly limits the scope of the discussion to direct competition. You'll further note that I took it as a given that your argument was with regards to direct competition after I posted that, since that's really the only way to even have this debate - no one is holding that Kickstarter doesn't indirectly compete for discretionary dollars, after all. Hence, the rest of your argument does indeed continue unchanged, but so do my rebuttals.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That argument still does not speak to the fact that when the Kickstarter is going on, there's no way there can be direct competition because the product is not available in retail stores, or vice versa after the Kickstarter ends. You can't compete over dollars for the same product if other venues for acquisition don't have that product. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're attempting to reframe the scope of the debate here by mandating that we're (apparently only) working with average prices set by the MSRP; in fact there's no reason to presume such a restriction. Variability of local circumstances can and will apply; there's no reason to limit the debate to abstractions, as we're trying to debate the issues regarding what's actually happening between Kickstarter and retailers.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In terms of a <em>comparative</em> wait this is true. However, this only serves to undercut the presumption of competition more, since there can't be said to be any particular advantage of speed in a Kickstarter order versus receiving it from a physical store.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is a deceptive statement, because it looks only at the total number of transactions taking place, rather than in terms of the actual amount of money changing hands. Even if the percentage goes down, if the total amount of real money is greater, then a smaller percentage can still result in greater overall profits, meaning that any competitive aspect is purely theoretical. Having 100% of the sales for a product that doesn't exist (e.g. no sales at all) is still less actual profit than (to pick a number randomly) 80% of the sales of a product that does.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The flipside to this coin is that those books that wouldn't have existed if not for Kickstarter had some sales in retail outlets, which earned those outlets sales that they wouldn't have had otherwise. In this scenario, not only is Kickstarter not a competitor, but it's actually giving the retailers more money than they would have made otherwise.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You said previously that you were going to restrict your argument to direct competition. Citing possibly spending that money on different products is an argument towards indirect competition. Nobody is arguing that there's only so much discretionary spending to go around.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You had said that, but several of your points were with regard to direct competition (e.g. different venues by which to acquire the same product).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To reiterate, you <em>said</em> you were going to stick to indirect competition, only to then start talking about competition between venues for the exact same product (e.g. direct competition), and then shifted to talking about different products being sold in different venues (e.g indirect competition). To put it another way, you were going back and forth in defiance of your earlier resolution to stick to indirect competition.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's all important, which is why they need to be mentioned in conjunction with talking about the presumed competitive aspects of differing costs.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But that undercuts your comparison of which product is cheaper, since your not comparing the monetary value of the same material. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, that doesn't change the fact that this wasn't a direct price comparison, since there were hidden costs that you weren't taking into account. It's like talking about the price of a car being what's written on the windshield in soap; there's more than what's listed there, and comparing issues of savings requires those to be brought up.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're supporting my point here, which is that you have to pay something else, which isn't something that you were acknowledging before.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's extremely relevant, because those 8,396 people <em>didn't have the option</em> of acquiring it anywhere else, and were likely aware of that at the time they made their pledges.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No one is denying that Kickstarter provides new options for funding: that option is called "crowd-funding" after all. But that doesn't mean that it's necessarily introducing a competitive element with regard to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, except insofar as there's now something else on which discretionary money can be spent. But the presumption that something would necessarily have existed otherwise is just that, a presumption; you can't argue to the inevitability of something's existence unless you have insider information with regards to the entire process. Saying "it went this way, but I'm sure it could have gone that way" isn't a counterpoint.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I suppose, but given that it doesn't help to establish much.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"Similar" - as in, "not the same" - products is <em>indirect</em> competition. Not direct.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6761451, member: 8461"] Fair enough, but that what you said was not correct, for whatever reason, was something that did need to be said. You're making a number of allusions and "might be's" to carry your point, even though they don't actually conclusively demonstrate anything. The idea that "the difference between a blog [...] and a newspaper editorial is largely ethereal now," for instance, is your opinion, and one that's fairly easy to refute. What someone writes on Wordpress is not the same as a New York Times editorial piece, and yet your statement there would presume that any difference between them is "ethereal." [i]Not[/i] anything can be reduced to one guy saying what he thinks, since as I noted previously there's a difference between an article that is done in the name of an institution and one person giving their personal opinion on something, even if using that particular institution's platform. Moreover, you don't know that the content is edited, approved, or paid, so mentioning those as [i]possibly[/i] conferring legitimacy is disingenuous. I'm not sure why you're bringing up issues of digital format; that doesn't seem relevant in the slightest. That doesn't mean it's not true. Please do not presume that I'm speaking to your motives. The fact was that your overview of the situation didn't present both sides of the reactions to Kickstarter's statement; that this was convenient for the point you were asserting is self-evident. That was the salient point; if you didn't like the rhetoric about having "forgotten" to do so, then that's fair enough, but largely immaterial to the wider issue of a lack of citations regarding differing opinions. Kickstarter does not "function" as a store; rather, it's "treated" as one. This is not a semantic difference, so much as it is a technicality (which is also not a semantic difference - irony for the win! :D). Even if the two things seem very alike, they're not alike. No, we can't. People treating it like a store is relevant, because that goes to the heart of the argument with regard to people thinking that it's a retailer, which in turn influences their thinking with regards to it supposedly "competing" with brick-and-mortar stores. Given that there has not been any hard data to speak of in this regard, this entire debate is still in the realm of opinions, and therefore the perceptions in that regard are an important part of what's being debated here. Except that we have already established that this isn't the case, as per the above. The mention of Amazon was purely as an example to illustrate the larger point, which you don't seem to have responded to. Switch it out with a pre-order placed on Paizo, for instance, and the point remains exactly the same. No, it hasn't. Even if we leave aside that you've expanded into an area reserved [i]solely[/i] for online retailers when the topic is focused on brick-and-mortar stores, this still ignores the fact that pre-orders and patronage pledges might look alike, but are still different. To whit, you're not actually charged when you make a patronage pledge unless it reaches a specific amount of funding within a specific amount of time, which isn't the case for a pre-order, where the money changes hands immediately. Moreover, you're wrong to state that Kickstarter has "taken over" anything, as pre-orders are still held all the time by companies, distinct from patronage drives; this "function" is still very much intact, which wouldn't be the case if Kickstarter was a competitor. I never said that it wasn't similar. The point being that these areas are similar [i]but still different[/i], which serve to highlight that the two are not the same, and that these differences are important in that regard. Again, that's less important than the fact that it could be done, directly undercutting your presumption that Kickstarter necessarily serves the same function as a retailer because there are pledges whereby you [i]must[/i] receive a reward when you pledge. The fact remains that this isn't true; I don't think it's popular either, but that's not the point - you can treat thing X as thing Y, but that won't actually make it into thing Y. Likewise, I'm not saying that people can't treat Kickstarter as a storefront, but even though that method of using it (and thinking about it) means that you'd expect it to act as a competitor to brick-and-mortar retailers doesn't mean that's necessarily so. Given that there's no hard-and-fast evidence to suggest otherwise, that means that the "it must be competitive" argument stems from the presumption that a non-retail outlet is being thought of that way, which doesn't follow. Which means that it's not acting in competition with any other stores either, particularly since any books that they Kickstart wouldn't be available from any other outlets anyway. In fact, what I made was a lovely rational argument, since it neatly limits the scope of the discussion to direct competition. You'll further note that I took it as a given that your argument was with regards to direct competition after I posted that, since that's really the only way to even have this debate - no one is holding that Kickstarter doesn't indirectly compete for discretionary dollars, after all. Hence, the rest of your argument does indeed continue unchanged, but so do my rebuttals. That argument still does not speak to the fact that when the Kickstarter is going on, there's no way there can be direct competition because the product is not available in retail stores, or vice versa after the Kickstarter ends. You can't compete over dollars for the same product if other venues for acquisition don't have that product. You're attempting to reframe the scope of the debate here by mandating that we're (apparently only) working with average prices set by the MSRP; in fact there's no reason to presume such a restriction. Variability of local circumstances can and will apply; there's no reason to limit the debate to abstractions, as we're trying to debate the issues regarding what's actually happening between Kickstarter and retailers. In terms of a [i]comparative[/i] wait this is true. However, this only serves to undercut the presumption of competition more, since there can't be said to be any particular advantage of speed in a Kickstarter order versus receiving it from a physical store. This is a deceptive statement, because it looks only at the total number of transactions taking place, rather than in terms of the actual amount of money changing hands. Even if the percentage goes down, if the total amount of real money is greater, then a smaller percentage can still result in greater overall profits, meaning that any competitive aspect is purely theoretical. Having 100% of the sales for a product that doesn't exist (e.g. no sales at all) is still less actual profit than (to pick a number randomly) 80% of the sales of a product that does. The flipside to this coin is that those books that wouldn't have existed if not for Kickstarter had some sales in retail outlets, which earned those outlets sales that they wouldn't have had otherwise. In this scenario, not only is Kickstarter not a competitor, but it's actually giving the retailers more money than they would have made otherwise. You said previously that you were going to restrict your argument to direct competition. Citing possibly spending that money on different products is an argument towards indirect competition. Nobody is arguing that there's only so much discretionary spending to go around. You had said that, but several of your points were with regard to direct competition (e.g. different venues by which to acquire the same product). To reiterate, you [i]said[/i] you were going to stick to indirect competition, only to then start talking about competition between venues for the exact same product (e.g. direct competition), and then shifted to talking about different products being sold in different venues (e.g indirect competition). To put it another way, you were going back and forth in defiance of your earlier resolution to stick to indirect competition. It's all important, which is why they need to be mentioned in conjunction with talking about the presumed competitive aspects of differing costs. But that undercuts your comparison of which product is cheaper, since your not comparing the monetary value of the same material. Again, that doesn't change the fact that this wasn't a direct price comparison, since there were hidden costs that you weren't taking into account. It's like talking about the price of a car being what's written on the windshield in soap; there's more than what's listed there, and comparing issues of savings requires those to be brought up. You're supporting my point here, which is that you have to pay something else, which isn't something that you were acknowledging before. It's extremely relevant, because those 8,396 people [i]didn't have the option[/i] of acquiring it anywhere else, and were likely aware of that at the time they made their pledges. No one is denying that Kickstarter provides new options for funding: that option is called "crowd-funding" after all. But that doesn't mean that it's necessarily introducing a competitive element with regard to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, except insofar as there's now something else on which discretionary money can be spent. But the presumption that something would necessarily have existed otherwise is just that, a presumption; you can't argue to the inevitability of something's existence unless you have insider information with regards to the entire process. Saying "it went this way, but I'm sure it could have gone that way" isn't a counterpoint. I suppose, but given that it doesn't help to establish much. "Similar" - as in, "not the same" - products is [i]indirect[/i] competition. Not direct. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
I just don't see why they even bothered with the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.
Top