D&D 4E Piracy and 4e

[Rechan]

I think one of the reasons that people will be eager to pirate 4e stuff is because good material is being shuffled into books that you would have no other reason to buy except for that single few pages.

Read: The Swordmage in the FRCS.

Cuz I do not want to buy that book. But I want that class.

 

[Cryptos]

I agree with this.

There used to be a time when people bought music to listen to the entire album or CD. And even today, the album is generally referred to more than any individual song: The White Album; The Dark Side of the Moon. (Some artists still do this, like Nine Inch Nails.) But now, it's generally for a single. The release you can listen to all the way through without skipping most of the songs is very rare now, at least for popular artists. And there is an argument that as much as ease of technology and access is a factor in piracy, so too is the fact that the ratio of valued material to filler has increased. People could copy music looooong before the Internet, after all. It's easier now to copy and distribute digitally, but it's not a new concept.

It's a more attractive concept because you can shell out $15 for a CD based on a single track that you like, or you can just download (or get a pirated copy) of that one song.

I think WotC also invites pirating behavior based on this ratio of signal to noise. Buy the entire FR Player's Guide for the Swordmage, or copy it? The more noise and the less signal, the more people feel justified in their actions. Right or wrong, there's a perception that the more a company tries to spread out the value of their product, the more people will feel ok with piracy.

Here's a weird statistic: people generally considered to be poor tippers actually leave better tips at buffets (where they're essentially serving themselves) than at more expensive restaurants with smaller portions and full service. Regardless of income level. Or not-so-weird, considering the above.

More fluff > More piracy.

I'm not saying it's necessarily right, but it's a reaction to the way things are being marketed and packaged as much as it's the result of technology or a criminal mindset. Technology enables people to do things, it's not the reason why they do things.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

-Spanish version is filled with errata. Missing numbers on tables, wrong wording, random name change of abilities (different naming for Barbarian's rage, in example), etc.

Machismo Grande?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think one of the reasons that people will be eager to pirate 4e stuff is because good material is being shuffled into books that you would have no other reason to buy except for that single few pages.

Read: The Swordmage in the FRCS.

Cuz I do not want to buy that book. But I want that class.

One word acronym: DDI. All the rules stuff you ever wanted, but never dared to buy. Plus extras.

 

[Cirex]

Machismo Grande?

I don't think it's machismo (male sexism), but a matter of lazy/bad translators

 

[JohnRTroy]

I pirated everything in 3e because I didn't have any disposable income.

Then I'm sorry, that's just despicable. You don't have a "right" to free entertainment, unless it doesn't cost anything. If you want to watch TV over the air, fine, if you want to pirate cable, it's wrong. If you don't have money for D&D, go without or use a free alternative (like the free games out there), don't steal it. (And don't even try to tell me it's "not stealing".)

I think it's likely that companies that piss people off will at least receive less legitimate business, while their piracy will not decline. As a result the percentage of people pirating their product will rise. Either way, I like how Wizards has not made a big deal about pirating things. It's ultimately futile to do so. If they did, I'd probably go back to pirating their stuff, honestly.

Pirating to "stick it to the Man" is not a ethical attitude. Saying you're going to pirate because you don't like a companies policies is crossing the line. Do without!

To be honest, whenever I see "piracy is inevitable" argument, I come back with "counterfeiting is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we don't try to stop it". So, I think we're going to see many changes over the years, including the following.

* ISPs are starting to cap "unlimited bandwidth", so I see it going to get harder to mass pirate items. All the ISPs will soon do this--in the past electricity was offered at flat rates but they had to change it. Competition won't be enough to stop this change in economic policy.

* ISPs will soon have to become gatekeepers--in other words, they will start to share responsibility towards this type of activity. Some Supreme Court justices have hinted they will make this type of decision soon. You'll find yourself cut off from the Internet if you engage in this activity.

* Saying Piracy won't impact the bottom line is ridiculous. If more people think it's okay, and punishment isn't enforced, it will have an impact.

* It's getting harder to be anonymous on the Internet. You can pretty much track a person to geolocation and I think ISPs are coming up with new ways to make things traceable. It's going to be very hard to keep yourself anonymous.

* DRM is only irritating to people because of how it works. People will use DRMed software if the software is not that intrusive and/or the benefits outweigh the costs. Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular games despite DRM, also iTunes.

* I can see the Courts and Congress deciding to treat piracy like traffic tickets--download a book or CD, pay 5-10 times the amount of the retail costs, no million dollar fines applied. If they keep the fees down but treat them like traffic tickets--making them hard to challenge and the penalty low but applied like tickets, soon, people will stop pirating simply because they can't afford it. The laws have to make it so people fear piracy. Illegal Drugs are a problem but most people won't take them because of the laws against them. They are going to have to start jailing people to make people fear the law.

* I think they are going to work to educate people the problems with warez, etc. There are certain forces (such as Richard Stallman, etc.) that want people to not feel guilty about sharing files ("information wants to be free", "piracy is not theft", "it's like buggy whips", etc. It's important for people to educate about the downsides and fallacies of these arguments. There are reason creative people get royalties, for instance, it's a fallacious argument saying "why don't bakers/bankers/construction workers get royalties".

* The biggest issues I see regarding piracy and reduced royalties as "not relevant" that people are ignorant of is that Big Business is using this to get ahead. While people like to think of organizations like ASCAP, the RIAA and media companies as "the Man", the people who benefit most from loser rights are the media companies. Google would love to have the Orphan Works bill pass, or for there to be no royalties asked from YouTube. All I see people doing here is passing one big conglomerate over for another, and reducing the economic rights people worked hard for years to build.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I agree with this.

There used to be a time when people bought music to listen to the entire album or CD. And even today, the album is generally referred to more than any individual song: The White Album; The Dark Side of the Moon. (Some artists still do this, like Nine Inch Nails.) But now, it's generally for a single. The release you can listen to all the way through without skipping most of the songs is very rare now, at least for popular artists. And there is an argument that as much as ease of technology and access is a factor in piracy, so too is the fact that the ratio of valued material to filler has increased. People could copy music looooong before the Internet, after all. It's easier now to copy and distribute digitally, but it's not a new concept.

It's a more attractive concept because you can shell out $15 for a CD based on a single track that you like, or you can just download (or get a pirated copy) of that one song.

I think WotC also invites pirating behavior based on this ratio of signal to noise. Buy the entire FR Player's Guide for the Swordmage, or copy it? The more noise and the less signal, the more people feel justified in their actions. Right or wrong, there's a perception that the more a company tries to spread out the value of their product, the more people will feel ok with piracy.

Here's a weird statistic: people generally considered to be poor tippers actually leave better tips at buffets (where they're essentially serving themselves) than at more expensive restaurants with smaller portions and full service. Regardless of income level. Or not-so-weird, considering the above.

More fluff > More piracy.

I'm not saying it's necessarily right, but it's a reaction to the way things are being marketed and packaged as much as it's the result of technology or a criminal mindset. Technology enables people to do things, it's not the reason why they do things.

This, plus the fact that over here in the Netherlands a single album is not 15 dollar, but more like 20+ euros... or 35 dollar...
With those kind of prices I am not suprised downloading is rampant. And unlike DVD prices the CD prices don't go down after a few months, so if you are patient you can pick them up for less...

 

[LowSpine]

Smarter in the short run, maybe.

I once read an editorial in Scifi.ign.com (can't find it anymore, sadly) that really struck me. The editor was bemoaning the fact that scifi shows never seemed to last, and always got cancelled, while stuff like NASCAR just kept playing over and over.

He made the point that scifi/geek/gamer viewers think that they are smart, and take pride in downloading shows, skipping commercials, and sneering at commercial advertising. But we are left with cancelled show after cancelled show, while the NASCAR viewers watch the advertisements, drink their Pepsi, and enjoy their race.

Geeks have better crap detectors. If there is something wrong with scifi or such we want it to die. We want to moan about it, smash it, destroy its children so its bad genes do not carry on and burn all evidence of it. Anyone who watches cars go round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in circles obviously is very undemanding. An intellectual/taste/boredom bottom feeder.

 

[LowSpine]

This, plus the fact that over here in the Netherlands a single album is not 15 dollar, but more like 20+ euros... or 35 dollar...
With those kind of prices I am not suprised downloading is rampant. And unlike DVD prices the CD prices don't go down after a few months, so if you are patient you can pick them up for less...

I live in England. We call it ripoff Britain. Prices are so high here it isn't just a rip off, it is an insult and a joke. We are abused.

 

[nothing to see here]

Geeks have better crap detectors. If there is something wrong with scifi or such we want it to die. We want to moan about it, smash it, destroy its children so its bad genes do not carry on and burn all evidence of it. Anyone who watches cars go round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in circles obviously is very undemanding. An intellectual/taste/boredom bottom feeder.

Someone who works with psychographic profiles would probably take that above point and emphasize the following...

"Members of the 'geek' subculture try to compensate for their own low-self esteem and efficacy in traditional social settings by openly demonstrating complete 'mastery' over esoteric pop-culture subjects such as sci-fi TV shows, superhero movies, or comic books. In effect, they try to create an alternate social hierarchy based not on common cultural touchstones but unique subcultural ones. They justify this process by pushing pretensions of intellectual superiority to those in more 'mainstream' peer-groups, and when wider social circles reject alternate 'geek' social hierarchies, subculture members use that rejection to validate this intellectual superiority, therefore making their subcultural marginalization a self-sustaining trait.

Since the geek subculture hierarchy is based on MASTERY of certain narrow subjects an observer will note the paradoxical personal trait of sub-culture members spending inordinate amounts searching for flaws and faults in the very subject matter where they are supposed to be the biggest 'fans'."

That's very rough, but it's how I would write up a first draft... followed by a 'common english version"

"Many sci-fans are dorks. They are uncomfortable in social settings and so they gravitate towards one another in a subculture where their own predispositions set the bar of social worth. In particular the typical 'geek' (As opposed to casual) sci-fi fan measures their social worth by how much they 'master' the details of the show or movie that they watch. In order to demonstrate 'mastery' you have to be able to find flaws, which is why many 'geek' fans spend their time picking apart their own favourite TV shows and movies in a Simpsons-comic-book-guy "worst--XX--EVER" kind of way."

Nobody on these boards should delude themselves. As far as marketers are concerned you are no superior to NASCAR fans -- just a different mark. The kind of smug sense of intellectual superiority that is alluded to in the above post does not render you immune to marketing -- it just makes you VERY susceptible to a different kind of marketing. None of us are as unique as we think we are.