I never played with anyone who only had a PDF copy of something. Most people had books and when I DM'ed I forced the rule that you had to have to book in order to play a class that was only found in that book. I Did have PDF copies of the books I owned so I could work on stuff at work though. Won't all of the new WoCT products have electronic copies of the books you own on there website?
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D&D 4E Piracy and 4e
- Thread starter Emirikol
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Shades of Green said:
4: Portability. I admit that I have "acquired" PDFs of most of the books in my collection - and yes, I also have the actual books. The primary use I had for them was so that I could put the files of the books I "might use" on a portable harddrive when I was gaming away from home (which was most of the time). I would also print out specific pages from the books, so I wouldn't have to carry the whole thing (for example, the Scout class description for the player who had a Scout). As an example, when I was running an Eberron campaign, I would physically bring the three core books, PH2, XPH, ECS, and Eberron Player's Guide, and then use PDFs for the rest. So when the players then determined that they would take the Lightning Rail from Sharn to Silverstar, I would open the Explorer's Handbook file, and see what that had to say about cost and time.
IANAL, but I believe that if you scan the books yourself and save them as a PDF (or word, or whatever) then it is legal under Fair Use because you have made a backup copy of the medium in case the first medium is destroyed in some manner. This is still legal. If you download somebody else's scan of the work, even if you own the original, that is illegal and a violation of copyright.Vaeron said:
Feel free to correct me, anybody, if you have more information. But I'm pretty sure that's right.
The DDI will have all rules text available for every book, as soon as each book is officially released. For all subscribers. Which is light years ahead of their original plan of offering PDFs of the books that you physically bought if you entered a specific code. PDF scans are cool and all, but unless they are indexed and OCR'd, they're unwieldy to read on a computer.Vaeron said:
I'm guessing the format of the DDI rules database is going to be application-based, rather than web-based like the current SRD, to prevent easy copying.
Jack99
Adventurer
I think that a lot of the people who have obtained pdf's of 3.x material in a dubious way, are the same people who in 1e and 2e only bought the PHB and nothing else. Ergo, no real loss to WoTC, as those people wouldn't have bought all the splat-books anyway.
I doubt that piracy will be a huge problem, but a lot is going to depend on how the DDI works. And that is kinda hard to say at this point.
I doubt that piracy will be a huge problem, but a lot is going to depend on how the DDI works. And that is kinda hard to say at this point.
dagger
Adventurer
This is about PC piracy, but a lot of it applies to other media.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=303512
Piracy & PC Gaming
By Draginol Posted March 10, 2008 20:48:46
Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.
Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales. But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don't think so. People who never buy software aren't lost sales.
Is it about business or glory?
Most people who know of Stardock in the gaming world think of it as a tiny indie shop. And we certainly are tiny in terms of game development. But in the desktop enhancement market, Stardock owns that market and it's a market with many millions of users. According to CNET, 6 of the top 10 most popular desktop enhancements are developed by Stardock. Our most popular desktop enhancement, WindowBlinds, has almost 14 million downloads just on Download.com. We have over a million registered users.
If you want to talk about piracy, talk about desktop enhancements. The piracy on that is huge. But the question isn't about piracy. It's about sales.
So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers.
PC game developers seem to focus more on the "cool" factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen. I've never considered myself a real game developer. I'm a gamer who happens to know how to code and also happens to be reasonably good at business.
So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable. As a gamer, I like most games. I love Bioshock. I think the Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals ever. I love Company of Heroes and Oblivion was captivating. My two favorite games of all time are Civilization (I, II, III, and IV) and Total Annihilation. And I won't even get into the hours lost in WoW. Heck, I even like The Sims.
So when it comes time to make a game, I don't have a hard time thinking of a game I'd like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable. And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be "cool".
Making games for customers versus making games for users
So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it's still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green's (Games for Windows) yard. I still can't find my hedge trimmers.
Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It's the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title. Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.
And yet we don't get nearly the attention of other PC games. Lack of marketing on our part? We bang on the doors for coverage as next as the next shop. Lack of advertising? Open up your favorite PC game publication for the past few months and take note of all the 2 page spreads for Sins of a Solar Empire. So we certainly try.
But we still don't get the editorial buzz that some of the big name titles do because our genre isn't considered as "cool" as other genres. Imagine what our sales would be if our games had gotten game magazine covers and just massive editorial coverage like some of the big name games get. I don't want to suggest we get treated poorly by game magazine and web sites (not just because I fear them -- which I do), we got good preview coverage on Sins, just not the same level as one of the "mega" titles would get. Hard core gamers have different tastes in games than the mainstream PC gaming market of game buyers. Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Heck, how much buzz does The Sims get in terms of editorial when compared to its popularity. Those things just aren't that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they're not the ones buying most of the games.
I won't even mention some of the big name PC titles that GalCiv and Sins have outsold. There's plenty of PC games that have gotten dedicated covers that haven't sold as well. So why is that?
Our games sell well for three reasons. First, they're good games which is a pre-requisite. But there's lots of great games that don't sell well.
The other two reasons are:
* Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
* Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.
We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think "Duh."
The problem with blaming piracy
I don't want anyone to walk away from this article thinking I am poo-pooing the effect of piracy. I'm not. I definitely feel for game developers who want to make kick ass PC games who see their efforts diminished by a bunch of greedy pirates. I just don't count pirates in the first place. If you're a pirate, you don't get a vote on what gets made -- or you shouldn't if the company in question is trying to make a profit.
The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.
One of the jokes I've seen in the desktop enhancement market is how "ugly" WindowBlinds skins are (though there are plenty of awesome ones too). But the thing is, the people who buy WindowBlinds tend to like a different style of skin than the people who would never buy it in the first place. Natural selection, so to speak, over many years has created a number of styles that seem to be unique to people who actually buy WindowBlinds. That's the problem with piracy. What gets made targets people who buy it, not the people who would never buy it in the first place. When someone complains about "fat borders" on some popular WindowBlinds skin my question is always "Would you buy WindowBlinds even if there was a perfect skin for you?" and the answer is inevitably "Probably not". That's how it works in every market -- the people who buy stuff call the shots. Only in the PC game market are the people who pirate stuff still getting the overwhelming percentage of development resources and editorial support.
When you blame piracy for disappointing sales, you tend to tar the entire market with a broad brush. Piracy isn't evenly distributed in the PC gaming market. And there are far more effective ways of getting people who might buy your product to buy it without inconveniencing them.
Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes. When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.
In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they'll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games.
In the meantime, if you want to make profitable PC games, I'd recommend focusing more effort on satisfying the people willing to spend money on your product and less effort on making what others perceive as hot. But then again, I don't romanticize PC game development. I just want to play cool games and make a profit on games that I work on.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=303512
Piracy & PC Gaming
By Draginol Posted March 10, 2008 20:48:46
Recently there has been a lot of talk about how piracy affects PC gaming. And if you listen to game developers, it apparently is a foregone conclusion - if a high quality PC game doesn't sell as many copies as it should, it must be because of piracy.
Now, I don't like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales. But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don't think so. People who never buy software aren't lost sales.
Is it about business or glory?
Most people who know of Stardock in the gaming world think of it as a tiny indie shop. And we certainly are tiny in terms of game development. But in the desktop enhancement market, Stardock owns that market and it's a market with many millions of users. According to CNET, 6 of the top 10 most popular desktop enhancements are developed by Stardock. Our most popular desktop enhancement, WindowBlinds, has almost 14 million downloads just on Download.com. We have over a million registered users.
If you want to talk about piracy, talk about desktop enhancements. The piracy on that is huge. But the question isn't about piracy. It's about sales.
So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for. But not PC game developers.
PC game developers seem to focus more on the "cool" factor. What game can they make that will get them glory with the game magazines and gaming websites and hard core gamers? These days, it seems like game developers want to be like rock stars more than businessmen. I've never considered myself a real game developer. I'm a gamer who happens to know how to code and also happens to be reasonably good at business.
So when I make a game, I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable. As a gamer, I like most games. I love Bioshock. I think the Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals ever. I love Company of Heroes and Oblivion was captivating. My two favorite games of all time are Civilization (I, II, III, and IV) and Total Annihilation. And I won't even get into the hours lost in WoW. Heck, I even like The Sims.
So when it comes time to make a game, I don't have a hard time thinking of a game I'd like to play. The hard part is coming up with a game that we can actually make that will be profitable. And that means looking at the market as a business not about trying to be "cool".
Making games for customers versus making games for users
So even though Galactic Civilizations II sold 300,000 copies making 8 digits in revenue on a budget of less than $1 million, it's still largely off the radar. I practically have to agree to mow editors lawns to get coverage. And you should see Jeff Green's (Games for Windows) yard. I still can't find my hedge trimmers.
Another game that has been off the radar until recently was Sins of a Solar Empire. With a small budget, it has already sold about 200,000 copies in the first month of release. It's the highest rated PC game of 2008 and probably the best selling 2008 PC title. Neither of these titles have CD copy protection.
And yet we don't get nearly the attention of other PC games. Lack of marketing on our part? We bang on the doors for coverage as next as the next shop. Lack of advertising? Open up your favorite PC game publication for the past few months and take note of all the 2 page spreads for Sins of a Solar Empire. So we certainly try.
But we still don't get the editorial buzz that some of the big name titles do because our genre isn't considered as "cool" as other genres. Imagine what our sales would be if our games had gotten game magazine covers and just massive editorial coverage like some of the big name games get. I don't want to suggest we get treated poorly by game magazine and web sites (not just because I fear them -- which I do), we got good preview coverage on Sins, just not the same level as one of the "mega" titles would get. Hard core gamers have different tastes in games than the mainstream PC gaming market of game buyers. Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Heck, how much buzz does The Sims get in terms of editorial when compared to its popularity. Those things just aren't that cool to the hard core gaming crowd that everything seems geared toward despite the fact that they're not the ones buying most of the games.
I won't even mention some of the big name PC titles that GalCiv and Sins have outsold. There's plenty of PC games that have gotten dedicated covers that haven't sold as well. So why is that?
Our games sell well for three reasons. First, they're good games which is a pre-requisite. But there's lots of great games that don't sell well.
The other two reasons are:
* Our games work on a very wide variety of hardware configurations.
* Our games target genres with the largest customer bases per cost to produce for.
We also don't make games targeting the Chinese market
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they're not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn't likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won't buy your game, then why support them? That's one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It's irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you're in the business of selling games that is). It's only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn't make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think "Duh."
The problem with blaming piracy
I don't want anyone to walk away from this article thinking I am poo-pooing the effect of piracy. I'm not. I definitely feel for game developers who want to make kick ass PC games who see their efforts diminished by a bunch of greedy pirates. I just don't count pirates in the first place. If you're a pirate, you don't get a vote on what gets made -- or you shouldn't if the company in question is trying to make a profit.
The reason why we don't put CD copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor - we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.
One of the jokes I've seen in the desktop enhancement market is how "ugly" WindowBlinds skins are (though there are plenty of awesome ones too). But the thing is, the people who buy WindowBlinds tend to like a different style of skin than the people who would never buy it in the first place. Natural selection, so to speak, over many years has created a number of styles that seem to be unique to people who actually buy WindowBlinds. That's the problem with piracy. What gets made targets people who buy it, not the people who would never buy it in the first place. When someone complains about "fat borders" on some popular WindowBlinds skin my question is always "Would you buy WindowBlinds even if there was a perfect skin for you?" and the answer is inevitably "Probably not". That's how it works in every market -- the people who buy stuff call the shots. Only in the PC game market are the people who pirate stuff still getting the overwhelming percentage of development resources and editorial support.
When you blame piracy for disappointing sales, you tend to tar the entire market with a broad brush. Piracy isn't evenly distributed in the PC gaming market. And there are far more effective ways of getting people who might buy your product to buy it without inconveniencing them.
Blaming piracy is easy. But it hides other underlying causes. When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue.
In the end, the pirates hurt themselves. PC game developers will either slowly migrate to making games that cater to the people who buy PC games or they'll move to platforms where people are more inclined to buy games.
In the meantime, if you want to make profitable PC games, I'd recommend focusing more effort on satisfying the people willing to spend money on your product and less effort on making what others perceive as hot. But then again, I don't romanticize PC game development. I just want to play cool games and make a profit on games that I work on.
PDFs are not a substitute for print products!
I really don't get why WOTC thinks PDFs are substitutes for printed books, especially for something like a D&D book. I buy the hard copy. I would *also* buy the PDF for a reasonable price (say 1/2 cover?). Buying the PDF for 1/2 the price of the book on the day of release wouldn't have any bearing on my decision to purchase the hard copy. These are complementary, not substitute, goods!
Paizo gets it; why can't WOTC?
I really don't get why WOTC thinks PDFs are substitutes for printed books, especially for something like a D&D book. I buy the hard copy. I would *also* buy the PDF for a reasonable price (say 1/2 cover?). Buying the PDF for 1/2 the price of the book on the day of release wouldn't have any bearing on my decision to purchase the hard copy. These are complementary, not substitute, goods!
Paizo gets it; why can't WOTC?
and
You can actually measure the change in income streams based on advertising. While major companies tend to have very loyal followings, there is evidence that NASCAR fans are even more loyal to their favorite drivers/teams- when the decals change, so do sales figures- sometimes to products they never considered before. Simply put, NASCAR is an advertising powerhouse that has a proven track record (no pun intended) of affecting sales.
Contrast that to the sci-fi market. Sci-fi shows can sell products that conform to the preconcieved desires of their fans, but there is very little evidence that they can actually influence changes in brand loyalty or bring the audience to products outside the core desires of the fans. Star Trek doesn't sell Valvoline. Firefly doesn't move fans from Pepsi to Coke. And its not like Sci-fi isn't popular- the movies, at least, tend to be blockbusters. Or, more accurately, blockbuster movies tend to be based in sci-fi these days.
But that popularity hasn't translated into power for marketing products other than sci-fi products.
PoeticJustice
First Post
Let me admit at this first: I illegally download electronic copies of D&D books I've already purchased.
I have never had a problem getting a book I wanted other than time. Whether or not this will reflect poorly on WotC's sales is an open debate (I'm not switching to 4E, so I guess I won't be an active participant) but I'm pretty sure that as they encourage people to use electronic materials there'll be greater instances of piracy.
A player friend of mine who owns no D&D books only pirates. Several others own a book or two and pirate everything else. The rest buy only the books they need plus one or two other superior offerings.
Based on the dynamic of my group, if they wanted to increase sales, they'd have to make better, rules-heavy books (Spell and Magic Item Compendium, Complete Arcane). Further than that, I don't know.
I have never had a problem getting a book I wanted other than time. Whether or not this will reflect poorly on WotC's sales is an open debate (I'm not switching to 4E, so I guess I won't be an active participant) but I'm pretty sure that as they encourage people to use electronic materials there'll be greater instances of piracy.
A player friend of mine who owns no D&D books only pirates. Several others own a book or two and pirate everything else. The rest buy only the books they need plus one or two other superior offerings.
Based on the dynamic of my group, if they wanted to increase sales, they'd have to make better, rules-heavy books (Spell and Magic Item Compendium, Complete Arcane). Further than that, I don't know.
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