Pirating RPGs. (And were not talking "arggg" pirate stuff here.)

[FCWesel]

Saw this over at the Eden Boards. This stuff really sucks.

What a day.

Found out today that someone posted the Army of Darkness RPG, which hasnt been released as a hardcopy yet, as a free download on a p2p site.

So I alerted DriveThruRPG and we downloaded the file to see who uploaded it - since the file is watermarked. BTW DriveThru found a bunch of WoD books up there as well.

Well the user actually spent the time and effort to go and remove 256+ pages worth of watermarking from the AoD book alone

Nice to see that the file was downloaded 136 times. 4x the amount of the copies that were legally sold.

... and they wonder why we opted for DRM.

/grumble

/cry


George Vasilakos Zombielord Eden Studios

 

[Roudi]

The usual argument here is "did you really think those 136 people would have bought the PDF if it wasn't available on a peer-to-peer network?"

Honestly, publishers have to stop looking at pirated products as lost sales. The vast majority of those who do pirate material likely would never pay for it if that were their only option.

 

[Crothian]

THat's not what's wrong with this. DRM would not have stopped this as he seems to thing or idcate. And why these might not be lost sales, it is a bunch of people who have the product and did not pay for it. It doesn't matter if they would have bought it or not, all that matters is they stole it here.

 

[Psion]

Bad Joss, all around.

That said, would DRM really have addressed the situation? From what I understand, it's easier to create a DRM free PDF from a DRM PDF than it is to spend "the time and effort to go and remove 256+ pages worth of watermarking".

 

[Roudi]

I'll agree with you, Crothian - DRM would not have prevented this person from posting the copy of Army of Darkness for free online (just look at how much work he or she took to remove the watermark).

You are right, to an extent, about the fact that there may have actually been "lost sales" as a result of this theft. I'd just like to know (since I refuse to direct my browser to the DTRPG site) how much these 136 people saved themselves by pirating the book. One of the best deterrents to piracy is keeping one's prices low and fair (though that doesn't always work). How much is the 256-page PDF of Army of Darkness selling for?

 

[Sunmocker]

Humm...

I've found that folks who dowload the material tend to get the books/music/etc as well after review. Plus if you can't get to a store easly, it's nice to fully review a product before you shell out money for it, wait for it to arrive, find out it was not what you were looking for, send it back, wait for a refund etc... Just a thought... Brian.

 

[delericho]

The usual argument here is "did you really think those 136 people would have bought the PDF if it wasn't available on a peer-to-peer network?"

Honestly, publishers have to stop looking at pirated products as lost sales. The vast majority of those who do pirate material likely would never pay for it if that were their only option.

Doesn't matter. However you slice this, it's wrong. If nothing else, they have managed to undo all the good work that had been done in persuading DTRPG and their clients to use watermarked PDFs in place of DRM. Which sucks for those of us who are honest.

They've almost certainly reduced the willingness of Eden to produce further PDF products, and perhaps to produce products at all. And who knows how many other companies are going to make the same decision?

Then there's the question of how many of those illegal downloads would have been a sale. Even if it's just a few, that's a significant percentage of the sales recorded at DTRPG. Which has a knock-on effect on Eden, and on the game designers, none of whom are really rich. Ca they really afford the hit?

All in all, this just sucks.

 

[The Shaman]

I've found that folks who dowload the material tend to get the books/music/etc as well after review. Plus if you can't get to a store easly, it's nice to fully review a product before you shell out money for it, wait for it to arrive, find out it was not what you were looking for, send it back, wait for a refund etc... Just a thought... Brian.

Y'know, I do the same thing with DVDs - steal 'em off the store shelves, watch 'em a couple of times to see if they're worth keeping, and then go back to the store and buy them if I think they'll be a good addition to my collection.

Not.

Just a thought...

 

[FCWesel]

How much is the 256-page PDF of Army of Darkness selling for?

$28.00 US. Full color.

And they have a preview on the same site for those folks who wanted to see what it was like.


@ Sunmocker. Nothing against you Sun, but I find that 'arguement' to be pretty much a load. This day and age it is pretty darn easy to get an idea of what a RPG product is like without having to resort to THEFT. There's ten MBs these days for every game out there it seems. Not to mention the actual base pages.

 

[PJ-Mason]

I think for a lot of guys this doesn't have anything to do with money. They think they are screwing the man, or the system or something. For the others, its about free stuff, if if they won't use it. Look at RPGNow, you can sell a pdf and get under a 100 downloads for a good game book of whatever type, put up for free and you'll get hundreds of downloads, or even over a thousand. People like free stuff.

It doesn't make it right, but Eden selling a PDF for $28 doesn't exactly make it a hard decision for these guys to pirate. I mean, if you are not going to sell pdfs at what the market normally bears, or what is reasonable for the industry, then don't give me a song and dance when it doesn't work out and how "you gave it a try". You didn't want it to work out and it didn't. cheers.