RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby

[Lonely Tylenol]

I always encourage informed opinions when shopping - I've been stung by impulse buying in the past. But I think a better avenue of being informed is encouraging publishers to create demos of their products, instead of encouraging people to rip them off with scans and PDF rips.

Currently, I have no problem with people using PDFs as a way to browse. The poster in question mentioned that he has no local brick-and-mortar that he can go to in order to browse books. However, I'd change my mind on the subject if there were some kind of website that you could go to and download samples that, as others have suggested, expire after a certain number of days, say, 30. This works well with software. However, I don't know if the PDF format can support files that have internal timers.

 

[PetriWessman]

Couple points:

1) John's in the industry, and so're (obviously) the publishers claiming lost sales. None have a reason to lie about their lost sales, and trying to obfuscate the issue by repeatedly saying 'nobody knows, nobody knows' is disingenious at best. I'll take the informed opinion of businesspeople over regular opinion any day.

2) With a complete, downloaded and illegal PDF, there's very little incentive to buy - you've got the book, for free, after all. I reiterate that the majority of filesharers do exactly that - they get the file, don't buy, and that does hurt the industry, because they're in possession of IP that they otherwise wouldn't have without paying. They're robbing the blind newsboy.

1) I wasn't claiming that he doesn't know his sales figures. Of course he does. What I was saying is that he has no more clue about the *reasons* for his lost sales than I do, or you do. Being an prg publishes does not give him magical knowledge about things like that (more's the pity

2) Playing devil's advocate, how do you know that the majority of filesharers don't buy? We're talking about RPG books here, mind. I suspect you don't know, it's just your gut feel. Well, mine's a bit different. Until someone does a neutral study on this, that's pretty much all we have to go on.

Added: here I'm talking about the ratio of "copies that result in lost sales" vs. "copies that result in a sale later", and ignoring the "copies that would never have been a sale" (they are annoying ethically, but don't matter to the bottom line).

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Let me make two suggestions.

(1) Your local game store, which should be earning your business by offering such helpful things as copies of books to peruse before you buy.

(2) If you are limited to online purchases, I would like to note that most or all of our d20 books have sample pages that you can view on Amazon.com, and even "search inside the book" as an option.

If you're saying that in order to be fair to consumers, we should allow them to read a book in its entirety and maybe use it in their game for a few months before deciding if they'd like to pay for it or not...well, I'll just have to disagree.

I'm not. The person in question in this line of argument stated that he had no local game store, and there often are not sample pages available online, or those sample pages are inadequate to provide him with a good idea of what's in the book. I think that the equivalent of a game-store browse should be electronically provided, especially for companies that expect to do business through on-line purchasing.

In the game store, I can quickly leaf through a book and get a good idea of what's in there. I'm pretty good at it, and I can usually speed-read the book in under 10 minutes (although I can't do this with electronic documents due to the interface requirements). I've looked at those Amazon sample pages before. They're generally only a few pages--sometimes mainly tables of contents--and don't tell me much about what's in the book. A trialware version would be better. Maybe make it fairly low-res (but not so much that it can't be read) and maybe black-and-white if it would otherwise be colour. Maybe give 1 day before the document expires, maybe 30. But a crippled, due-to-expire version of the document would provide the consumer with all the information they need to make an informed decision on whether to buy, without being itself valuable as a traded item.

 

[PetriWessman]

I really want to drive home this clarification:

I am saying that I believe it is *one of the causes* of the drop in RPG sales.

I am certain that there are other causes. I am also certain that other causes are considerably more important.
...
I do not for a moment believe that stopping piracy would suddenly make the RPG industry healthy. And, in case I haven't been clear, I don't see a good way to stop piracy, and I think most efforts to block piracy (DRM, etc.) do more harm than good to the producers.

Please don't label me as "the guy who blames piracy for all RPGs' problems," because that is not my position.

Fair enough. We seem to be pretty much in agreement on this issue, it seems.

 

[Jim Hague]

I'm not. The person in question in this line of argument stated that he had no local game store, and there often are not sample pages available online, or those sample pages are inadequate to provide him with a good idea of what's in the book. I think that the equivalent of a game-store browse should be electronically provided, especially for companies that expect to do business through on-line purchasing.

In the game store, I can quickly leaf through a book and get a good idea of what's in there. I'm pretty good at it, and I can usually speed-read the book in under 10 minutes (although I can't do this with electronic documents due to the interface requirements). I've looked at those Amazon sample pages before. They're generally only a few pages--sometimes mainly tables of contents--and don't tell me much about what's in the book. A trialware version would be better. Maybe make it fairly low-res (but not so much that it can't be read) and maybe black-and-white if it would otherwise be colour. Maybe give 1 day before the document expires, maybe 30. But a crippled, due-to-expire version of the document would provide the consumer with all the information they need to make an informed decision on whether to buy, without being itself valuable as a traded item.

There's a few problems with this:

1) It takes time and effort (which equals money) to protect a document in that fashion. Most RPG companies run with razor-thin margins and minimal staff, so producing a full-sized preview isn't cost effective.

2) Any trialware I can think of can be as easily subverted by someone with a knowledge of the reader or software as it could be scanned...easier, perhaps. So again, you end up with said documents ending up on filesharing services and again, sales are lost. Quality is an issue, but I've seen some scanned books, and frankly it's not much different.

So what you end up with is lose-lose for the publisher - they've made it easier to steal their IP, and has been amply demonstrated, there's plenty of folks who think it's ok to steal from the blind newsboy. Witness Stephen King's attempt to put The Plant up along the micropayments model. Within days, any documents posted hit the filesharing networks.

 

[Kristivas]

I didn't read every response, so forgive me if I repeat something someone else said before.

I'll admit, I've downloaded PDF DnD stuff in the past.

Why did I? I'm freakin' broke. When 3.0 came out, I got the PHB, DMG, MM. Then, I went and got the Forgotten Realms CS, Sword and Fist, Tome and Blood, ect. I've also bought Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and a few others I can't remember.

So, BAM! 3.5 comes out, and I think it's a better system. I buy the PHB (x2 cuz we needed more), DMG, MM (1, 2, and 3), Dragonlance setting, Eberron Setting, Complete Adventurer, Ghostwalk (which I didn't like), and a few others that I forgot.

Also note that I have 3 kids, so buying books was like.. counting pennies to make sure I had the correct change when I bought one.

Then, they come out with a slew of other new stuff. Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Unearthed Arcana, ect. After already spending over $500 in he past few years, I downloaded a couple. Do I like the fact? No. However......

I'll probably buy quite a few of these books when I get my tax refund. I downloaded Eberron and read it before I went and bought it. I didn't want to make the Ghostwalk mistake twice.

So, shun as you wish. When WotC bought TSR, I remember reading something about keeping costs for books down. The AD&D 2nd ed. PHB was $19.95 and the 3.5 PHB was $29.95. Most of the other 3.x books have been more costly than stuff was in 2nd ed.

Some people will point out that the 2nd Ed MM was $29.95, but it also almost had just as many monsters as the MM 1, 2, and 3 in 3.5 which all cost around $90 together. While some people can spend at will for whatever they want, some of us can't. It sucks.

 

[PetriWessman]

We can debate about the ethics of the issue forever (and why not, it's an interesting issue). LIkewise for the legal viewpoints. But none of that matters to the question posed by this thread. It doesn't matter whether or not it's ethically ok. It doesn't matter whether or not it's legal. It doesn't matter how many copies of game X are available on L33tPirateNetX. It doesn't matter how many illegally copied PDFs Joe Random Loser has on his hard drive.

All that matters is: what's the sum effect on sales?

We have three types of illegal copies:

1) Ones that aren't lost sales. These are the copies by guys who will copy anything "just to have a copy", who don't have cash, who think it's "kewl" to copy tons of stuff, who don't buy anything out of principle... whatever. The copies by people who would never have bought the actual product in any case. These are ethically annoying, especially if it's your game these goobs have copies of, but they don't matter to this issue.

2) Ones that cause a sale. These are the cases where someone grabs a copy to preview the game, likes it, and goes out to buy a copy. These cases exist in fair numbers, I know of quite a few myself among the people I know. Call this number A.

3) Ones that are lost sales. People who would have bought the game if they hadn't been able to get a copy for free. These cases also exist, naturally, and I know of some cases (though funnily enough in my case I know more type 2s). Call this number B.

Now, how big is A and how big is B? That's the million-dollar question. Both are much bigger than zero, and I *suspect* B is bigger, butr have no idea how much. My educated guess is that the difference isn't significant, making this a zero-sum game, but that's just a guess based on looking at the people I know who are into rpgs. Your guess may very well be quite different.

Things would be *so* much simpler if we knew ballpark figures for A and B.

Things are further complicated by the fact that PDFs act as advertisement for games. Someone may well grab an illegal copy of Book A for a game (lost sale) but later buy Book B on impulse from a store because he actually liked Book A quite a lot.

Again, I'm not trying to advocate piracy here. Just saying it's nowhere near a simple issue, when you get down to the practical isses and effects.

 

[Jim Hague]

I didn't read every response, so forgive me if I repeat something someone else said before.

I'll admit, I've downloaded PDF DnD stuff in the past.

Why did I? I'm freakin' broke. When 3.0 came out, I got the PHB, DMG, MM. Then, I went and got the Forgotten Realms CS, Sword and Fist, Tome and Blood, ect. I've also bought Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and a few others I can't remember.

So, BAM! 3.5 comes out, and I think it's a better system. I buy the PHB (x2 cuz we needed more), DMG, MM (1, 2, and 3), Dragonlance setting, Eberron Setting, Complete Adventurer, Ghostwalk (which I didn't like), and a few others that I forgot.

Also note that I have 3 kids, so buying books was like.. counting pennies to make sure I had the correct change when I bought one.

Then, they come out with a slew of other new stuff. Complete Divine, Complete Arcane, Unearthed Arcana, ect. After already spending over $500 in he past few years, I downloaded a couple. Do I like the fact? No. However......

I'll probably buy quite a few of these books when I get my tax refund. I downloaded Eberron and read it before I went and bought it. I didn't want to make the Ghostwalk mistake twice.

So, shun as you wish. When WotC bought TSR, I remember reading something about keeping costs for books down. The AD&D 2nd ed. PHB was $19.95 and the 3.5 PHB was $29.95. Most of the other 3.x books have been more costly than stuff was in 2nd ed.

Some people will point out that the 2nd Ed MM was $29.95, but it also almost had just as many monsters as the MM 1, 2, and 3 in 3.5 which all cost around $90 together. While some people can spend at will for whatever they want, some of us can't. It sucks.

Your inability to afford a luxury good isn't the producer's problem, it's yours. There've been innumerable threads posted about how publishers are keeping costs down - printing in China, doig layout in house, dealing with the steadily increasing costs of paper and binding. And when you steal from the blind newsboy, guess what? You are helping drive the cost of those books up. You have no one to blame but yourself.

 

[Mallus]

Its one of the great ethical mysteries that are part of the world- evil acts CAN have good consequences. That doesn't mean that we should encourage or look away when such an act occurs.

Evil acts?

Framing this debate in such Manichean terms seems kind of silly. What you should be talking about is how illegal file sharing can help sales of certain products, by acting as a form of marketing, which does not represent a cost to the producer. A pirate network can actually increase legitimate sales (as well as costing others legal sales).

Whether its good or evil in the cosmic sense is all but irrelevant (we are talking about business, after all). What matters is how to turn the file-sharing networks (which aren't going away any time soon) to your advantage if you're a producer of intellectual goods.

 

[Jim Hague]

Evil acts?

Framing this debate in such Manichean terms seems kind of silly. What you should be talking about is how illegal file sharing can help sales of certain products, by acting as a form of marketing, which does not represent a cost to the producer. A pirate network can actually increase legitimate sales (as well as costing others legal sales).

Whether its good or evil in the cosmic sense is all but irrelevant (we are talking about business, after all). What matters is how to turn the file-sharing networks (which aren't going away any time soon) to your advantage if you're a producer of intellectual goods.

Except that this strawman has been beaten to death - we have producers who, unlike huge multinationals, are actually hurt financially by pirates. Who do not have the resources to 'turn' the pirate networks to their advantage. What matters is that pirates are stealing IP, and in turn that drives up the cost of books as publishers try to tread water.