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RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby
- Thread starter jeff37923
- Start date
Psionicist
Explorer
As always, everyone's focusing on the wrong question (the only thing people in these threads care about is that the pirated copy is free, they completely disregard the other aspects unfortunately).
Where I live we had a book store. It has now gone out of business. The same with the record store, and the movie store. Do you want to know why? Because people buy these items on the Internet now. In Sweden where I live (disregard my avatar) nearly 90% of the population has internet access. The owners of the internet bookstores and internet record stores and internet movie stores are _freaking wealthy_ by now. This sucks for the local stores. I'd guess small stores being replaced by Wal-Marts is the same thing.
Physical stores are not needed in smaller cities. In my really small town, we used to have a supermarket. It too has disappeared, because everyone drives to the larger cities to buy their food nowadays. It's cheaper, and better. Many many decades ago we had a manufacturer of shoes here, in this small town of 3 500. It is now gone, replaced by large factories in china. Hundreds of years ago our small little towns had their own farmers. Now gone. You can feel pity for your small FLGS all you want, but sooner or later they will die anyway because when enough people have internet access these items will be bought on the internet.
What does this have to do with piracy? When the available stores on the internet doesn't have the product, you have to get it the illegal way if you want to get the item through the internet, which lots of people over the world are very used too. Sure, some people are cheap and download because its free (and only because it's free), but most people (according to a study done by a university over here) download illegally because they cannot get the product legally, and the illegal copy is better than the legal version (because it exists, for instance).
Pirating won't stop until there are real, working legal alternatives on the Internet, that have all the items you wan't, and where the legal alternatives can compete with the pirated copies. Currently there are none, which is a shame. Why? In the new era the current players will disappear exactly like our shoe manufacturer did, and they don't want that.
Where I live we had a book store. It has now gone out of business. The same with the record store, and the movie store. Do you want to know why? Because people buy these items on the Internet now. In Sweden where I live (disregard my avatar) nearly 90% of the population has internet access. The owners of the internet bookstores and internet record stores and internet movie stores are _freaking wealthy_ by now. This sucks for the local stores. I'd guess small stores being replaced by Wal-Marts is the same thing.
Physical stores are not needed in smaller cities. In my really small town, we used to have a supermarket. It too has disappeared, because everyone drives to the larger cities to buy their food nowadays. It's cheaper, and better. Many many decades ago we had a manufacturer of shoes here, in this small town of 3 500. It is now gone, replaced by large factories in china. Hundreds of years ago our small little towns had their own farmers. Now gone. You can feel pity for your small FLGS all you want, but sooner or later they will die anyway because when enough people have internet access these items will be bought on the internet.
What does this have to do with piracy? When the available stores on the internet doesn't have the product, you have to get it the illegal way if you want to get the item through the internet, which lots of people over the world are very used too. Sure, some people are cheap and download because its free (and only because it's free), but most people (according to a study done by a university over here) download illegally because they cannot get the product legally, and the illegal copy is better than the legal version (because it exists, for instance).
Pirating won't stop until there are real, working legal alternatives on the Internet, that have all the items you wan't, and where the legal alternatives can compete with the pirated copies. Currently there are none, which is a shame. Why? In the new era the current players will disappear exactly like our shoe manufacturer did, and they don't want that.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
JohnNephew said:
That's a possibility, but I think the trouble with d20, is you can't treat it like other games. From my POV anyway, that's what Atlas seems to have done. For one, it's a different market; for another, you have to compete with others.
For instance, most (all?) of Atlas's d20 stuff is aimed at DMs. Which dramatically reduces the market size. And most of the subject matter is quirky, very quirky. I think the only mainstream product was the monster book, and that was a 3.0 release after 3.5 had come out (or close to it).
To a certain extent, it's why Woody Allen doesn't direct action movies.
And not to be mean, the production values on a lot of Atlas's d20 products, especially the adventures, were not up to industry standards. You can get away with that when you don't have to compete with anyone. But particularly in adventures, you have to compete with everyone else, and D&D itself, in the guise of Dungeon. Glossy, full color, great value. I'm not sure anyone can really compete there, because of the latter, even with great production values, they can't compete with cost.
Not to mention marketing. Presumably every Ars Magica fan on Earth takes it upon themselves to keep up on what the releases are. But d20 fans can't do that. Atlas is fairly invisible when it comes to marketing, especially online.
For instance, you say one of your earlier sourcebooks sold 20 times better than your last one. Well, that's because most people don't know what your last one way. I'm guessing the first one was "Touched by the Gods" which did in fact have a decent amount of buzz when it came out...
Last edited:
Vigilance
Explorer
HeapThaumaturgist said:
I guess its just me. I am amazed that people even DEBATE that its bad for business.
Is it always a good idea to do the MOST you can to stop shoplifters? Have staff following them around, cameras everywhere, tags on everything that make checking out longer, bag searches of EVERYONE leaving the store?
No, of course not.
But does that mean shoplifting doesnt hurt retail sales?
This is the semantic argument I see over and over again on this issue.
You lose more by fighting. Its not necessarily a lost sale... etc.
This is true. But then people go the next step and say "why fight at all? it doesnt hurt that much?"
This is the difference. Should you do the MOST you can do? DRM and so forth?
No. Should you do NOTHING? No.
Is stealing GOOD for business?
Duh.
Chuck
JohnNephew
First Post
Jeremy,
I could debate the minutiae, but in broad outline you're mirroring our self-analysis in 2003. We looked at what we knew we would have to do in order to compete in the d20 sphere, since the easy money was past. (I think we earned our easy money -- when we went ahead with our first d20 product, Three Days to Kill, just on Ryan Dancey's verbal assurance that they really were going to release the d20SRD under the OGL, that was a risk that only a handful of us publishers were willing to make; many scoffed at the idea of trusting WotC to come through, or gamers and retailers to accept the idea. We, and Green Ronin, proved the concept in practice.) We concluded that what was necessary to compete effectively in a declining market were many of the things you identify, as well as others (such as producing more titles and ganging multiple printing projects, most likely overseas, to reduce printing costs; reducing the 4 cents/word we were paying writers down to 1 or 2 cents a word, as many d20 competitors were; sharply reducing the amount of money/time we put into things like editing, which mattered a great deal to us but were not really rewarded in the marketplace; and doing things like aggregating and reprinting the OGC of other publishers, which could be done without paying again for the writing).
We came to three conclusions.
(1) We weren't really interested in publishing on those terms.
(2) We were not confident that those changes would matter that much in the face of the fundamental market trends to the downside. (I learned the lesson the hard way about trying to fight the current -- by spending tends of thousands of dollars on advertising and marketing initiatives in the mid 1990s to promote a floundering CCG, rather than accept the evidence of what was going on in the market.)
(3) We had much more attractive areas to invest in. (For example, a lot of the things we learned in the d20 market were more profitably applied to our Ars Magica 5th Edition launch, rather than d20 products. The first printing of Ars Magica 5th Ed. was five times larger than the print runs of d20 books we were doing at the same time.)
Succeeding in business isn't simply a matter of doing what's necessary to compete; it's knowing when to compete and when to take your profits and move on to a more attractive opportunity. Just as poker isn't won over the long haul by always raising every bet -- sometimes you win more by being willing to fold and wait for the next hand to be dealt.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
I could debate the minutiae, but in broad outline you're mirroring our self-analysis in 2003. We looked at what we knew we would have to do in order to compete in the d20 sphere, since the easy money was past. (I think we earned our easy money -- when we went ahead with our first d20 product, Three Days to Kill, just on Ryan Dancey's verbal assurance that they really were going to release the d20SRD under the OGL, that was a risk that only a handful of us publishers were willing to make; many scoffed at the idea of trusting WotC to come through, or gamers and retailers to accept the idea. We, and Green Ronin, proved the concept in practice.) We concluded that what was necessary to compete effectively in a declining market were many of the things you identify, as well as others (such as producing more titles and ganging multiple printing projects, most likely overseas, to reduce printing costs; reducing the 4 cents/word we were paying writers down to 1 or 2 cents a word, as many d20 competitors were; sharply reducing the amount of money/time we put into things like editing, which mattered a great deal to us but were not really rewarded in the marketplace; and doing things like aggregating and reprinting the OGC of other publishers, which could be done without paying again for the writing).
We came to three conclusions.
(1) We weren't really interested in publishing on those terms.
(2) We were not confident that those changes would matter that much in the face of the fundamental market trends to the downside. (I learned the lesson the hard way about trying to fight the current -- by spending tends of thousands of dollars on advertising and marketing initiatives in the mid 1990s to promote a floundering CCG, rather than accept the evidence of what was going on in the market.)
(3) We had much more attractive areas to invest in. (For example, a lot of the things we learned in the d20 market were more profitably applied to our Ars Magica 5th Edition launch, rather than d20 products. The first printing of Ars Magica 5th Ed. was five times larger than the print runs of d20 books we were doing at the same time.)
Succeeding in business isn't simply a matter of doing what's necessary to compete; it's knowing when to compete and when to take your profits and move on to a more attractive opportunity. Just as poker isn't won over the long haul by always raising every bet -- sometimes you win more by being willing to fold and wait for the next hand to be dealt.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
Rather than hear the same things over and over again, I would encourage future contributors to this thread to use the following numeric code in their replies, which will all fit under the following categories anyway:
1) I wish it argue for the sake of assuaging my own guilt without actually admitting I have downloaded from a filesharing service.
2) I am a fan who knows nothing about the economics of scale in this industry, but I feel compelled to be contrarian because I think I'm striking a blow for freedom. If questioned, I will remark that the people in the industry who reply know no more than I do, because they will not go into explicit detail about where they get their opinions.
3) I want to stridently oppose all filesharing using pretentious and ethically meaningless legalese in such a manner that it actually convinces people to rip off RPGs instead of not doing so.
4) I sold 20 copies of stuff on RPGNow once, so I know *all* about this, one way or another.
5) I have a cogent point to share, but it's not as if anybody is actually paying attention.
Yeah. That's all of 'em.
1) I wish it argue for the sake of assuaging my own guilt without actually admitting I have downloaded from a filesharing service.
2) I am a fan who knows nothing about the economics of scale in this industry, but I feel compelled to be contrarian because I think I'm striking a blow for freedom. If questioned, I will remark that the people in the industry who reply know no more than I do, because they will not go into explicit detail about where they get their opinions.
3) I want to stridently oppose all filesharing using pretentious and ethically meaningless legalese in such a manner that it actually convinces people to rip off RPGs instead of not doing so.
4) I sold 20 copies of stuff on RPGNow once, so I know *all* about this, one way or another.
5) I have a cogent point to share, but it's not as if anybody is actually paying attention.
Yeah. That's all of 'em.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Alzrius said:I agree with Orgrok and Dr. Awkward. That policy of banning people who use PDFs (and it's not just illegal ones; he even said he doesn't allow the SRD) is way too inflexible. Live and let live I say...or is it don't ask don't tell?
Yeah, I'd have no problem with a DM banning somebody from their group for using illegally scanned PDF documents, but for using any PDF documents? That's just plain unreasonable. The SRD was made legally available to be used, as were mountains of other PDF games. The guy who kicks people out of his group for choosing to buy a PDF rather than a hardcover book isn't being anything but unreasonable. That's what I think that Dr. Awkward and Orgrok were trying to get across - the poster to whom they were referring suggested that using any and all PDF material, legal or not, was enough to get somebody banned from his games.
johnsemlak
First Post
Alzrius said:
One hting about music is that musicians can make money on performances. Not sure this is applicable for the PDF-only rpg industry.
