RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby

[Yair]

When I purchase a book, RPG or otherwise, it has little to do with doing it because it is legal.
I've recently been to a store when a man was buying a pack of DVDs, and told the clerk the price on the package was wrong - it was way too low. The clerk was confused about it, but the man insisted and so he checked it out.
By our laws, he could have forced the store to sell to him the product at the published price (at a loss, the price was really low). He could have purchased 10 such packs. He didn't. He did the right thing, not the legal thing.

Contrary to another poster's opinion on this thread, I do believe that most people will do the right thing most of the time. I also believe most adults realize that if no one supports some enterprise commercially it will fail, and are inclined to purchase or donate for a cause, to maintain their hobbies, and so on.

I am a huge fan of Ars Magica. I purchase a lot of it, and as John Nephew said I do this knowing this is a way to support the game I love, so that the company would be rewarded and will make more for it.
I have friends that use downloaded materials in our games. I occasionally nudge them to purchase what they are using, using the same arguments.
I don't tell them to purchase stuff because it's legal. Insisting that downloading is illegal and hence wrong and pursuing people for downloading won't make you more sales, and won't lower downloading.

Contrary to the link's writer, I don't think many RPG downloaders think downloading is legal. There are some, for sure, but I think that's largely limited to the young and is more prevalent in the music and video downloads community. I think the bulk of RPG downloaders are more knowledgable. They might think it's alright for any number of reasons, or they may just not care, but I doubt if the majority of filesharers is not aware that their actions are illegal.
At least, that has been my experience with my gaming friends, but we're old.

I admit I am biased in favor of filesharing, I don't think I can say more on that under these forum's rules.

 

[Yair]

One hting about music is that musicians can make money on performances. Not sure this is applicable for the PDF-only rpg industry.

Tha's an interesting picture, though. Think of the hype "Monte Cook on a Worldwide Tour! Chris Parmas and the True20 Band! SPECIAL DISCOUNTS FOR EARLY PURCHASES".

 

[Viking Bastard]

I have never downloaded RPG books. I haven't bought a RPG book for years.

(For that matter, I've hardly gamed for the last couple of years.)


But anyways.

To me, the whole point of "Gasp! Piracy is bad! People shouldn't do that!" is a moot one.

Times are changing, change with them or wither away.

In recent years, Icelandic record sales have skyrocketed. Avant Garde sales have risen
along with jazz and classical music. Heck, last christmas' best seller was somekinda
Finnish Tango band. Meanwhile, big company sales are dropping. Suddenly, 50 Cent's
new CD isn't selling that well. In Iceland more records are being sold than before. Plus,
they're gettin' cheaper (we had a monopoly crisis going here, suddenly little cheap
record stores are growing like weed).

Now, I know the music biz is a different animal than the RPG one. But booing piracy ain't
gonna help. Don't think what can I do against piracy, think what can piracy do for me?

I've been thinking for a while that the comic book industry should set up their own
iTunes style system for their comics. Get a fine CDisplay format file for 25 cents. It's
interesting to note the difference between what's being torrented/DC++ed the most
and what's selling. A lot of those really critically acclaimed titles that don't last a year
are going around like hot cakes while Claremont's X-Men recycling isn't.

The RPG industry is a good way there, though. RPGNow and all that. But more can be
done. But think of it as a program. One that lets you download RPG product, old and
new, builds a easily navigated library as well as creates a handy database for feats
and skills.

I'm just saying, stop moaning and start thinking. If the old ways ain't working, find new
ones. It may not be easy, but it's definately less futile.

 

[likuidice]

Personally, I've read downloaded pdf copies of books, looked them over, and then bought the hardcover versions if I thought they were worth using, deleted them if not (and after, cos I had the physical copy). Since I started doing this, I've bought 10 books, all hardcover, amounting to over £200 of business. I've also not bought another 20, simply because after the casual read they had nothing useful that I wanted, so they were deleted. Personally, some kind of demo pdf version of a product, with a timed period before it becomes unusable would be perfect. I don't have time to actually go to a shop and browse, working during the hours the store is open, and this is about the only way I can tell if a product is worth my time or not. How hard would it be to just release a copy of the book, accessible for, say, 3 days, before the time expires, to allow customers to look through, and decide whether the product is what they are after? With such high cost for hardcover books (roughly £20 ($30?) a pop) it's galling to have spent that much on something that isnt worth the time or money. Releasing demo versions, just as software houses do, is the way forward. I agree completely that those who simply download with no intention of buying should be punished, but don't punish those who just wish to spend their cash on the products that are good, rather than a hit or miss approach.

 

[Bagpuss]

In regards to the original post's subject line, I don't think that "hurting the hobby" and "hurting the industry" are necessarily the same thing.

I mean, assuming that shared files are being used in games- you could argue that the "hobby" itself is actually being supported by the practice.

But in the long term if the industry doesn't make any money it will die and the hobby will suffer from the lack of new material.

I think the premise is wrong.

If PDF piracy (IE: Freely available PDF copies of books hurts the industry) why would White Wolf give away a free PDF of the brand new World of Darkness corebook? As they did through Drivethru RPG. They obviously have some experience in the PDF field and probably realise that PDF's of good products actually help promote the sales of the actual books in question.

Sure if your product sucks and someone can read a PDF and realises that, they probably won't buy the book. But if its a solid product nothing beats owning a proper hardcopy.

 

[BryonD]

My RPG purchases for 2005 have been sharply down from prior years.
If you want me to buy your product, then make a product that I want to buy.
If you make products that don't interest me, then don't blame my lack of purchase on piracy.

Does piracy have some undefined negative impact? Sure. Does it have remotely the impact that is being claimed? No.

I think it makes an easy whipping boy for publishers to distract from other issues that are more within their control.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I find the idea of "rewiring" people away from bad thoughts to be much scarier than illegal file-sharing.

Ditto.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

So, if one player illegally downloads a product, brings it to the game, and his buddies decide, hey, that's cool, and 5 of them go out and buy it - 5 people who ordinarily would never even have heard of it - this HURTS the industry?

 

[jdrakeh]

I think it makes an easy whipping boy for publishers to distract from other issues that are more within their control.

You may be on to something there. I have seen some publishers (a few of them well-regarded) resort to defending their publication of a horribly edited or poorly presented product by claiming that the dreaded Piracy Bogeyman stole their budget for such things. I've always seen such claims as being little more than an attempt to disown responsibility for publishing complete crap.

'Well, it isn't our fault that 30% of that book is complete gobbledygook! We could afford a hardcover, full-color art, glossy pages, and an acclaimed designer - but the RPG Pirates sapped our budget for editing! It's their fault that the book sucks!'

 

[Yair]

If PDF piracy (IE: Freely available PDF copies of books hurts the industry) why would White Wolf give away a free PDF of the brand new World of Darkness corebook? As they did through Drivethru RPG. They obviously have some experience in the PDF field and probably realise that PDF's of good products actually help promote the sales of the actual books in question.

You are jumping to conclusions.
My guess is that they decided to make the core rules freely available digitally for free, as they draw most income from supplement sales.
The effect of sales lost is also different for a 200+ page constantly referenced high-quality hardcover than they are, say, for a 2-page unadorned Philip Reed pdf.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is partly an experiment. (As the book is supposedly already available as a pdf illegally, it can check the impact of a free legal source. It's kind of a follow-up on Atlas Games' free offer of Ars Magica, this time offering the rules of a new rules edition to eliminate that variable. The limited time offer, however, may make this less effective. Still, I would be interested in knowing whether their hardbook sales dropped during or immediately after the sale. WW are not Atlas, though, I doubt if they would be as forthcoming.)

There are some products that may actually benefit from a free PDF, such as products that see little publicity and shelf-space, or products where production quality is important (such as highly-used reference books - i.e. core rules). Generally speaking, however, I am very doubtful.