DriveThruRPG competition? Not yet it isn't
The only possible way DriveThruRPG can be considered competition is the fact there are publishers that agreed to use them that have never entered the e-book market before. That is the ONLY thing they've got going for them. I buy e-books about as often as real books, more actually considering the nearest bookstore worth calling that is around 50+ miles from me. When I seen the lineup on their site I was ready to jump for joy; until I took a look at the 'fine print' and realized that each "e-book" I bought there would be hobbled to the point of making it useless as anything other than as a trophy. As a consumer, here are the pros/cons to me (SteveWieke I dearly hope you're watching this, as this is why I'll be WINDOWSHOPPING and not much else at DriveThruRPG until something is done to adress these concerns):
RPGNow Pros/Cons:
Pro 1: Excellant Service. This means little fuss to aquire the product, any questions or possible complaints dealt with as soon as possible, if not sooner!
Pro 2: Price Effective. For the product I'm getting the price is very reasonable. Given how scarce money is for me at the moment, I still find things that tempt me sorely. If I do run into a product not meeting up to my higher expectations, then I'm not out an arm and a leg.
Pro 3: Back-up copies! I can always make a back-up copy of my purchase to limit the very real danger of my computer eating my hard drive and anything on it by copying to CD. No fuss, no muss, and no hoops.
Pro 4: Last but MOST IMPORTANT, Excellant Quality. When I buy something at RPGNow I know I've got my money's worth, sometimes more in some cases! I know that I have the same rights with my .pdf purchase that I have with real print books , which tells me the publishers at RPGNow regard as an adult capable of making the right descisions for the right reasons.
Printed Books Pros/Cons
Pro 1: Portable. If you can pick it up, you can carry it. You don't need an electronic reader to use, so you're not tied to anything.
Pro 2: Copyable. I know that I'm allowed by law the right to make copies of pages or even the entire book for personal, non-profit, non-piracy activities. This is very similar to RPGNow's Pro 3 & Pro 4 above.
Con 1: You can't make back-ups easily. To back-up a book you either have to buy two, or copy the original page by page.
Con 2: requires more room to keep. I've got a stack of RPG books from about 4 different game systems that would likely reach chest high on me if I dared stack them in one stack. Enough Said.
DriveThruRPG Pros/Cons
Pro 1: Publishers found nowhere else on the Net. This is the only place one can find LEGIT copies of Eden Studios, FFG, and several other publishers. This gives us all hope other publishers begin to offer their products online as well as in stores.
Con 1 (PRIMARY CONCERN): DRM. DRM is actually many smaller Cons all rolled up into one enormous one. Some of the more important Cons making up this monster include the following:
a. DRM Activation. It all starts here. It's an inconvienance to me for no gain. It's only purpose is to have my very own nursemaid to tell me what I already know; namely to be a respectable, responsible adult and pay for what I aquire, and to please avoid pirating.
b. Low Portablity. While it is possible (with considerale inconvieniance), to read this on other computers/handhelds, laptops, DRM requires you to have Adobe Reader with DRM on each machine; this precludes any system that cannot run Adobe 6.0, or is a comp that was never designated by the user to go on the Internet, and hence has little to no anti-virus software.
c. Degraded Quality. I expect that whatever text (printed or .pdf), to allow me to make reasonable legal use of it I see fit. DRM does not allow that. The Copy/Paste and Print functions are either limited or disabled outright.
d. Degraded Back-up utility. I can't make back-ups worthy of the name. Reason? Because if anything happens to my computer that makes fubar of that PARTICULAR installation of Adobe 6.0, I have to go through the fiasco noted in Con A.
Con 2: High Prices. Alone, this Con wouldn't be of concern at all to me. The prices for the books shown on DTRPG are reasonable considering the fact the publishers are found nowhere else. With Con 1 detailed above, it makes buying at DTRPG a losing prospect, despite the fact they have an exclusive publisher base.
In closing, I will add that I have d/led the free books. Since they are free having limited utility is understandable. If I find a book from the publishers affiliated with DTRPG that really tempts me, I'll likely end up considering the trouble of doing so (I don't drive and it's 50+ miles to the nearest DECENT bookstore), and decide to think about it some more.
I understand the need to prevent piracy SteveWieke, but the DRM that DTRPG has decided to use is one of the WORST methods I've seen to go about it. there were several suggestions from the more reasonable posters at RPG.net that would have been worth considering that would have had the effect you said WW and Eden desired (The "Joe Clueless" example posted there), without causing the kind of headaches alot of us will avoid if at all possible; instead your posts were directed at the screamers instead of those quieter more reasonable voices.
I'm posting this here not to cause trouble, but because I hope to note legitamite consumer concerns, and see a solution that allows to buy the kind of Products I and most others would jump at the chance to get LEGALLY. the techniques desribed at RPG.net would be workable, and would allow the customer to use the product the way it was MEANT to be used, without giving them incentive to look for pirated copies or break the DRM themselves. I hope to see a reply if you see this.
Thank You for your time.
