The Drivethru RPG Wars? What did I miss?

[Viking Bastard]

Every time I'm offline for an extended period of time, something big seems
to happend. Dargoth gets banned or something. This time, it seems to have
be centered about something called Drivethrough RPG or Drivethru PDF. Over
the last month or so I have seen numerous references to this big 'Drivethru'
flamewar (or whatever) that took place on the boards, without the slightest
hint of what it was all about.

Now, I don't want to drag whatever issues that caused the problem up, so
all I ask for is a quick explaination (even in email if this is in any way sensitive)
or even just a few self-explainatory links.

Please? This big mystery is annoying me to no end.

 

[Crothian]

THere is a new PDF seller called Drivethrough RPG. It only sells PDFs in a DRM format which is not very user friendly, but in theory is harder to copy and pirate. Many people hate the DRM and decided to bash any and all publishers that sell through Drivethrough RPG and even went so far to call for a boycott. It was messy, many untruths were posted, and a few people really got mean and got banned. And they deserved it.

 

[mythusmage]

The Truth About DRM

Actually "DRM" refers to Dire Recon Mission. An OGL RPG from Steve Wieck of DrivethruRPG and White Wolf Publishing. In DRM you take on the role of an awakened dire animal in recon missions for the US Army in World War II. Some people took it all too seriously. One poster waked positively vitriolic about the very idea of an awakened dire leopard shark Paladin on a mission into the Jura Mountains of Germany.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Croth, thanks.

Myth, actually, you're confusing DRM with D:TA ('Dire: The Awakened').

 

[mythusmage]

Waking some people up can be a dire thing indeed.

 

[DaveStebbins]

There were additional issues which fanned the flames. DriveThru is owned by the same people who own White Wolf. This led to lots of "it's owned by WW" "No, it's not really" "Yes, it is" juvenile behaviour. It also requires exclusivity, so publishers who signed up with DTRPG were forced to pull all their products from RPGNow (Monte's Malhavoc springs to mind). Also, their original press release, copied on websites of many of the publishers who signed with them, referred to themselves as the first truly professional RPG e-book sellers, or something along those lines, which many people took as a slap in the face of places like SV Games and RPGNow who've been doing this for years. Finally, their website was extremely slow for the first few days (don't know if it ever got better), which didn't help them to seem very professional at all.


In the end, [warning, personal opinion follows] it seemed like most of the flames came from people with personal grudges against DRM or WW, which they freely took out on DTRPG. Many people were able to discuss the issues politely back and forth, but most of that just got lost in the shouting.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Thanks for the details Dave.

Waking some people up can be a dire thing indeed.

I know. As clearly witnessed in the spin-off CCG 'Rage: The Eternal Monday'.

 

[Henry]

Hello, Viking Bastard! (I've always wanted to say that )

If you really have the intestinal fortitude, I'll direct you to a couple of links that were the center of the firestorm back in June. These will really explain the good, the bad, and the ugly of the issue, if you wish to read it.

GENERAL WARNING: I've closed the threads in question, because I'm posting them for reference only, not to re-ignite discussion. I don't wish to open discussion of DTRPG, because of the harsh emotions and insults it seems to spawn. Thanks, all.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90442
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90416

 

[Viking Bastard]

Thanks a lot Henry, I'll scan through those threads.