Will you be purchasing PDFs from DriveThruRPG?

[villainbynecessity]

I am against the new company mainly because they are forcing spyware onto the computer and dictating how I use a product I have PAID for. If they only want to rent the materials to me, I can wait for print products. For me that means I buy less. So to all publishers, you have lost ten customers at my end who bought every malhavoc press product and gave others a chance through pdf.

 

[scott-fs]

Rejoining this thread after being unable to use my computer for a couple days due to computer problems.

Hm. The thing is, when you get an MP3, you do have a tangible thing. It is simply very small, and mashed in among other physical things. On your hard drive, there's bits of magnetic media that are flipped one way or another. You can pull out that hard drive and hold it in your hand. In total, the hard drive representation of the music is smaller than the CD, but it is by no means non-physical.

In a sense true, and it's probably better to compare them as such: The cd holds data; a HDD holds data. An audio cd has cda files; a HDD could hold cda files (though for space purposes, mp3 is used to reduce file sizes). Both have the same content.

I place value on the HDD for the ability to store content that makes it convienient and easy to run programs for work or entertainment. I place value on the cd for the content stored on it. I place less value on content (in general) stored on a HDD than I do on a cd, because the HDD's primary function is the ability to use the computer from one session to the next. The secondary function is to store data. For this reason, I place a non-zero value on the content itself (it is so small that I effectively consider it to have no value, except for convienience (ie having a playlist made up of songs from 10 cds without needed to put a cd into a cdrom) of use). With the cd I place more value on the data because the cd's primary function is to store data.

But, we must compare apples to apples - comparing incomplete MP3s to complete CD recordings is not fair. What if, as far as your ears are concerned, the CD and the MP3 are of equal fidelity?

If I take a cd and extract the cda files directly over to the hard drive (thus having an exact duplicate of content, the content on the cd still has a greater value. As mentioned above (which was on my mind, but never brought up previously), the HDD's primary function is to get use out of a computer over multiple sessions.

 

[scott-fs]

Well, I've always had a sneaking suspision that shareware schemes don't work that well without some very strong incentive to buy the the product.

True. In the past, I've played shareware games, without paying for them (more to do with financial situation, laziness, and a philosophy of if you can get it for free, why pay for it). On the other hand, I have a different financial sitution, and a different philosophy. I'm still somewhat lazy.

If I use something, and enjoy it enough, I have a willingness to purchase a copy (for the right price). This means that I will generally wait until a time when the price for that item has reached my price threshold (either new or used, ie through ebay). Until then, I will either use it (or not).

Shareware in the past was often under the terms of if you use this program for more than X days, send $Y to person Z. Some (trialware for instance) simply disabled themselves after a certain period of time.

The main groups that use products would fall into the following groups:

1. Supporters. Users who after using the product, send a payment to support the creation and development of the product.

2. Casual. Users who try the product, and after trying it, decide that it's not worth it to send any money, and likely either delete it or don't look at it again (only having it, just to have it).

3. Non-Supporters. Users who will use it, but would never send any payment.

Supporters are your obvious target group, and the question becomes how many supporters out there actually exist. You can always count on there being Non-supporters, and casual users. Chances are, under this model, the Casual users likely become Supporters, as they send a price which they feel the content is worth. Of course, there is an equal chance that the Casual users become Non-supporters.

How this differs from traditional Shareware is that the consumer would set the price he feels it is worth (not being pressured to send $X amount) and would have access to a fully functional version. I do acknowledge that this model would not work well with a traditional business. A traditional business is not where I would be heading if I were to jump back into publishing.