 PDF bull...., Is it just me? |
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 Jul 13 2005, 06:46 AM
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#26
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 28 Joined: 25-June 05 Member No.: 7,463  |
Off topic a bit, Are the Battle Corps PDF's searchable?
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Jul 13 2005, 06:57 AM
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#27
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 288 Joined: 7-December 04 Member No.: 6,873 |
It might just be me, but I think the PDF's pricing is more of a "metagame" thinking sort of thing.
Electronic stuff is piratable very easilly. Whether SR books are pirated widely or not is unknown, I buy hardcopies to softcopies any day of the week (Although I have a full suite of self-scanned PDF archives, I never use them for anything except the knowledge that my investment is secure). Other players might not be as hnourable. Therefore, what would be a $5 value thing, has to be marked up to make up for the amount of PDF's not sold, and to even justify the risk of opening up your product to theft. (Someone is much less likely to sit and scan 100+ pages just to put them on pirating programs like Kazaa than they are to just put the PDF's in their sharing folder with a few clicks). Or I could just be reading too far into it and assuming WizKids has a reason besides wanting to screw me out of my money. |
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Jul 13 2005, 07:34 AM
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#28
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Yes. ~J |
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Jul 13 2005, 09:58 AM
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#29
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 637 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,528 |
IMHO there are a few different issues:
a) PDF's based on old (OOP) books If there are still readable electronic versions of the book with a useable layout (Say a LaTex file or WinWord documents or so) than doing a PDF is resonably easy and cheap unless you want a 1:1 copy of the original book. Text only might be even easier. Given that SR is from a time when having 4MegaByte of useable memory in my Atari put the color green on a PC users face :D I don't doubt that a good many books don't exist in a format that can be read anymore (even if the file can) and the same goes for the Print Matrixes For those, a relatively high cost (say 50-75% of a similar current book) is okay for a SEARCHABLE and / or WELL INDEXED PDF since it involves a lot of work and those are more useful than the copies on can "find" on e<Animal> b) PDF base on new books The resonably recent once should be reproduceable as PDF. Chances are good that PostScript is involved in the printing process somewhere and that the PS files still exist. The pricing for those books depend on wether you have made your cut on the paper copies already or not b1) Company made it's cut The book has been out some time (say SoTA 63) and has paid for itself as well as making some money. There is still some demand so reprints are made but that is just "unplanned extra". The book is most likely on e<Animal> as a scan already For those PDF a price of 25-50% of the book is acceptable both for new interests and for those who already own the book. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is an option IMHO but that's debateable. If the price is heigher, most people would get themselfs a printed copy, maybe second hand one. Add in that each PDF sold skips the printing costs, distributors margin etc and the margin should be the same for FanPro (Willing to be corrected here) b2) Brand new release The PDF is released at the same time/earlier than (grrrrrrrrr) the book. It must go for the same price otherwise more and more people will drift away from the printed copy since "Greed is hot!" (Well, the advertisement "lady" is ;) ) and the cheaper(and earlier available) PDF has it's draw. It's okay that FanPro makes more money. Maybe they spend it on good artists :D b3) CD for the book Seems to be doable for Baen Books who added a CD to the Hardcopy of "War of Honor" filled with a lot of stuff. But printing one version with and one without CD won't work IMHO and I for one won't be willing to pay more for a CD with "the same stuff" as the book. Question: Is it possible to go "CD on demand?" by adding something like the old "Customer reply cards". Send this and a SASE (Self adressed Stamped Envelope) to FanPro and you get the CD back. Maybe with some "Add On" (read: Stuff cut) material? c) FanPro Bug Collection O'Reilley has CD sets of Type b1) books for offer. They contain 3-6 books on one Theme (say: All LINUX stuff) for a good price (IIRC 1/3 - 1/2 of the books). Can we get something similar. Say The Bug Collection: Universal Brotherhood, Queen Euphoria, Bug City Birdy |
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Jul 13 2005, 12:32 PM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 530 Joined: 11-June 05 Member No.: 7,441 |
No honor gained or lost from using PDFs of books you already own. IANAL, but making a copy for personal use is fair use and is protected; even making copies of _portions_ of the books and giving them to your friends is often considered fair use under most circumstances.
Opening up your product has nothing to do with it. All it takes is one person out of millions to scan a copy of the book and seed it on the Internet. Shadowrun books are widely available to anyone who is able to download a P2P client. The fact is, there is a group of people out there who will violate your copyrights and "pirate" the property and there is a group out there that will buy it from the legitimate copyright holder. Most people who would have been able to afford to buy your product in the first place would rather get it legitimately. Of the rest, there are three types -- the types who pirate due to lack of funds, those who pirate do to lack of value, and those who pirate as a... for lack of a better term, a philosophy. Some suggest that the first two types of "pirate" actually drives adoption of a product; a portion of these people would never pay for the content at all, but the other portion simply can't afford it -- and this portion will often buy the product when they are able to afford it. Obviously, with respect to those who would never pay for the product, a pirated copy is NOT a sale lost. And with respect to those who can't pay, snagging copies of a pirated version of the game keeps them interested and using the product; these people serve as word of mouth marketers and will often graduate to buying product just as soon as they can afford it. In other words, this type of pirate is beneficial (within reason) and is a FUTURE customer. But again, in this case, a pirated copy is not a sale lost, because they simply can't afford it. I don't think that it's entirely that simple, but there is SOME truth to that argument. As a kid, I knew many people who pirated simply because they couldn't afford it. They pirated Doom, and Doom 2, and Quake, but guess what? They graduated high school, got a job, and then went out and BOUGHT Quake 2 and Doom 3. Buying Doom/Doom 2/Quake was NEVER an option for them. id never lost any sales as a result of these kids pirating, but they did GAIN sales because the pirated works served as marketing for future games when the kids grew up and could afford it. OTOH, there are some who will "pirate" things irrespective of affordability, and these people will "pirate" whether or not you make a PDF available. These people congregate in groups and earn prestige (and thus access to more works) within the group by making content available. These are the people who break into game companies and steal the game a year before release, these are the people who make the Shadowrun PDFs available on the P2P networks. This has and will continue to happen irrespective of whether or not FanPro makes PDFs available themselves; the way to stop these guys is via copyright enforcement. Using lawyers and law enforcement on these guys is the only way to slow them down; NOTHING ELSE WORKS. In short, limiting availability of a copyrighted work in electronic form is pointless. Artificially trying to create scarcity by DRM, not making the electronic version in the first place, etc, will ALWAYS fail. In general, copyrighted works hold value in a captalistic society only because the force of law makes them scarce, NOT because the creator of the work makes them scarce. Using the law (law enforcement and lawyers) is the only way to keep them scarce. Nothing else works. |
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Jul 13 2005, 12:45 PM
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#31
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
My preference with SR4, is that should I purchase the hard copy, I would like a coupon of some kind for the electronic one. Let the normal retail of the e-version be 40% of physical or some such, then tack on the coupon. If I just want the electronic version, I pay it's full price.
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Jul 13 2005, 02:11 PM
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#32
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,408 Joined: 31-January 04 From: Reston VA, USA Member No.: 6,046 |
What's wrong with just letting the market decide on appropriate pricing? If it's really only worth $5 to most consumers (...or 25%, or 40%, or whatever) then supply and demand should eventually take the price to that point. Of course, if FanPro decides that it doesn't make enough money, then we won't see any new pdf releases, but isn't that what free market's all about?
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Jul 13 2005, 03:09 PM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 349 Joined: 16-January 05 Member No.: 6,984 |
Of course in the case of RPG books, the legit PDF is generally by far completely and utterly superior to the pirate product. Which most of the time tend to be scans, and thus at least 10-20 times larges, much more irritating to use, and unsearchable, and unable to be copied and pasted from.
To be honest I like the way Fanpro is doing the pdf releases of books, the prices are very cheap, definitily a fair bit lower than I would get at my local game stores, it ends up at about half the price. And considering the pdf version tends to be coming out first now (and it seems to take a while to get over to Australia), I'm happy to buy the PDF. To be honest, I agree with the person who said before, if you have the hardback of a book, and want to buy the paperback because it is smaller and you are travelling, you would have to pay for the paperback. It's the same content, two different mediums, if you want both, you pay for both. Buying the hardcopy does not give you the right to a free softcopy, or even a cheap one. I mean if Fanpro want to set up some kind of a discount deal, then sure, that'd be cool, but I see no reason why they have to in any way whatsoever. |
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Jul 13 2005, 03:31 PM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 530 Joined: 11-June 05 Member No.: 7,441 |
Actually, at least in the United States and in most British Commonwealth and European countries, fair use laws do in fact give you the right to a free softcopy, or any number of "reasonable" copies. Check out RIAA v. Diamond (iirc) in the USA for example; the court found that space shifting is fair use. This means that any copyrighted work that I have a legitimate copy of can be "space-shifted" -- I can copy it from the original media (book) to any other media (pdf) so long as it's only for personal use. Now, that doesn't mean Fan Pro has to do it for me. They obviously can charge whatever they want to for it, but I am not willing to pay the full price for it under any circumstances for the reason I gave, 25% is the absolute limit, and even at that price, I won't buy both (unless 25% means <=$5). Some people might. That's ok. FanPro will take a look at their sales figures, and see if the market is profitable enough for them, and at that point, they'll continue, adjust or exit as is appropriate for them. Apathy is correct; the market will render a verdict in its own time. |
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Jul 13 2005, 03:45 PM
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#35
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
They give you the right to create and own such a copy, not to receive it from any other party.
~J |
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Jul 13 2005, 04:16 PM
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#36
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
It's a pain in the ass. I made a PDF backup of FoF once I got a scanner and realized that I didn't have to put up with the taped-up monstrosity that has been floating around since like a week after I got it. That's a short book, but scanning each page takes 1 minute per page once I get the scanner set up, and adding bookmarks took me a while. The first time I made bookmarks for a longer book it took me four hours to figure out how to get them to work.
Loose Alliances is 88% of the book's cover price, for one. I've seen some of the free PDFs on BattleCorps (GM Screen, Critters), and what bothers me is that the image resolutions always look inferior and pixelated. It's great that they are small PDFs (compared to FoF, which is gimongous comparatively) if they went from layout to OCR'ed PDFs, but just to improve the image quality a little would be really cool. |
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Jul 13 2005, 07:30 PM
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#37
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 437 Joined: 11-April 05 Member No.: 7,318 |
I see product, I want product, I pay for product. I see same product later, now e-book, I want product, I pay for product. How can you not understand that? Also, making a paper-print book is different than making a PDF. Often the paperprint is patched together from several files, and send to print with specifications on how to mix it all together. Graphics, tables, text etc. A real e-book, not just a scan, requires you to produce a collected document with references and links, which is a whole new processing of the material. Both kinds of producing have their costs, and the actual production costs and logistics of the products are not always the price-heaviest. Hence, its uncalled for to demand cheaper electronic copies, because they assumeably are "easier" to produce. They are not. In fact, producing a PDF has a flat price, no matter how many you end up selling. The more you sell, the more money you earn. But who, of us, knows just how many PDF's they need to sell to break even? - Who knows if they do? Especially if they convert old and relatively outdated material, that might require massive retooling before its viable as an e-book. The whole "I scan my own copy" thing is just ridiculous. Its non-comparable to an e-book. Now, if you OCR the text, rettol the graphics and index the whole thing and it looks nice and not like crap, then respect for that. If FanPro markets a bundle paper+PDF product, then I might be buying it. I love the paperbooks, much easier to read, because I can see the whole page and don't have to scroll up to read the second column. But for active gaming, PDF's are the thing. Character computerized, NCSRG as quick reference, PDF's to look up the details. Now we're running. Laptops are great! But that as it may, many people prefer one to the other, and will only buy the product once. FanPro has to be certain to reach critical mass for each version before they produce it. And remember boys and girls, in this world "breaking even" is not acceptable. You Must produce a profit that is acceptable for a company in your business. Otherwise shares drop, financing becomes harder and you die. |
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Jul 13 2005, 08:04 PM
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#38
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 159 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 143 |
First of all, Vaevictis brings up interesting points, and he might be on to something, like him, unfortunately I don't have the numbers either. The only thing I can think of is that since other companies aren't doing it, there's probably some hidden cost that we're missing somewhere. I do wonder if the reason e-books aren't as popular is due to a lack of cheap reader. I would guess they're profitable and they well well, since most of the major gaming companies are doing it now, though I suppose that could be a "Oh my god, White Wolf is doing it, now we've got to do it!" Toturi, you don't seem to realize that they are infact two different products. Check the book example I made. Just because I own a book, doesn't mean I get to demand a second book in a different format for free. Nor is the company under any onus to provide me with one. They price their product, if I want a second one, then I would have to pay for a second one. If you wanted to buy two copies of Loose Alliances, one that you could use, beat up, not care about, and one that would sit on your shelf as a part of a mint "Collection" then you would have to pay full price for both. Just because the PDF is electronic does not mean that you are entitled to it cheap. You are infact NOT paying for a service to PDF your hardcopy. You're paying for another book. FanPro is not in the business of converting hardcopy to PDF. They're in the business of releasing books in different formats. If you wish someone to convert your hardcopy into PDF (which is your right under fair use, depending on your country's fair use laws) then pay someone to do it, or do it yourself. The PDFs FanPro puts out are NOT archival copies. They are infact complete books, which FanPro sells as such. And yes, if you want the PDF from FanPro and the hardcopy from FanPro, then yes, you have to pay twice. Just like if I want a (again, to use this example) Hardback version of a novel, and a paperback, I have to buy both at their normal price. Just because one is electronic doesn't change this. If you don't want to pay twice, then make your own PDF. You're allowed to. And its free other than your time. Someone suggested that FanPro insert cards, or electronic codes into the book for either a free PDF, or a free CD. Couple of problems with that. In order to prevent theft, books would have to be shrinkwrapped. Cards could easily be ripped out, codes copied (and as an example of how bad theft can be, my brother went to the local Best Buy to buy a game card for a MMORPG. When he got home, the box the card came in had been cut open, the card removed, and the box resealed...when he went to Best Buy to complain/exchange, he and the manager found out all 10 game card boxes had been cut open and the cards removed, then put back on the shelf to look normal), so some sort of protection would have to be implemented. Plus this would raise the price of books for an "imaginary" product. Books would have (We'll use Vaevictis' $5) a price increase, which is fine for the people that use the codes, or want the PDF/CD. For those that don't, they're forced to pay more. Unless you advocate the printing of two different types of books, which won't work for various reasons. Also add in the price of shipping for CDs, not to mention a FanPro employee packaging and shipping off the CDs. Electronic format is slightly easier, but then you run into the problem of someone just opening up the book and finding out the code. If you shrinkwrap the book, you run into other problems. |
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Jul 13 2005, 08:33 PM
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#39
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
the long and short of it is that if you don't want to pay that much for a PDF, don't buy it. make your own, on your own time. if nobody buys the PDFs, FanPro (or the guys they license to sell the PDFs, not sure how that works) will lower the price. if the PDFs sell, well, obviously there's a market for the PDFs at that price. you can rail against the market all you like, but it's probably not going to change because of it.
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Jul 13 2005, 08:36 PM
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#40
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
Another way for the discount idea is that of the rebate. Buy both, download form, print said form and fill it out (my preference is fill it out then print but not everyone has caught on to the fact that PDF's can be rendered with editable fields) and send it in with the receipt or a copy of the receipt, then in a few weeks you get your check for the refund. On the upside, the money sits in a big account, earning interest so that the publisher isn't out hte entirety of the refund money, as many will forget to file, file incorrectly, or for what ever reason, fail to qualify, in addition to the interest earned.
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Jul 14 2005, 01:29 AM
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#41
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King of the Hobos Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,117 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 127 |
Well except for the fact that the US office is basically just Rob and a few part time people last I heard. So this means either dumping more work on the guy or having to pay someone else to do it, and FanPro LLC isn't exactly that big of an organisation really.
It just seems too complicated and fussy for what it offers IMO. Either buy the PDF or don't, those are your choices at the end of the day. |
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Jul 14 2005, 08:19 AM
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#42
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
And in the real world there's stuff like coordinating any such sales gimmick with the FLGSs, retailers and the actual distributors involved. Not exactly a simple equation.
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Jul 14 2005, 04:46 PM
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#43
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 128 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Omaha, UCAS Member No.: 7,090 |
I'm not sure what we're complaining about here...
Is it the fact that FanPro has been kind enough to offer another option for buying the books or that they're asking us to pay a small sum to get them? :please: |
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Jul 14 2005, 05:12 PM
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#44
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 675 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 2,034 |
You think you are entitled to a discount on similar products after you buy one of them?
So if you buy a dvd for $15 you think the whoever sold it to you is obligated to sell you the vhs for $5, or whatever. If you saw it in the theatre you should get a discount on the dvd and the vhs, oh and the PSP mini disk, and pay per view... and if you ever go see it in a theatre again... right? If you buy a hardback book you think you are entitled to get the paperback cheaper, not to mention the ebook and the audiobook on tape, cd, and mp3. Yea, they are entitled to sell you the same thing over and over as long as you feel like buying it over and over. |
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Jul 14 2005, 06:26 PM
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#45
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 19-August 02 Member No.: 3,139 |
I think the orginal complaint was releasing something in pdf only, and the re-release of older SR materiel in particular.
Underworld source book Orginal print price: $15, pdf rerelease : $8 Tir Tairngire - Print: $18, pdf rerelase $10 Tir Na Nog - print $18, pdf rerelase $10 Harelquin - print $12, pdf rerelase $12 (Dunno whats up there -other than possibly demand) Renraku Arcology: Shutdown print $15, pdf rerelase $8 Keep in mind that these are all out of print books. I don't see a problem with those books pricing. Some of the newer stuff might be kinda high: $30 to $23 for the core book. You can get it print from amazon for $19.80 - and it ships within 24 hours. |
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