I'm curious, is there any plans for Ebook versions of Shadowrun? I can see some advantages to this, notably:
Direct sales of Ebooks can reach people (Such as myself) who have no local store for Shadowrun goods and have to rely on garage sales to get stuff. This means more sales.
Ebooks require no printing and could thus be sold much more cheaply, reaching the poorer or thriftier segments of the population for the same level of profit, increasing market share.
Errata fixes would be much easier.
Since virtually every single Shadowrun book can be found in places like KaZaa anyway, it's not likely to increase piracy of Shadowrun products.
Full Version: Ebooks
I have no doubts that it would be a solid business move (assuming they use simple .pdfs and no proprietary ebook formats, all of which have failed miserably in the past and for good reason), but there are no plans for this that I am aware of. Which is unfortunate, really.
I don't think its a good bussiness move.
I have most of the Shadowrun books in PDF format on my hard drive, given to me by the DM. Before I am crucified for not supporting Whizkids, my DM owns most of the books, and I use the PDF versions as reference if I need to look anything up during the week (rather than bugging him to look things up for me)
The PDF's are huge, in the order of 100MB plus for most of the larger books. Furthermore, the quality of some of them is pretty bad, sometimes to the point of unreadability. This is because they were scanned, page by page. This means that there is little difference in size between a page of text and a one page picture
If Whizkids were to produce books straight to PDF, the size would drop to a tenth of what it is now, since the text would be recorded as simply a text combined with a font. If you took out the pictures, it would be even smaller. Likewise the quality of the document would sharply increase.
Once these smaller, higher quality versions got on the various file sharing networks, sales of them would drop rapidly.
"What? They want me charge for a PDF? Screw that, I'm loading up Kazaa"
I have most of the Shadowrun books in PDF format on my hard drive, given to me by the DM. Before I am crucified for not supporting Whizkids, my DM owns most of the books, and I use the PDF versions as reference if I need to look anything up during the week (rather than bugging him to look things up for me)
The PDF's are huge, in the order of 100MB plus for most of the larger books. Furthermore, the quality of some of them is pretty bad, sometimes to the point of unreadability. This is because they were scanned, page by page. This means that there is little difference in size between a page of text and a one page picture
If Whizkids were to produce books straight to PDF, the size would drop to a tenth of what it is now, since the text would be recorded as simply a text combined with a font. If you took out the pictures, it would be even smaller. Likewise the quality of the document would sharply increase.
Once these smaller, higher quality versions got on the various file sharing networks, sales of them would drop rapidly.
"What? They want me charge for a PDF? Screw that, I'm loading up Kazaa"
| QUOTE (leemur) |
| ...I use the PDF versions as reference if I need to look anything up... |
Whereas the rest of us who paid for our copies just use them to prop up the wobbly end of our desks. Nosireebob, none of that fancy referencing goin' on here!
Moonstone Soldier, is there spme reason you can't order the books online? If there is no local store but you have access to eBooks than surely you can find an online distributor.
No ebooks. Someone asked before, and Adam said that wasn't going to happen. I doubt their position has changed.
| QUOTE (Moonstone Spider) |
| Direct sales of Ebooks can reach people (Such as myself) who have no local store for Shadowrun goods and have to rely on garage sales to get stuff. This means more sales. |
You could also try ordering from the internet. I even have a few sites that have some good collections.
Online ordering supports just as much as going to the store and getting it there.
| QUOTE (Moonstone Spider) |
| Since virtually every single Shadowrun book can be found in places like KaZaa anyway, it's not likely to increase piracy of Shadowrun products. |
I own a bunch of Shadowrun books, and I have some of them here, at work, in electronic format, downloaded from various file-sharing networks, and I have to say that the quality of the eBooks are downright shitbox, and if FanPro would start releasing perfect copies of them the appeal of downloading the books without buying them would become quite a bit bigger.
I would LOVE to see some ebooks out. Bit by bit I'm building my own shadowrun book collection, but they are HEAVY and difficult to pass around. I don't like carrying 100lbs of paper around when I could fit everything I need on a few optical disks. All the books that I have, I grab an electronic copy as well (because the alternative is to give it to my friend who'll slice it up and scan it page by page, which leaves me with an excellent electronic copy, but a whole pile of sliced up pages where I used to have a book. Even FASA's book binding isn't THAT bad.) Plus, it's not nearly as incriminating reading at work : ) I think I reference the players handbook about two to three times a week, but I'm not even totally sure where my hardcopy has gone now. But I definitely agree that they'd lose half of their sales to piracy. *sigh* if only we could pay the authors while still getting stuff for free ; P
| QUOTE (nezumi @ Dec 15 2003, 11:38 AM) |
| All the books that I have, I grab an electronic copy as well (because the alternative is to give it to my friend who'll slice it up and scan it page by page... |
<announcement service="public">Just an FYI. Having a book doesn't entitle you to download a PDF someone else made of their copy of that same book. It's still a violation of copyright law (at least in the US). However, slicing up your own copy and converting it into a PDF is perfectly legal, as long as you don't redistribute your copy. Redistribute, and you're a pirate. D/L someone else's copy, and you're just an accomplice.</announcement>
That being said, there are some publishers, particularly in the technical manuals field, that do provide digital versions of their manuals. O'Reilly, for example, has a Perl bookshelf - a cd containing 5 of their biggest selling Perl books, bundled together with a paper copy of their Perl in a Nutshell reference guide.
Granted, they are a massive publishing company with a large customer base, and piracy of these digital copies poses a relatively insignificant threat to their profits. A small gaming company (such as Fanpro), producing products mainly aimed at consumers that have little or no discretionary income (high school and college students) in the age of "hey-look-what-I-can-get-for-free-off-the-internet", would be driven out of business in a matter of months. If they drive up their prices to offset loses from piracy, they'll lose more people than they'll keep, or (worse yet) drive more people to piracy, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle.
Sadly, as much as I desire a fully indexed and searchable copy of every SR manual available, I have a bigger craving for a living game universe, with regularly scheduled updates, events, etc.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster) | ||
<announcement service="public">Just an FYI. Having a book doesn't entitle you to download a PDF someone else made of their copy of that same book. It's still a violation of copyright law (at least in the US). However, slicing up your own copy and converting it into a PDF is perfectly legal, as long as you don't redistribute your copy. Redistribute, and you're a pirate. D/L someone else's copy, and you're just an accomplice.</announcement> |
... electronic copy off of my hard drive. Because I... scan them poorly myself first. Yeah. That's it : )
I hate copyright law, not because I feel like it gets in the way of the nefarious things I (don't) do, but because the way its written is so nebulous. The way I always understood it was I have paid for 1 person (me) to use the information contained in the book (and the chunk of ex-tree its printed on) and to copy it however I like. So scanning, rewriting by hand and getting that identical information from some other facility (including my friend's 'cheat sheet' of useful rules he likes, or whatever) all seemed to be fine. I say this in part because of the lady who, last month, was taken to court by the RIAA and said she was allowed to have the MP3's because she had bought them legit before downloading them (of course, the case was that she let other people have copies, not that she had her own MP3's, and it was proven that she wasn't 100% accurate on her claim either, but aside from that it sounded like her defense had some legal grounds.)
I would pay cash for good copies of SR books in a good digital searchable form. hands down.
Ditto thosee sentiments. They're just too damned useful for a quick look-up when you don't feel like pulling out all of your books.
What would really be nice is if they were in plain text so that you can search for keywords. The poor indexes in most of the books (not to mention the several that don't even have one) really make for poor reference books when you're trying to find something and have no clue where it might be.
What would really be nice is if they were in plain text so that you can search for keywords. The poor indexes in most of the books (not to mention the several that don't even have one) really make for poor reference books when you're trying to find something and have no clue where it might be.
It really isn't nebulous at all. It's just that most people think they know what they are entitled to do under copyrights, and so never actually bother to look into it. It's really very simple. If you buy a book (or DVD, or CD, or VHS tape, etc.) you are entitled to make an identical copy of the item, for personal use only, in the medium of your choice, for archival purposes only. Want to scan the book into a PDF? Go right ahead. Want to read the book aloud and make your own 'book-on-tape' MP3? Sure, why not? Want to encase each page in lucite and hang them up in your attic? Go nuts. Anything you've got to do to ensure that you can still access the content you originally purchased (and still own) is fine by US copyright laws. This is the only valid reason for making copies.
(As a side note, this forms the basis of one of the more legitimate arguments against DRM on music CDs and DVDs, since they impede the creation of copies, legal or otherwise. How can I make a backup copy of my Brittany Spears album if your copyright protection software crashes my PC every time I insert it? And what good is a CD that won't play in my car because it can't log onto the publisher's website and confirm I own a valid license?)
Making copies with the intent of distributing them, whether or not you make a profit, is illegal. The quality (or lack thereof) of the copy is irrelevant. The amount you paid for the original product is irrelevant. The fact that the publishers may be a bunch of whore-hopping, drug-addled, Satanic fascists that beat their wives nightly and make the baby Jesus cry is irrelevant. You aren't licensed to make copies for distribution, so don't. Plain and simple.
Now, whether or not you choose to ignore this is up to you. Just be aware of the facts, that's all
.
(As a side note, this forms the basis of one of the more legitimate arguments against DRM on music CDs and DVDs, since they impede the creation of copies, legal or otherwise. How can I make a backup copy of my Brittany Spears album if your copyright protection software crashes my PC every time I insert it? And what good is a CD that won't play in my car because it can't log onto the publisher's website and confirm I own a valid license?)
Making copies with the intent of distributing them, whether or not you make a profit, is illegal. The quality (or lack thereof) of the copy is irrelevant. The amount you paid for the original product is irrelevant. The fact that the publishers may be a bunch of whore-hopping, drug-addled, Satanic fascists that beat their wives nightly and make the baby Jesus cry is irrelevant. You aren't licensed to make copies for distribution, so don't. Plain and simple.
Now, whether or not you choose to ignore this is up to you. Just be aware of the facts, that's all
.
Just for the purpose of protecting my meager pride...
iirc, I can share this stuff as much as I want among my buddies (although software EULAS oftentimes disallow that). I can copy a network television show and archive it for my own personal uses or send it to my buddies. I can take my copy and make a non identical copy (I can photocopy one page, or cut and paste words around to make funny setences if I want or black out words). I can get a friend to make a copy for me and give me it back, and if he happens to keep a copy without my knowledge I'm not responsible. Yes, getting a pirates copy is making me an accomplice to a crime in that the other person is setting up copyright material to be distributed for free. However, copyright is, as you said, very general about what method I use to copy my material.
Actually, the biggest reason I say copyright is nebulous is the rules on copyrighting art and storylines, which is a whole 'nother can of worms. My wife works with some of that stuff for an art archive and it sounds like oftentimes the answer is 'it's okay, as long as the company doesn't decide to sue you.' Hrm. And we all recall WW trying to sue Underworld for stealing storylines.
iirc, I can share this stuff as much as I want among my buddies (although software EULAS oftentimes disallow that). I can copy a network television show and archive it for my own personal uses or send it to my buddies. I can take my copy and make a non identical copy (I can photocopy one page, or cut and paste words around to make funny setences if I want or black out words). I can get a friend to make a copy for me and give me it back, and if he happens to keep a copy without my knowledge I'm not responsible. Yes, getting a pirates copy is making me an accomplice to a crime in that the other person is setting up copyright material to be distributed for free. However, copyright is, as you said, very general about what method I use to copy my material.
Actually, the biggest reason I say copyright is nebulous is the rules on copyrighting art and storylines, which is a whole 'nother can of worms. My wife works with some of that stuff for an art archive and it sounds like oftentimes the answer is 'it's okay, as long as the company doesn't decide to sue you.' Hrm. And we all recall WW trying to sue Underworld for stealing storylines.
| QUOTE (tanka) | ||
You could also try ordering from the internet. I even have a few sites that have some good collections.Online ordering supports just as much as going to the store and getting it there. |
Also don't forget so long as it does not get to be too high a price you can buy several books at a time from Ebay. I mean come on I saw a 20+ novel collection go for 50 something the other day. 4-5 dollars a book that is 80-100 dollars one at a time half price or there abouts.
That isn't really supporting FanPro/WizKids, though. eBay is mainly used books. Amazon has some used, but there are new ones on occasion.
You could also just buy the books off ebay, then send wizkids a check for however much you think their stuff is worth and cut out the printers and distributors. Then again, you could live in the real world where people like use are too lazy to do that.
I just want a .doc file of all my sourcebooks so I can download them into my PDA and have them far more accessible. I'd pay face value for a good quality copy of my books in that format.
Should add this to the FAQ.
I'd even pay for eletronic sourcebooks with some sort of DRM on there. I think something like Apple's FairPlay could be successful at keeping piracy down. At least to the levels where it is now with scaned copies anyways. Even if it was just used for 'out-of-print' books, where there's no loss from sales of hardcopies in game stores because you can't find that copy of Shadowbeat or Aztlan anywhere but ebay.
Just develop some basic reader software for windows/mac, maybe just some sort of plugin for Acrobat, allow a couple of computers to be "authorized" and away you go. I know I'd love to have all the sourcebooks on my laptop as opposed to lugging around a couple of duffel bags when I need to bring all the tertiary books around with me.
Just develop some basic reader software for windows/mac, maybe just some sort of plugin for Acrobat, allow a couple of computers to be "authorized" and away you go. I know I'd love to have all the sourcebooks on my laptop as opposed to lugging around a couple of duffel bags when I need to bring all the tertiary books around with me.
No I didn't read the majority of this, but there is one issue I have to comment on. All the PDFs of books I have(most of which are books I'd almost never be able to get any other way, such as the Lone Star or Universal Brotherhood books) are masterfully done with superb clarity so that issue is null. High quality scans aren't as difficult as may have been made out to be.
UB isn't hard to find, you just have to watch eBay. A lot.
LS on the other hand... I just saw one go down on Sunday. I forgot to watch it right before ending, so I have no clue what the final price was. Nine hours beforehand it was $20.50 + S/H and insurance.
I was hoping for a Buy it Now option. No dice.
LS on the other hand... I just saw one go down on Sunday. I forgot to watch it right before ending, so I have no clue what the final price was. Nine hours beforehand it was $20.50 + S/H and insurance.
I was hoping for a Buy it Now option. No dice.
| QUOTE (Spookymonster) |
| Just an FYI. Having a book doesn't entitle you to download a PDF someone else made of their copy of that same book. It's still a violation of copyright law (at least in the US). |
But do you think it's unethical?
| QUOTE (Cheese Emperor) |
| All the PDFs of books I have(most of which are books I'd almost never be able to get any other way, such as the Lone Star or Universal Brotherhood books) |
Really? Try searching some of the used book sites. I've bought both of those in good condition and I've never had to pay more than thirty bucks for a sourcebook.
I did a bit of looking into the pirated copies by downloading a pdf of an adventure title called "Dark Angel" Yes, I know I'm now a desperate criminal but whatever.
I can't see any quality loss here, I zoomed in to 400% and was able to see the individual printing dots from the original. While there may be some lousy quality scans, clearly there are good quality ones too so nothing Fanpro can produce will add problems on that score.
Nor can I really see how Fanpro's (Theoretical) Ebook would encourage piracy by being vastly smaller. Dark Angel is 72 pages long and almost 6 megabytes. If we assume that the ratio of pages to megabytes is similar I'd guess cannon companion will be about 10 megabytes and Rigger 3 perhaps 30 megs at the outside (Note that the pirate copy had no color, that would boost size alot.) However, ultimately you can compress images only so much. The pirates will be able to get just as good a compression utilities as fanpro (Presumably they'll pirate them) and will be able to make their PDFs just as small. Since there's already a demand for ebooks, as shown both by pirates and replies in this thread, there's no logical reason for somebody not to meet the demand and make some money off it.
I can't see any quality loss here, I zoomed in to 400% and was able to see the individual printing dots from the original. While there may be some lousy quality scans, clearly there are good quality ones too so nothing Fanpro can produce will add problems on that score.
Nor can I really see how Fanpro's (Theoretical) Ebook would encourage piracy by being vastly smaller. Dark Angel is 72 pages long and almost 6 megabytes. If we assume that the ratio of pages to megabytes is similar I'd guess cannon companion will be about 10 megabytes and Rigger 3 perhaps 30 megs at the outside (Note that the pirate copy had no color, that would boost size alot.) However, ultimately you can compress images only so much. The pirates will be able to get just as good a compression utilities as fanpro (Presumably they'll pirate them) and will be able to make their PDFs just as small. Since there's already a demand for ebooks, as shown both by pirates and replies in this thread, there's no logical reason for somebody not to meet the demand and make some money off it.
One reason is because it takes a lot of time to do a proper, professional job on putting an e-book together. And that's just with already having the digital masters- as it were- on hand, which they might not on some of the earlier stuff. Then there's converting the Third Edition and fixing any holes in them. And do the previous agreements with the authors and artists cover putting the work out in this form? And keeping in mind that they currently have something like 1.5 full-time employees IIRC.
All I want is an ebook that has upgrade modules. You get the main book and upgrade with MiTS. MiTS becomes integrated with SR3 with all the appropriate page references etc. Mike Mulvihill told me that this was under consideration by FASA. Guess it's a no-go for WizKids.
Let's get this straight. FanPro publishes Shadowrun not Wizkids. As Flak has previously mentioned FanPro has exactly 1.5 full-time employees, as opposed to Wizkids that even after the cutbacks still has 30+, so a lot of the plans FASA had back in the day are not going to happen.
Regarding Ebooks, Rob Boyle, the current SR Line Developer (and the bigger part of FanPro's 1.5 employees), has said several times that it's something he's been looking into specially as regards to the older OOP background sbs and adventures, it is something he'd like to do (including bringing them up-to-date with SR3 stats) but which is currently unfeasible.
Regarding Ebooks, Rob Boyle, the current SR Line Developer (and the bigger part of FanPro's 1.5 employees), has said several times that it's something he's been looking into specially as regards to the older OOP background sbs and adventures, it is something he'd like to do (including bringing them up-to-date with SR3 stats) but which is currently unfeasible.
They could always turn it over to the fans. I mean honestly, if the guys at FanPro said 'hey, we need volunteers to take our books and put them in pdf format. We won't pay you and we'll criticize your work and you MIGHT get your name in the credits,' I'm betting we'd still get at least a few dozen people willing to help out.
Just FYI, the copy of the cannon companion I have is ~170MB. The bad copy of the main manual I have is 54MB. I need to get that recopied, but it'll have to wait until I have a nice new binder to put my cut up book in. I have no question that you could fit all of the new sourcebooks on 1 CD, along with a lot of cool supplements like TSS. I would happily pay FanPro 75% of the face value for even a moderate to poor quality copy of a book, or even pay them for permission to keep a pirated copy. Consider the money they'd save on printing and distribution, it sounds like it would be a fair deal to me : ) Maybe if they just setup an account that you could 'donate' paypal money and in exchange they let us print out a certificate saying we've paid FanPro for the rights to hang onto an otherwise illegal copy, but I know tha'ts getting silly...
Just FYI, the copy of the cannon companion I have is ~170MB. The bad copy of the main manual I have is 54MB. I need to get that recopied, but it'll have to wait until I have a nice new binder to put my cut up book in. I have no question that you could fit all of the new sourcebooks on 1 CD, along with a lot of cool supplements like TSS. I would happily pay FanPro 75% of the face value for even a moderate to poor quality copy of a book, or even pay them for permission to keep a pirated copy. Consider the money they'd save on printing and distribution, it sounds like it would be a fair deal to me : ) Maybe if they just setup an account that you could 'donate' paypal money and in exchange they let us print out a certificate saying we've paid FanPro for the rights to hang onto an otherwise illegal copy, but I know tha'ts getting silly...
I wish I had that kind of luck. I saw the UB and LS going upwards of $75 dollars for non-mint condition books from what it looked like for the maybe 7 times I saw either one collectively. So, after 3 months searching and that being the best deal I saw, it just made me hesitant to continue my search. I'd most certainly get the few books that have eluded my grasp both on the 'net and the book store for full standard sourcebook price, maybe even marked up a little, though.
Hmm...would this idea include novels too? Somewhat similar to BattleCorps for Classic BattleTech?
| QUOTE (Backgammon) |
| No ebooks. Someone asked before, and Adam said that wasn't going to happen. I doubt their position has changed. |
I am quite certain that I have never said such a thing. Now, I may have said "There are no current solid plans" or "There are workflow problems that prevent this from happening easily" but I am relatively certain I have never said "This will not happen."
By the by, is there any particular reason why FanPro doesn't allow for copying of books which are out of print? It seems like the first edition books aren't making any more money, and failing all else it would be a good way to get people into the game who otherwise wouldn't want to make that initial investment.
One possible reason is that it's entirely possible to have a perfectly fun game with first or second edition rules. If the others are free and available, there's less incentive to get 3rd.
~J
~J
| QUOTE (nezumi) |
| By the by, is there any particular reason why FanPro doesn't allow for copying of books which are out of print? |
WizKids owns the copyright, not FanPro. They likely wouldn't want their material distributed for free as it's seen by big companies as something that dilutes their brand value and makes it less attractive to potential licensors.
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