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Synner667
Is this even valid anymore, since there has been some result ??
otakusensei
QUOTE (urgru @ Jun 28 2010, 06:00 PM) *
Of course they're not operating in a normal manner. This isn't a normal business situation. Expecting them to act like its 2005 is stupid. I've taken some shots at the quality of the editing in the TRO:3085 previews, so I feel your pain on that front . . . but new print products at the conventions are key indicators of life and vitality for a firm under legal attack. End of the day, I'd push it out the door too.

Or, they made sure to have a print product right at the con season because they know that they will make the money back, and quick.
QUOTE (urgru @ Jun 28 2010, 06:00 PM) *
If this was an act, they'd not be putting money into printing. They'd not be hiring a new accountant to revamp internal procedures. They'd not be taking the time to streamline the customer service e-mails. That's time and money that wouldn't be invested if the goal was to maximize short term return w. the expectation the license is a lost cause or the bankruptcy a foregone conclusion. At the end of the day, it may be too little, too late, but I think it's time to stop suggesting that people still with IMR - other than the Colemans - are looking to burn the proverbial house down.

The "streamlining" of the support emails is exactly the type of thing I called slapdash business practices. Hiring a new accountant wasn't an option given their situation, if they wanted to pretend to be a real viable company they needed to do whatever it cost. From their behavior they are either doing a horrible job of making a best shot at keeping things going, or doing the least they can do to keep things going as long as they can. Sometimes that means stopping to water the horse before you run it into the ground, just so you get those last few miles out of her.
otakusensei
QUOTE (Synner667 @ Jun 28 2010, 06:06 PM) *
Is this even valid anymore, since there has been some result ??

I think the line is strong enough to survive six more months of IMR, so yeah.
Cardul
In the last thread, someone was commenting that the influx of PDFs we ahve been seeing from CGL is "not business as usual."
I am wondering if that person has been following CGL the last few years. Generally speaking, this is the time of year we see
a plethora of PDFs from them, with stuff coming into Dead Tree for GenCon and out through November. We hardly ever see
more then one or two Dead Tree books released from November through August. It pretty much *IS* business as usual for CGL.
True, they are putting up some classic books in PDF now, but, you know what? They had been talking about doing that for years.
Doc Chase
That's all well and good, but they need to proofread these new releases better. I'm not happy about dropping the money I did on the Almanac to find errors so bad that a simple spellcheck would've caught them - that is nigh unacceptable.

Cripes, a freelance copy editor is not that expensive.
Ancient History
CGL has been moving to more PDFs; before I left there was even an initiative to get a small PDF product out each month. However, PDFs are not a company's bread and butter and there remains a certain...I dunno, intransigence among many gamers, and even many freelancers about non-print products. Some people see them as a lack of the company to actually produce a physical product, others believe its a relatively cheap and dirty measure - PDF products have the advantage that they can be pumped out relatively quickly, with a faster turn around than print products, but often suffering from lack of time to write, lack of editing, reused art, etc. Which are familiar critiques for many print books as well, natch.

So yeah, CGL might plan on pumping out more PDF-only books to raise $$$ - Jason said as much once, I think - but honestly, we haven't seen any standalone PDF books of that type since 10 Jackpointers, which suggests the bulk of the editorial and get-this-out-the-door effort is on big books like Corp Guide and 6WA - and I think that rush shows on those products.
Abstruse
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Jun 28 2010, 08:25 PM) *
CGL has been moving to more PDFs; before I left there was even an initiative to get a small PDF product out each month. However, PDFs are not a company's bread and butter and there remains a certain...I dunno, intransigence among many gamers, and even many freelancers about non-print products. Some people see them as a lack of the company to actually produce a physical product, others believe its a relatively cheap and dirty measure - PDF products have the advantage that they can be pumped out relatively quickly, with a faster turn around than print products, but often suffering from lack of time to write, lack of editing, reused art, etc. Which are familiar critiques for many print books as well, natch.

So yeah, CGL might plan on pumping out more PDF-only books to raise $$$ - Jason said as much once, I think - but honestly, we haven't seen any standalone PDF books of that type since 10 Jackpointers, which suggests the bulk of the editorial and get-this-out-the-door effort is on big books like Corp Guide and 6WA - and I think that rush shows on those products.

As a consumer, I must say I don't like buying PDFs. I'll do it very rarely for stuff like Sixth World Almanac which I won't be referencing as much, but I still want something for my money. I want something I can hold in my hands. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I like reading ink on paper. Maybe it's the portability, maybe it's the tactile sensation, but I like reading books over a computer screen.

And if there's DRM involved, I'll pass immediately. I had a friend who fell for the DIVX thing (not the video codec, but the DVD format). I don't want something that might roll over and die when a company goes belly-up.

Also, I hate buying the same thing twice. If I get a PDF, I'll never buy the print version. If a print version is available, I will buy that and therefore never own the PDF. This whole "Here's the PDF for $20, we're sending it to the printers in a month or three" thing feels like the same sort of double-dipping you get with DVDs. Lord of the Rings and the various Evil Dead films are the biggest offenders.
Dread Moores
QUOTE (Abstruse @ Jun 28 2010, 10:41 PM) *
Also, I hate buying the same thing twice. If I get a PDF, I'll never buy the print version. If a print version is available, I will buy that and therefore never own the PDF. This whole "Here's the PDF for $20, we're sending it to the printers in a month or three" thing feels like the same sort of double-dipping you get with DVDs.


This is one issue that CGL needed to address a long while back. It's a real shame they haven't. If you're looking for a good example (outside of the excellent examples of Posthuman with Eclipse Phase), look towards the Dresden Files RPG from Evil Hat. Buy the book, get the PDF. Or go to local game stores, buy the book, show the receipt, get the PDF. There's money to be made using PDFs in very different ways than many companies are currently using (even with all the PDF content and material CGL has done with BattleCorps).
Adam
Frankly, there is a lot of linear thinking about electronic book pricing, and it doen't benefit anyone. There are some electronic resources that are worth less than the printed version, and there are some that are worth more. But if they are useful to people, they are absolutely _worth something_, even if they're not being directly sold for dollars.

Of course, we know that electronic resource can be copied indefinitely, and choose to embrace that. But we're going to continue to sell them as well, and as long as they continue to be worth people's money, they will continue to sell. smile.gif
Cardul
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 12:27 AM) *
Frankly, there is a lot of linear thinking about electronic book pricing, and it doen't benefit anyone. There are some electronic resources that are worth less than the printed version, and there are some that are worth more. But if they are useful to people, they are absolutely _worth something_, even if they're not being directly sold for dollars.

Of course, we know that electronic resource can be copied indefinitely, and choose to embrace that. But we're going to continue to sell them as well, and as long as they continue to be worth people's money, they will continue to sell. smile.gif



What bothers me are the technophobic game companies, like Alderac and WotC. Look at Alderac, despite the book
having sold out of its ONLY print run, they still have not released a PDF of L5R 3rd Edition's Emerald Empire book, which includes rules that are almost required for the game, and, in fact, are referenced in some of the last 3rd edition books.
Same with Prayers and Treasures, and several other important books. The only way to get them, at all(they do not show up on E-bay) is through pirated copies.

And, of course, everyone knows how WotC decided that, to stop piracy, they were stopping selling anything
in electronic format, because the special tracking software they put in their PDFs told them that for every PDF
they sold, 10 were pirated. I have, generally, found PDFs useful for somethings, dead tree useful for others. Generally
speaking, I prefer dead tree, but I try to get everything in PDF so that I can do planning during slow points at work.
Adam
"Special tracking software?" Reference, please.
Cardul
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 01:17 AM) *
"Special tracking software?" Reference, please.


Their interview where they said "We can track this, you know."
Adam
LOL.
Synner667
QUOTE (Cardul @ Jun 29 2010, 07:33 AM) *
Their interview where they said "We can track this, you know."

Hmmm...
...So, PDFs that communicate with the PDF originator ??
I'd find it quite worrying, if PDFs can do that - it would lead to situations where legitimate PDFs might not work properly because they can't "phone home"

If there's some other software loaded to track PDFs, is that legal if they don't tell people about the software being loaded ??
Adam
Synner667, PDFs can contain DRM, but the vast majority of them don't, and WotC's never did.

(easy clue: if a PDF will open in multiple PDF-reading applications, it doesn't have DRM.)
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Jun 28 2010, 06:20 PM) *
Cripes, a freelance copy editor is not that expensive.


I'd do a pass of any of the web-only stuff just for the free pdf, because I imagine I could do it in an afternoon and I like the idea of it.

Also, because, frankly, it could generally use the polish in a serious way...
Synner667
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 07:47 AM) *
Synner667, PDFs can contain DRM, but the vast majority of them don't, and WotC's never did.

(easy clue: if a PDF will open in multiple PDF-reading applications, it doesn't have DRM.)

DRM does not relate to ability to track a PDF...
...One would limit who can read it, the other would determine it's pirating.

To be trackable, it'd have to phone home and home would have to be aware of it...
...Unless the whole tracking piracy thing is guestimation, based on some demographics and/or marketing and/or sales information [like they use for music piracy]
Adam
It's not too difficult to look at your own sales figures, and then look at the number of completed downloads on a BitTorrent tracker. wink.gif

If PDFs were phoning home to WotC, do you not think the userbase -- buyers and pirates (and of course, those that overlap those two groups!) would not have discovered it, given the highly-technical nature of many of the people that consume gaming PDFs?
hermit
QUOTE
If PDFs were phoning home to WotC, do you not think the userbase -- buyers and pirates (and of course, those that overlap those two groups!) would not have discovered it, given the highly-technical nature of many of the people that consume gaming PDFs?

Not to mention that would be illegal in a number of countries.
crizh
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 07:58 AM) *
It's not too difficult to look at your own sales figures, and then look at the number of completed downloads on a BitTorrent tracker. wink.gif


To be fair it's much easier when there is only one tracker and you know where it is 'cos you were the one who uploaded the torrent in the first place.
grinbig.gif
hermit
Though a good deal of illegal downloads nowadays is done via one-click hosters.
crizh
QUOTE (hermit @ Jun 29 2010, 08:40 AM) *
Though a good deal of illegal downloads nowadays is done via one-click hosters.


one-click?

One-click, type the capcha, count to hundred, three-more-clicks and close the fifteen porn pop-ups more like.
Cardul
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 01:58 AM) *
It's not too difficult to look at your own sales figures, and then look at the number of completed downloads on a BitTorrent tracker. wink.gif

If PDFs were phoning home to WotC, do you not think the userbase -- buyers and pirates (and of course, those that overlap those two groups!) would not have discovered it, given the highly-technical nature of many of the people that consume gaming PDFs?



Um....so, does this mean I have to become highly technical? I can barely clean out all the stock stuff that
I don't want on a new computer. I have friends do any really technical stuff on my system. I am not a highly
technical person. I am more an average computer user, and I just use PDFs 'cause I can put them on my lap
top...
hermit
QUOTE
One-click, type the capcha, count to hundred, three-more-clicks and close the fifteen porn pop-ups more like.

Well yeah. Popup blockers usually work on them, though.
Adam
QUOTE (Cardul @ Jun 29 2010, 03:53 AM) *
Um....so, does this mean I have to become highly technical?


No, and I didn't say that all gamers or PDF buyers are highly-technical: but a good portion of them are, and if WotC was selling PDFs that somehow phoned home, it would have been discovered. It wasn't discovered, because it didn't exist. WotC's "tracking" of piracy was almost certainly done by a comparison of sales to known downloads.

Since you admit that you are not highly-technical, I suggest that you assume fewer things about technical matters.
hermit
QUOTE
Their interview where they said "We can track this, you know."

Actually, this suggests folks at WOTC aren'T really the technical crowd either. ("... with a bittorrent tracker!")
crizh
QUOTE (hermit @ Jun 29 2010, 08:57 AM) *
Well yeah. Popup blockers usually work on them, though.


Why would I want to block the porn pop-ups?....
hermit
QUOTE
Why would I want to block the porn pop-ups?....

Because you should have more trustworthy sources of porn, like any sensible person.
Elve
QUOTE (Cardul @ Jun 29 2010, 08:33 AM) *
Their interview where they said "We can track this, you know."


I think they refered to hidden ids embedded into the pdfs, cosisting of the customer number or something like that.
Endroren
This fear of e-publishing piracy isn't limited to gaming. Publishing in general has a paranoid fear of piracy - something the software industry long ago realized isn't going to obliterate your business (no matter what some software developers claim). In the end, software developers realized that it's like your house. You lock the door but know full well a determined criminal can break the window if they want in. Do you have heart failure over it, worrying all day about being robbed? Nope - because in the end MOST people are honest and MOST people want to pay you. MOST = Enough people to stay in business (if you've got a good product.)

The thing that boggles my mind is that the folks at WOTC don't realize that there were PDFs of their products available long before they released official ones, and that there are PDFs of their products available now. The only difference is that unlike that little window where they sold them, no way pays them anymore. It shows a painful disconnect with the reality of the market.

That said, I don't see PDF copies as being a "bad thing" although I really like to own hard copies as well. PDF only works for me, but holds less appeal than the option for both.
Demonseed Elite
Yeah, and most publishers don't yet take the risks or cultivate the expertise necessary to take serious advantage of the electronic publishing opportunities. Now, for the most part, I agree with Endoren: I like physical books for gaming products. But with devices like the iPad, I'm having an easier time imagining the day when I might not feel that way for gaming books. There will be ways to make digital publications for gaming more flexible, more interactive, and more current than the print copy. Some publishers are preparing for that and others are not.
Adam
QUOTE (Elve @ Jun 29 2010, 08:16 AM) *
I think they refered to hidden ids embedded into the pdfs, cosisting of the customer number or something like that.

This, too, would have been discovered; and just the presence of such would not give information as to how many people illicitly downloaded it.
Kid Chameleon
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 08:26 AM) *
This, too, would have been discovered; and just the presence of such would not give information as to how many people illicitly downloaded it.


But the Grey Ice will boot you if you find it.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Kid Chameleon @ Jun 29 2010, 02:40 PM) *
But the Grey Ice will boot you if you find it.

No, Gray IC would damage your computer.
martian_bob
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Jun 29 2010, 02:47 PM) *
No, Gray IC would damage your computer.

And how's that different from having WotC products on your computer? [/sarcasm]
Adam
Hey, Magic: the Gathering Online is pretty half-decent. wink.gif
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Saint Sithney @ Jun 29 2010, 06:49 AM) *
I'd do a pass of any of the web-only stuff just for the free pdf, because I imagine I could do it in an afternoon and I like the idea of it.

Also, because, frankly, it could generally use the polish in a serious way...


You and I both.

Even better, I"m off work today because of a bad muscle pull in the neck, so I'm hopped up on relaxants and painkillers.

I AM THE PERFECT EDITOR.
imperialus
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 07:26 AM) *
This, too, would have been discovered; and just the presence of such would not give information as to how many people illicitly downloaded it.


Wasn't it a digital watermark that got them to bust that guy in Poland or whatever? He had scrubbed the obvious watermark, but there was another watermark hidden in a pixel on some random page that nailed him. I only really remember because he showed up on EN-World after his name was released in the legal documents speaking broken English and claiming that he had only "lent" out his PDF to people at his LGS. One of them must have uploaded it.
Adam
That's possible, but that sort of passive tracking isn't the kind that can generate a nice graph that says "Oh, for every copy we sell, that copy is pirated 10 times!" What would happen in that situation is: WotC notices that Book X is available for download. They download it. They cross-reference that PDF with their database, and find out that Person Y is the one that bought it.

And, well, OneBookShelf (DriveThruRPG/RPGNow) has certainly never come to me and said "Hey, we can do this sort of tracking with your documents, if you like"--and I've been vending on OBS since 2004.
emouse
QUOTE (Elve @ Jun 29 2010, 01:16 PM) *
I think they refered to hidden ids embedded into the pdfs, cosisting of the customer number or something like that.


They used watermarks to track down who purchased the copies that got uploaded. Whether those are the same people who actually uploaded the files is a distinction that I'm not sure the lawyers will make.

And yes, tracking would have been done by a torrent tracker. There are known tools and methods for observing that sort of thing.

QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 02:26 PM) *
This, too, would have been discovered; and just the presence of such would not give information as to how many people illicitly downloaded it.


There's no discounting the stupidity of people uploading a PDF file that they bought and has their name clearly imprinted in the corner of every page.

Even more likely, they buy the PDF, put it on insecure hosting for friends to players to access and one of them or even someone else gets that PDF and uploads it as a torrent.

And that's why you should never buy a PDF, even just a watermarked one, using real contact information.
emouse
QUOTE (Cardul @ Jun 29 2010, 03:11 AM) *
In the last thread, someone was commenting that the influx of PDFs we ahve been seeing from CGL is "not business as usual."
I am wondering if that person has been following CGL the last few years. Generally speaking, this is the time of year we see
a plethora of PDFs from them, with stuff coming into Dead Tree for GenCon and out through November. We hardly ever see
more then one or two Dead Tree books released from November through August. It pretty much *IS* business as usual for CGL.
True, they are putting up some classic books in PDF now, but, you know what? They had been talking about doing that for years.


Okay, the whole 'business as usual' argument is stupid because 'business as usual' is exactly what we don't want from CGL. 'Business as usual' has been poor financial tracking and management resulting in production and reimbursement delays. And yes, that's putting it nicely.

Catalyst breaking away from business as usual, having the resources to improve their production, getting to the point where they need and can afford more freelancers, editing and support people is a good thing.
emouse
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 03:49 PM) *
That's possible, but that sort of passive tracking isn't the kind that can generate a nice graph that says "Oh, for every copy we sell, that copy is pirated 10 times!" What would happen in that situation is: WotC notices that Book X is available for download. They download it. They cross-reference that PDF with their database, and find out that Person Y is the one that bought it.

And, well, OneBookShelf (DriveThruRPG/RPGNow) has certainly never come to me and said "Hey, we can do this sort of tracking with your documents, if you like"--and I've been vending on OBS since 2004.


Yeah, the watermark and tracking download #s are two different things. OBS does watermarking, which lets the original buyer be identified. They aren't the ones who do the tracking. There are other companies who do that.

Usually it's a service that large companies and organizations use, like the RIAA. I would guess Hasbro had some hand in having the tracking done. I also suspect that part of the reason for WotC dropping PDFs comes from pressure by Hasbro as well. That's part of why I'm not keen on Topps taking development of SR/BT properties in-house. Adam and Posthuman had to do some convincing and make deals to convince Catalyst that they had a better way of selling their game. Catalyst partially followed suit with their own products once they saw that the new way worked. A big corporation like Topps is more likely to do something like stop PDF production rather than try something like what was done with Eclipse Phase.
Adam
WotC wasn't selling PDFs directly, though: they were selling them through OBS and Paizo. Thus, this limits WotC's ability to embed tracking information... wink.gif
Endroren
Yeah - WOTC's claims of tracking are like people who put fake "Home Alarm System Installed" and "Beware of Dog" signs on their house. If you've got something that is communicating with the outside world, some tech nerd somewhere is tracking all the traffic on his PC and he's going to flip the he11 out the second he sees this. We'd have heard about it by now if it were true.
emouse
QUOTE (Adam @ Jun 29 2010, 04:17 PM) *
WotC wasn't selling PDFs directly, though: they were selling them through OBS and Paizo. Thus, this limits WotC's ability to embed tracking information... wink.gif


Yeah, tracking and watermarking are two totally different things. OBS does watermarking, some other company does tracking. Tracking doesn't involve anything really in the PDF. It's going to torrent servers and getting information about file requests, or sitting in a torrent stream and seeing what IP addresses or requests come up. If your buddy got a PDF and then gave a copy to you, there's no way they could track that. It wasn't clear exactly what WotC's 1 to 10 ratio meant. If it's based strictly on torrent activity, then the estimate is actually conservative. It's also possible that the number is extrapolated to try to account for sharing methods that can't be accurately tracked.
otakusensei
QUOTE (emouse @ Jun 29 2010, 11:25 AM) *
Yeah, tracking and watermarking are two totally different things. OBS does watermarking, some other company does tracking. Tracking doesn't involve anything really in the PDF. It's going to torrent servers and getting information about file requests, or sitting in a torrent stream and seeing what IP addresses or requests come up. If your buddy got a PDF and then gave a copy to you, there's no way they could track that. It wasn't clear exactly what WotC's 1 to 10 ratio meant. If it's based strictly on torrent activity, then the estimate is actually conservative. It's also possible that the number is extrapolated to try to account for sharing methods that can't be accurately tracked.

1 to 10 is a good ratio, people can get their heads around it. But if you really want to drive the anti-piracy point home just throw reality and understanding out the window and go the RIAA route.

Obviously WotC lost a sale for everyone of those books downloaded. And everyone who downloaded a single book was going to buy the rest of the line, but now those sales are lost too. And each of those people that didn't buy the entire line are going to sit down and play with four other people who are now not going to buy the entire line, so there is another 30 or so books each lost to piracy.

There's no reason why you should make up numbers and draw the line where some person arbitrarily sees it as "reasonable". You should extrapolate out to the end of your mathematical abilities, because at the end of the day it's all money that should rightly be yours. and if your final numbers equate to three times the total value of all the banks in the world, it just means that they should print more money to pay you for music- er, roleplaying books.
Adam
There's two uses of tracking in this thread, which is leading to confusion:

1. Monitoring activity on networks where peers are viewable (IE: bittorrent)

2. Embedding information (Either visible, like a watermark, or invisible/unassuming, like changing a series of graphics that can be decoded to find an order number) in a file so that specific file's movements can be followed.

I am quite sure that WotC was doing 1, and 2 with visible information, but not 2 with invisible/unassuming information.
deek
PDFs should be free if you buy the hard copy. If you only sell the PDF, it should be at least 50% less than the list price.
Congzilla
QUOTE (deek @ Jun 29 2010, 03:04 PM) *
PDFs should be free if you buy the hard copy.


^ This.
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