I wouldn't have even seen the article if someone hadn't drawn attention to it. Gamers will pay what gamers will pay and no blog post is going to change that. If I like a product, I will buy it. If I don't I won't. Simple as that.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;896974My problem is the "people deserve..." idea.

You deserve nothing. You are entitled to nothing. If you can fulfill some need, perform some service that others are willing to pay for, good for you.

But no one owes you anything. Learn that lesson, and spare the rest of us your entitled, self-indulgent whining.

Quoted for truth. Cuts straight to the heart of so many problems in the world.

Pretty much F that guy. I don't intend to buy any of his product, and if I find I somehow own some, there will be an olde fa-shioned book book burning a-comin.  His thoughts must not be propagated.

Quote from: Teazia;897040Pretty much F that guy. I don't intend to buy any of his product, and if I find I somehow own some, there will be an olde fa-shioned book book burning a-comin.  His thoughts must not be propagated.

If you really wanted to piss him off, scanning his books and uploading them to a fileshare would be better than burning them

Quote from: yabaziou;897027That is a fair request so I will try to answer it : http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost&page=10#comments

In the case this link is not good, Kevin Crawford's post (under the username CardinalXimenes) is on the 10th page in the comment section.

Got it, thanks.

As I mentioned over there, the "I deserve a living wage" is the same type of argument as "minimum wage should be a living wage" - it is a fundamental faith based 'self evident' belief that no argument with them is going to dissuade.

The 'no spec' public shamers use the same sort of arguments to attack art contests and doing any work for free. The few times they've gotten hot with me I thank them for letting me know they shouldn't be considered for future art work (and if they ask, I do tell them about how I've done work for free very specifically for promotional purposes).

Something else I mentioned there that got me a bit of XP is 'living wage where?" If I want to save money and maintain a high level of quality, I hire overseas where I can pay a living wage and get excellent work done. That certainly could leave enough left over to pay some well known artist to do you cover.

Quote from: TristramEvans;897047If you really wanted to piss him off, scanning his books and uploading them to a fileshare would be better than burning them

Pardon me, but this needs to be addressed, because this arguments shows up here and there:

Let's say you hate [any given game], or its author.
Let's say you acquire the corebook & some sourcebooks and share them until you'll get your all accounts closed due to copyright infringement and/or your ass busted.

The result?

Will the sales suffer? Yes.
But here's the catch: if the game is any good, it will attract attention. If 1/10 of people who pirate it will buy it, and so it happens that plenty of pirates do that, then its author still gets money.

Effectively you will make the game and its authors more popular and I suspect you wouldn't really want that.

BTW, I don't why people disliked your comment. Opinions you don't agree with are the ones worth discussing, as far as I'm concerned. :cool:

--------------

As for the topic: just because someone does some job, doesn't mean that this job and its results are actually needed and deserve to exist. I could reduce it to Gestapo and ask whether they deserve their salary, but there are plenty of contemporary examples of useless jobs. "Writer of shitty books who think himself next Hemingways" is one.

Meh.

There's a point there, in that if you insist on bargain price games, then the people making them will make less money, and they'll either have to cut corners or will exit the industry entirely.  And I've known a number of folks that have exited the industry entirely for that reason.

But people will pay what they think things are worth.  You're not entitled to more than that.  Your choices at that point are "don't make it" or "accept the lower cost".  And if you don't make it, then maybe people will realize that they've pushed the quality out of the market, and will decide that they're willing to pay for quality again.  Maybe.  Or not.

And if your professional product is competing with home-grown stuff, then well, it should be better enough that people are willing to pay more for it, right?  If people can't see a difference between your professional stuff and the hobbyist-produced stuff that someone's doing for free, then maybe you *shouldn't* get more money.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;897058Pardon me, but this needs to be addressed, because this arguments shows up here and there:

Let's say you hate [any given game], or its author.
Let's say you acquire the corebook & some sourcebooks and share them until you'll get your all accounts closed due to copyright infringement and/or your ass busted.

The result?

Will the sales suffer? Yes.
But here's the catch: if the game is any good, it will attract attention. If 1/10 of people who pirate it will buy it, and so it happens that plenty of pirates do that, then its author still gets money.

Effectively you will make the game and its authors more popular and I suspect you wouldn't really want that.

My belief is mainly that people have the same amount of disposable income that they will spend, regardless of anything else. So no matter if they pirate something or not it doesn't change the amount of money going into the hobby.

QuoteBTW, I don't why people disliked your comment. Opinions you don't agree with are the ones worth discussing, as far as I'm concerned. :cool:.

Some people have very strong opinions about piracy, to the point that humour totally bypasses them even when a smiley is attached

Quote from: TristramEvans;897069Some people have very strong opinions about piracy, to the point that humour totally bypasses them even when a smiley is attached

I downvoted because it seemed stupid & vaguely immoral. If you don't X's work, ignore it and/or tell others to avoid it. Don't lure them in with free pirated versions.

Quote from: TristramEvans;897069My belief is mainly that people have the same amount of disposable income that they will spend, regardless of anything else. So no matter if they pirate something or not it doesn't change the amount of money going into the hobby.

I kind of like the Pay What you Want option, because it effectively lets you test drive material without pirating it, and if you like it you can simply buy it again for more than nothing.

Quote from: S'mon;897070I downvoted because it seemed stupid & vaguely immoral. If you don't X's work, ignore it and/or tell others to avoid it. Don't lure them in with free pirated versions.

The sci-fi writers who have experimented with tracking their work and sales on pirate sites point out there is one thing worse than being pirated. Being ignored.

Often the writer complaining about lack of sales isn't on the pirate sites, because nobody cares about their books.

Quote from: S'mon;897070I downvoted because it seemed stupid & vaguely immoral.

Confirming my suspicion

Some of you may not know this, but outside of moonlighting as an amateur hack writer, I've worked in digital advertising and online marketing for a very, very long time. Given my experience and observations, here are the three reasons why I feel tabletop RPG designers shouldn't be paid more:

1) Tabletop RPGs are difficult to teach to non-geeks, and are massive time sinks (time is money, as the old adage goes).
2) The fanbase for tabletop RPGs are not great at being social influencers outside of their own circles.
3) People who buy tabletop RPGs don't have a lot of disposable income, nor do they represent a very diverse economic market.

The sum of these three parts are a large part of the reason why tabletop RPGs aren't massive moneymakers.

For comparison, look at how successful Cards Against Humanity and other casual games have become. Those which are successful universally transcend the geek market and have a lower barrier to entry to learn and play. They are designed as "party games", are traditionally cheaper to produce, require less time investment on a person's part to teach/play and have a larger pool of incoming revenue because their fanbase is far more economically diverse.

The bottom line is that the tabletop RPG market is very niche. Game designers don't deserve to be paid more at this time because it's the state of the market. It's very much a cottage industry, even to this day - I don't see how it could realistically change anytime soon.


...and don't get me started on the pricing model for PDFs. A PDF should never cost more than 25% of a printed book, and should be free after purchasing the dead tree version. But that's for another thread all together.

Quote from: Krimson;897074I kind of like the Pay What you Want option, because it effectively lets you test drive material without pirating it, and if you like it you can simply buy it again for more than nothing.

Generally speaking I'll go out of my way to give money to any creator I like, and I game with hardcopies only; pdfs only have value to me as previews.