Quote from: Lawbagoff-topic sorry, but classes are slightly different in the UK.

99% of UK people are working class
0.8% are middle class
0.2% are upper class

As mentioned before not even remotely true.

2003 census data, puts more than 30% in managerial and professional occupations, which makes them middle class or better.

If anything, I'd say that the middle class practically outnumber the traditional working class.  Between the death of the British manufacturing sector, people buying their old council homes and the explosion in the numbers of university students the UK has undergone, since the 1970's a massive process of embourgeoisement.

If the country really was 99% working class then we'd have gigantic unemployment because the number of traditional working class jobs shrinks every year.

Quote from: RPGPunditWhat are your opinions on it?

I don't feel that it is inherently wrong, but it is wrong to break the law, and so it is wrong as long as the law forbids it.

If I was an enterprising rpg company I would hire these pirateers (in the third world) with their fancy printing equipment to print my books, sell them for me, and share the profit. If that sort of thing would get around all of the b.s. customs and international charges that is.

Keep in mind that comment is off the cuff and not at all thought thru being completely ignorant of how things are done out of the country and I don't know if that would make a dent in all of the sticky keyboards out there.

:emot-fap:

Quote from: Mystery ManIf I was an enterprising rpg company I would hire these pirateers (in the third world) with their fancy printing equipment to print my books, sell them for me, and share the profit. If that sort of thing would get around all of the b.s. customs and international charges that is.

Keep in mind that comment is off the cuff and not at all thought thru being completely ignorant of how things are done out of the country and I don't know if that would make a dent in all of the sticky keyboards out there.

:emot-fap:

It is an interesting concept, I wonder if local printing would get around it... :hmm:

To try to clarify Pundit for those who haven't read a number of his blog posts/rants (I enjoy them, but don't know that I'd call myself a proxie) He is mixing issues without mentioning the topic changes (though the issues are related) and it is causing confusion I believe.

There are three threads going with Pundit's arguments, (imho)

We have the file sharing issue,
the issue that game companies don't seem to consider South America a market work thier time,
and the lack of a good solid inexpensive rpg for new gamers.

(we know that Pundit is working on a product of his own to try to cover the last two)

Hopefully that will help clarify things, I would deffinitly be interested in reading a thread on the pros/cons of marketing in South America, particularly the idea of having things localy produced.

I didn't see any other threads, so I started one.

Game Companies selling/marketing in South America
http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=27745

Quote from: JimBobOz"Sorry Mtumbe, I can't help you look through the rubbish tip this afternoon for tin cans, I'm off to the cyber-cafe to download Exalted."
"You, too? Man, my sister was supposed to be hoeing the beans this afternoon, instead she's off downloading Blue Rose. Frickin' rpgs."

You've never been to South America, right? :rolleyes:

Quote from: JongWKYou've never been to South America, right? :rolleyes:

I think it's a safe guess.  I'm also thinking that he is mixing South America with parts of Asia and Africa.

My take on filesharing is pretty simple.
If I like it, I'll buy it. I haven't done it at all with RPG books. Although I might like to download a PDF of a book I've bought, so I can make player-printouts easier.
As for Music (hey I play music when I play RPG's...sometimes...)
If it's a band I've never heard of, or would like to hear more of. I'll generally check out their album through filesharing. If I dig the Album, I go out and buy it If I don't dig it, I delete it, maybe keeping the one song I like. I don't have a credit card so I can't buy singles on iTunes, or I would probably do that.

Quote from: RPGPunditExcept, again, its not stealing, its copying. If they were never going to buy the product from you in the first place, and their copy doesn't magically remove a copy of your product from the shelf, then they aren't actually stealing.

Sigh. You are either impossibly dense or purposely obtuse. JimBob said it much better than me, copying files/books/product for distribution is illegal. I am not arguing that is what file sharing is about but I am more concerned with the immorality of it since I truly believe that little can be done in reality.

Quote from: RPGPunditAgain, in the third world, "poverty" is only half the problem. I know plenty of folks here who earn a middle-class lifestyle here (which would be about $800US a month), something that would technically allow them to buy one or two gaming books a month.  But not if that included the exhorbitant shipping and tariff fees for importing the product from the US, because NO ONE (not even Wizards) actually sells game books in Uruguay.

Earlier, you espoused on the evil of "Big Corporate^TM". Distribution to Europe, which I handle often, is done through (primarily) one company, Esdevium. There are other (Spiel in Germany and another Italian one) but it is mainly Esdevium. If I did not have Esdevium to deal with I would probably have to charge $12 in shipping just to get my smallest book (Squirrel Attack!) to the U.K. I have infact had todo this for customers in Scotland and England with the books costing close to Twice their MSRP. Not cool. Alternatively, they can go down to their local shop and pick one up for about 10% over MSRP now. Other book are right on the MSRP since I work with POD companies in Europe to print there.

In the end, I would suggest (and I have no information on this) looking at the infrastructure of South America and how much of a market there is for RPGs. "You know a lot of Gamers" does not cut it. You are talking international business with a large amount of expenses and risk. Generally, if you do not have a market for product, no one will develop it.

Quote from: RPGPunditAnd though many of them have computers, buying PDFs online is practically impossible as well, because the online payment sites refuse to accept latinamerican-issued Visas or Mastercards (I bet you didn't know that those credit card companies issue "special" versions of their cards in third world countries, versions that do not have most of the privileges of normal cards).

Actually I did. I owned and operated a chain of game stores in the nineties that did a great deal of internation shipping. Two areas I eventually had to stop dealing with was South America and a lot of South East Asia.

Quote from: RPGPunditSo even people who could in theory buy game books are left with NO option but to either a) buy from pirates, or b) download the pdf themselves through File Sharing.

I refuse to equate a leisure item with a staple to live. You always have options even if that option is to not do something and maintain a moral lifestyle. If you want something it does not mean you always get it.

Quote from: RPGPunditNever mind that after that you have the folks that really literally can't afford to buy a game book. We're talking about people here in the third world who earn maybe $200US a month, or less. Should their poverty mean they can't play RPGs, or do you just think that they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the same RPGs that those of us "monied" people enjoy?

It is a leisure item, not medicine or food. This entire argument is rediculous levels of hyperbole. They can play RPGs. When I was young my parents gave us kids baseball gloves for Christmas. They could not afford a bat or ball (yeah, we were that poor) so we improvised. We used a fence brace and a ball of twine. We had a lot of fun. Poverty never excuses immorality.

Quote from: RPGPunditMeanwhile, there's also the kids in both the 3rd and 1st world, kids we DESPERATELY need in the RPG hobby, who are unable or unwilling to spend over $100 to get into gaming, but might easily become valuable additions to gaming many years down the road.

You really do not understandhow business works do you? I really am not trying to be condescending but the above statement reads like some 16 year olds manifesto for world peace. See my statements above about distribution networks. Alternatively, you could organize a NFP RPG relief organization that takes remainders from RPG publishers and ships them to third world countries. I have participated in several that shipped books to schools in the Carribean.

Quote from: RPGPunditAgain, just like with the recording industry, the gaming industry has themselves at least in part to blame for the filesharing phenomenon. They don't market to third world countries; and they choose to make Ultra-expensive products for nerd Collectors, instead of affordable gaming products for people who can't go around spending $50-100 per book no matter how glossy or full-colour it is, and just want to be able to have rules to Roleplay with.

RPGPundit

Well, this "Dick" has been trying an affordable line of books. It has worked out well for us. Squirrel Attack! is 12.99 USD and its first supplement is only 7.99. I doubt there is a way to make those book much cheaper and still make a profit. Again, I think a big part of this is a lack of distribution infrastructure combined with a critical mass of consumers. Now, I can't argue with "I want a $100 Ptolus book fo $5" because it just aint gonna happen. That book probably cost 40-50 to print all by itself much less the publication costs.

Bill

Quote from: JimBobOzMan, what the fuck?

Now you're on the side of the poor oppressed game-less masses? Yes, that's just what the impoverished people living in the shanty towns around Lagos need - a pdf version of an rpg!

If people can't afford to buy an rpg, they can't afford an internet connection, so they can't download pirated stuff anyway.

Yarrr, that's where ye be wrong, landlubber. Around these here ports, the swathy sea-dogs will download their games at the local "cibers", where fer but ten pieces of eight an hour and a paltry twenty more for a CD, they can acquire books to their heart's content.

I nay be talkin about some jungle savages what sail in fisher-boats off the coast of the horn of africa, me hearty! I be talkin of educated people in the lower/"middle" classes of ye ports of ye River Plate, River wide as sea...

And these swabs be earnin some $200US a month or less, which seem a pittance to ye or me, but to them it be enough to pay their bills and have a jolly enough life, if humble; but not enough to warrant the letters of marque ye call "internationally certified credit cards", what be what ye need to buy goods online.  Nor be it enough to spend a jolly king's ransom of $70-80 fer a game book to be shipped down the atlantic coastline to Montevideo Port from the distant american colonies, yo-ho-ho!

Plus there be real pirates on those seas, and I be told in the offices of the Uruguayan post office, and the customs office, so it be an unsure purchase, what yer book may never come or be stopped by customs. Only if ye be a wise sea-dog with many a connection with the guvner's office, could ye easily bring books into this country! Yar har!

QuoteIt's not the impoverished masses of Nigeria or Burma downloading rpgs from p2p networks, it's middle-classed American, Aussie and UK kids, sucking it down along with their pr0n. If they can't afford to buy an rpg, it's because they spent their allowance at McDs.

Yar, aye, it be they too.. and while I agree with the cut of yer jib, that they be all soft fat little landlubbers what could do with six months at sea off the barbary coast as a cabin boy to some oversexed old sea Cap'n, that dinna change the fact that we need more people playing YARRRPGs, and if these scurvy lads would not have bought these books anyhow, I would rather that they be downloading them from a filesharer and playing, than that they be choosing to deep six any thought of taking up the hobby to be briny deep.  We be needing young seamen to join our hobby anyways we can, even if it be chain-ganging them. So if one of them will do it going on the account, then so be it, says I!

QuoteIf you can afford an internet connection, you can afford rpgs. It's just a matter of whether you spent that money already on McDs and the PS3000 or whatever. Computer-mediated piracy of stuff is a middle-classed Western world kid's lark. Your impoverished Third World masses, geez...

YAR; ye have a woman's assertion there, me bucko! Clearly yer assertion has never confronted the massive numbers of Brazilian and Argentine P2P servers! YAR har harhar..

YARRRPGPundit

Quote from: Mystery ManIf I was an enterprising rpg company I would hire these pirateers (in the third world) with their fancy printing equipment to print my books, sell them for me, and share the profit. If that sort of thing would get around all of the b.s. customs and international charges that is.  

YAR, me laddie! Now Here be someone what is thinking with his head! Ye've seen land ho, me bucko, and ye got clear sailing ahead!

If the addled fools what Cap'n the leaky boats of the modern gaming industry realized that they could make a huge market in the third world, and all they'd be needin is local contacts willing to do it, they could take these Pirates on teh account and make them Privateers in the service of their fair enterprise! YAR har har harrr!

The problem was that the foolish swabs at TSR, and later Wizards, sent over big hardcover D&D books, in essence the same PHB as ye see in the American colonies, but translated (and badly, say I) into spanish.
So they flubbed it all, me hearties.  Southamerican gamers want RPG books in English or in good spanish, not in bad translations. And many could not pay for a book what costs them $30-40 dollars, that be $1000 pieces of eight, when they only be earning $5000-10000 per month.  
But if these same game company enterprises were te sell them softcover books, in english or spanish, for $300 pieces of eight, then they would be selling faster than Missis Miggin's Meat Pies, say I! Yar har!

YARRRPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWeltIn the end, I would suggest (and I have no information on this) looking at the infrastructure of South America and how much of a market there is for RPGs. "You know a lot of Gamers" does not cut it. You are talking international business with a large amount of expenses and risk. Generally, if you do not have a market for product, no one will develop it.

Yar, believe me that I have looked into these things, laddy!
I give ye many a point why gaming could do well here IF the scurvy dogs in the gaming companies understood one crucial point: ye cannot just slap a spanish translation on yer glossy full-colour $50 hardcover and think that it will sell here like oranges on a poxy ship.

Nay, what ye need to see be this:
First, pokemon, magic and ye CCGs, blast their hides to a man-jack of them yo-ho, sell mightily well among the little swabs here.  There be just as much appeal for both game and fantasy in the ports of ye River Plate as there be in the American colonies or back in Old Blightey.
Second, there be a massive piracy market. Nuff said.
Third, over in Brazil there already be Brazilian gaming companies. Them portugues-es be makin games like 3D&T or "Tormenta", which they be selling in magazine format in kiosks fer between $5-10 per copy, and have had tremendous success!
There be no difference in the culture between the Brazilians and the cities of the River Plate, excepting that the former speak a different brand of daego-talk, avast!
But if anything, Buenos Aires or Montevideo Port or even Santiago Chile on the Pacific side would all be more natural candiates to have big gaming success, as ye so-called "Southern Cone" be the most prosperous of ye latinamerican nations, shiver me timbers!

QuoteI refuse to equate a leisure item with a staple to live. You always have options even if that option is to not do something and maintain a moral lifestyle. If you want something it does not mean you always get it.

Yar, I be seein it as more immoral that someone not be able to gain some bit of intellectual fulfillment, a BOOK, which in the end a gamebook be; or MUSIC, which in the end an mp3 be; cultural heritage, just because he be poor. In the end, I do not see the willful intellectual deprivation of a class of peoples to be a "moral" choice, me hearty.

I sees it as a tragedy of our modern world. Because it be perpetuating a system of educational and class differences that be causing more misery in this world than any swarthy pirate Cap'n could with even the largest of Corsairs!

QuoteIt is a leisure item, not medicine or food. This entire argument is rediculous levels of hyperbole. They can play RPGs. When I was young my parents gave us kids baseball gloves for Christmas. They could not afford a bat or ball (yeah, we were that poor) so we improvised. We used a fence brace and a ball of twine. We had a lot of fun. Poverty never excuses immorality.

Yar, I see it as just the opposite. Stealing, real theft, is immoral. Ye rob a piece of bread from a grocer and now that poor swab cannot sell that bread, and soon he will be just as poor as ye.
But Ye cannot call copying a book or copying a song THEFT.  It be not Piracy! Piracy be those of us who go on account on the high seas on a jollyboat and sail the spanish main hunting fer gold-boats! Or, alternately, it be them swarthy knaves what copy videos or music or gamebooks to sell cheap imitations in the street.  But it nay be a lanky cabinboy who downloads a book that he may read it, or a song that he may here it, so long as he nay sell it!

QuoteYou really do not understandhow business works do you? I really am not trying to be condescending but the above statement reads like some 16 year olds manifesto for world peace.

I be understanding that if the 16 year old downloader be reading books he copied today, there be a CHANCE that tomorrow he may be buying RPGs and becoming an upright gamer.
Whereas if said 16-year old dinna download and dinna buy, then he will NAY be a gamer, period.
I be caring not a piece of eight fer the short-term business of a company, since what that young laddie does, whether he download or nay, be not affecting yer company at all.  If he download, ye not get paid.
If he dinna download, ye not get paid.
It be the same, yo-ho-ho!

But if he download, perhaps in two or three years time, when the next season comes along and he strikes the high seas and comes back with enough gold in his pockets to buy the books he wants, he may become yer customer, or someone else's. And then he'll be a gamer, to boot! YAR HAR!

QuoteSee my statements above about distribution networks. Alternatively, you could organize a NFP RPG relief organization that takes remainders from RPG publishers and ships them to third world countries. I have participated in several that shipped books to schools in the Carribean.

Yar, it be nay "book charity" what the Carriby and the Southern Cone be needing, me bucko! It be gaming companies coming to sell their wares, but doing it smarty by understanding that they need ta change some of how they market their product to fit the realities of the third-world market.

Think of this, me hearty: pen-and-paper RPGs be the perfect game for the third world. It be a place where the average person STILL dinna have their own computer, and those what do own rickety little jollyboats what can barely manage dialup.  These swabs be nay capable of handling online-MMORPGs. And many lack the money for more expensive entertainments, like a right saucy wench, even though in these parts those fair beauties be also inexpensive!

So gaming be perfect for them: it takes no technology (aside the book, papers, pencils and dice), it cost no further monies beyond the cost of ye books (and dice, if ye be using silly polygonal dice, though the games what will have best success here will be games what use regular D6s, yar har!).

RPGs would be as natural a means of fun down here as the drinkin of grog and the singing of fair shanties, me bucko! Yar har!!

YARRRPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYar, believe me that I have looked into these things, laddy!
I give ye many a point why gaming could do well here IF the scurvy dogs in the gaming companies understood one crucial point: ye cannot just slap a spanish translation on yer glossy full-colour $50 hardcover and think that it will sell here like oranges on a poxy ship.

Nay, what ye need to see be this:
First, pokemon, magic and ye CCGs, blast their hides to a man-jack of them yo-ho, sell mightily well among the little swabs here.  There be just as much appeal for both game and fantasy in the ports of ye River Plate as there be in the American colonies or back in Old Blightey.
Second, there be a massive piracy market. Nuff said.
Third, over in Brazil there already be Brazilian gaming companies. Them portugues-es be makin games like 3D&T or "Tormenta", which they be selling in magazine format in kiosks fer between $5-10 per copy, and have had tremendous success!
There be no difference in the culture between the Brazilians and the cities of the River Plate, excepting that the former speak a different brand of daego-talk, avast!
But if anything, Buenos Aires or Montevideo Port or even Santiago Chile on the Pacific side would all be more natural candiates to have big gaming success, as ye so-called "Southern Cone" be the most prosperous of ye latinamerican nations, shiver me timbers!

Thank you for the information. However, by your own admission foreign companies would have problems competing with local companies for the two reasons you state:
1) a strong piracy market. Why pay when you can get it for free or cheaper.
2) It would be far too expensive to import and sell at an MSRP of $5-10 per unit.

Again, I am not saying impossible but it would be difficult and there are easier markets to be had. If WOTC is making money on Pokemon and their other properties I do not see why they would not expand into other product lines if they see it as profitable. Again, just because you see some kids buying a game does not mean it is a sustainable market. Not saying it isn't but the execs at WOTC are most likely the only ones who know.

Quote from: RPGPunditYar, I be seein it as more immoral that someone not be able to gain some bit of intellectual fulfillment, a BOOK, which in the end a gamebook be; or MUSIC, which in the end an mp3 be; cultural heritage, just because he be poor. In the end, I do not see the willful intellectual deprivation of a class of peoples to be a "moral" choice, me hearty.

Again, hypebole. There are plenty of sources, legal and moral, that people can access their OWN CULTURE's music. No one is denied their culture becuase they are poor. If you are poor, you may not have access to luxuries. If you are really poor you will not have necessities. I assume you are saying someone between needing necessities and wanting luxuries. It is a poor argument of the basest type to make a want into a need. Just because you want a new car does not mean you morally justified in shooting someone in the face and taking there. Whether it is so you can drive around with the wind in your hair or get back and forth to work to feed your family.

Quote from: RPGPunditI sees it as a tragedy of our modern world. Because it be perpetuating a system of educational and class differences that be causing more misery in this world than any swarthy pirate Cap'n could with even the largest of Corsairs!

Please. Class inequity has existed since before history was written. Again with the naive 16 year old view of the world.

Quote from: RPGPunditYar, I see it as just the opposite. Stealing, real theft, is immoral. Ye rob a piece of bread from a grocer and now that poor swab cannot sell that bread, and soon he will be just as poor as ye.
But Ye cannot call copying a book or copying a song THEFT.  It be not Piracy! Piracy be those of us who go on account on the high seas on a jollyboat and sail the spanish main hunting fer gold-boats! Or, alternately, it be them swarthy knaves what copy videos or music or gamebooks to sell cheap imitations in the street.  But it nay be a lanky cabinboy who downloads a book that he may read it, or a song that he may here it, so long as he nay sell it!

I get tired fo repeating myself and I am sure you are likewise. Let ius say that we disagree on this point. To me, it is illegal distribution and an infraction of the most personal nature against the creator of the work. FOr you, it seems to be little more than doing a backup...to a few thousand computers.

Quote from: RPGPunditI be understanding that if the 16 year old downloader be reading books he copied today, there be a CHANCE that tomorrow he may be buying RPGs and becoming an upright gamer.
Whereas if said 16-year old dinna download and dinna buy, then he will NAY be a gamer, period.
I be caring not a piece of eight fer the short-term business of a company, since what that young laddie does, whether he download or nay, be not affecting yer company at all.  If he download, ye not get paid.
If he dinna download, ye not get paid.
It be the same, yo-ho-ho!

But if he download, perhaps in two or three years time, when the next season comes along and he strikes the high seas and comes back with enough gold in his pockets to buy the books he wants, he may become yer customer, or someone else's. And then he'll be a gamer, to boot! YAR HAR!

This seems unlikely but I will yield the point. I think it more likely that if he gets all his gaming needs fulfilled through a FREE P2P network then he will continue to download those files for free. He may be forced to pay at some point but will most likely harbor resentment for what he believes to be "The Man" sticking it to him.

Also, let me say that my philosophical view does not influence what I see as my pragmatic view of the way P2P networks work. I do not think there are people who would have bought my books going to this networks. The people who go there will most likely not buy. This is not to say it does not stimulate sales. Again, getting the word out is good in most cases. However, this does not make it a moral act by my definitions.

Quote from: RPGPunditYar, it be nay "book charity" what the Carriby and the Southern Cone be needing, me bucko! It be gaming companies coming to sell their wares, but doing it smarty by understanding that they need ta change some of how they market their product to fit the realities of the third-world market.

Think of this, me hearty: pen-and-paper RPGs be the perfect game for the third world. It be a place where the average person STILL dinna have their own computer, and those what do own rickety little jollyboats what can barely manage dialup.  These swabs be nay capable of handling online-MMORPGs. And many lack the money for more expensive entertainments, like a right saucy wench, even though in these parts those fair beauties be also inexpensive!

So gaming be perfect for them: it takes no technology (aside the book, papers, pencils and dice), it cost no further monies beyond the cost of ye books (and dice, if ye be using silly polygonal dice, though the games what will have best success here will be games what use regular D6s, yar har!).

RPGs would be as natural a means of fun down here as the drinkin of grog and the singing of fair shanties, me bucko! Yar har!!

YARRRPGPundit

Oh, brother. So, there are all these file downloaders...with no technology. Nevermind. Putting aside the hypocrisy, I agree that PNP games are suited to poor children. It is one of the things that attracted me. My brother and I played on our AD&D books for years. We added some dice but they were a small enough expense we could pay for it out of the money we earned at odd jobs. This I have no problems with. The idea that some kid in a hut is downloading RPGs at a cybercafe so he can take it home (to his hut) and stare at the shiny disk is rather silly.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltThank you for the information. However, by your own admission foreign companies would have problems competing with local companies for the two reasons you state:
1) a strong piracy market. Why pay when you can get it for free or cheaper.
2) It would be far too expensive to import and sell at an MSRP of $5-10 per unit.

Yar, importing might be too expensive, I'll grant ye that. But ye could still import the main books of yer line in limited quantities for profit.  Anytime game books that were real, and nay of ye Pirate variety, have appeared in this fair port of La Ciudad Reconquistadora De Montevideo, they have sold faster than Missis Miggin's Beet and Barley Stew, by gum!

So there be a class that would be able to buy the regular books, in english even for tis a rare and rum fellow here who be a gamer and not read nor speak the King's English (and most prefer their gamebooks in english than ye poor flubbed translations), and that would all be well and good.
But the real trick would be ta print locally, paperback or magazine editions of yer book.  Look at this way, me bucko: a pirate, spiral-bound copy of ye Player's Handbook sells for $300 pieces of eight here, and ye could easily print a book here in uruguay (or in Argentina) that could sell retail for virtually ye same price (between 200-400 pieces of eight).

People, when they have the choice, would rather have ye real books! Indeed, I be the envy of many a scurvy knave here in the River Plate, for my fine collection of real gamebooks! Yar har!

QuoteAgain, I am not saying impossible but it would be difficult and there are easier markets to be had. If WOTC is making money on Pokemon and their other properties I do not see why they would not expand into other product lines if they see it as profitable.

The problem is WoTC (and all ye other gaming company landlubbers) have made a right fine mess of it, me lad! They tried to sell the RPGs in the same format and by the same means that they do in the American Colonies or Old Blightey or The Continent, but they knew not that here it be different, and different means be needed. For someone who did it right, there be great plunder to be had, by thunder!

QuoteAgain, hypebole. There are plenty of sources, legal and moral, that people can access their OWN CULTURE's music. No one is denied their culture becuase they are poor. If you are poor, you may not have access to luxuries. If you are really poor you will not have necessities. I assume you are saying someone between needing necessities and wanting luxuries. It is a poor argument of the basest type to make a want into a need.

Yar, I consider civilization a need, not a want. And it be a need not only for ye poor deckhands, but it be OUR need that they receive it easily, if we are ta maintain our civilization and create a better world, yo-ho-ho!

QuotePlease. Class inequity has existed since before history was written. Again with the naive 16 year old view of the world.

Yar, and I nay be denying that, ye scallywag! I be sayin, however, that we can make things better by making culture accesible! That's why this swarthy old salt be supporting the measure to make sure every child in the world could have access to ye internet, for example! Be it for learning, for porn, or for telling old sea tales on gaming fora, it be by makin universal the means of the promulgation of communication and our collective body of cultural heritage that we be helping combat the forces of ignorance, the scurviest of all the dark corsairs that sail the sea of humanity!
We must construct a new Polis, says I, and all people must be able to access it, yar har har!

QuoteI get tired fo repeating myself and I am sure you are likewise. Let ius say that we disagree on this point. To me, it is illegal distribution and an infraction of the most personal nature against the creator of the work. FOr you, it seems to be little more than doing a backup...to a few thousand computers.

Yar. For ye, perhaps it be personal because you see what ye think may be lost plunder and profit from the copying of yer fine products, I wager. Though I wager that in fact the real cost to ye is little if any.
To me it also be personal, because I have met in my time here many a fine seamen and gamers, who, were the forces of the Crown to stop file sharing, would never be able to have access to games at all, and that makes this old sea dog's heart sad to think it, for the loss would be all of ours.
Let me say too, when I plied the rivers of the North Saskatchewan, I thought a mighty different opinion on this whole issue, but living here in what ye knaves up there call the "third world" has strongly changed my mind, and turned me right around on the whole issue, by thunder! Yar har!

QuoteThis seems unlikely but I will yield the point. I think it more likely that if he gets all his gaming needs fulfilled through a FREE P2P network then he will continue to download those files for free. He may be forced to pay at some point but will most likely harbor resentment for what he believes to be "The Man" sticking it to him.

Nay, lad, nay. There may be some foul swabs who would be like that, perhaps, but I've seen many a lad jump at the chance, once he had the doubloons and the opportunity, buying and owning real gaming books with pride!  Methinks most gamers want the chance, if fortune and opportunities give it, to own real gamebooks, if but their interest be kept, just like many a fine young cabinboy dreams of the day when he might be Cap'n of his own ship, and have his own cabinboys to plough, Yo ho!

QuoteOh, brother. So, there are all these file downloaders...with no technology. Nevermind. Putting aside the hypocrisy, I agree that PNP games are suited to poor children. It is one of the things that attracted me. My brother and I played on our AD&D books for years. We added some dice but they were a small enough expense we could pay for it out of the money we earned at odd jobs. This I have no problems with. The idea that some kid in a hut is downloading RPGs at a cybercafe so he can take it home (to his hut) and stare at the shiny disk is rather silly.

Bill

It be not that way, matey.  They download ye books at the "ciber", and print them out on the cheap. Some nay have computers at home, and others have computers that ye or I would have called obsolete five years long gone, me bucko!

But really, here I were speakin not of downloading, but of the chance to buy cheaper gamebooks sold specifically to the latinamerican market; lads who perhaps do not even have a computer at home, but can spend $300 pieces of eight to buy a magazine-format RPG at a kiosk as they do in the fair port of Rio De Janeiro.

YARRRPGPundit