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Post by Kainguru on Oct 10, 2014 1:28:49 GMT -8
In th UK Amazon is hurting FLGS's and bookshops in the same way eBay Shops (buy it now) etc are hurting the High Street. Thing is it's not going away - many retailers in the UK are trying to come up with a way of adapting to the changing landscape, the solution simply hasn't been thought of yet. I bought my Batman t-shirt off eBay, why? Availability and price - same t-shirt <£10 on eBay on the High Street >£20 - if I could get it and if it was in my size (not a Chinese knock off either, the 'real deal'). The High Street has acknowledged it cannot turn the clock back, but in wishing it could it's wasting time - several UK landmark retailers have gone to wall because the refused to accept the online world exists, by the time they did they had to play catch up to the other retailers who did realise this earlier . . . frequently too late . . . What is needed is a market model that makes a FLGS viable against the likes of Amazon - that's the question: what model and how to make it work? Aaron
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Post by lowkeyoh on Oct 10, 2014 2:20:56 GMT -8
My store uses a pay-to-play model. We game in the store, and it's 5$ to use the space. You can either buy $5+ worth of junk, snacks, minis, whatever, or just pay the cash and get a $5 credit. Which is nice cause then I can save up credits and buy books or boardgames. When 5e Monster Manual came out I paid like 15 bucks out of pocket because of week to week gaming.
That, minis, and Magic the Gathering is really the way I see FLGS moving to try and stay afloat.
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Post by Stu Venable on Oct 10, 2014 8:34:46 GMT -8
There are probably a couple of things at work, both involving the scale of Amazon compared to a FLGS.
Firstly, Amazon doesn't NEED to make as much on every book they sell than the FLGS. If you were to compare their payroll costs to inventory floored, Amazon is a MUCH leaner business. The same probably holds for every other cost: rents, power bill, etc.
Secondly, when Amazon goes to a distributor (assuming they even bother going to a distributor), they can throw their weight around. "What's the best price you can give us for 50,000 units? ... you need to shave another 15% off of that..."
I suppose the publisher/distributor could hold the line on pricing, but do you really want to give up being on Amazon? Which might happen if you don't give them the pricing they demand...
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Post by ayslyn on Oct 10, 2014 9:04:53 GMT -8
I don't have any problem with people pirating, for whatever reason they choose. I just wish more of them would own it, rather than come up with these meally-mouthed excuses. I have some PDFs of books I own, much like you. I choose to go get them. No one "made" me do it. Great, then you won't mind if I take your wallet if we ever met since you tolerate honest theft. EDIT: Sorry, that is a bit harsh, but I guess I am tired of tolerating people who rip off the things that they love. It is affecting so many creative industries, but in a marginal industry like RPGs, stealing stuff just seems like a clear way to make sure people stop making it professionally. Apples and Oranges. Much like respecting WotC's right to make a bad decision, I can respect the honesty of someone making a choice I don't agree with. I don't have to like or dislike their choice to respect their ability to own that choice and not try to foist responsibility off on someone else.
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Post by ayslyn on Oct 10, 2014 9:12:35 GMT -8
My store uses a pay-to-play model. We game in the store, and it's 5$ to use the space. You can either buy $5+ worth of junk, snacks, minis, whatever, or just pay the cash and get a $5 credit. Which is nice cause then I can save up credits and buy books or boardgames. When 5e Monster Manual came out I paid like 15 bucks out of pocket because of week to week gaming. That, minis, and Magic the Gathering is really the way I see FLGS moving to try and stay afloat. This is a decent model, though I would need more details before I truly weighed in. One of my local stores charged a membership fee that gave you certain discounts. I guarantee that he lost money on me with that model. If I am paying just to play in the store, then to me my obligation is over. We're dealing in a service now. When I'm just playing in your store, I feel obligated to drop cash every time I roll through. A FLGS will make a lot more money on me just letting my guilt work for him.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Oct 10, 2014 10:09:09 GMT -8
WOTC has pretty much reversed their position on PDFs, so I fully expect to see all these books available in electronic format soon--maybe after the first of the year. You can argue that it was a bad decision not to make the legal PDF available instantly, and perhaps it was, but I wouldn't assume there will never be legal PDFs.
(Sigh, if only they'd had that reversal while they still had the Star Wars rights. I really would have liked to have legal and fully searchable PDFs of my Saga Edition books.)
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Post by malifer on Oct 10, 2014 11:46:45 GMT -8
WOTC has pretty much reversed their position on PDFs, so I fully expect to see all these books available in electronic format soon--maybe after the first of the year. You can argue that it was a bad decision not to make the legal PDF available instantly, and perhaps it was, but I wouldn't assume there will never be legal PDFs. (Sigh, if only they'd had that reversal while they still had the Star Wars rights. I really would have liked to have legal and fully searchable PDFs of my Saga Edition books.) Sadly that would never happen. Its because of licensing. Lucasarts (and Disney has continued this) classifies PDFs as an electronic product. Meaning even though a company purchased the license to make a game/book they have to purchase an additional license that covers video games and other electronic media. This is cost prohibitive and why there won't be any Star Wars pdfs from Fantasy Flight in the near future either.
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daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
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Post by daniel on Oct 11, 2014 17:48:15 GMT -8
Great, then you won't mind if I take your wallet if we ever met since you tolerate honest theft. BUUUIULLLSHIIIT!!one11! Your example is deeply flawed. Please stop applying that one stupid ass add and repeating propaganda.
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d47
Journeyman Douchebag
RPG of Choice: Metagaming Melee
Posts: 194
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Post by d47 on Oct 11, 2014 23:25:26 GMT -8
Great, then you won't mind if I take your wallet if we ever met since you tolerate honest theft. BUUUIULLLSHIIIT!!one11! Your example is deeply flawed. Please stop applying that one stupid ass add and repeating propaganda. Explain yourself. Are you a jerk in real life or only incapable of being civil online?
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daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
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Post by daniel on Oct 12, 2014 3:18:47 GMT -8
No i just cant tolerate people who go to the toilet trough there nose.
Your example is deeply flawed, its the same stupid example that was used in multiple "vs piracy" read for what ever fucked up plans were trying to get pushes trough the us congress to fuck there people and the rest of the world out of parts of the internet.
Your example has an item, that item gets taken away you no longer have that item. That is not what internet piracy dos, a more valid example would be. That the item, you picked a valet because its reactionary is duplicated. You get to keep yours and the other guy also gets one. (Lets ignore the idea of personal data you keep there for now)
So yes, your example was Bullshit.
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d47
Journeyman Douchebag
RPG of Choice: Metagaming Melee
Posts: 194
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Post by d47 on Oct 12, 2014 11:30:32 GMT -8
Thanks for the clarification, daniel. You might want to edit your writing in the future and consider whether your belligerent choice of words helps make a convincing argument.
I agree that the use of anti-piracy arguments to try to control Internet access and utilization is a problem, but this does not make piracy right.
You interpreted my use of the metaphor differently than I intended, so let me clarify. If someone has something they own that they want to sell, you have a choice to pay them for it or not. Both of these are legal and ethical options. It does not matter whether or not it is a physical object that is impossible to reproduce or data that can be duplicated infinitely at almost no cost, the owner wants to be paid for his property. The choice of piracy is to deny the owner's right to profit from their property. It is like taking money out of their wallet because they did not get the money they deserved. I suppose a better metaphor would be to take someone's paycheck rather than the money from their wallet. That person will have to work more to earn the same amount of money.
Ethically, one could argue that in some cases the owner of the property does not deserve to be paid, perhaps because they are not the original creator or they seem to already have enough money. One could also argue that pirate copies of something out of print are better than none. Another case might be when a person already owns something but wants a digital copy. Someone also might plea poverty or urgent need. These are cases where people should own their decision, as ayslyn suggests.
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Post by ayslyn on Oct 12, 2014 15:20:55 GMT -8
Well, despite his tone, he is quite right. Your choice of metaphor failed because it's deeply flawed on a lot of levels. Not only what I've already pointed out, but more.
The problem with the "Pirates cost Publishers Money" is that it's inaccurate. The hard core pirates? You aren't losing any money when they take your stuff, because you were never getting their money regardless. They are the free or nothing crowd. They'll happily forgo your product if they can't find a free version of it. Plenty of fish in the sea, after all. If they can't play your game or music or whatever, they'll just look elsewhere.
The casual pirate. He's not going to pay for whatever he's gotten free either, but he's quite likely to pay for something. But, if he hadn't pirated that first file, he'd move on as well. So, you actually lost some money there.
The next level of pirate is only pirating because he can't get the product any other way. He's either broke, or it's not available to him (for whatever reason). These guys might try to rectify the situation once their circumstances change.
Last is the guy who wants to sample the product before he chooses to invest. You're getting his money so long as your product is up to his standards. If it's not, you'll get less of the bad word of mouth so that's a little win there.
Several large companies have actually seen this in play already. Paizo for one has gone on record that their sales have gone up since they stopped trying to hunt down the pirates and stop them.
Now... You can certainly make some very good arguments against piracy. It's just "They're Stealin' TEH Moneyz!!" is not one of them.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Oct 13, 2014 5:57:50 GMT -8
A very good summary of the main points in the eternal piracy debate, ayslyn.Now... You can certainly make some very good arguments against piracy. It's just "They're Stealin' TEH Moneyz!!" is not one of them. What, in your opinion, are the other, better arguments against piracy? Dilution of copyright/trademark, maybe? Usually whenever this issue comes up, money is all that gets discussed, so I'm curious what the other issues are as you see them.
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Post by heavymetaljess on Oct 13, 2014 7:26:15 GMT -8
We had a really detailed discussion on piracy awhile back over here on "Handling Piracy at my table" (we went on and on for 7 pages). Might be worth a read to see a wide variety of opinions about this topic.
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Post by Stu Venable on Oct 13, 2014 21:21:43 GMT -8
There are two things happening here. Digitization (digitisation for those in the UK) has indeed caused a decrease in profitability, but hats a boon and a bane.
Digital distribution reduces the cost of goods sold, certainly, but it's also caused a decrease in the perceived value of creative products.
A CD used to cost USD18 or so (they still might). The cost to the publisher was somewhere less than a dollar to produce the CD. Now, I don't know what the retailer's mark up is, but I'll wager it's not 100%. I'd guess around 30-40%.
So, for the dollar investment in the CD, the publisher is getting, say 12 dollars.
Enter iTunes. Your average CD IS 10 dollars. Apple keeps about 35%. Now for every sale, the publisher gets about $6.50.
That's about half what they used to get. And (knowing some people in the music industry) that's right in line with the layoffs and cutbacks they're experiencing now.
Their units sold, from my understanding, held steady until the advent of subscription services.
So their sales have not been hurt, but their profitability has. And that has fuck- all to do with piracy. It mostly has to do with digitization.
Now, one could certainly make the argument that piracy might have forced the industry's hand with regards to embracing digitization, but that djinn's out of the bottle.
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