Quote from: Matt;836414Don't imagine you have the right to tell someone else how to run his business simply because it's not to your taste. That's a big nerd pastime right there.

Um. I think we DO have a right to tell someone how to run their business when they are literally robbing the customers or the people working for them.

Do you think it was Chevaliers right to take all the money and instead of paying the designer and artist or making a game. He bought a new house, then bought movie filming gear, higher'd actresses, while telling everyone that the money was gone and sorry. No game and he'll get around to repaying them whenever. Well the FTC didn't think he had the right.

Some small company which name i forget, produced at least a couple monsterbooks and such for Pathfinder system. They used a friend of mines art without permission. He partly does that for living, so it's a bummer.

Not that I'd bought anything from them anyway...

Edit - It was Adamant Entertainment and the book Fell Beasts vol III, page 9. They have now retracted the pdf from DriveThru and RPGnow.

Quote from: Simlasa;836416How is a child 'spoiled' by giving it everything it wants and never telling it it's wrong?
Similar to how George Lucas might have put out better product if anyone around him was willing to say, "No George, I think that's an awful idea... don't do it!"

And now he no longer owns the IP he created.  Sounds like my statement stands.

Quote from: RPGPundit;836357What designers did Hasbro rip off?

Elizabeth Magie?

Quote from: TristramEvans;836455Elizabeth Magie?

That was Parker Brothers. Hasborg merely assimilated them into the collective.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;836448And now he no longer owns the IP he created.  Sounds like my statement stands.

It's not like it was taken away from him because he misused it... or that if he'd chosen to continue making Star Wars movies the fans would have stayed away. Some of those SW fans would have kept buying tickets even if it was just George acting stuff out on his own with hand puppets.
So... really nothing to do with your statement.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;836191FASA/Red Brick -- I don't even know what's going on with this company. They had a great thing going, and then due to the terms of their agreement with Mongoose/Flaming Cobra they put out a hurried "new edition" that really wasn't different enough to even qualify as such(3e). It was basically Classic w/ a free PDF supplement worked into the main Discipline rules and a cleaned up Talent list. Nice but . . . not a new edition by any means. Then the lackluster Cathay books(not bad or anything; just mediocre) that were their first real attempt at all-new content. Then the aborted 3e Revised, Pathdinder-compatible, and Savage Worlds-compatible editions. And now a 4th Edition w/ just a stupid logo. Again, as seems to be the case for them, it's not bad . . . just generic-looking and uninspired. I just don't know . . .

You know it's bad when the line developer tells people to not quote the rulebook and instead go by the designers opinion of the rule.

Quote from: Ddogwood;836393Unfortunately, that's not how it works. A game company can be perpetually late with releases, over-promise, under-deliver, copy-and-paste huge chunks of old games and pretend it's "new", run a shitty kickstarter, and even suffer a Crisis of Treachery, yet remain in business for decades.

As long as creditors don't run it into the ground, they keep paying for their business license and stay good with the IRS, of course they can continue. But if they get lots of negative reviews, they will have a harder time prospering.

The more people who write sensible reviews, the more likely the untalented will not prosper.

Companies I don't care about ethic-wise seem to go stagnant on their own and their product releases amount to a trickle after awhile.

Quote from: Sommerjon;836459You know it's bad when the line developer tells people to not quote the rulebook and instead go by the designers opinion of the rule.

Which by the way happened between myself and Rob Schwalb in "interpreting" the critical hit rules for impact weapons in WFRP2.

Black Industries / Green Ronin had a pretty good run with it though, I think.

Since I started this thread as kind of incoherent venting, how about this as  a concrete example:

Hero Games doesn't put up PDF previews for their products, on either DriveThru/RPGNow or their own store.

Almost every other company I have seen uses the preview functionality on DriveThru. Customers expect it, and use it as a primary decision-making tool.

Furthermore, at their own store Hero doesn't list page counts for PDFs. No previews, no page counts. Just a paragraph about the product, a price, there you go. Essentially, the only people who would buy on those terms are those who from word of mouth have already made the decision to buy.

Have any of you had experience with selling online? How many sales do you think they are losing by these practices? I am involved with online shopfronts, and I would estimate Hero Games are reducing their PDF sales by 30-50%.

And rather than being harried for time or whatever, I think that current staff just don't care. It's insane.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;836191Cam Banks, Topher Gerkey, and Fred Hicks all annoy the crap out of me sometimes ... They often jump right to ascribing the worst possible motives to people who disagree with them, which is just uncharitable.

Surprised to hear you say that about Banks.  I was an early and loud critic of the Serenity RPG (for a bunch of reasons), and on more than one forum Banks handled my oft-caustic criticisms with grace and class.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;836448And now he no longer owns the IP he created.  Sounds like my statement stands.

Look, man, if you're going to start cherrypicking facts far out of their obvious context in search of momentary Internet forum wins, folks are going to discount anything you say.  Lucas no longer owns the IP not because he fucked up, but because he was pushing seventy, intended to slow down, and sold out for a metric ton of money and the second largest private shareholding in one of the world's most profitable conglomerates.  Sounds like your statement is flapping in the breeze without its drawers.

Quote from: The_Shadow;836501Hero Games doesn't put up PDF previews for their products, on either DriveThru/RPGNow or their own store.

Almost every other company I have seen uses the preview functionality on DriveThru. Customers expect it, and use it as a primary decision-making tool.

Quite a few do not put up PDF previews for one reason or another. Even now it is the norm rather than the exception. Over time I think more will unless something goes wrong sufficiently to burn companies on the idea. Unlikely. I have heard accounts of at least three though that stopped putting out rules previews after various dicks wrote them saying essentially "Thanks for the free game. Now I dont have to buy it."

This on top of a few that will yank free PNPs of games that they pick up for publication. During submissions I've had a couple publishers state that they will not look at games submitted that are online as previews, PNPs, WIPs, etc. No clue why. (Aside from possibly so there is no prior evidence if they decide to rip you off.)

Hasbro and a couple of other publishers though are regularly putting the rules to their games up so you can have a look.

Quote from: Omega;836512Quite a few do not put up PDF previews for one reason or another. Even now it is the norm rather than the exception. Over time I think more will unless something goes wrong sufficiently to burn companies on the idea. Unlikely. I have heard accounts of at least three though that stopped putting out rules previews after various dicks wrote them saying essentially "Thanks for the free game. Now I dont have to buy it."

This on top of a few that will yank free PNPs of games that they pick up for publication. During submissions I've had a couple publishers state that they will not look at games submitted that are online as previews, PNPs, WIPs, etc. No clue why. (Aside from possibly so there is no prior evidence if they decide to rip you off.)

Hasbro and a couple of other publishers though are regularly putting the rules to their games up so you can have a look.

Not talking about free games here...typically the previews on DriveThru are the first 6 pages or so, including title page and table of contents, and usually only 2-3 pages of actual content. Of course the contents of each preview can be completely controlled by the publisher if they don't want to give away too much. It's not brain surgery, and it's the norm on DriveThru, in fact I would say 95% of publishers on that site use the feature.

Quote from: The_Shadow;836518Not talking about free games here...typically the previews on DriveThru are the first 6 pages or so, including title page and table of contents, and usually only 2-3 pages of actual content. Of course the contents of each preview can be completely controlled by the publisher if they don't want to give away too much. It's not brain surgery, and it's the norm on DriveThru, in fact I would say 95% of publishers on that site use the feature.

In this day and age, it's just expected to see a preview page or two to see the game layout. Maybe a table of context, too. Page count is very important to know when buying. 12 pages comes to about 8 pages of actual rules.

What do you think of the on-going trend now to offer games with a "pay what you want" for them? Otherwise known as given away the core rules for an RPG and then charging for the setting and splat books.