Well I should have used google first.

http://www.booksfree.com/

Somebody is trying it. Except it is for paperbacks.

This has hardbacks and looks to be slightly more expensive

https://www.bookswim.com/

So the question then how much your subscriptions will have to be to cover shipping, losses, and aquistions. Boy I can see the market for adventures tanking if a popular service like this exists.

Thanks for the link estar.  I will be trying the //www.booksfree.com one.

I could see this working if you could view the whole book online, in their own window and it can't be printed, make only 75% of the page viewable at once and that will pretty much stop the screen capture problem.

For that $10 you get x hrs of access to the site.  That I would pay for if it had enough material for the games I would normally play.  I'd still want the core books but it'd be a great tool to see what I want to buy and also to use at the game table or for those one shot nights or for adventure books that you are only going to use once.

Quote from: flyingmicePirates are already providing that service. I know all of my games become available for free almost as soon as I release them.

-clash

But, see, that's lame.

Nevermind any discussion of ethics or market factors or other whatever.

Lame.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenBut, see, that's lame.

Nevermind any discussion of ethics or market factors or other whatever.

Lame.

Levi?

What's lame? That people do this? That I mention it? That it would be competition for this idea? That I would consider it competition for this idea?

And I didn't mention ethics or market factors. I brought it up as a fact that should be aknowledged and dealt with. I've had to deal with it, and so have many other small press publishers.

I will say it really grates when I see that 200+ pdfs of my latest game have been DLed in the last day, during which I sold five pdfs of that game, which is a true story.

-clash

I can already download whole product lines for free.  Why would I pay for this?

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerI can already download whole product lines for free.  Why would I pay for this?

Legally?

Quote from: flyingmiceWhat's lame? That people do this?

That people do it.

Downloading for-pay games for free may be grey-legal in some places, may be something a person can excuse to their own self, may not even hurt sales figures all that badly.

It's still lame.

I know this is veering away from the original idea but would adding an option to borrow hard copies for a period of time change anyone's opinion...kinda like a netFLIX wish would let you stream movies an unlimited number of times and/or let you have so many DVDs per month. I am just thinking of the links a few posts down by estar.  I could go on more but I feel pushing much more desires another thread rather than warping this one.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThat people do it.

Downloading for-pay games for free may be grey-legal in some places, may be something a person can excuse to their own self, may not even hurt sales figures all that badly.

It's still lame.

Agreed entirely!

-clash

As a publisher, I can tell you right now, there is no way I would go for this.  To make the consumers willing to sign on, you'd have to make the price really low-- which means that the producers don't want to have anything to do with it.  The prices have to be low because people can already get hardcopies of the books for cheap on amazon, ebay, and overstock-- and pdfs for even less $.  How much would the rpg companies be getting per month from this, what %?  If they all got the same thing, WotC and WW would be pissed that I dare to get the same $ as them.  If it is proportional to company size, small publishers like me would not find it worthwhile to even post product there at all.  Furthermore, Wizards wouldn't go for it, since it would not help their DDI thing that they want people to pay $15/month for (yes, they keep saying $10-15, but we all know that means $15).

I just don't think it would work.  Now, on the otherhand, if you do this with hardcopies of books-- like some sort of penpal type service, where people swap books through the mail, that might be able to work-- but if a book got damaged it would be tough to resolve.   You could do some sort of DRM pdfs on cds-- but I think people'd rather just buy and own a pdf every month than swap them in the mail like that...

Also, there are some sites that actively wish to give you their whole game system in the hopes that you will want to buy other items from them.  For example, Spirit of the Century.  I found it was rather close to the rules for another game I bought online, so I didn't bother.  But, it is there for the downloading.  White-Wolf and others have starter rules too.  It's all legal, and they are generous downloads (some of which have been useful to me even after I bought the game--quick start=usually easier set of rules).

Quote from: RPGPunditI don't think this idea would be particularly workable for RPGs.  I mean, has it worked for any other non-visual media?

RPGPundit

There are places where you can preview songs and see if you'd like to download them.

Quote from: beejazzThere are places where you can preview songs and see if you'd like to download them.

Which is completely different than what is being discussed here, because the music previews are limited previews (either a limited sample of the song or the # of times you can listen) and most importantly, free.

You would be right, however, to use music services that allow unlimited listening per month but charge for actual downloads (such as Napster, etc) as they are non-visual.  However, I'm pretty sure Pundit meant non-A/V when he just said non-V.

In any case, I still use the same argument - that the monthly fee for renting games / music / movies justifies itself beause what you end up with is what you would normally pay for (the ability to play / listen / watch).  

What the OP suggests is trying to get people to pay for a system that would only allow you to preview the products (which you can already do from a store or using free pdf previews).  And while this might make sense for the very small selection of hard-core gamers who constantly buy new and different material AND would like to be more careful in their purchases, the other 99.999% of the people in the hobby would have little to no use for it.