Is PDF sharing a problem you are concerned about? I wasn't until recently. In the last few weeks sales of the Panty Explosion PDF have dropped from about 3 copies a day to 1 a week. Around the same time Panty Expolosion started appearing on several download and file sharing sites. Here's a link to one: http://sharevirus.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3697

Yes you can download the game from there. Knock yourself out. The cats already out of the bag. I'd hope that if you download it and like it you would buy it.

Here's the link to the forum topic about Panty Explosion from their forum, complete with my comment: http://forum.sharevirus.com/viewtopic.php?t=28279&highlight=panty+explosion

In case the topic gets deleted here's what I said:

Hey. Thank you for stealing my game. I hope you enjoy it. Atarashi Games is a very small company started by myself and Matt Schlotte just last July. Matt and I split the profits on every copy of Panty Explosion we sell. Matt uses his share to support his wife and two daughters and to go to school. I use my share to pay my medical bills. This income is imortant to us.

I'm not going to pretend like i don't make use of sites like this and download stuff as well. I do. But if I find something I like and use I buy it. Money from Panty Explosion dosen't go to a faceless organization who then share only a small percentage of it with the creators. Likewise, Panty Explosion isn't a product thats been out for a long time and already sold a ton of copies. Panty Explosion is a new product from a small business. It's just Matt and myself doing our best to put out good games on a really small budget. Neither of us are rich. Shit, I'm the poorest person I know.

If you like the game please buy it. Panty explosion is available as a book or PDF from our site at http://atarashigames.com/

You can also get Panty Explosion from these stores:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=13617
http://shop.enworld.org/index.php?productsid=1772&source=Product%20Browsing
http://key20.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=62
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=ATR01

Or check your local game, comic, anime or music store.

Thanks,

Jake Richmond (the creator, owner and publisher of Panty Explosion)

atarashigames.com
jake@atarashigames.com

demonoid.com lists 343 downloads for the Panty explosion PDF. Thats more then we've sold by the way.

Ussually these sites are pretty good about removing material if the owner asks them to, but that may  put out an image you don't want if you use these sites yourself.

Pehaps whenever you updat the pdf, you could add a bit about vistiting your site for games support, and a polite request that those who have 'acquired it through unofficial means' purchase a copy if they've enjoyed it? You'd definately want to make it clear that you aren't suggesting that people who've bought it already send you money, and not piss off those who have torrented it ('cuz then they'll just keep their free copy and not send you anything). It could turn into a useful marketing tool. Of course, it won't doe anything to the torrents that are already out, but torrents of old versions of things tend to die when a new one comes out, so it would eventually work it's way into them.

Another slightly more elaborate option is not just to ask the administrators to take down the file but to ask them to take down the full pdf file and replace it with a quick-start "preview" of the game.  I don't know how the game is laid out or how easy this is, but you might consider intentionally releasing a Panty Explosion Lite for free download -- and make sure the last page is an ad for the full game, listing off everything that the full game has that the preview doesn't.

Now this is indeed sad. Thumbing through the site, I see a number of old books & magazines you're not likely to get a hold of. This, I think, is precicely why sites like that should exist. But right along side them are books not only still in print but from indie guys too.

As for demonoid, they've been posted about before doing this sort of thing...last I knew, an author with a complaint voiced here resulted in the site being restricted to members with a password for a couple weeks, but the titles were still there...

Honestly, I think you've done the best you can, Jake. That post was mostly polite, with only a slight bit of bitterness, and it moderately well demonstrates that you're a person, not a faceless corporation. Because you can't really do anything about it, your best bet would be to incorporate it into your advertising campaign. Whenever you come across your game for illegal download, and there's any sort of community, try to get into the community, let them get to know you. Maybe your .pdf and even hardcopy sales will be positively affected by it. Sociological studies have shown that the closer you are to a person, the less loathe you are to hurt them, assuming you're a fairly well-balanced person.

For the record, I'm much the same. I will download things, but I do have my rules about what I'll download, and I try to support the things I like. I wouldn't ever download an indie game (except, perhaps, to preview, and I'd totally pay for it if I liked it) because I know that the people who put them out aren't rich, and the only way they can afford to create their games is if people support them.

Besides, I prefer hardcopies.

Thanks for the feedback.

I like the idea of putting out a lite version of the game and using it to replace the files that are out there now. That seems like a really responsible and reasonable way to do this. I intend to do this asap.

Infact all of these suggestions are good and I will be making use of them to some degree. I've bookmarked all of these sites so I could keep track of them. I've found 7 so far that offer PE. A few of them have forums, and I intend to post there on a regular basis and try to win over the users. I will be adding a bit to the PDF about visiting the site for support and supporting the game by purchasing.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Jake

Hi Jake,

I'm curious-- are you positive that the sales downturn happened when that download popped up? I would think people who look for games via official sources first are not exactly the same audience as those who look via torrents first. I imagine there would be some cross-over, but it strikes me they wouldn't be the same. However, I have absolutely no evidence, which is why I ask for clarification. I also imagine that a lot of people are interested in your game, but want to check it out since it's so outside their normal experience. I know personally I've been intrigued by the title and subject matter of your game previously, but not enough to lay down cash for it, until I've started to hear things about it via the grapevine. Which as of yet, I've heard nothing.

I understand how this seems to be hurting your sales of pdfs. Is this common for pdf roleplaying games or is there extra interest in your game? If it's common what are other folks doing differently? Do you think that the added eyeballs you get this way aren't going to help in the sales of hard copy books in the long run? My first thought was to wonder what happens if 10% of those people actually play your game. Can you list all the sites you found your game at, so other people know where to look to check for their game, or for me so I know where to post links to a torrent of my game once it's finished. It strikes me that this might also be a useful way for folks to find playtesters.

Hi Jake,

I'm sure this all is frustrating. This may be hurting your sales, but as a fellow publisher I have to say it's probably not hurting it as much as you think.

How long has Panty Explosion been out? It came out around GenCon, right? I ask because I saw a BIG drop in sales of The Mountain Witch after the first couple of months. Your first couple of months are driven by basically fans--people who heard of the game and then want it sight unseen. There aren't that many of this type of customer. Sales follow a pattern of spike-valley-spike-valley. Basically, you get a huge spike, then those people go home and play the game, and then a couple of months later they play the game with their friends, and then their friends go out and buy the book. From the sales figures I've seen from various people, there's usually a low point around 3-5 months.

I sold 93 copies of tMW first year at GenCon, followed by like 60 the following month, followed by a quick descent to like 17 for my 4th month or so. Very frustrating for my new publisher self. But the good news is that low point is followed by a slow and steady climb back up.

Another thing to think about is that it's close to Christmas. People may be waiting until Nov or Dec to buy books.

I bet that the 3 month thing, the Christmas thing, and the few missed sales all combined at the same time to give you a super dramtic drop in sales. Something to realize is that 3 sales a day is a HUGE number. I don't believe even Luke or Vincent maintains those types of numbers. 1 sale a day is a "successful" amount for most folks here. (That's about where tMW is.) That said, 1 sale a week seems a little low. Having the PDFs available for download probably is hurting things, at least in the shortrun. But there are a few things to remember.

First, there's no way that all 300-odd downloads are missed sales. There are alot of people who would download the book to see what it's about, but would never spend the money on their curiosity. Second, even if you lose some sales, in the long run it *might* help things. I seem to remember a post here where someone said they in fact saw an increase in sales after their PDF showed up on Kazaa. There is the exposure factor. As more people become aware of your game, your sales will increase, even if you lose some of them to piracy. The hope is that the amount of increase will offset the ones you lose. But only time will tell if this is true for you, and of course there's no guarrentee that in the end this will for the better.

'm curious-- are you positive that the sales downturn happened when that download popped up?

I understand how this seems to be hurting your sales of pdfs. Is this common for pdf roleplaying games or is there extra interest in your game?

Do you think that the added eyeballs you get this way aren't going to help in the sales of hard copy books in the long run?

My first thought was to wonder what happens if 10% of those people actually play your game.

How long has Panty Explosion been out? It came out around GenCon, right? I ask because I saw a BIG drop in sales of The Mountain Witch after the first couple of months. Your first couple of months are driven by basically fans--people who heard of the game and then want it sight unseen. There aren't that many of this type of customer. Sales follow a pattern of spike-valley-spike-valley. Basically, you get a huge spike, then those people go home and play the game, and then a couple of months later they play the game with their friends, and then their friends go out and buy the book. From the sales figures I've seen from various people, there's usually a low point around 3-5 months.

First, there's no way that all 300-odd downloads are missed sales. There are alot of people who would download the book to see what it's about, but would never spend the money on their curiosity.

Second, even if you lose some sales, in the long run it *might* help things. I seem to remember a post here where someone said they in fact saw an increase in sales after their PDF showed up on Kazaa. There is the exposure factor. As more people become aware of your game, your sales will increase, even if you lose some of them to piracy. The hope is that the amount of increase will offset the ones you lose. But only time will tell if this is true for you, and of course there's no guarrentee that in the end this will for the better.

My advice may be a case of "too little too late," but why don't you stop selling PDFs and sell only print-on-demand? At this point, you'd probably have to do a Second Edition--complete with more content, art, gameplay tips, etc--to undermine the utility or attractiveness of the First Edition. Ideally, you'd have some MAJOR systemic change that would make the First Edition out-of-date or non-standard. Yes, this burns the early adopters a bit; so offer them the price of their PDF download off the POD sale, and it's a "push" for them. You'd need only send each initial buyer a one-use coupon code (which your POD provider or shopping cart engine must support, of course) that they can use to have the PDF sale deducted, and they buy the Second Edition POD book for only the difference--they don't have to "respend" what they've already put into it.

Evil Profiteering Notion: Ensure that the initial PDF sales price is absorbed by a mark-up, so that you don't lose any difference between the coupon price and your POD publisher's charge.
E.G. POD$ = PDF$ + per-copy-cost;
thus POD$ - PDF$ = per-copy-cost... plus a buck, maybe ;-)

HTH;
David

It has been my experience that people who download this stuff illegally probably wouldn't spend the money on your product anyway, so technically, you're not losing any money. Initial sales always taper off like that without constant buzz. Consider the pirating to be free advertising - you now get your product out there to more people and that means more exposure. And if you offer a POD version, someone who downloaded may just order a copy. Don't let it get to you. It's not the end of the world.

P.S. I informed Wizards and some other larger publishers (read large license holders), so they may be able to get it shutdown. I know that Wizards stopped an illegal European POD distribution service, so they can probably do something about this as well. Of course, it will just show up somewhere else, but hey, that's par for the course.

I'm with the guy from PIG. I have gotten my hands on lots of indie games through illicit downloads, even games that aren't natively sold as PDFs, but I do buy the ones I like to support the authors and get print versions where available. Right now there's almost no way to avoid people digitally sharing your product, if the demand's big enough, count on it being illicitly shared online. The good news is that the real fans will probably still support you, while the others wouldn't have spent a cent on it anyways.

I find that a lot of RPG publishers are so afraid of people not buying their print product, that they don't make play aids or rules summaries easily available. Roleplaying games have a high entrance cost already as someone must read and understand the rules, so without an available rules synopsis people are usually driven to scan and share your book anyway.

Getting back to Panty Explosion, I think a lot of people are downloading it based purely on its great title. Many of the thieves probably don't even know what an RPG is, and will toss it shortly after the first glance.

Anyhow, if I weren't medicated right now I could wax on much longer about this topic. My dad's spent a lifetime in the music industry, and we've had several heated discussions over digital downloads.

TTFN,

Yoki

Perhaps you could put your own version of the pdf on some peer to peer software, ensuring it has a link to website and methods to pay for it, or make an 'honesty donation' through paypal or something like that? Treat it as a marketing opprotunity, not a problem. If you link to a POD version thats even better because there is a fair chance that people may download the pdf to see if they like the game, and if they actualy play it, will discover that like most of us its easier to play from a hardcopy.
The key part would be to make sure that a pdf version with your 'honesty policy' statement and links to get legit/POD copies is easily available-get it onto a system connected as much as possible to peer to peer networks, onto sites with links to bit torrents and so on. Eventually the easy availability will mean that the version with links becomes the one everyone downloads over the old one without links simply because more people have it and its easier to get.
You also get the added benefit of being able to control the content-so this version could be playable, but missing extra features found in the POD version.

I think that overall the main factor to consider is that most people who download rpgs don't seem to play them from pdf as much as they would rather have a hard copy. I am in that category myself-I have tons of pdfs, and have never actually played straight from a pdf without finding it a pain to use, so I always get hard copies. I use pdfs as a backup (I have lent out games that got in terrible condition by the time were returned), for generating spare handouts and info sheets, or for printing out things like character details that I don't want to have to flick through pages to find in an adventure.

Thanks for the advice. Matt and I have been talking aboutthis a lot the lst few weeks and deciding what we want to do. I've also attempted to talk to the people that run several of these download sites. Some where very reasonable, others were incredibly rude. most haven't returned my emails.

For now we're still exploring options and deciding how we want to take advantage of this situation.

Just want to point out in 10+ posts, no one has said that outright pirating is wrong. Only breaking it and not giving money if you like it. One thing if the person who owns the property is OK with the pirating (as in many bootlegs of the gratefuldead for example) or with some of the indie's who give permission under the various liscenes (i.e. give their game for free but you gotta pay for the print edition and the art etc. TSOY comes to mind).

Somehow there is an undercurrent that if it was a faceless corperation that it would be OK, or am I reading something wrong? I mean the subject says it all, yet noone has addressed that part of it. I think for example one of the things we could do as a community is support the idea that pirating is wrong. For example I just sent some stuff to my game group. All of that stuff is obtainable from the internet legally - such as Legends of Alyria and the .txt file of TSOY some articles from this site, all I did was save them the time to go out and get it themselves. Other things I have like a pdf of Questors, I didn't give to them. I could have, but I didn't - its pirating - plain and simple. And the problem is what pirating is OK? Where do you draw the line? Maybe that is a discussion that is worthwhile having, I don't know, but at some point everyone who goes from consumer to producer is going to have to ask themselves some questions, some personal ones, about their behaviors as a consumer vs. as a producer.

Cheers,

Steve

p.s. not trying to be preachy, apologies if I am, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, well then its a duck.

The problem is that most of the methods by which people get pdfs without paying for them is via peer to peer or similiar networks-its very hard to stop the availability of files on these networks, as there is usually no single 'source' that can be found for the file, instead they are distributed over a loose and ever changing network. So regardless of your stance on their availability they will still be available, and measures to prevent this will tend to become quickly obsolete. Where people are making (or trying to make) a profit (what I would regard as actual piracy btw, rather than file sharing, which while breaking copyright does not involve making a profit by it) such as on ebay it is marginally easier to stop since there is a single distribution agent involved that can kick the abuser/pirate off.
Personally I think that finding methods to convert downloaded pdfs into potential POD sales makes more sense than trying to persuade people that downloading without permission is wrong.
I also suspect that there is a dimension to the whole file sharing issue that worrying about it as piracy misses-people always like to try before they buy. Quite frankly, unless a free cut down version is made easily available, people will just feel they could be wasting their money on a product they will never use if they just go right ahead and buy it. Especially in a market glutted with variable quality products. Surely it is better to view file sharing as a marketing opportunity (something you can actually do something about and take advantage of) rather than sales disaster/crime that you probably can't do anything about?

I didn't really talk about whether I think illegal downloads are right or wrong because to me that wasn't the issue at hand. If someone wants to tallk about that, then I'm willing to talk. I'm sure we could have a good discussion. But really what I wanted to discuss was what Matt and I should do in our current situation. To restate my original questions:

Is this a problem?
What (if anything) should we do about it?

I've gotten some good feedback here and other places where I asked these questions, and we're currently working toward what I hope will be a reasonable solution.

Jake wrote:
I didn't really talk about whether I think illegal downloads are right or wrong because to me that wasn't the issue at hand. If someone wants to tallk about that, then I'm willing to talk. I'm sure we could have a good discussion. But really what I wanted to discuss was what Matt and I should do in our current situation. To restate my original questions:

Is this a problem?
What (if anything) should we do about it?

Has anyone considered doing the thing some music artists do, which is to flood file sharing sites with a "version" of their song that is the same MB size, but is just the chorus looped 10 times, with maybe the intro.

In book terms you'd be putting out a version of the PDF with the exact same name and size, but with only the Intro, a few sample pages, and a repeating filler (one or two full-page pieces of art would do it fairly easily). Get it to the same file size (could take tweaking) and flood.

Worth trying? I know that, the few times I tried to download a song off the radio and found such filler songs, I quit trying to find a good version.

Just a thought....
David

UPDATE

Just this morning we've made some real progress on this, so I thought I'd share and let everyone know what we are doing.

Following the advice of several people I created a Tryout PDF of Panty Explosion, something I'd been meaning to do since it was suggested to me at Gencon. Its available on our site now. I contacted each of these file sharing sites where I had found Panty Explosion and asked that they replace the file with theis new PDF. I was polite as possible. Previously when I had contacted these sites only 4 of the 7 responded. So far I've gotten one response back, from ShareVirus. They were incredibly polite and immediatly took down the file and replaced it with the new PDF.

Heres  a link to the new ShareVirus page:http://sharevirus.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3697
And heres a link to the forum topic: http://sharevirus.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3697

Again I found them to be very polite and proffesional. It was nice.I haven't as yet heard back from any of the other sites. I have recieved apology emails from about  half dozen people who say they have stopped sharing the file or have started sharing the new PDF. I wasn't expecting that at all. So thats nice.

We're following up on many of the other suggestions that were made here as well. We recognize that rather then trying to stop this (which we can't) we should instead embrace it and try to direct it. Heres what else we're doing:

Posting the trial version on other share sites and community forums. I'm just starting this.

Putting up a paypal link just for people who want to pay for downloaded copies. This will be up soon.

Adding a page to the full version of the PDF that asks users to not share the file and to consider paying for it if they've gotten without paying for it.

Treating the whole thing as promotion rather then theft and trying to use this network of sites our advantage.

Any other suggestions?

Jake Richmond
atarashigames.com

Wow!

Jake, you're schoolin' the rest of us. This is a great thread.

Best, Ron

I agree with Ron - I think this is a great way of looking at it, as a promotional tool rather than as lost sales. It's kinda like harnessing the viral power of filesharing for your own ends. Keep us posted as to how it pans out - let us know if you see sales spikes or get responses or paypals or whatever.

I've heard this topic discussed a lot. I do think piracy is a problem, and here's why. People justify it. Period. You did it at the beginning, "I always buy what's worth buying." The problem with justification is it is a slippery slope, "Well, we played the game for a month, but stopped, so it wasn't worth paying for." "Well, we played the game for 3 months, but we wouldn't have played it if we had to pay for it, it wasn't worth paying for." "I don't pay for RPGs at all because if I had to, I wouldn't play them." 
There's one thing that's in common with all of those, they rely solely off of individual opinion of your copyright, so give them a reason that isn't opinion. For example, printed books (I know it might not be feasible or smart for you, it's just an example.) Everybody recognizes they are "getting something worth paying for" when it's material. That's what makes piracy dangerous, people don't realize they are taking something very real, making it stealing. In fact, terming it "piracy" was a mistake, it should be called stealing.

To stop pirating, my only suggestion was/is to give them a motivation they can't get for pirating it. Maybe mail actual buyers a nice poster (make sure you figure it into your costs.) Or you could make a mailing list that only past purchasers belong to, which you mail a special promotional class/item/story, every month.

Yes, I've pirated things in the past, but I've clamped down on this behavior after I realized that my justifications were hurting those who made what I loved - even if the corporations are bottlenecking most of the profits.

I hope this helps you. :)

It is a slippery slope. And I know you arn't pointing a finger at me, but let me restate this anyway (because I''ve gotten some really nasty emails about this). As someone who does make use of download sites like the ones I've been talking about I know this very well. I can't and won't justify it, in a similar way to how I couldn't and didn't justify smoking back when I did that. But I still do it ( Although much less now that I',m on the receiving end of it).

And I don't really expect others not to either. And it is wrong. Its theft. So in asking how I can protect my own product I certainly feel like I'm being hypocritical. So be it. 

Anyway, I think offering something special to people that actually pay for the dowbnload is a cool idea. I'd prefer if it were something that could be included in the download itself instead of something physical, but that opens it up to be pirated as well. But its a good idea. I'll think on that.

Just to clarify, because a lot of people don't seem to know, we do sell a print version of the Panty explosion book. It does outsell the PDF. I completely understand the appeal of a print book, and I prefer to own a book over a PDF. Certainly a lot of people feel the same way. PDf is still a long way from replacing print. But the people who buy our PDF and the people who buy our book seem to be different people. A different audience who want a different product or experience. Theres a lot of crossover of course. We offer a bundle deal where you can buy both for a reduced price (and get a PE postcard as well. theres a bonus you cant get by stealing it). But I think that there are a lot of people who prefer to have the book as a PDF.

Anyway, I'm open to more suggestions on how people who have actually paid for the book can be rewarded.

To David C. and others who point out it's piracy, and suggest tose doing it should be ashamed and should stop...
How exactly is downloading a PDF, reading it, and then discarding it or dumping into a personal archive you never look at again (which is what a lot of download collectors do), any different from:
a) borrowing a printed book from a friend and then returning it
b) borrrowing a book from a public library?

This really isn't quite so straight forward as "piracy is evil and wrong and everyone doing it is a bad person." The digital age is raising new questions about copyright and intellectual property, and these are hard questions that will take society a while to work out.

In the meantime, I think Jake's current solution is an excellent one.

Hey guys,

The ethics conversation is off-topic. We had one guy remind us that it's a real issue, and that was a good thing to mention, and it was done.

Debate about the ethics of downloading/piracy/et-cetera elsewhere.

Best, Ron

Agreed.

The Panty Explosion demo PDF is now up on about 20 download sites. I'm not really sure ho well its being distributed. we'll see. 3 of the 7 sites where I orginally found the game have taken it down at my request. 2 put up the Demo in its place. I'll take what I can get.

I found a discussion on a German forum about our theft problem and the approach that we are taking. The Germans seem to approve.

I think for my next game (which I am deep into working on right now) I'll make the PDF free, but as suggested leave out the art and other things that make the book unique. I don't know if I would have taken that approach with Panty explosion (or any other future game) but I think it will work well with this game.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Ransom method.  It was intended, more or less, as the silver bullet for the .pdf piracy werewolf. 

Fundable.org has raised its minimum pledge to $10, which puts an onion in the ointment, and it doesn't work if the reader has no reason to trust the quality of the writer, and I don't think it would work for something really huge (with a correspondingly big ransom)... but with those caveats in place, you could consider PE as a loss leader now.  The people who've pirated it are more likely to ransom out your next product.

-G.

Wow. Thats really neat. I think I will be using the Ransom method for my next game. I really like how that works.

The problem I see with the ransom method is it directly eliminates one of the big strengths PDFs have over print products - their ability to keep selling, months and years after a print product would have vanished from a store's limited shelf space.
I haven't published anything, but I've read many reports of PDF publishers here, and the long-term publishers often say how surprising it is that their older products just keep selling, and its the long-term sales that are the real revenue. New customers are constantly finding their product, and snapping them up. So the ransom model removes that source of revenue.

Also, as a customer, I'm leery of the ransom model. Greg Stolze is a very well-known name, and so it would work for him, but even so, though I was interested in one the products he funded that way, I didn't stump up any cash. It was either going to cancelled, or made available later and legally free, so I just waited. If a product can make, say, $600 under the ransom model, it seems to me it should be able to make quite a bit more under a standard, fixed price model - although the ransom may be benefiting from smaller numbers of very dedicated fans paying a lot, and I've already admitted I'm not a publisher so I could easily be wrong.

The ransom model does have the advantage that you get the cash you need to make the product before you actually need it, which is good, but it seems like it's something that would only work for those authors who have a dedicated fanbase, or a very compelling concept for a game.

Darren wrote: The ransom model does have the advantage that you get the cash you need to make the product before you actually need it, which is good, but it seems like it's something that would only work for those authors who have a dedicated fanbase, or a very compelling concept for a game.

The Patronage approach that Baur is taking is also very interesting, although for me I think it would fail. I'm only really interested in making games that I want to make. But it is an interesting approach.

I don't think the ransom method would work for everything. I think it could work very well for games that are primarily intended to be print products. I'm currently working on a game that I had only inteded to release in print, but I think I will try the ransom method and as a way to distribute the PDF.

Yeah, Ransom ain't perfect.  Incidentally, whenever I ransom something, it's always something I already have written -- I'm doubleplus paranoid about keeping commitments to people who've trusted me.  You could do "Pay me and THEN I'll write it" but I think people would get really impatient if it wasn't something short and quick. 

Ransom basically puts a floor on your earnings at the price of having that amount also be the ceiling.  It's not cool if you want to make a bazillion dollars with an evergreen product.  It is cool if you have something that would have been a good magazine article, back when there were RPG magazines.

As for the freeloader types who figure "Mm, I ain't paying 'cause I'll either get it free or never get it" -- they strike me as unlikely to pay the same amount for a pig in a poke, either.  The twist that Fundable.org adds to the system is that it works like an escrow account.  When you put in your donation for a Fundable project, it's held in abeyance until the whole amount is gathered, or until a time period passes and the money is all returned.  Thus, there's no risk: If you put your money in and the Ransom isn't met, you get all your money back.  You ONLY pay if the whole amount gets gathered.

-G.

Neat. I really like this idea. How many tiomes have you used it, and how many times have you actually met your goal?

Greg: Wait, what? I thought the gathered amount went to some charity or other if the whole amount wasn't raised. Did I read it wrong, or just miss something?

You didn't read it wrong.  It's just that I no longer do it exactly the way described for MBM.  There's a website called fundable.org that works as I described in the previous post, and that's a nice way to remove risk from the donor side (though, as mentioned, it puts a deadline on things). 

So far, the Ransom method has worked for three games: Meatbot Massacre, ...in Spaaace! and Executive Decision (they're all available for download through www.gregstolze.com).  I've been doing a modified ransom for GM and Player articles, but with no deadline and no return policy it's run out of steam.  I also fooled around with doing it for chapters of a novel, but that was a flop too -- I suspect because people were unwilling to pay the Fundable $10 minimum for just a chapter.  So it's no sure thing.  But when REIGN comes out, I'm plannning to ransom supplemental material in lots of 10,000 words.  I figure people will be willing to pay ten bucks for that. Furthermore, I'm hoping that a large and growing body of free online support will drive sales of the book.  But we'll see.

-G.

Hey guys,

I think you can all see that the thread topic has been jacked.

It's not due to any one person or to any one post. For instance, the ransom method as a solution to theft was definitely on-topic, when it was introduced.

But now, clearly, this isn't about theft any more but just about the ransom stuff. Let's take that to a new thread. Greg, in particular, I'd appreciate it if you worked with me on this and posted a new topic to answer these more general questions, maybe starting with a summary of "where the money went" or something like that for each time you've used the method.

Best, Ron

Update

It's been an interesting few weeks. Since I originally noticed that people were sharing our PDF and originally expressed my concern about the problem a lot of things have happened. I made a real effort to contact every share site I could find that was distributing our PDF. In a polite letter I asked them to take the file down, and explained why I wanted them to do so. Some complied, some refused and a number never responded. If you do a google search you can still pretty easily find 5 sites that are illegally sharing the file. But several sites did remove the file and replaced it with a 36 page Demo file that I provided to them. The demo includes enough info to play the game, and is something I've been meaning to create for some time. It's currently available for free download on our site, Key20, RPGNow and a few other rpg sites. Additionally, I've uloaded the demo PDF to dozens of file sharing sites. For the last few weeks I've seeded a torrent containing the file as well, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

Sales have been interesting. After I started talking about this topic (here and on other sites) I recieved several emails apologizing for downloading the file illegally. I didn't expect that. Our sales have made a comeback as well, and we are now selling a number books per week (in a combination of paperback and PDF) that is more in line to what I had expected based on our sales from earlier this year. As I said  before, around the time our PDF began to show up on filesharing sites our sales ropped from 3 copies a day to about 1 a week. Over the last few weeks our sales have climbed back up, and while I'm sure that they'll never reach the level they were at before, are still completely satisfactory. I do believe that the freely distributed PDf was hurting our sales to at least some extent. Distributing the demo in its place, and making the sharers aware that the product was available for purchase has, I think,  helped generate more sales. Our PDF sales are up from last month on our own site and almost everywhere else we sell. Our hardcopy sales as well.

Of course just talking about a game is bound to draw attention to it, and I have been talking about this a lot. So its difficult for me to say with any certainty at all if the increase in sales is due to file sharers purchasing the PDF after they download it for free, or from increased awareness about the game due to the new demo PDF, the dozen or so discussions like this one on various forums and the incresed searchability of the game on engines like Google. Who knows? Maybe it was something else entirely.

Jake Richmond

Perhaps it just panty explodes when it's panty exploding time.

-G.