I apologize for reposting an entire message but I think that the following
really states my feelings on the matter much better than I could have and
with less emotion that I tend to infect my own messages with.
Please, read this over and take it to heart.
- Jay
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Original Message by John Nephew follows:
Counter-examples and counter-arguments are things like: music that you can
hear for free on the radio (and even tape and play back, if you like.), but
which ultimately drive sales in the stores.
At the risk of sounding heretical, I often think that creators put more
value on their content than their style -- and consumers don't always
agree...when using their dollars, as opposed to pontificating about
substance over form. Game products are a form of art, not only in the sense
of "artist" (like a writer, painter), but "artisan"...a crafted physical
object. In the rarefied internet age, it's easy to lose sight of that, and
to think that it's the high concepts that really matter.
No amount of web availability is going to undermine the fact that $25 is a
great price for a nice, hefty, solidly bound, beautifully illustrated, feels
great to pick it up and paw through the pages and sniff the freshly printed
ink, *book* like the CC. No amount of web availability is going to stop me
from buying Jules Verne novels in the bookstores, even though they are
easily available as free public-domain downloads on the internet. (At least
not until electronic book readers get a lot better and a lot cheaper, and
can safely be used in the bathtub!) The product identity that appeals to
consumers is the whole package, in which -- even if all your text is OGC --
the OGC remains a relatively small portion.
I'm perfectly content to see all our Open Game Content slapped all over the
web as quickly as anyone wants to put it there. More power to y'all. In
fact, it's good for us if it happens. After all, Penumbra adventures are
likely to be selling out and going permanently out of print on a rolling
basis. (Ideally, I'd like to have about 6 adventures in stock at any given
time.) Web copies of OGC from out-of-print Penumbra books satisfies the
people who can't get copies anymore but want access to the open content,
spurs collector interest in the OOP titles, and advertises the continuing
upcoming books. By the time open content gets on the web, it's already
yesterday's news -- most people should have already seen the product in a
store, snapped it up, and the web availability is a consolation if they
missed it or a useful shortcut if they want to use the OGC in something else
(and would rather not have to re-type it all or worry about what's in fact
open). It's almost like doing periodicals, but without the harsher shelf
life limitations built into magazines.
When it comes to doing books that are open-content intensive (such as
collections of monsters, magic items, etc.), I would then focus on adding
value (proprietary content, probably specific to a game world; ease of use,
price point, production values and artwork, etc.) to make it worth buying
even for someone who has all the content on disk.
I guess I figured Open Content was going to be out of the genie bottle right
away, so I shaped our Penumbra strategy with this as the first assumption:
Open Game Content that we do will quickly be available for free to anyone
who wants to go to a modicum of trouble to get it.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
