Maddened Mob Member's page

Catch me if you can!

Maddened Mob Member wrote:

WHERE'S MAH DOUBLE KATANA?!?

IN MY HANDY HAVERSACK

GUESS YOU NEED TO WORK ON YOUR PERCEPTION SCORE
P.S I STOLE YOUR WALLET WHILE NOT SEEING THE PROBLEM IN THIS THREAD

TRICK QUESTION! I ONLY HAVE A TORCH AND PITCHFORK!

WHERE'S MAH DOUBLE KATANA?!?

BURN! FIGHT! KILL!

Celestial Healer wrote:

Morning, all. What did I miss?

Well, Max showed up to work only to find that the company had been sold to a Chinese pinball machine manufacturer who subsequently replaced all the employees with anthropomorphic pinball machines. Meanwhile, Steve's visit to Texas took a dangerous turn when he showed up at a gathering with salsa made in New York City. And, across town, Scott continued to search for that one, perfect.......No, wait! That's my soap opera!

NEW YORK CITY!?!?!!

Gary Teter wrote:

I am testing something really, really stupid!

And I AM the test subject!

Kill it! Kill it with FIRE!!!!

You can never have enough torches! Or pitchforks!

If the loooooooong flight would be already over :-(
why can't we beam home?

We were promised teleportation by 2010, weren't we? Weren't we?!?

It is entirely too civilized in here!

Burn! Fight! Kill!

So I finally got around to watching the entire Star Wars original Trilogy. Totally underwhelmed. Poor story and horrible script, ok effects for the time, and I`m totally mystified as to why it was so popular. I guess I`m just not a good geek.

How dare those words be even uttered!

::riots::

I agree that it is a flawed argument for publishers to think that every illegal download or case of copyright infringement is a lost sale. There are certainly people who are collectors who will download any rpg pdf just to be complete, or any other number of reasons.

By the same token it's also flawed to believe that it is just free advertising, and people will become paying customers after checking out the material. There are plenty of people, who will never pay for something they can get for free, no matter how much they love the product.

The problem is that we don't have good numbers on the conversion rate of people who download the torrent, like the product and then become paying customers, and the people who download the product, like it, and continue to pay nothing. I'm sure if there were good numbers, and it made some sense we would see a different stance or different business models for this. Remember companies want to make money and if it made sense they may feel different about it.

Also remember the rpg industry is a small niche industry. It takes a much smaller amount of lost sale to effect them.

So we can make arguments for each side, but we don't have the numbers to really say one way or the other.

So let me get this right..the VTT is real time?..in which case it won't be much use for the PbP's here as they tend to span continents and many many time zones.

I do worry sometimes about Paizo's explosion of diversification this year..it reminds me of a certain company once based in Lake Geneva Michigan

Isn't Lake Geneva in Wisconsin? And, I don't think they are doing away with the pbp forums. At least they haven't said that. They are 2 different types of games, and I would think they want to have both of them popular. More players=more sales. Doesn't matter how they play.

Hama wrote:

I kind of see it as a desperate move...Wotc has been loosing to paizo in sales for quite some time...they have to generate revenue somehow, in order to be useful to hasbro. Because if they are not, they get shut down.

WotC has not been losing to Paizo in sales. WotC's sales dwarf Paizo's. WotC's D&D sales might be challenged by Paizo, though it's likely that they still generate more revenue from D&D than Paizo does from Pathfinder.

But, really, how is this desperate? They're responding directly to requests from the community: non-random minis, and the ability to purchase older edition material. Let's stop looking for ways in which every single decision WotC makes has to be an indication of how the D&D sky is falling, and instead view this as a step towards increasing their community goodwill, hmm?

I am happy that they may release older edition stuff. And hey, I like minis, random or not. But ya hit the nail on the head. They are doing this to increase goodwill? Why would they need to increase goodwill in the community?

WOTC is scrambling a bit. Please don't tell me that they planned the essentials and the boardgames from the beginning. They seem to change their approach monthly. And I have bought some 4e products. Some are decent, others are not.

As far as sales, I'm sure WOTC generates more gross revenue than Paizo. But their overhead is huge. What they need to sell, versus what Paizo needs to sell, is very different. And it is telling, that from available sources, Paizo is selling more RPG books.

This isn't me saying WOTC is going down. They just don't seem to know who they are right now(with regards to DnD), and are throwing a lot of stuff out there. Seems like they are trying to get back their core audience. But to me seems so unfocused.

So your business model is now going to be "pay us $20, and maybe we'll give you something you want, or maybe we'll give you something you have no use for and gloat as you throw it in the garbage"? Well OK, that's your choice, but I'm going to think a second and a third time before I buy anything from you again.

If this is such an awesome business model, why don't you use it for your rulebooks? Hey, look, it's my third copy of "Ultimate Magic", if I keep on buying rulebooks I'll get a copy of the core rules, sometime, too! And if it's such an awesome business model, how is it that companies selling metal miniatures have managed to stay in business for decades without resorting to it?

The reasons for it have been explained many times in this thread. Whether or not you believe it is up to you. And I'm sure you realize books and minis are much different products. So of course they are sold differently. Also nice to note that pre painted plastics are different from metal minis.

Also, and this is not directed at you, or anyone specific, I don't understand all the hate. Up until recently there were no Pathfinder pre painted plastic minis. If you don't like the product, or the way it is being sold, don't buy it. Why not pretend it doesn't exist, as it didn't a few months ago. They aren't taking your books away, or forcing you to buy the minis. Paizo puts out plenty of products I have no interest in(I am interested in these though). But their mere existence doesn't offend me, or cause me to rage on the message boards. I simply don't buy them, and focus on the products I am interested in.