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Message no. 1
From: scott@**********.com (Scott Harrison)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 19:04:45 +0200
Hi,

See a little patience can be good. I now own Loose Alliances even
though I found it to be quite expensive. Now I know what I will read
on the plane over the ocean. :-)

--
·𐑕𐑒𐑪𐑑
·𐑣𐑺𐑦𐑕𐑩𐑯 Scott
Harrison PGP Key ID: 0x0f0b5b86
Message no. 2
From: lists@*******.com (Wordman)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 20:34:46 -0400
On May 20, 2005, at 1:04 PM, Scott Harrison wrote:

> I now own Loose Alliances even though I found it to be quite
> expensive.

I'm half with you.

I discovered something about myself today.

If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book for less than half
of the cost of the printed book, I will buy both the electronic and the
printed.

If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book for less than 75% of
the cost of the printed book, I will buy only the electronic version.

If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book at nearly the same
cost as the printed book, I will buy neither.

It doesn't make sense, but it's true.

Wordman
Message no. 3
From: scott@**********.com (Scott Harrison)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 13:50:12 +0200
On May 21, 2005, at 02:34, Wordman wrote:

>
> On May 20, 2005, at 1:04 PM, Scott Harrison wrote:
>
>> I now own Loose Alliances even though I found it to be quite
>> expensive.
>
> I'm half with you.
>
> I discovered something about myself today.
>
> If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book for less than half
> of the cost of the printed book, I will buy both the electronic and
> the printed.
>
> If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book for less than 75%
> of the cost of the printed book, I will buy only the electronic
> version.
>
> If you sell an electronic version of a gaming book at nearly the same
> cost as the printed book, I will buy neither.
>
> It doesn't make sense, but it's true.
>
I most likely will not be purchasing the printed book because the
price of the electronic was so expensive. This will be the first
Shadowrun book that I do not own in printed form. If the electronic
book was $10.00 I would get both. I am attempting to switch my GMing
life over to solely my PowerBook laptop as it is very difficult for me
to fly all over the world with a load of SR books in tow.

What I would love to know is why the cost of the PDF versions is so
high. I can understand an investment in scanning the older books.
However, with the newer books (besides the hand-crafted indexes :-) ) I
would imagine the cost of producing the PDF is very small. Therefore,
one only needs to balance the loss of a printed sale against the
limited costs of hosting the PDFs. In my case I would buy all the
printed books even though I want them all in PDF too. However, if the
PDF books are too expensive I will only buy the ones I need. For
example, I do not have HarleyBaby in PDF because I do not need to GM
that. However, if it were made available for $5.00 I would buy it. By
the way, if someone says the cost of hosting the PDF is very high I
will offer the ability to host them on my servers. All someone needs
to do is tell me how to hook up to an electronic billing site and I can
help reduce the costs of PDFs.

--
·𐑕𐑒𐑪𐑑
·𐑣𐑺𐑦𐑕𐑩𐑯 Scott
Harrison PGP Key ID: 0x0f0b5b86
Message no. 4
From: zebulingod@*******.net (Zebulin)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 11:28:25 -0700
Scott Harrison wrote:

> I most likely will not be purchasing the printed book
> because the price of the electronic was so expensive. This
> will be the first Shadowrun book that I do not own in printed
> form. If the electronic book was $10.00 I would get both. I
> am attempting to switch my GMing life over to solely my
> PowerBook laptop as it is very difficult for me to fly all
> over the world with a load of SR books in tow.
>
> What I would love to know is why the cost of the PDF
> versions is so high. I can understand an investment in
> scanning the older books.
>

See, I'll buy the printed book first, because I like to have the books in
hand. However, if the PDFs were offered for about half the cost of the
originals, I'd buy ALL of them, TOO. As you said, it's much easier to GM
with the electronic books, less to carry around.

I cannot justify spending $20+ on a printed book, and then spending another
$20+ on the electronic version. I /could/ justify spending $30 on both.

Zebulin

>From The Top 100 Things I'd Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that
such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the
counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
Message no. 5
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3(AS40 R-3))
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 07:25:34 +1000
>> I most likely will not be purchasing the printed book
>> because the price of the electronic was so expensive. This
>> will be the first Shadowrun book that I do not own in printed
>> form. If the electronic book was $10.00 I would get both. I
>> am attempting to switch my GMing life over to solely my
>> PowerBook laptop as it is very difficult for me to fly all
>> over the world with a load of SR books in tow.
>>
>> What I would love to know is why the cost of the PDF
>> versions is so high. I can understand an investment in
>> scanning the older books.

>See, I'll buy the printed book first, because I like to have the books in
>hand. However, if the PDFs were offered for about half the cost of the
>originals, I'd buy ALL of them, TOO. As you said, it's much easier to GM
>with the electronic books, less to carry around.

>I cannot justify spending $20+ on a printed book, and then spending another
>$20+ on the electronic version. I /could/ justify spending $30 on both.

Unfortunatly, not all of us have the option of being able to buy the printed
versions in the first place.

So I'm with some of the others in that I MAY buy the binded version, but
this is good enough for me.
Message no. 6
From: jjvanp@*****.com (Jan Jaap van Poelgeest)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 14:45:25 -0700 (PDT)
How about giving owners of the printed version a
discount on the PDF (or even including free access to
the PDF when purchasing the book)? Implementing this
might be awkward, as you'd need to include
scratchcards or something similar inside the books and
seal them up in shrinkwrap to prevent abuse (the
alternative is people mailing in receipts or something
daft like that, which would of course result in heaps
of mail to process, not to mention that it would be
more prone to abuse). Alternatively, some web
retailers (Stiggybaby's comes to mind) could offer an
access code for the PDF to customers who buy a book.

cheers,

Jan Jaap



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Message no. 7
From: zebulingod@*******.net (Zebulin)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:27:39 -0700
Jan Jaap van Poelgeest wrote:
>
> How about giving owners of the printed version a discount on
> the PDF (or even including free access to the PDF when
> purchasing the book)? Implementing this might be awkward, as
> you'd need to include scratchcards or something similar
> inside the books and seal them up in shrinkwrap to prevent
> abuse (the alternative is people mailing in receipts or
> something daft like that, which would of course result in
> heaps of mail to process, not to mention that it would be
> more prone to abuse). Alternatively, some web retailers
> (Stiggybaby's comes to mind) could offer an access code for
> the PDF to customers who buy a book.
>

Or, you could include the PDF on a CD with the book right at the store?

Zebulin

>From The Top 100 Things I'd Do
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that
such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the
counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
Message no. 8
From: jjvanp@*****.com (Jan Jaap van Poelgeest)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 01:35:47 -0700 (PDT)
--- Zebulin <zebulingod@*******.net> wrote:
> Or, you could include the PDF on a CD with the book
> right at the store?

*slaps forehead*

Include a discount code for the printed version with
the electronic download, then allow stores to mail in
the discount codes. A possible problem is that people
who are satisfied owning the PDF might "transfer" the
discount to other people who instead seek to buy the
book. One could link a name to the discount code,
though, requiring its verification to involve a CC
number or something like that. An efficient
implementation of this idea might be overly reliant on
in-store internet access, though.

cheers,

Jan Jaap



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Message no. 9
From: wraith@************.com ( John Duncanson)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 11:10:04 -0500
> Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 3:36 AM
> To: Shadowrun Discussion
> Subject: RE: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
> *slaps forehead*
>
> Include a discount code for the printed version with
> the electronic download, then allow stores to mail in
> the discount codes. A possible problem is that people
> who are satisfied owning the PDF might "transfer" the
> discount to other people who instead seek to buy the
> book. One could link a name to the discount code,
> though, requiring its verification to involve a CC
> number or something like that. An efficient
> implementation of this idea might be overly reliant on
> in-store internet access, though.

I wouldn't suggest this, mainly as it puts more effort on the retailer.
First, the retailer gets to see you buy the book for cheaper from him, which
is going to annoy him, because unlike the online store you bought the PDF
from, he's had to pay shipping, had to have store space for the book, and
now he's seeing the book go for...what, 30% of the MSRP? Not only that, but
you've added work for him as he has to verify the purchase.

As for verification, well, that's just impossible. First, you penalize
younger purchasers of books. They may not have a credit card. They may have
bought the book online, using a parent's card, or a paypal account. Then to
have to bring the Credit card (And maybe another form of ID) into the store
will pose problems. There would also be the problem of giving the retailer a
copy of the credit card number to verify.

Next, reimbursement for the retailer will cause problems. First, he has to
send in the codes (or whatever) and wait for someone to send him a check.
More work for the retailer, which delays his profit, which for some brick
and mortar stores can be a bad thing. Second, when someone asks why the guy
ahead of him just bought the book for 30% less, the retailer gets to explain
to him about online sales, which can potentially cost him more sales. Not a
good thing. Next, the reimbursements have to come from somewhere. Say it’s a
$20 book. FanPro sells the book to Alliance for $8 a copy. Alliance sells
it to the retailer for $12 retailer sells it for $20. Customer comes in with
a discount code. Retailer grumbles, checks to see if the code is accurate
(Which would probably require the retailer to register) sells the book for
30% off, cursing FanPro because he just made $2 off the book. (20x.7 = 14).
He then goes back to the website, registers that he sold a book using the
code. He then waits for FanPro to pay him back, because why should the
retailer discount his books? So FanPro sends him a check for $6 (We'll
ignore loss due to sales tax at this point, it should be $6.50). FanPro now
grumbles, because after reimbursing the retailer, they made...$2 off the
book. Retailer grumbles at the extra work and slower payment, FanPro
grumbles at the profit margin, and Alliance Games wonders why the hell
FanPro and the retailer are so damned stupid.

This also leaves itself open to abuse, as the retailer could buy codes off
of people at $2 a pop, claims to use them, and gets a check for $6.

The better way of running this would be to put a code in the hardcopy of the
book, to be used at someplace like Battlecorps. This way the retailer sells
the book with no hassles. Kid goes to the online store puts in the code,
buys the book, code is checked before payment verification, and the online
store takes their payment and forwards FanPro's payment on to them.

The problem with this scenario is...it costs more to print the book, as
you're putting in a randomized code that's unique to each book. So everyone
pays a little bit more, though we all know gamers are always willing to pay
extra. <snicker> Plus the books will have to be shrink wrapped so people
don't look inside and snag the codes, and makes returns/exchanges at the
retailer end trickier.

In the end, it becomes all more hassle then its worth for the most part.
FanPro priced their PDFs based on what they think the price should be, not
to rip you off. After all, they had to pay someone to index, convert and
bookmark the file.

--
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Message no. 10
From: jjvanp@*****.com (Jan Jaap van Poelgeest)
Subject: Loose Alliances is mine all mine!
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 11:14:25 -0700 (PDT)
--- John Duncanson <wraith@************.com> wrote:

You'll find that I already suggested your reversal of
the suggestion to which you reacted in a message on
the 21st of May. Nevertheless, if you hadn't read my
previous post: great thinking! :)

cheers,

Jan Jaap

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Thwap!