AD&D Grognard left this as a comment to the original post of mine regarding the current state of the Free Products section on RPGNow, but I feel his comment deserves to be a post of its own. AD&D Grognard, if you don't want this to be posted, I'll take it down, but I think you put this into words better then anyone else so far and it needs to be heard.
Ok, it's done. They have till Tuesday and then I plan on starting a boycott.
Message as follows:
Just a comment to go along with the rest of those in the online game community who have contacted you and will continue to do so about the following matter.
Your recent dismantling of your 'free' products area creates a very real situation. I make use of these products to do previews on my blogs and soon ezine.
This service provides me with a chance to preview work early, get people interested in new product and ultimately send them to your site. I do this without compensation from either of your gaming sites.
Now it is a pain in the ass and quite frankly too time consuming to track down the material as it now stands and as such will be dropped from my programs until such time as RPGNow decides to pay for ad space or brings back the free product filter in a usable form.
In other words, if you don't want someone driving traffic to your sites for no cost to yourself then just keep the free product situation the way it is. There are other online retailers providing much the same type of free program services that would probably appreciate the traffic boost.
(end message)
"Never try to appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one. Instead appeal to his self interest'.
-Robert Heinlein
As I said on the top of this post, you said what needed to be said better then I.
It's strange that I just recently remarked at how games like Old School Hack and Cascade Failure were finally finding distribution via OneBookshelf's sites, as the creators of these games are pretty solidly in the "We Work For Free" corner of our hobby. With the current change to OBS's way of "showcasing" free products (and I use "showcasing" in the meaning of "not showcasing at all") as they are released, these two products would never be found by the casual, or not so casual, shopper.
If you feel the same way, let OBS / RPGNow / DriveThruRPG know. If folks don't show that they care, then the change to the Free Products Page will speak for itself.
You know what's right man. Run with it. I am.
ReplyDeleteAnd while we are at it some might want to take a look at this:
ReplyDeletehttp://rpgpundit.xanga.com/756832748/item/
Saturday, 19 November 2011
The Ridiculous Censorship Bill
In case some of you weren't aware, the U.S. government is currently debating a proposed bill, the ridiculously named SOPA or "Stop Online Piracy Act", which could see ordinary internet users face up to 5 years in prison for posting a pop song on Facebook.
Read the rest and then go to this:
http://americancensorship.org/
The bill would allow the government to block any web url they like.
This is the slippery slope.
Just received email from OBS / RPGNow / DriveThruRPG trying to play it off as a 'glitch' in the search system that they are working on.
ReplyDeleteEmail them anyhow. Let's make certain they understand how important they are in this process and while you are at it ask when we might see a 'fix' for this problem.
If they are testing us let's make certain we pass :)
Email sent. :)
ReplyDelete