Thoughts on Business from the Spiderweb

I've linked to Jeff Vogel before, his blog is firmly on My Daily Read, and his most recent post proves that he and I share sensibilities.  In case you aren't familiar, he is the owner/lead-designer for Spiderweb Software, an indie computer gaming company that specializes in one person rpg games.

In his most recent post, he discusses piracy in computer gaming.  It is a very interesting read.  While the parallels are not perfect, I think that there is enough overlap to be of interest to those who play and/or write for the paper rpg hobby--especially people who consume or produce (as I do) pdf products.  Not only is his article interesting, but the comments (167 as of this moment) demonstrate the full spectrum of opinion on the issue.

Not directly related to his post, but something that came up in the comments was a discussion of pricing for computer games.  I believe that the points raised on software pricing are equally applicable to pdf pricing--that, in general, for a product that costs the same to produce one copy as it does to produce a million copies (anything digital)--a lower price will equate to higher sales, which should lead to more income for the creator.

While that sentence is a gross oversimplification and the topic deserves a lot more indepth discussion, I think that it mostly holds true.  I've been thinking about it a lot over the last several months, and will post a longer explanation of why I believe this to be the case in the coming days.  If anyone has thoughts one way or another, I'm all ears (for the time being).