Federation Commander

I truly appreciate the ship cards available on the ADB website and believe it's a good idea to make such cards available (updated product cards and unique/special cards). It's a nice way to provide customers with a bonus or "thank you".

But if you're considering making the product line's cards fully available in PDF do NOT do it! It WILL hurt the company with respect to lost sales.

Personally I'd love to have all of the product ship cards available on a CD. But while most of us would respect ADB's IP and not distribute them the reality is that so many people today EXPECT to be able to distribute electronic files freely. Yes, they could scan all of the cards and distribute anyway. But that's a lot more work for would be pirates than simply purchasing the files via the internet or CD.

In fact, I believe Wizards of the Coast has stopped PDF distribution due to piracy and has sued pirates (Steve would know more about that being part of the industry, I'm hazy on the details).

Anyway, I know trying to control IP today seems like an uphill battle given how easy it is to scan stuff like books, etc. And ship cards are probably easier to scan.

So it becomes a conflict between wanting to provide legit customers with easier to use products they pay for (eg Ship Card PDFs on CD) vs trying to make it harder for pirates to operate (eg NOT providing electronic files that are more conveniently pirated compared to hard copies.)

If the choice is between less convenience for me and a higher probability that ADB products will be pirated I'm happy to endure the inconvenience.

Tim

MajerBlundor wrote:...And ship cards are probably easier to scan.

they are very easy to scan.
I began scanning my Star Fleet Battles SSDs years ago when I got my first scanner.
Then, it was a slow, laborious process.
Now, at work we have an automated scanner with a 50 page capacity. I can scan, separate, and save an entire SSD booklet in less than an hour.

Ship cards take a bit longer as I lay them side by side on the platen to get the fleet/squadron scales on the same scan page; but...

I still have all of the SSD's (well into the thousands) and all the ship cards through Orion Attack scanned and stored on a CD.
Now; bear in mind that this is on a CD, not on my computer so no one else has access to it, but it is easy to go to Origins, find someone who wants to play, pick sides/ships, print out the SSDs needed, and play.
One CD is much easier to transport than 38 separate 3-ring binders.

Scoutdad wrote:One CD is much easier to transport than 38 separate 3-ring binders.

Tell me about it. I used to have a big suitcase with all my ssd books and rulebooks that I would haul to games. Then I got the big idea that it'd be easier to have them on a cd so I could print them out. I inquired about buying the ssds I already had on a cd. You can guess the rest.