Re: [piecepack] MG: For the Record

["M. Hale-Evans" <marty@...>]

> We think the over 200 people on this group deserve to know our
> prospective and intentions for the record.

I'm glad you spoke up.  I'll preface my remarks by saying that these
are all my own opinions only, and that I'm an owner of a small
business that sells my creative work too, so I've thought a lot about
this stuff and do know something about what I'm saying. :->

> MG has been part of the piecepack community from the very
> beginning. We took on the responsibility of maintaining
> piecepack.org and have maintained it as an impartial clearing house
> for information about and games for the piecepack. We have always
> strived to support the individuals within the community as well as
> promoting the piecepack concept, this Yahoo! Group forum,
> piecepack.org as well as the Wiki.

As Ron said, I don't think anyone here doubts your commitment to the
community, and I think we all appreciate the work you've done.

> Our goal is not to hurt the community in any way - it is to protect
> our investment and products, and yes, to keep our incentive to
> develop new items for our piecepack line and for the community.

In my opinion, your incentive to develop new items ought to come from
the desire to create new and great products.  If your products
incorporate the best quality and the most interesting ideas, you will
pretty much generally still dominate your market, even in the face of
competition.  This is the basis of the free enterprise system.

> I, personally, don?t understand why anyone would be upset that MG
> trademarked our new expansions or even the patent on Pawn
> Saucers. Trademark is there to help companies create and maintain
> brand name identification. It could be confusing to see a 4 seasons
> expansion come out from 2 places, especially for the public who are
> not a part of this forum or do not know the history.
 
I don't think people are as easily confused as all that.  They
understand that both Coke and Pepsi produce carbonated cola beverages,
but that they're not the same company, right?  Also, taking a broader
view, having two different 4 seasons sets could be even more
interesting for the community, because they could be used together for
new games.  That would probably actually promote sales of both.
Really, diversity in the market increases sales activity; rigid
control of the market rarely results in a more active market, and
ergo, usually means less sales.

> I'd like to give a brief overview of what goes into creating a
> piecepack expansion here at Mesomorph Games (MG):

Thanks for the overview.  I don't want to be rude, but I'm not sure
what this really has to do with the discussion.  Your R&D and
production methods are your own affair, and if they're onerous or too
complicated so that they undermine your profit margin, that's a
business problem you have to deal with as a company.  I'm not sure why
it should be a factor for anyone considering using your product,
except to emphasize the quality of your product, which should be
obvious anyway.

> We have put a lot of effort into the products we make, why wouldn't
> we do what we can to protect them? After all we are in business to
> make a profit.

Again, I don't think anyone begrudges your making a profit, but you
may not have thought about all the angles here.  I realize that it's a
scary thing to face competition in the marketplace, but in the end
it's better for both consumers and producers, because it generally
optimizes sale activity and drives development of new and better
products (which means producers are inspired to do their best work,
which makes more people interested in buying, etc. etc.)

> So, yes, the artwork is copyrighted and the names of our products
> are trademarked. If you understand copyright and trademark you know
> that you can make your own versions of the sets as long as they
> don't use the same images or brand names. I'd think that others
> would want to be different from MG to stand out and fill their own
> niche instead of copying what we do and sharing ours.

There may be enough niche to go around, and not squelching growth only
makes the niche bigger, not smaller.  I agree that it's probably not
good for people to just totally reproduce your product and sell it,
but I don't think that trying to control the ideas themselves, or
assuming that there isn't enough of a market to support more than one
producer, is going to be healthy in the long run, either for the
community or your company.  Personally, I'd like to see both continue.

> We hope that this statement will clear things up and that this group
> can return to more constructive and germane discussions.

Actually, I think this is quite germane to the piecepack world, and I
hope it remains constructive.


Marty

*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*
Marty Hale-Evans       marty@...       Seattle, WA USA
          Dig me further at: http://www.martynet.org

I want something good to die for, to make it beautiful to live.
                                -- Queens of the Stone Age