Humble bundles
Karl
Has anyone purchased any of the humble bundles for their library? Thoughts on the legality/ethics of doing that?
Minchin, Phil
I’m neither a lawyer nor a professional game designer, but to my mind there are two major and one minor reasons that game creators participate in the Humble Bundle and similar initiatives.
The first is exposure – getting their game out to a wider audience. Having the game available in libraries is certainly compatible with that goal, so in this respect it’s not only ethical but desirable.
The second is to support charity. Getting the game through a library instead of buying the bundle would defeat that purpose, and this would be a big ethical problem. Both the EFF and Child’s Play are charities whose missions are simpatico to ours.
Sales are the minor reason. I don’t know how much people make from those bundles, but my impression is that while there’s a definite spike in sales volume, which for most indie game developers would equate to a spike in actual income, the fact that people are able to set their own price offsets that somewhat. So money is likely to be a secondary motivation, especially for indie games that have already done quite well; and coupled with the additional exposure and knock-on sales effects that libraries generate, I would say that library lending would be ethical (and beneficial to creators) just as it is with books.
The best thing, I think, would be to talk to the people who run the bundle and ask for their views, especially about the question of how important sales/income are to their participants. Just the simple fact that they are experimenting with distribution models like Humble Bundle and Indie Royale shows that indie game developers are not as likely to have the kneejerk “1 loan = 1 lost sale and no other possible benefits ever” stupidity, er, mentality that corporate publishers seem to have developed about ebooks, so it will almost certainly be possible to have a reasonable conversation about the ways in which libraries broaden and strengthen the book industry as a whole, and how those same principles translate to the games business.
But if I were to come up with the most likely answer, I would say:
- Buying one bundle and installing a single copy on a single device that the library controls, and allowing people to play that single copy, would probably be OK – it mimics traditional library loans pretty closely after all, and is therefore probably covered by standard library exemptions to copyright on creative works. I would aim to beat the average with each purchase (I know libraries are usually poor, but the bundles are insanely good value and we are an institutional buyer rather than a starving game dev). I’d also leave the default split rather than playing around with who gets how much.
- If you want to install the games on multiple devices, I would say beat the average and multiply that amount by the number of copies you want to make – you can’t make multiple purchases of the same bundle from a single email address. But really, that would be something to talk about with the bundle people, and through them, the game creators.
- Allowing people to make copies of games would become much more problematic and would be something to discuss with individual developers, i.e. not something to do on a per-bundle level.
- It’s possible that the Humble Bundle crew would prefer that we wait to make the games available until after the Bundle sales are finished. On the other hand, if they can promote the bundle’s sales through the loans, they might want us to rush the Bundle games out to the public ASAP. Either way, the timing of when the games become available would be something to discuss with them.
I would also say to make sure you identify yourself nice and clearly, especially if you make a big purchase. Great promotion of your library service to local gamers to have its name appearing on the Humble Bundle’s acknowledgments page J
Of course, this is all assuming your purchasing systems don’t hamstring you the way ours do (no credit card purchases, vendors must be approved by complicated Council bureaucracy, overseas vendors are nearly impossible)…
This is a great question though – I might ask the Bundle folks what they think, since I’m already working on similar questions elsewhere.
Cheers!
Phil
Phil Minchin
Library IT Team Leader
Port Phillip Library Service
T: 9209 6413 l M: 0419134635
Private Bag No 3, St Kilda, VIC, 3182
http://library.portphillip.vic.gov.au
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BWS Johnson
If you look at the ebook leaderboard, the top contributors are really pretty modest at about $1000. Some Libraries have some pretty swank marketing budgets. This is win all around if you pay enough to cover a few copies of what things would go for retail and end up with good PR from the leaderboard as a result.
When in doubt, ask. :)
Cheers,
Brooke
Pikiora
We have a huge focus on youth, and a lot of management support for gaming, but I think in many ways don't know where to start (and are quite hamstrung by policies/hardware constraints).
This would be such a fantastic way to support a business model that aligns with our libraries values, but how do you highlight this to the people who make the decisions?
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BWS Johnson
>This would be such a fantastic way to support a business model that aligns with
>our libraries values, but how do you highlight this to the people who make the
>decisions?
But seriously, bring them a report or better a memo. (This is public policy, but if more Library Duhrectors read it, we'd be ballin'.)
http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/memos-governor
Cheers,
Brooke
Philip Minchin, Euchronic Games
So I've heard back from the Humble Bundle folks. Not entirely surprisingly, they say that the best thing to do is to contact individual game developers and ask them how they feel about the game being available for play in the library. (I assume this is what we're talking about, at least until we get my Steam e-lending thing up and running.) As they put it, having potentially thousands of people play the game from a single copy probably isn't what the creators had in mind when they agreed to including their game in the bundle.
And given that these are indie game developers who are possibly not all that well off, and they also clearly have some sort of nice streak (supporting charity and whatnot) I would be more inclined to do that rather than try to fight the battle of library lending rights against them. (Though I stand by my view that just as we lend creative works - or allow patrons to use our word-processing software - one installation on one PC for public use is legitimate.) In the interests of creator goodwill, we might just need to buy the game from them at normal price.
However, the Humble Bundle folks were also interested in the idea of getting games (and their bundles) into libraries, and left the door open that we might hear more from them in future. So we'll see...
Cheers!
Phil
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