Donate $20 to Haiti Relief, get $1481 worth of RPG ebooks

[Connallmac]

Those you who donated may want to check your accounts, it looks like the books are now available on mine!

[easterncoyote]

Originally Posted by chorpler

How is this obscene? The idea is to get people to donate who otherwise might not donate by offering them something. That quote is a perfect example -- they're trying to entice even selfish people to donate by giving away their product to those who donate. Awfully generous of them, and the characterization of it as "obscene" greatly confuses me.

I meant "obscene" in the sense of morally repugnant. It just doesn't sit well with me, that people need to get something in order to help people in need. But, chorpler, as you and others point out, money is money, and it is still going to the cause. I can't argue with that; I guess it's like penforhire said, it's a personal ethical thing for me. I think I just jumped in, reflexively, which I have a bad habit of doing. I don't begrudge others taking the books offered, or the publisher offering them, which is, I admit, upon reflection, a generous thing to do. No offence meant to anyone.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by easterncoyote

I meant "obscene" in the sense of morally repugnant. It just doesn't sit well with me, that people need to get something in order to help people in need. ... I don't begrudge others taking the books offered, or the publisher offering them, which is, I admit, upon reflection, a generous thing to do. No offence meant to anyone.

It's worth noting that the benefit, here, is ebooks: something it costs $0 to reproduce, and which can be copied and shared freely without cost. (I think the DRM on these is social--the buyer's name/account # might be placed in small text on some/all of the pages.) This is a perfect example of using freely-generated content for a good cause. (If there's any weird ethics going on, it's if all those publishers are declaring the original price of the ebooks as a tax-deductible donation. OTOH, the US tax code is *whacked*, and the gaming industry lives on a shoestring income, so I don't actually mind if they manage to get a tax break from this.)

And while "support the needy and I'll give you a prize!" is a weird and creepy way to get donations, "support the needy and enjoy one of your favorite pastimes, and learn about new games at the same time" is much less creepy.

I'll take it for granted that everyone reading this would like to help the people in Haiti who got hurt or lost their homes recently. But none of us has unlimited resources; we can't live our lives by giving away money to "the needy;" there are always more needy people than there is money. Figuring out where and how much we can afford to donate is hard; attaching the donation to something that's already part of our spending habits makes the decision easier.

I bought the donate-to-Haiti mega-pack, knowing that the vast majority of it is files I would never have otherwise paid for. (Anything to do with d20, which is a lot of it. Maps. Modern-day adventures. Anything involving vampires, werewolves, or women in metal bikinis.)

Maybe I should've just donated directly to Doctors Without Borders. I wanted to donate to something--help_haiti at LJ is having a donation drive involving fanfic & other gifts, and I was considering participating (was too busy at work while it was all getting sorted out) or bidding (got too lost in the possibilities).

This was simple. I like gaming; I like cheap gaming stuff, even stuff I'll never use. I've heard good things about Doctors Without Borders. I'm familiar with DriveThruRPG, so there weren't new signup forms involved.

$20 goes towards Haiti, and in a couple of days, I'll get a link that gives me access to swarms of pretty gamer art and a bunch of text attached to games I'll never play (but will enjoy thinking about).

[pshrynk]

Gamers have donated almost $121,000 so far...

[Robotech_Master]

Just a reminder: this offer ends after January 31 (though people who've already gotten it will continue to be able to download it, and DriveThru will continue to accept donations).

So if you've been considering it but on the fence, you might want to go ahead and kick in.

They've raised over $162,000 so far.

[dioib]

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

Just a reminder: this offer ends after January 31 (though people who've already gotten it will continue to be able to download it, and DriveThru will continue to accept donations).

So if you've been considering it but on the fence, you might want to go ahead and kick in.

They've raised over $162,000 so far.

Or you can simply donate like normal people just for the good it could do to others.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by dioib

Or you can simply donate like normal people just for the good it could do to others.

Just make sure to make public statements about it after you do so that everybody will know how morally superior you are.

[dioib]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Just make sure to make public statements about it after you do so that everybody will know how morally superior you are.

Perhaps, but that's a darker perspective I believe only few are prone to develop..

[Elfwreck]

The drive is over, and it raised $178,900.00 for Doctors Without Borders.