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"Due to increased problems with photocopying and scanning of gamebooks, WotC has decided to stop the sales and storage of all physical and/or paper-based gaming materials from stores. WotC is currently exploring other options that do not involve letting anybody else see our intellectual property for any reason at all, ever."
Dear Wotc_Trevor, that will solve NOTHING. That won't fix piracy. It's a step back in time, like Metallica vs Napster and now mp3 is legally sold on Internet.
You can't change evolution.
The best thing you have done against piracy is DDI, is Compendium, is CB, is making the books we need right there, under a monthly fee.
__________________ And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
No I was talking about Wizards. The new policy includes what was already their policy. The big difference seems to be:
1. The "proof" that they own a nrick and morter store goes directly to Wizards as opposed to through the distributors.
2. They have to sign a document.
3. Possibly some stuff about magic the gathering (I'm not sure.)
It's the same thing they've been doing forever, linked to their retailer support stuff. Which is freebies for stores, and other stuff. (They apparenly even help you create signs, and other store info material.)
Ah! I see where I'm confused. As far as I know, you haven't had to own a physical brick and mortar store to order WotC books from a distributor or sell WotC PDFs (or other products) online, you only have to possess a retail license (and whatever else your government requires you to obtain/file in order to sell goods).
If you were supposed to actually rent space or whatnot in order to be afforded the privelage of carrying WotC books, I'm not sure I've ever seen a wholesaler do very much to enforce that. The new document stipulates that you must actually maintain a brick and mortar (i.e., physical) storefront to sell WotC products online.
It just hit me what this dumbass decision is all about. Sales are less than projected for 4e and DDI and a scapegoat is needed. Think about it. It makes no sense otherwise. But if you have a boss chewing your butt off, because his boss is chewing his off, because the numbers aren't there, you need to do something, anything, to make it look like you're addressing the problem.
Since losses due to pirating are impossible to prove, (and in fact pirating may arguably lead to more sales in the long run,) its also impossible to disprove. So the lackey gives the idea to the boss who dutifully passes it along to his boss, and they all gain another business quarter to hope that something changes. The lackeys and low level bosses now its all BS, but hey, they get to keep their jobs for another few months. They make a big deal of it, send out press releases, prosecute a few people internationally in some lame attempt to strike fear into the hearts of pirates.
And all they do is piss off their ever dwindling base of customers.
By sales being less than projected, don't get me wrong. They can be through the roof. But if they are less than some spreadsheet said they had to be, based on factors not at all related to reality, heads will roll.
Who else here has worked in a big corporate environment---come on---doesn't it make sense in a dumb corporate kinda way?
__________________ ~Joe
If you like what I said, throw me some XP. I was a goblin sharpshooter for far too long.
Who else here hs worked in a big corporate environment---come on---doesnt it make sense in a dumb corporate kinda way?
It's so weird though - take the PHB1 for example. The book is already thoroughly and completely pirated. It's on every torrent site. Everybody who wanted or wants to pirates already has or can.
So what do we do... we STOP selling the official PDF... So that people who actually WANT to pay even though they don't need to, CAN'T. So that even as the book continues to be pirated every single day all over the palce, we actually stop making ANY money at all from it by pulling it completely out of the market.
And while we're at it why don't we do the same with our entire line of legacy products which aren't even being sold in a physical form in the first place.
Thing is, if you make it harder to get illegal copies of a pdf on the net, more people are likely to legitimately buy them.
Nope, not even remotely... I don't think WotC has a reasonable plan to stop piracy of their books. Back before there were legal RPG PDFs, there were illegal ones - just scanned copies, some OCR and some not. This will do absolutely zero to stop piracy, if that's the stated goal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WotC_Trevor
Unfortunately, due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you.
Well, I got it wrong. I was at least accepting of a financial reason, as in "We can make more selling this ourselves." If this is the reason, it's ... kind of dumb.
It'd be like a band taking their songs off iTunes because they found their album up on Bittorrent.
What I find most annoying about this is that the honest people are being punished, and it's not going to slow down the dishonest people one bit.
Right on.
Combined with the lawsuit, this smacks of collective punishment. As a teacher, I've seen teachers pitch a snit and punish the class for the misbehavior of a few individuals. Do you know what that does? Promote solidarity amongst the students against the authority figure.
(And thank you for the XP, mach1.)
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
Unfortunately, the truth is that due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you.
For almost any other reason, I would support this move. The PDF market for D&D books is borked, in large part because of the nasty catch-22 about pricing PDF's the same as physical books in order to not cannibalize physical book sales (and thus making the PDF purchase drastically unappealing, but suitable for a niche).
I speak with 100% confidence when I say that this will not do what you want it to, and will have much more negative repercussions than even theoretically possible positive ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piratecat
What I find most annoying about this is that the honest people are being punished, and it's not going to slow down the dishonest people one bit.
That's pretty much exactly what piracy paranoia always does: screw over the folks who play by the rules, without hurting the pirates at all.
WotC needs to seriously fire whatever suits are trying to turn back the clock from the praise-worthy openness and exploration of most of the last 10 years.
The reaction to a problem like this should be "how can we make it work?" not "it's not working for reasons XYZ and so must be stopped!"
It's so weird though - take the PHB1 for example. The book is already thoroughly and completely pirated. It's on every torrent site. Everybody who wanted or wants to pirates already has or can.
So what do we do... we STOP selling the official PDF... So that people who actually WANT to pay even though they don't need to, CAN'T. So that even as the book continues to be pirated every single day all over the palce, we actually stop making ANY money at all from it by pulling it completely out of the market.
And while we're at it why don't we do the same with our entire line of legacy products which aren't even being sold in a physical form in the first place.
Whaaaa?
Which fits my theory above. Circling the wagons of 4e, trying to do everything they can to increase 4e sales, which are not as good as projected. Believe it or not, there are some people who will never ever download a pirated book. So if they have to spend 20 bucks on something RPG-wise for D&D, why give them a way NOT to spend it on 4e?
__________________ ~Joe
If you like what I said, throw me some XP. I was a goblin sharpshooter for far too long.
This is the first time I have ever posted on these (or any) boards. Besides the general urk that I am feeling after recently purchasing many 4e manuals on PDF with the expectation I could recover them later, my real issue is that I use my nightly "game time" as a release from the stress of the day. I look forward to reading the boards here and to all the excitement and ideas that are generated as a result. Instead I am thinking about the money that I may have just spent under false pretenses. BOOOOOOOOO!
It just hit me what this dumbass decision is all about. Sales are less than projected and a scapegoat is needed. Think about it. It makes no sense otherwise. But if you have a boss chewing your butt off, because his boss is chewing his off, because the numbers aren't there, you need to do something, anything, to make it look like you're adressing the problem.
Since losses due to pirating are impossible to prove, (and in fact pirating may lead to more sales in the long run,) its also impossible to disprove. So the lackey gives the idea to the boss who dutifully passes it along to his boss, and they all gain another business quarter to hope that something changes. The lackeys and low level bosses now its all BS, but hey, they get to keep their jobs for another few months.
Who else here hs worked in a big corporate environment---come on---doesnt it make sense in a dumb corporate kinda way?
You know Joe, I'd thought the same thing. But posting something like that here at Enworld is dangerous in that the pro-4E crowd will now attack you for speculating about the sales of 4E. I mean as long as you speculate that the sales arent doing well. If you were saying that the sales are brisk and awesome then that seems to be OK here.
Anyway I was thinking pretty much the same thing. I think that the hardcore 4E supporters are going to buy the books regardless in PDF or hard copy form.
__________________ I'm thinking you're totally out to lunch on this one. Find another form of foreplay that doesn't involve 3 hours of explanation and a pocket calculator.
Sorry to derail but I am really curious why did GW do this? What was there to gain? You mentioned something earlier about IP control but I really fail to understand what this might be about.
Honestly? I have no idea. If you scroll up a little bit, though, I attached their policy sheet in which they try to explain it themselves.
As I said, even if RPGNow promised what it could not guarantee, WotC is taking away the redownloads that we paid for. WotC got paid by us through rpgnow for that access.
Regardless of whether rpgnow is blameless or culpatory here, WotC is taking away our access to legal pdfs we bought and that is why I am angry at WotC.
RPGNow wants to offer them to us, but they are capitulating to WotC.
WotC is taking away our stuff and doesn't want us to have it.
I really don't know what to say to this.
WOTC's reason to cut off pdf sales is kind of lame. But the idea that WOTC is responsible for RPGNOW's promises of ongoing product support is tin foil hat stuff.
You know Joe, I'd thought the same thing. But posting something like that here at Enworld is dangerous in that the pro-4E crowd will now attack you for speculating about the sales of 4E. I mean as long as you speculate that the sales arent doing well. If you were saying that the sales are brisk and awesome then that seems to be OK here.
Yes, yes, you're oppressed and ill-treated.
Everyone should freely make all the statements they want without any good evidence to back up their position, and should never be called on them. That sounds awesome!
Who else here has worked in a big corporate environment---come on---doesn't it make sense in a dumb corporate kinda way?
Eh... I work in a corporate environment, and I think the only part that makes sense is it's a dumb idea. (Not yours the idea of taking the pdfs off.)
More then likely it isn't lack of sales altogether, but instead:
Lack of sales of the official pdfs + an increase in pirating.
It's pobably part of soemthing that's been tracked since day 1. Maybe someone's quarterly report finally showed the pirate to official pdf ratio was in the cancel now range...
What it doesn't account for is that it's new, so obviously more people will be pirating it. (especialy if it is popular.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jdrakeh
Ah! I see where I'm confused. As far as I know, you haven't had to own a physical brick and mortar store to order WotC books from a distributor or sell WotC PDFs (or other products) online, you only have to possess a retail license (and whatever else your government requires you to obtain/file in order to sell goods).
It's been there, it's just that since it was "enforced" through the distributers and not WoTC lots of places slipepd through... Like amazon and walmart. I'm guessing the distributors didn't want to loose out on the BIG chains if they enforced the policy.
Even the send us a picture of your store requirement was there. (I a one time briefly thought about opening a store, and was doing a bunch of research about it before coming to my senses. )
What I find most annoying about this is that the honest people are being punished, and it's not going to slow down the dishonest people one bit.
Annoying? That's what I find most hilarious about this! To be fair, I'd find it equally hilarious no matter who makes this incredibly boneheaded decision.
__________________ Psionics are too sci-fi, not like the traditional method of spell casting that has existed only in D&D, involves research, laboratory work, and formulas, and was cribbed directly from a series of science fiction novels. I mean, come on, calling forth the power to alter the world from your own center of will? That's not magical in the slightest! Not at all like my wizard's spell "Telepathy!"
You know Joe, I'd thought the same thing. But posting something like that here at Enworld is dangerous in that the pro-4E crowd will now attack you for speculating about the sales of 4E. I mean as long as you speculate that the sales arent doing well. If you were saying that the sales are brisk and awesome then that seems to be OK here.
Anyway I was thinking pretty much the same thing. I think that the hardcore 4E supporters are going to buy the books regardless in PDF or hard copy form.
Yeah I thought about that--after I hit the submit button of course. So I went back to the post you quoted and added this section in to attempt to have this not turn into an edition war...
By sales being less than projected, don't get me wrong. They can be through the roof. But if they are less than some spreadsheet said they had to be, based on factors not at all related to reality, heads will roll.
We'll see if it works...
__________________ ~Joe
If you like what I said, throw me some XP. I was a goblin sharpshooter for far too long.
What really pisses me off are the "classic" products that are being pulled.
I'm a big fan of a lot of the old 2e settings, and have been slowly accumulating PDF of them on Paizo's store. WotC doesn't sell these in hard copy, and hasn't in a very long time.
The only options are "buy the PDF" or "pirate the PDF," and now they're taking the former away...
__________________ 'Imaginary' universes are so much more beautiful than this stupidly constructed 'real' one.
That's pretty much exactly what piracy paranoia always does: screw over the folks who play by the rules, without hurting the pirates at all.
I can't call it a simple case of that, for the following reasons.
First of all, did any of the honest people do anything to stop piracy? Did you report any torrents to WoTC? Did you try to encourage people not to do it. Did you explain to your friends about this? I'm sure some did, but I'm sure others didn't and even encouraged piracy, while others turned a blind eye. And those that will now "turn to piracy" to spite WoTC don't really have, IMO, a very good grip on ethics or morality.
Secondly, this does deter pirates somewhat. The WoTC benefit from printer proofs and Acrobat features. Somebody would have to scan the physical book and it's likely to be an inferior copy.
And thirdly--I fully suspect ISPs and other will start being able to detect piracy. Let's see where we are 10 years from now.
As annoying and disappointing this is, I have a feeling that you'll be seeing more of this occuring. Today, the AP announced they are taking steps to prevent their stories from being used without compensation--in part to protect their newspaper subscribers.
The two biggest problems with the Internet revolution were the following: companies focused more on market share rather than how they got paid, which gave an expectation, and people like Stallman, Lessig, etc., started a memeplex that made people think that created content was worthless and should be gratis for people to use. This has created a sort of entitlement culture in the world, as well as enforcing a somewhat naive belief that people should create "just for the art", and that any big corporation that produces content is evil, IP laws are "stupid", etc.
I suspect the economic downturn is going to cause some harsh realities, and you can expect more companies making these unpopular decisions.
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