I'd be willing to be patient if I was offered anything that even remotedly made sense as a reason. As it is I was either lied to, or - if WotC really did what they did for the reasons given - they are incredibly ignorant of the reality of today's internet and economy. I somehow doubt that the latter is the case.
WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs
I'd be willing to be patient if I was offered anything that even remotedly made sense as a reason. As it is I was either lied to, or - if WotC really did what they did for the reasons given - they are incredibly ignorant of the reality of today's internet and economy. I somehow doubt that the latter is the case.
It's not.
Pre-2006*, you weren't a customer. (*: I can't remember the exact date PDFs of the core books went on sale, but I think it was about then).
Now you're not a customer again.
I'm sorry, but if Wizards thinks that it'll sell to 100 extra customers whilst losing 10 customers, it'll choose to sell to those 100 extra customers. It's part of what businesses need to do to keep going.
Yes it sucks. It also sucks that I can't get true broadband: I have to pay more to get less speed than most other people in Australia can get. But there are financial realities involved.
Obryn
Hero
Well, on the one hand, it's been less than 48 hours. I know it feels like more, here in the message board bubble, but that's an eyeblink.
On the other hand, I think it's pretty irresponsible that they wouldn't have had something official posted right when the plug was pulled. That just seems like common sense to me... And, no, some guy on a message board - even if he does have "WotC" in his handle - making occasional posts on a forum isn't what I'd call adequate communication.
-O
Again, by removing older edition PDFs they are not winning any customers, they are losing customers - unless they actually beleive by removing older PDFs they can force people to buy 4E.
The necessity of PDFs to make your product available for WotC and 3PP is vastly divergent. I think I can reasonably say that the majority of FLGS do not sell a lot of 3PP books or at least do not have a steady market for them. I would expect those publishers make a lot more sales online than they do in print.
And WotC has not been offering PDFs for that long.
Big companies? Not quite the same scale.
I expect they'll be watching the lawsuits that Wizards has launched with great interest. Stopping piracy should be tremendously important to each of them... although perhaps not as important as to Wizards.
For 3.5e, but not when it first came out. As I recall, they were full price (no discount at all) and came out a couple of years into the system's release, when 3.5e was already on the slope downwards. They tested the water first, and only started releasing pdf books at about the same time as the official release date quite late.
Cheers!
I don't believe at all that's the reason.
I do expect that the older pdfs will become available again.
What did WotC_Trevor say again? Oh, yes:
"We are exploring other options for digital distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you."
Lonely Tylenol
First Post
No, they name laws like George Orwell named government departments. Laws are named in such a way as to support the ideology of whomever it is that wrote the law. One might call a hypothetical law that lets police search cars without a warrant the "Protect our Children Act", because it sounds better than the "Invading Your Privacy Act", and who wants to be accused of voting against the Protect our Children Act...what, do you want to hurt children or something? It's just two-bit politics.
When it comes to the legal terminology used in the law, there is no question that everyone knows that theft and copyright infringement are two different things.
Correct. Right now pre-4.0 editions sold on PDF are a profit center for WotC with no costs associated. Now, companies don't eliminate profit centers unless they see it as a threat to new/existing products. That would ONLY be the case if 4.0 wasn't moving as well as it should be... Which I know to be true.
Shadowsong666
First Post
I am a customer since a very long time now... the only thing that changed is the kind of media format i want, like and desire. Things change. Times change. Future awaits. I left the BETAMAX stage i got born and now arrived at the digital age with blueray and all the rest of the HD media. No desire to watch VHS anymore, sorry pal. ^^
I bought dnd books since 2nd edition and have 4e books here as well (not to mention shadowrun, cyberpunk, merp, earthdawn, ars magica, all the WW stuff and all the other great systems out there.) and i will continue to buy books if there is no other way. Thats not the point. The point is ripping me of the format i desire. Getting me to a point where i need to chose how to get what i want - legally(scan it myself - much work) or illegaly(download it from pirates). Time before that i could simply pay the bugs and get it instantly...
