WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

Scribble · Apr 6, 2009

jdrakeh said:
Yes, they do, actually. Or, at the very least, Minion Development/RPGNow did prior to the merger with DriveThru to become OBS. I assume that it is still part of the company.

That said, as I mention earlier, this sounds far more like the GW push to 'help' brick and mortar stores by forcing Internet retailers to adhere to slavish, often absurd, standards in order to carry GW stock at all.

Then, after they effectively locked out most online distributors, they turned their sights on those brick and mortar stores they were previously trying to 'help' by forcing them to adhere to the same (or similar) standards.

Uhh... did you read their authorized online seller stuff? There aren't any slavish or absurd standards aside from pretty much always maintaining your brick and morter store.

Except that they were not going exclusively through OBS — they were (and apparently are) still going through Paizo. And there are other PDF distributors that they could go through, to boot.

Yeah but the current edition stuff is well was drivethru exclusive.

I think it's far more likely that they're trying to 'help' brick and mortar stores by crippling online vendors, a plan which is both far cheaper and easier to implement (and, again, which GW has proved works to the manufacturer's advantage with regard to IP control).

They already had that stuff in place before, (about Brick and Morter) just through the distributor. Did you read any of the retailer rewards stuff linked to the press release?

Voadam · Apr 6, 2009

I wish I had immediately bought the white box pdfs and 1e Manual of the Planes, two WotC pdfs not for sale on Paizo.

Cadfan · Apr 6, 2009

Voadam said:
You expect consumers to give WotC the benefit of the doubt and to turn the other cheek.

You're giving RPGNow the benefit of the doubt. In a situation where its almost guaranteed that they knew, when they promised you future downloads, that they couldn't actually guarantee that promise.

Why the hard line:

We do not know enough to say if they are legally entitled to take away access to the store backups from their consumers. They might be. This would not entitle them to say it is not their actions that are responsible for the consumers loss or to avoid the ire their actions cause.

for one company but not the other? Particularly when only one of the companies has made promises to you?

Asmor · Apr 6, 2009

That's seriously not cool. If I'd bought any WotC PDFs from RPGNow, I'd be making a huge stink right now.

One of the main reasons I like buying from them is that you can download your PDFs later. RPGNow should have required that in any contract before allowing WotC to sell on their store, so either RPGNow was negligent on that requirement or WotC broke a contract. Either way, someone

ed up, and if I was one of the consumers who had purchased any of their stuff I'd be demanding my money back.

jdrakeh · Apr 6, 2009

Cadfan said:
Do you have any reason to think this?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I don't know with any degree of certainty that this is what it happening. In a nutshell, back in the day, GW initially cut wholesalers and web-based distributors out of the commerce loop as part of a "direct to retailer" program promoted as an effort to help brick and mortar stores. This sounds like what the new web distribution policy may be aimed at doing based on familiar language in the WotC press release and the RPGNow blurb.

Dark Psion · Apr 6, 2009

Paizo just said that people have till the end of the day to buy and/or download WotC pdfs.

paizo.com - Paizo / Messageboards / paizo.com / Website Feedback / WotC halts sales through RPGNow/DriveThruRPG

Vorput · Apr 6, 2009

tmatk said:
I bet you're right, but this move will have no effect. In fact, I bet it increases the amount of books that are pirated; harder to feel bad about downloading a book via bittorrent if their is no way to buy it.

Sadly, I don't see how that won't be the case.

Eugh.

Voadam · Apr 6, 2009

Stalker0 said:
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.

Its the old expression, "why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free". Well the flip side works as well, "If I like milk, and can't get the milk for free, maybe I'll buy a cow".

People get illegal pdfs because its free and easy to do. If the easy to do is taken out, then that's more incentive to just cough up some cash and get the pdf legally.

Huh?

This does not make it harder to get illegal copies.

At least for right now this only makes it harder to get legal copies.

For 3e and 4e stuff illegal copies are the only pdfs currently available.

For older edition stuff this cuts the number of sources of legally obtaining pdfs of them by half.

Voadam · Apr 6, 2009

And now Paizo as well. Crap!

Cadfan · Apr 6, 2009

Asmor said:
RPGNow should have required that in any contract before allowing WotC to sell on their store, so either RPGNow was negligent on that requirement or WotC broke a contract.

Its unlikely that WotC "broke a contract."

If Company A licenses something to Company B, and that license has an uncancellable term of lets say 5 years, and two years in A calls up B and says "your license is over, stop now," there's no reason for B to listen.

The most coercive thing I can think of for WotC to have done is to have given an uncancellable contract, but then to come to RPGNow and say, "We know we can't make you cancel that earlier contract, but we have a new, different contract that will be very lucrative for you, and we will only give it to you if you agree to modify and cancel the earlier contract." You know, offer something the other side will hopefully think is better, and require them to give up one agreement to get the other.

I don't have any reason to think that's happened, though. The most likely scenario is an at will agreement terminatable at any time with notice, notice having been given, and RPGNow realizing it can't uphold promises made to customers.

Someone who's bought things from RPGNow needs to check their fine print and see if they disclaimed this sort of occurrence.