WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[Jan van Leyden]

Just out of the damn blue, "Oh hey, pdfs are banned after tonight."

WOW GUYS! THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP!

That's the source of about 70% of my anger. I don't like that they were pulled whatsoever, but pulled on only a few hours notice?

And that's the thing I really don't understand. Terminating a contract without prior notice? Wouldn't that mean a serious breach?

While I trust OBS and Paizo that they really dind't have prior notice, this leaves several questions unanswered...

 

[Fenes]

Every time something like this blows up on ENW there is one guaranteed constant that always pushes me towards forgiveness for Wizards gaming sins, and that is the unutterable smugness of many of the posters here. I just hope that anyone browsing ENW to see if our community is one worth joining doesn't judge us by threads like this.

Smugness? I don't see smugness, I see incomprehension, and scorn, and anger, all justified by WotC's actions and attitude.

The "He did something wrong too, so don't judge me for what I did wrong" defense does not work, even if it applied here (which we do not know yet).

 

[Wraith Form]

Why exactly? I mean, which part of this mess made you stop playing the game that (I assume) you are playing with 4-5 other people?

Seriously? I asked this of someone else just a few posts up: where have you been for the past 9 or 10 years?

These are the things that I can name off the top of my head considering it's 4:30AM where I am:

3.0 -> 3.5 and WotC's smug "if you don't like it, tough" attitude (there's that word smug again....!)
Dungeon & Dragon mags folded
the use of the term "Gleemax" (I may be stretching it a bit here)
promises about DDi functionality that haven't come to light in over a year
intimations that we'd get PDF versions of D&D4 books at lower cost or even free [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slLNNbcgiSs&feature=related[/ame]

...and I know others can add to things I've forgotten off my list.

Look, I'm happy that some of you (apparently a small majority) were absolutely 100% unphased by some of the stunts WotC has been pulling over the past several years, but me? I'm taking my cash elsewhere.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

(Go and ask Apple for a repeat download after you lose an album you bought off iTunes, and see what they say.)

If Apple didn't permit this occasionally, I would be stunned. If your claim is that Apple doesn't permit this, I really have to ask for some evidence, because I simply don't believe it. Denial of reasonable requests like this would be horrible business practice, and while I don't own an iPod or download from iTunes, it doesn't strike me as inept segment of Apple's business.

 

[wedgeski]

They said, "OK." So I was grateful and kept using them to buy more.

Perhaps an EU/US divide then... that was certainly not the answer given to me. The lesson I learned from that experience was having a decent back-up strategy, something which many people here sound like they may now have learned as well...

 

[Darrin Drader]

If Apple didn't permit this occasionally, I would be stunned. If your claim is that Apple doesn't permit this, I really have to ask for some evidence, because I simply don't believe it. Denial of reasonable requests like this would be horrible business practice, and while I don't own an iPod or download from iTunes, it doesn't strike me as inept segment of Apple's business.

I can't speak to Apple's business practices but I do know that when PDFs of older product was sold through the Wizards Online Store, it was your responsibility to back them up. They did not provide replacements for lost PDFs. The ability to get replacements came when they were moved to Paizo and OBS. Honestly, I'm a firm believer in creating backups, so this doesn't bug me as much as the simple lack of availability of the old stuff.

 

[Fenes]

Perhaps an EU/US divide then... that was certainly not the answer given to me. The lesson I learned from that experience was having a decent back-up strategy, something which many people here sound like they may now have learned as well...

I have a decent backup startegy for PDFs - I copy them on all my computers, meaning two desktops and one laptop. I am still mad at thise boneheaded move by WotC.

 

[Friadoc]

(Go and ask Apple for a repeat download after you lose an album you bought off iTunes, and see what they say.)

As a former member of Applecare (worked for them at two different periods over the past 12+ years), I can tell you that not only does Apple allow for a repeat download, they have a process and policy for it, as well as online documentation that anyone can access and follow the instructions on how to do this process.

Unlike a lot of companies out there, especially in the computer industry, Apple has an extremely high level of customer service with their Applecare program, to the point that some groups who do not recommend extended warranty programs do recomment the Applecare Protection Plan, as it is seen as adding value to an Apple product.

Out of all the potential choices out there that you could have selected for your analogy, you chose poorly. No worries, they are a big name and we are talking about the Internet delivery of protecting IP, so I could see why you selected them. In my opinion, you might have been better off selecting Amazon, however I've heard that they're fairly good with much of their customer service, too.

Hmmm, good customer service equates to vocal customer testimonials, maybe someone should tell WotC about that, too.

 

[Nymrohd]

Well this will certainly make a lot of people happy. You know, those people who did the illegal scans and got huge rep for posting the pirated material on their communities. WotC will only lose money from this (maybe some from PR backlash though honestly I don't believe that PR backlash affects this kind of product that much) certainly a lot from people who actually bought the PDF copies. If they want to do something to mitigate losses because of piracy their only viable option is to sell the PDFs themselves dirt cheap. And even if RPGNow was offering those backup copies illegally and not within their contract with WotC, WotC must have known of the fact and also know that they would be the ones who get all the crap for pulling prodcut back. At best they managed to increase the size of pirated files (since the scans are likely to be rather bigger) . . . And they killed their revenue from old edition sales. Lastly I am pretty sure that one big torrent I am aware of, which has everything published for D&D ever (I mean ever) can likely be accessed by more than those eight websites.

 

[jgbrowning]

Wow, you don't check up on industry news for one day and look what you miss.

joe "stopped checking ENworld at 10am yesterday" b.