That was my attitude until WotC posted their "defense." I could think of a number of legitimate reasons to stop .PDF sales. Cracking down on piracy isn't one of them. It's the same old crap the RIAA spent years doing, to no avail.
WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs
That was my attitude until WotC posted their "defense." I could think of a number of legitimate reasons to stop .PDF sales. Cracking down on piracy isn't one of them. It's the same old crap the RIAA spent years doing, to no avail.
This will be unpopular... Thread closed.
Overnight, a whole mess of you folks thought it would be okay to be jerks here. It is not fair to allow that to go unanswered. Nor is it okay to allow people to continue to spew vitriol while the moderators sort this out.
We'll be having some discussion, and I expect we'll reopen this thread once we've sorted out how to deal with those who think that it is okay to be jerks at 3 AM. Thank you for your patience.
Folks,
Okay, we are starting to get caught up with the backlog. In a little while, the thread will be reopened. But we need to be clear about something:
The fact that this news is upsetting in no way removes your responsibility as posters on EN World.
We expect you to be kind, respectful, and reasonable. As this thread goes forward, we will be coming down hard on things we see as personal attacks, excessive hyperbole, or vitriol. Please consider this to be the only warning you are likely to get.
Okay, we are starting to get caught up with the backlog. In a little while, the thread will be reopened. But we need to be clear about something:
The fact that this news is upsetting in no way removes your responsibility as posters on EN World.
We expect you to be kind, respectful, and reasonable. As this thread goes forward, we will be coming down hard on things we see as personal attacks, excessive hyperbole, or vitriol. Please consider this to be the only warning you are likely to get.
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Treebore
First Post
Good. By and large I thought the majority of posters were doing very well at following policy. As usual its a few bad eggs/pirates that make the rest of us get penalized. Pun on piracy completely intended.
rogueattorney
Adventurer
I guess the main thing I'd like to know from Charles or anyone else from WotC is what the piracy of new 4e print products has to do with the availability of OOP D&D products. Why take these down, too? That makes no sense and seems to be more of an incitement towards piracy than a move to prevent it.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I want to thank the mods for opening this thread back up again. This is simply too big to not let it be discussed amongst our community.
While I agree with what the mods said about not being jerks, I also think that there's a lot of anger here at WotC, and rightfully so. Whether it's about how this move - officially stated to be a measure to fight piracy - won't have any practical effect at stopping pirates, or about how there was no notice given prior to this happening (save for the brief one from Paizo), or the nature of the contract between WotC and OneBookShelf, or remaining downloads that were lost, the ultimate fact of the matter here is that WotC did their customers a bad turn with this latest move.
Maybe they have another method for digital distribution of their products that they'll unveil in the future; I don't think that matters. Every part of this latest move of theirs was done poorly no matter how you look at it; this is a PR folly, a marketing folly, and a business folly. No good will come from this, either for WotC or the people they're ostensibly trying to serve - the only positive ramifications will be for other companies who stand to gain the customers that WotC is driving away.
While I agree with what the mods said about not being jerks, I also think that there's a lot of anger here at WotC, and rightfully so. Whether it's about how this move - officially stated to be a measure to fight piracy - won't have any practical effect at stopping pirates, or about how there was no notice given prior to this happening (save for the brief one from Paizo), or the nature of the contract between WotC and OneBookShelf, or remaining downloads that were lost, the ultimate fact of the matter here is that WotC did their customers a bad turn with this latest move.
Maybe they have another method for digital distribution of their products that they'll unveil in the future; I don't think that matters. Every part of this latest move of theirs was done poorly no matter how you look at it; this is a PR folly, a marketing folly, and a business folly. No good will come from this, either for WotC or the people they're ostensibly trying to serve - the only positive ramifications will be for other companies who stand to gain the customers that WotC is driving away.
Aberzanzorax
Hero
One response I'd like to make to a general point I have seen from the very few WotC apologists on this and other boards:
The point: Hold on a minute, we don't know anything. Give WotC a chance to defend themselves!!!
(This is my true understanding of the point, and is not an intentional strawman).
My response: They were the ones that put all of this into action. If they wanted to defend themselves, they could have done so before putting it into action or have had something ready for when they did.
It appears that they are gauging our responses to best (and likely way too late) put some spin on that will mitigate the fallout at this point.
Sadly, when/if they respond, it's my belief that it will re-ignite the anger, rather than smoothing things over.
The point: Hold on a minute, we don't know anything. Give WotC a chance to defend themselves!!!
(This is my true understanding of the point, and is not an intentional strawman).
My response: They were the ones that put all of this into action. If they wanted to defend themselves, they could have done so before putting it into action or have had something ready for when they did.
It appears that they are gauging our responses to best (and likely way too late) put some spin on that will mitigate the fallout at this point.
Sadly, when/if they respond, it's my belief that it will re-ignite the anger, rather than smoothing things over.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
I think this is going to be something that WotC finds regrettable. But they did so out of a percieved necessity. Whether or not they're hiding behind a false reason (the "sudden discovery" of the phb2 piracy) or they feel that their reasoning is legitimate, they're going to stick with their guns.
With that said I find it curious that (to my perspective) they haven't been able to follow through with a single technology enabled extension of D&D, which is sad because the perception I had in 2000 was that, despite my misgivings about d20 and 3e, D&D was in the hands of very geek-tech savvy people who knew what they were doing. Has that conceit been disposed of, then? Is D&D now just in the hands of people who are just nudging it along? I find that hard to believe.
I think, rather like the death and rebirth of DUNGEON and DRAGON magazines that what this really is, is WotC bringing all their chickens home.
If it is a long term strategy to do just that then the people who are responsible for creating it are either "very smart or very dumb", to quote JAWS. The eyes of most of us internet enabled gamers (which has to be a considerable portion of WotC's customer base - they allegedly designed 4e around that very notion) are now pointed at them waiting for what they do next.
With all that said I don't think I've ever made it unclear what version of D&D I prefer and think is best, but I don't think this is some attempt by WotC to kill off old D&D once and for all. Original D&D didn't go away when AD&D came out, and likewise AD&D didn't go away when AD&D 2e came out, and so forth. So it won't now that PDFs aren't available. I won't be a fan of 4e, regardless of what they do, and if anything this makes me view them with a far more skeptical eye.
