WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[Brown Jenkin]

Now that's the most logical interpretation of this I've seen yet. (Which is not to say it was a good move, but it's a clear potential motive.) This court case will potentially involve revealing details of the watermarking system, and thus quite possibly make them easier to circumvent. WotC hypothetically views this as "our PDFs will no longer be safe now that this case has been filed, so we shouldn't leave them out there". Definitely food for thought.

Except that John Does #4-infinity will just use the existing PDFs to distribute the existing stuff. This only works for new stuff that hasn't been released yet.

 

[gribble]

Gary Gygax hated the OGL and didn't think much of 3e either. Didn't stop it being really successful.

While I think Brown Jenkin is dead wrong that WotC cares anything about what Ryan Dancey has to say, from my perspective there is a big difference between the opinionated dislike of a gamer* towards a system and the reasoned analysis of someone like Ryan about the RPG business. Ryan has a track record of being dead right in most of his analysis - I don't think there are many individuals with as good a grasp on the RPG business as him.

* before the flames start, Gary may have been a god among gamers, but ultimately he was just a gamer like the rest of us with different views on different systems.

 

[Gallo22]

I kept reading here and there that some believe that Paizo (and other pdf sellers) may have known for awhile about WotC's decision to pull the pdfs and that it's Paizo's (and others) fault for not letting their customers know sooner than one day notice. Well..., I did not believe this for an instant, so I emailed Lisa Steven, CEO of Paizo and she graciously responded. Here is what she said:

Hi there

We received word with less than a days notice. I've posted this on
paizo.com so feel free to disseminate the information. We tried to do
what we could in the timeframe that we were given to make the
transition as painless as possible for everyone.

-Lisa Stevens
CEO
Paizo Publishing

 

[MerricB]

While I think Brown Jenkin is dead wrong that WotC cares anything about what Ryan Dancey has to say, from my perspective there is a big difference between the opinionated dislike of a gamer* towards a system and the reasoned analysis of someone like Ryan about the RPG business. Ryan has a track record of being dead right in most of his analysis - I don't think there are many individuals with as good a grasp on the RPG business as him.

* before the flames start, Gary may have been a god among gamers, but ultimately he was just a gamer like the rest of us with different views on different systems.

To some extent, I agree.

I always think Ryan's posts are worth reading and considering, and I do in this case as well. However, as this is the person who failed to get MasterTools up and running, any discussion of the lack of hybridization of D&D and computer gaming must keep that in mind. Wizards, with their Character Builder and D&D Compendium are already in front of where Wizards were under Ryan Dancey's watch.

The failure of Wizards to provide the Character Visualiser and Game Table at this point should be counted against them. However, have they stopped trying to bring that technology to us? And is it the hybridization that Dancey is interested in?

I have a feeling that the World of Warcraft gorilla is so important in his thinking that other approaches despite being able to maintain a solid player base are dismissed as "dead" because the new format is just so big!

Cheers!

 

[mmurphy1968]

I understand and agree with most of the anger people here are feeling but I wonder how much of WotC's decision is because of Hasbro. Maybe I am alone here but I always felt like much changed about WotC's products and policies after being bought by Hasbro.

 

[Alzrius]

Besides the cancellation of my DDI account, I will also no longer visit the WotC site, period.

Don't forget to go download all the existing 3.X material (and the bit of 2E material) still available on the WotC website while it's still there!

OGL FOREVER!

Indeed.

P.S.: I wonder if an OGL adaptation or version of 4E would be possible?

Goodman Games's 4E Dungeon Crawl Classics line uses 4E mechanics and is published under the OGL (I'm not sure if the newest adventures still do this, but the first few certainly did), so the groundwork for something like that is already laid.

 

[Scribble]

I doubt that the demographics of d&d products' market are that easy to do even for them. You do understand that on scale a 10% differentiation is pretty major regarding your sales -business wise. And that is a 10% differentiation of things you can measure. And higher differentiations from your estimates are not uncommon I guess.

Now imagine trying to estimate things you cant measure such as damage from piracy or level of interest as you say. You cant even figure out the result of your estimation.

I have absolutely no idea what metrics they use to do their analyzing, I'm just saying I'm absolutely positive they have people that can and DO do it.

We have a whole team of people that do that, and only that type of stuff, all day every day.

Now I don't know if Wizards has it to that level, but they're a darn successful corporate entity, so I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.

 

[Piratecat]

I understand and agree with most of the anger people here are feeling but I wonder how much of WotC's decision is because of Hasbro. Maybe I am alone here but I always felt like much changed about WotC's products and policies after being bought by Hasbro.

Agreed. Previously, WotC was very much a personality-driven company that had strong leadership between Peter Adkison (who has always been wise enough to hire smart, competent people) and Ryan Dancy, an opinionated guy whose vision drove the OGL. Once they departed, I strongly suspect the company culture and the decision-making process changed.

 

[gribble]

To some extent, I agree.

Yeah, and I hear what you're saying too. Lets just say that I think he has a great understanding of the RPG business, but that I also think he still has much to learn about the computer software business (and how it relates to RPGs)...

 

[MerricB]

Agreed. Previously, WotC was very much a personality-driven company that had strong leadership between Peter Adkison (who has always been wise enough to hire smart, competent people) and Ryan Dancy, an opinionated guy whose vision drove the OGL. Once they departed, I strongly suspect the company culture and the decision-making process changed.

Definitely. After they departed, I'm sure Wizards got a lot more cautious.

Unfortunately, one of the key reasons for Wizards getting more cautious was because of their big hit on Pokemon. As I remember it, Wizards management were warned by Hasbro that they were over-committing*, and after the bottom fell out of the Pokemon TCG market, they were left with a lot of product unsold. There were layoffs all over the company because of that (including Ryan Dancey). (* I really wish I could remember where I read that).

We like to think of the Adkinson/Dancey era as the golden age, but there were quite a few massive blunders in it. (Fallen Empires, anyone?)

Cheers!