WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[Scribble]

That's the only logical business reason to kill a revenue source that has no costs associated with it. They (legacy product line PDFs) are more popular than the current line.

I'm not sure anyone can really argue something as being the only reason for soemthing with what little actual facts we have.

For one thing, perhaps they were worried that just taking down the new edition, but leaving up the other material, would have an even bigger neative backlash.

Perhaps they DO plan to re-release everything in a new format they consider stronger.

It's just too early to tell.

I dunno. Maybe this is all a tragically ineffectual response to online piracy... but I can't help but think that perhaps WOTC has realized that a lot of people consider 4E inferior to the legacy products. And they're tired of competing with those golden games... so out they go.

I'd be more accepting to this idea I think if they hadn't also taken down their current edition.

The fact that ALL of their pdfs came down (new or old) pushes me into the opposite direction, that it's NOT an edition vrs another thing.

I tried checking on drivethru but they've already taken all wizards info down. Does anyone have any actual data from drivetrhu showing the older stuff outselling the new stuff? (The wayback machine gets blocked by my company for some reason.)

 

[Caliber]

Umm... Where exactly is the perceived edition war?

Especially since I am on record dozens of times supporting the decision-- the necessity-- to bring new players into the game?

Commentary about one edition or another is not de facto an edition war.

The line about "being fired from WotC" smacked of edition war to me, but hey, if I misinterpreted your meaning I apologize.

Edit: Vyvyan Basterd gives a good approximation of why I complained about edition warring though, if you want to know the thought process that lead me to initially post.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Umm... Where exactly is the perceived edition war?

It's when one uses hyperbole to equate the design of a new game system to that of being forcably terminated from a job.

It insinuates that WotC set out to intentionally lose you as a customer. The decision to no longer be their customer due to the creation of 4E is your own.

The more apt hyperbole would be that you quit being a customer. Actually, that's not even hyperbole and is more appropriate for these boards per the moderator's instructions.

 

[Fenes]

It's when one uses hyperbole to equate the design of a new game system to that of being forcably terminated from a job.

It insinuates that WotC set out to intentionally lose you as a customer. The decision to no longer be their customer due to the creation of 4E is your own.

The more apt hyperbole would be that you quit being a customer. Actually, that's not even hyperbole and is more appropriate for these boards per the moderator's instructions.

You're wrong. Up until Monday I was a customer of WotC. Then they decided they did not want to sell me old edition PDFs anymore.

WotC doesn't want to do business with me anymore.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You're wrong. Up until Monday I was a customer of WotC. Then they decided they did not want to sell me old edition PDFs anymore.

WotC doesn't want to do business with me anymore.

Maybe you should read my post before crying foul. I said "The decision to no longer be their customer due to the creation of 4E is your own."

I made no mention of their current decision and if you read my previous thoughts on the matter I am extremely disappointed with their actions this week.

And, even so, I am not "wrong." A company no longer wishing to offer a product does not equate to being fired from a job. The moderators have specifically asked all of us to curb the use of hypebole to make our points.

Also, I think it is too soon to say that WotC doesn't want to sell old edition PDFs any more. So far the little indication we have, taken at face value, is that they are looking into ways to offer these products again. Whether any of us has any remaining goodwill left to believe that they will follow through is another matter.

Edit: Another Also - I disagree with your premise. WotC does want to do business with you. They want to sell you 4E books in physical form, dice, Magic cards, dungeon tiles, miniatures, etc. You ultimately decide whether you want to be a customer. Saying that they don't want to do business with you implies an intent that desn't really exist. They just don't make a product you enjoy, just like a multitude of other businesses around the world that you do not purchase from.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

It insinuates that WotC set out to intentionally lose you as a customer.

Uhhh, yes. That's exactly what happened.

There's a subset of existing customers, and WotC knows who they are, that they intentionally wrote off-- and rightly so.

They produced a product that they knew would not appeal to a portion of their existing customers, in order to appeal to a larger market.

All good businesses do this on a regular basis.

If it was possible to provide a product that meets the needs of ALL customers, every business would obviously prefer to do that.

 

[Fenes]

It insinuates that WotC set out to intentionally lose you as a customer.

That's exaclty what they did by removing the products I was buying.

 

[Fenes]

Edit: Another Also - I disagree with your premise. WotC does want to do business with you. They want to sell you 4E books in physical form, dice, Magic cards, dungeon tiles, miniatures, etc. You ultimately decide whether you want to be a customer. Saying that they don't want to do business with you implies an intent that desn't really exist. They just don't make a product you enjoy, just like a multitude of other businesses around the world that you do not purchase from.

They did have a product I enjoyed, the OOP PDFs. And they removed that. I do not know many businesses who would remove a product from cirulation that cuased them no cost at all, and pure profit, unless there's another motive - like "make them all buy the new edition".

 

[Scribble]

They did have a product I enjoyed, the OOP PDFs. And they removed that. I do not know many businesses who would remove a product from cirulation that cuased them no cost at all, and pure profit, unless there's another motive - like "make them all buy the new edition".

Let's say you make money selling lemonaid. You have a big bowl of lemonaid sitting nearby that you scoop cups out of and sell to pople for 25 cents a cup.

You have five people buying that lemonaid. $1.25 woohoo! It covers the cost of you making that lemonaid so sweet deal. But then you notice that there's a line of people like 10 or so, who've been walking up behind your back and just scooping their own cups of lemonaid out of your bowl without paying you 25 cents.

Do you continue as is and just let those guys drink your lemonaid? Hey they're thirsty, but they might not have bought any from you anyway right?

Or do you take a break, put your lemonaid in your house, and go back to Target to try to find a better lemonaid holding mechanism? Maybe one with a lid and one of those spout things so you can have more control over who gets your lemonaid?

(My point being- Are you really firing those 5 people buying your lemonaid if you're only shutting down to find a more secure way to offer them lemonaid?)

 

[Roman]

There's a subset of existing customers, and WotC knows who they are, that they intentionally wrote off-- and rightly so.

I agree that there is a subset of existing customers that was intentionally written off, but I am much less sure it was such a good thing for the company to do so. Although these customers tend to have less growth potential, they could nevertheless provide a stable base and a steady source of income from which to try to expand the market and the cost of keeping a large number of them might have been as small as a token effort to address their concerns (for example, I might have well switched editions if a token effort were made to address some simulationist concerns) - a token effort that would likely not jeopardize the appeal of the game to their new target audience.

Besides that, RPGs are a niche hobby and this is not going to change any time soon. This niche market expands in mostly two ways:

1) Direct advertising by companies (mostly WotC) and the associated experimentation by non-gamers (probably also lured by Lord of the Rings or similar, more mainstream cultural influences). For all practical intents and purposes, advertising to non-gamers is essentially independent of the actual contents of the ruleset.

2) Organic growth by existing gamers spreading the word to new people, taking them in their groups, setting up new groups and so on. This largely depends on the existing customer-base and a general rule that applies here is that larger the customer base, the higher the absolute rate of growth. Legacy customers are therefore very useful in this regard.

Yes, there are other issues that may help market growth, such as how easy it is to learn the game and so on, but my point is that I don't think intentionally cutting off a considerable section of the legacy market, when a token effort may have been enough to bring many of them on board, is as clearly a winner-strategy as you seem to imply. WotC obviously believed it was a winner-strategy, otherwise they woldn't have pursued it. I have little doubt that WotC will be a successful company with their strategy, but I disagree with their assessment and believe they could have been even more successful if they tried to bring more of the legacy market on board (not all, of course, a 100% conversion rate is not realistic, but more than they did).

Well, this is getting into edition-effect assessments rather than PDF-blunder assessments, which is somewhat off topic for this thread, but an interesting subject nonetheless (interesting at least as long as it does not degenerate into a flame war).