D&D 5E So why no PDFs? Is their fear of piracy -that- bad?

[Jester David]

There is more than one way to do things. And WOTC as a company has done incredibly well. In the midst of a recession, while competition like Mattel and much of the other portions of Hasbro were shrinking, WOTC managed to grow. I think they have done well enough as a company to have earned some room to try something new out. The hyperlinked PDF idea sounds great to me, way better than a standard PDF.

WotC isn't D&D.
Again, 5% of the people at the company are D&D (and half of that is licensing). But that generates less than 5% of the profit of WotC. Estimates put the revenue of MtG at $250 million per year. This year is likely a banner year for D&D and it's likely producing less than $5 million. That's like 2% of the money of Magic.

D&D is an afterthought. I'd be very surprised if WotC knew how to handle the game, because it's so completely different than the product that makes them 98% of their money. Learning anythingabout D&D would be time spent not making Magic better.

 

[ephemeron]

But do they have many core rulebooks on DnDClassics? I remember the Rules Cyclopedia, but not many others. They seem to mostly focus on setting material and adventures.

Yeah, they they categorize various other stuff as"Core Rulebooks", but the Rules Cyclopedia, Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert sets, and the Mentzer Basic Set are the only real core rules on DnDClassics.

It must be a business decision to not sell core rules as PDF's, but I'd love to know the reasoning for that and for those exceptions. Especially since they used to sell others -- I have the rest of the BECMI sets, bought as PDFs when they let Paizo sell them...

 

[aramis erak]

My bet is that WotC knows that they will need to price the PDFs at roughly the same price as the paper books. This is to avoid cannibalizing book sales, as well as recouping the R&D costs. People costs are much higher than material costs, and the marginal cost of a book is pretty low.

However, if they do that, that will just create a firestorm of controversy, and overall sales of books and pdfs will not be much higher than selling books alone. So they may as well just not bother.

Keep in mind: The typical price to retailers is roughly double what the warehousers pay, plus shipping. And MSRP is generally twice what the retailers pay for the book. Most of the data I've seen from warehousers indicates they charge between 150 and 200% of the price they pay, not counting shipping. The costs of brick, mortar, and flesh, needed for a store, are a major issue, and between warehousing and retail typically are more than 50% of the price. Profit and shipping spilt the remaining 25%. The physical costs of printing are usually between $5 and $10 per book, plus a share of the setup fees. In some cases, up to $15 per copy is the printing. And then there's the shipping cost from the printer to the manufacturer.

Pricing PDF at the same as Physical won't sell well. The breakeven points seem to be between 25% and 50% of dead tree MSRP. Too high, and you don't sell more than a handful. Too low, and you cut your dead tree sales.

 

[darjr]

Mike Mearls had the PDFs on a device at gencon. He's even said how useful it was. I agree with him and would pay for the privilege, and I'd still buy hard copy.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My question is, who doesn't want more money?

Everyone.

Every single person on this planet could get more money but we choose not to because we don't like the methods by which we would have to use to get it. I could go mug someone on the street and get more money, but I choose not to because the risk outweighs the reward. WotC could choose to release their core books on PDF, but they choose not to because apparently the risk must outweigh the reward according to their business analysis, otherwise they would have done it already.

 

[Morrus]

It must be a business decision to not sell core rules as PDF's, but I'd love to know the reasoning for that and for those exceptions.

I think that's fairly obvious, isn't it? They've decided to support those already playing older editions with no intention of moving to the latest one. They don't want to direct players into]/i] older editions.

 

[Mistwell]

WotC isn't D&D.

He said WOTC, and I responded to it. Please don't retroactively change it after I respond.

Furthermore, D&D is part of WOTC. Their marketing, accounting, HR, Legal, customer support, facilities, overhead, it's all WOTC. There is no D&D company or even D&D Division or Subsidiary. It's just a product within WOTC.

BTW, almost all those people you're so impressed with at Paizo also came from WOTC. And a lot of people working on 5e were there going back to 3e, and some even back to 2e with TSR. They have a lot of high level competency and experience on that team.

WOTC is a company that has earned the right to try something new with a product. You might disagree, but then it's their company.

 

[ephemeron]

I think that's fairly obvious, isn't it? They've decided to support those already playing older editions with no intention of moving to the latest one. They don't want to direct players into]/i] older editions.

True enough, but they also reprinted a bunch of old core books for the nostalgia market. So they have different strategies for print and PDF.

 

[Jester David]

He said WOTC, and I responded to it. Please don't retroactively change it after I respond.

Furthermore, D&D is part of WOTC. Their marketing, accounting, HR, Legal, customer support, facilities, overhead, it's all WOTC. There is no D&D company or even D&D Division or Subsidiary. It's just a product within WOTC.

BTW, almost all those people you're so impressed with at Paizo also came from WOTC. And a lot of people working on 5e were there going back to 3e, and some even back to 2e with TSR. They have a lot of high level competency and experience on that team.

WOTC is a company that has earned the right to try something new with a product. You might disagree, but then it's their company.

The D&D brand team has earned my respect. WotC... Not so much.
I'm going to trust an entire company until they earn it, and WotC has made some poor decisions with D&D again and again.

 

[MerricB]

I think that's fairly obvious, isn't it? They've decided to support those already playing older editions with no intention of moving to the latest one. They don't want to direct players into]/i] older editions.

That's not the only explanation; there's also a major component of supporting game stores in Wizards' thinking. It's why the Adventurers League adventures are for Convention and Store play, and why the D&D Encounters program is store-only.

Selling pdfs of books currently in print undermines game stores. As all the older core rulebooks that are not available in pdf were reprinted (in premium formats) not all that long ago, it may be that explains the delay on releasing pdfs of those books.

Cheers!