SVGames disconinuing ESDs!

[jeffh]

I, and no doubt any number of other ENWorlders, have just recieved the following e-mail from SVGames:

Effective April 12th, 2005, SVGames will be discontinuing the Electronic Software Download program. As a result, we will no longer be selling downloads, or supporting the purchase of previously downloaded items. If you have downloads that you have not yet accessed or downloaded to your computer, please do so by April 12th as they will no longer be available after that date.

Presumably these will still be available through RPGNow.

 

[Talvisota]

This caught me by surprise, too. It can't be that expensive to maintain; it adds little fixed cost to their normal operations. Maybe it was a support issue, like too many complaints or requests for assistance or something like that.

 

[trancejeremy]

I suspect too many complaints.

 

[Voadam]

Dangit! I was really hoping to eventually get GURPS, Munchkin d20, and In Nomine stuff in pdf. !@#!@#$@!#$

 

[philreed]

Dangit! I was really hoping to eventually get GURPS, Munchkin d20, and In Nomine stuff in pdf. !@#!@#$@!#$

??? Are you thinking of e23? They're still open.

e23.sjgames.com

 

[Staffan]

Dangit! I was really hoping to eventually get GURPS, Munchkin d20, and In Nomine stuff in pdf. !@#!@#$@!#$

The people discontinuing downloads are SVGames, which I think is the spun-off direct-sales division of WOTC (at least, they took over the ESDs from them when WOTC decided to get out of direct sales). The downloads they refer to are the PDFs of older edition D&D stuff.

Steve Jackson Games, on the other hand, only recently opened e23, their electronic sales store. They aren't selling any SJGames PDFs of current books, though.

 

[Voadam]

Yeah, I just realized my error. (and am much relieved).

 

[drose25]

I suspect too many complaints.

I imagine so. I used to love the ESDs Wizards sold directly from their website because they were OCR'ed. I could cut and past text into my email games and lift pictures as needed. They were easily searchable by keyword and took up relatively small amounts of disk space.

Once SVGames took over the operation, they just started scanning the material wholesale and placing it as an image into a PDF. No more cut and paste or search and the quality went way downhill. Decrease in quality was probably proportionate to increase in file size. An ESD went from 3-4mb to 20-50mb. And the prices went up! Who else remembers $1.99 ESDs at Wizards?

I stopped buying those ESDs from SVGames and never went back.

 

[Staffan]

I imagine so. I used to love the ESDs Wizards sold directly from their website because they were OCR'ed. I could cut and past text into my email games and lift pictures as needed. They were easily searchable by keyword and took up relatively small amounts of disk space.

Once SVGames took over the operation, they just started scanning the material wholesale and placing it as an image into a PDF. No more cut and paste or search and the quality went way downhill. Decrease in quality was probably proportionate to increase in file size. An ESD went from 3-4mb to 20-50mb. And the prices went up! Who else remembers $1.99 ESDs at Wizards?

I stopped buying those ESDs from SVGames and never went back.

Actually, those things weren't related. WOTC thought the scanning process was too expensive, and told Jim Butler and the gang at Bastion Press to do the faster/cheaper version instead (or maybe it happened before they outsourced it). SVGames and RPGNow only act as distributors of the ESDs, not producers.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I suspect that is simply a matter of too much competition from companies that do a better job at it.

Of late SV Games has had a reputation of not bothering to get back in contact with publishers who are thinking about selling PDFs through them, and this may be the reason. Or the person running that end of things simply lost interest in continuing to do so.

The Auld Grump