The Real Reason(s) Behind the PDF Debacle

[Roman]

You'd be surprised how many have been carefully OCRed and proofread. Many older pirated titles are better than what WotC provided for folks to buy. This has less to do with title popularity or value, and more to do with the uploader's prestige within his circle of "friends" -- quality and attention to detail are well-regarded.

This is interesting. So are you saying that pirates, due to proofreading and correcting the typos, actually provided a superior product? That's actually a pretty shocking revelation to me and it is a major problem for WotC. I suppose on the positive side it may make them invest more money into proofreading so as not have a lower quality product that the pirates can 'improve'. I guess that is a bit off topic for this thread, but it is interesting to think about.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You'd be surprised how many have been carefully OCRed and proofread. Many older pirated titles are better than what WotC provided for folks to buy. This has less to do with title popularity or value, and more to do with the uploader's prestige within his circle of "friends" -- quality and attention to detail are well-regarded.

Indeed. I've even heard of 'pirates' indexing some PDFs, in several cases doing a better job of it, or, in other cases, bothering at all (by way of contrast).

Not that that is (one might hope) a compelling reason to be depriving creators of their profits, and possibly livelihoods altogether, mind. Simply further clearing up some misconceptions - or, from some quarters, 'misconceptions'.

As for 'the real reason(s) [. . .]', yeah, lower than desired profits. Pure and simple.*

* Er, at best, actually.

 

[Roman]

Indeed. I've even heard of 'pirates' indexing some PDFs, in several cases doing a better job of it, or, in other cases, bothering at all (by way of contrast).

Wow, now I am really floored! That is impressive. I think WotC has to try to fight this by keeping a consistently high production quality including proofreading and indexing - if the pirated products turn out to be higher quality than the non-pirated ones than WotC will be in real trouble. For the most part, however, WotC has a high production quality on their books, so I think cases where this would happen would be rare.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Wow, now I am really floored! That is impressive. I think WotC has to try to fight this by keeping a consistently high production quality including proofreading and indexing - if the pirated products turn out to be higher quality than the non-pirated ones than WotC will be in real trouble. For the most part, however, WotC has a high production quality on their books, so I think cases where this would happen would be rare.

You're probably right there, much as I dislike giving them credit, especially these days.

But yeah, I haven't seen the 4e PDFs, however I imagine (and have heard) that they're - sorry, they *were* - very high quality. Which is - sorry, *was* - good to see.

Considering they never released PDFs of the core books for 3e. D'oh! :facepalm: Oh, and charged full retail hard copy price for all their 3e PDFs. Stupendously stupid. It is encouraging to see the growth of wisdom, finally.

 

[Roman]

To shift this thread a bit more on topic... so, what do you think were the real reasons behind removing the extant PDFs (rather than ceasing the creation of new ones for new products)? Do you agree with any of those I listed in the original post?

 

[Jack99]

I doubt they charge anything. I would guess they take a cut from each sale.

Around 35% for a small publisher, WotC probably has a better deal though.

 

[z105]

My theory is that eliminating a reliably certain source of zero-hour, maximum-quality PDFs will delay the torrenting of product PDFs by a nontrivial amount- and moreover, this window of delay will be anticipated by people desiring the product. Anyone not willing to wait through that window of delay will therefore either preorder the hardcopy or visit the bookstore during the window. I'd hypothesize that these sales will outweigh the profits to be had for a 10:1 ratio of pirated to sold PDFs.

One could say that this is piffle, and that the vast majority of pirates will be perfectly willing to wait several days to get their PDFs. That may be the case- but if it is, WotC only needs 11 out of 100 to get impatient and they'll better the ratio that they're working with now, and feed the book's sales numbers with a set of vendors they love much more than online-only operations.

CardinalXimenes is exactly right. By eliminating the option for PDF's you are reducing the possibilities of a 0-day release. Consumers that MUST HAVE IT as soon as it comes out will be forced to buy the hard copy. One might argue that WotC has lost some of their customer base from the fallout of PDFgate, but this is just nerdrage, empty threats. That's why its so truely aggrivating. They've screwed us over and we're mad as hell, but deep down inside we know we will still be handing them over our money.

 

[Roman]

Around 35% for a small publisher, WotC probably has a better deal though.

Thanks for putting a ballpark figure on it and yes WotC most likely does have a better deal.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I agree with the zero hour theory. Especially considering on ENWorld, you have people discussing things like driving 100 miles to a store that breaks the release date early, because of people's lack of patience. I'll bet most PDF sales will happen in the first week of receipt.

About the one bad thing I think about this is the fact that the older products have been pulled. WoTC thru their partners had those products available for over 7 years in many cases. Since digital media can keep this stuff in print, why not take advantage of that work. I don't buy the theory that they are trying to "kill old editions", that is likely thinking too hard--I doubt the market for the older stuff is that much of a threat. However, I also note that the PDF scans had stopped a LONG time ago and never completed scanning the entire catalog. Perhaps they don't want to pay people for the service, or encourage keeping a large OOP catalog.

 

[3catcircus]

Indeed. I've even heard of 'pirates' indexing some PDFs, in several cases doing a better job of it, or, in other cases, bothering at all (by way of contrast).

Not that that is (one might hope) a compelling reason to be depriving creators of their profits, and possibly livelihoods altogether, mind. Simply further clearing up some misconceptions - or, from some quarters, 'misconceptions'.

As for 'the real reason(s) [. . .]', yeah, lower than desired profits. Pure and simple.*

* Er, at best, actually.

Actually, I would argue that piracy is nothing more than competition - and the product they were offerring was superior in quality at a lower price. If WotC had offered fully indexed pdfs (and well-scanned in the case of back catalog items that they didn't have the ability to directly convert) at a reasonable price, then piracy would not be able to compete as successfully.

Sure - there would still be piracy, but fewer people would be compelled to pirate pdfs.