10:1 illegal downloads

[Treebore]

In that respect, Amazon is similar to Wal-mart. You may not want to sell through them, but you really don't have a whole lot of choice. You can either sell through them or sell vastly lower quantities.

Exactly. So if WOTC was truly concerned about the small LGS outlets they would stop allowing their stuff to be distributed to Amazon, or any other "cheap" place to buy the books. They don't. So I hope they aren't claiming some where (I personally do not recall WOTC making this claim, I have only seen/remember personal posts making this claim) that this whole PDF fiasco is to save LGS', not only is it of no help, but just an empty promise of support that creates no support. So it would be an empty lie.

 

[Jack99]

Not many people purchased the WotC 4E PDFs, but whose fault was that? WotC. Why? Because they didn't want to sell many of them. When 4E launched, I was THRILLED that we were going to see PDFs of our books either for free or for a nominal fee. Of course that didn't work out due to logistical issues, but also because WotC saw electronic distribution as hurting their position in the trade, both with mom and pop stores, as well as the big distributors. The Rouse even said as much!

I buy PDFs. I've literally bought hundreds of dollars worth of them over at RPGNow. What I won't do is spend an outrageous amount on them. $20 for a $35 dollar book? No thank you. The intention of sales of PDF 4E products was largely to give access to the books to people who couldn't get them in other ways. If WotC had put the price at a lower point (say $10) I would have purchased each and every book they put out.

If there was a real guarantee of support and update for the books (like, say, Green Ronin does) I would have increased that total to $15. For me, the purchase of True 20's PDF and Mutants and Masterminds have been fantastic, because Green Ronin stands behind and supports the products on a phenominal level.

So the question: "OMG! Why weren't people buying our books in PDF?" has a simple answer: because they were deliberately priced so that most people wouldn't buy them.

--Steve

You keep saying that WotC's pdf's are so expensive. From what I can see, their pdf's were at 70% of retail price, just like Paizo's and just like Goodman Games': Green Ronin does appear to be slightly cheaper though. Am I missing something?

 

[Treebore]

You keep saying that WotC's pdf's are so expensive. From what I can see, their pdf's were at 70% of retail price, just like Paizo's and just like Goodman Games': Green Ronin does appear to be slightly cheaper though. Am I missing something?

The only time WOTC's 4E PDF's were reasonably priced was over the last GM Days sale. I would love to see where they were at for 70% off, so please link.

 

[Voadam]

You keep saying that WotC's pdf's are so expensive. From what I can see, their pdf's were at 70% of retail price, just like Paizo's and just like Goodman Games': Green Ronin does appear to be slightly cheaper though. Am I missing something?

Mongoose is generally up in that range as well.

That priced all of them out of the price range for me to be interested in purchasing them.

I occasionally buy the $5 dragon and dungeon magazines Paizo has for sale, I bought almost all the 3e Goodman Games pdfs but always during significant sales (such as their d20 license ending 50% off the 30% off sale price then the $2 sale). This month I bought a bunch of Dying Earth RPG stuff at super low prices for their license ending sale, such as the 192 page core book for only $5.00. I also took advantage of the PDF lovers sales and got things like a bunch of RDP True20 stuff for $1 and $2 and tried out some new system stuff (BASH! and Aether) for $1 each. $75 for getting the three core 4e books in pdf to try out the new system was not enticing me to forgo picking up the other stuff instead.

D&D has enough of a pull on me that if the 4e core pdfs had regularly been $20 each, I would have considered them expensive but probably would have gotten the PH and MM one at a time and tried out the system.

I spent $36 on Ptolus and the WotBS subscription, Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary was $20 (which I considered expensive but decided to splurge on it), and the vast majority of my pdf purchases were well below that in price with a ton at $5 or less.

I don't buy RPG books at full cover or even amazon prices, I'm not interested in paying amazon prices for the pdfs of them. For me there are a ton of more attractively priced pdfs that I am interested in so the expensive ones of things in areas I'm interested in don't get bought.

 

[Voadam]

The only time WOTC's 4E PDF's were reasonably priced was over the last GM Days sale. I would love to see where they were at for 70% off, so please link.

Read his post again carefully.

"70% of retail" not "70% off retail"

 

[Treebore]

Read his post again carefully.

"70% of retail" not "70% off retail"

Ah, OK. Glad I looked at the GM day sale then. That worked out to being less than 50% OF retail.

 

[Endur]

Anecdotally, my experience is the opposite. I don't know have first hand knowledge of anyone bringing pdf's of 3rd edition and/or 4th edition materials to a game table -- everyone I've played D&D with in the last few years brought books to the table, not pdfs.

I've bought tons of first and second edition pdf's, but I've never bought any 3rd or 4th edition pdfs, or had any interest in them (except for out of print paizo stuff).

When it comes to RPGs, in both 3rd edition and 4th I think everyone I know who plays (not counting new players who are still learning the game) has complete or near-complete collections of the PDFs and routinely share amongst themselves. Few of them would ever buy the books for a variety of reasons (e.g. poor college student, or college student who has other hobbies and vices they prioritize over RPGs).

I play in a 3rd edition game and two 4th edition games, with very little overlap between the three groups. Several of the players in the third edition game have a dozen or so books-- a collection built up over many years and particularly by the liquidation of 3rd edition product. Besides myself, there's only one other person in either 4th edition game who owns any of those books, and he's an outlier in the groups demographically (I met him here on ENWorld, and he's a couple decades older than everyone else I play with).

 

[Uzzy]

It's also the same reason why M:TGonline prices its packs at the same price as the cardboard version.

WOTC seems to be the ONLY company that actually seems to want to support the FLGS. Paizo et al don't really seem to care whether or not their is an actual retail section of the hobby.

Right. Paizo did happen to release the Pathfinder Beta exclusively to retail stores, and not Amazon. Think WoTC would do the same with their core rule sets?

Also, my Paizo PDF's are free. Very helpful!

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

4e PDF core books were $25 each. The other 4e books were at a similar discount. I forget if that was 25% or 30% or 35% off the cover price. It came out to about just a little more than Amazon prices, before you added in printing costs for printing your own pdfs.

3e PDFs were full cover price.

Older edition pdfs ranged from $5 to $6.

Damn, now I'm sorry I missed out on the older edition PDFs. $5/6 a book is about the right price for me on a digital only book product. Guess I'll keep raiding my local used book store for deals

 

[catsclaw227]

Exactly. So if WOTC was truly concerned about the small LGS outlets they would stop allowing their stuff to be distributed to Amazon, or any other "cheap" place to buy the books. They don't. So I hope they aren't claiming some where (I personally do not recall WOTC making this claim, I have only seen/remember personal posts making this claim) that this whole PDF fiasco is to save LGS', not only is it of no help, but just an empty promise of support that creates no support. So it would be an empty lie.

So, Treebore, what's going on lately? Don't take this personally, or as an attack, but by indifferent observation, it appears as though you are really bent on calling WOTC liars. It's come up in two or three different threads in the past few days.

Normally, your posts are insightful and objective, but lately....