What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[Hussar]

This has been brought up before in other threads, but, sorry, no, old pdf's are not free.

You need to account for the revenue stream - that costs money.
How long does it take between sales and when WOTC gets paid? - that has to be calculated in.
Who else has rights to this material? The reason you will never see another digital Dragon Magazine compendium is because many of the articles do not have proper ownerships assigned.
How much money/time needs to be spent on product questions?
For older products (anything pre 3e anyway), how much time will it take to turn it into a pdf, along with bookmarking and whatnot? It's not like you can just scan it in and turn it loose.

The myth that this is just free money that WOTC is turning away is just that. It's a myth. Producing OOP PDF's costs money. It costs money to maintain and it costs money to produce. It is not free.

And, apparently, it's not worth the time/money to do.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, I've run Night's Dark Terror in 4e without much trouble - maps, storyline, monsters can all be carried over reasonably straightforwardly.

off topic

Maybe fodder for a different thread, but I'm curious how that worked out. I've converted the other way (run Keep on the Shadowfell in 1e) and while the conversion itself was relatively easy the result wasn't quite what I'd hoped once the dice started flying. I'd be interested in hearing how well a Basic adventure ported to 4e in terms of how well it played.

/off topic

Lanefan

 

[Mark CMG]

(snip)

This might be a better argument if they didn't already do this, before rescinding the program due to "piracy." I have no idea why you are throwing out a bunch of false arguments against a program they already had in place without any of the problems you suggest would prevent them from doing it again. The fact that they have previously done this speaks clearly to how ill-informed your suggestions are.

 

[Ranes]

Accounting for the revenue stream is something that has to be done, of course. And, of course, it has been.

ST's point, I think, about customer confusion is more likely to have to do with WotC's stance on this (although they could have made that argument instead of the piracy one).

Oh well. It looks like the practical answer to the original question is, for me: nowt, nada, zilch.

Fortunately, there's still great third party support (for 3e, at least).

 

[Hussar]

This might be a better argument if they didn't already do this, before rescinding the program due to "piracy." I have no idea why you are throwing out a bunch of false arguments against a program they already had in place without any of the problems you suggest would prevent them from doing it again. The fact that they have previously done this speaks clearly to how ill-informed your suggestions are.

Just because they were losing money, or not making enough profit to make it worth the time (take your pick which one) does not mean that it was a good idea in the first place.

Would you be content if they only offered those products that they offered previously? No additional products? Because, the second you want more, there goes your argument.

Look, time and again, people have said "vote with your wallets" and this is precisely what happened. People voted with their wallets and the pdf's lost. It sucks. I realize and empathise. But, saying that they're just too stupid to take your money does not help your position.

There are any number of perfectly reasonable reasons why they don't sell pdf's anymore that have nothing to do with this mad bolus of conspiracy theory that they are somehow either afraid of OOP products or want to "get" older players somehow.

The bottom line is that the pdf's didn't make enough money. End of story.

You want pdf's back? Get ten thousand people to sign a petition to get them back. Prove that pdf's would actually be profitable enough.

Otherwise, you're just howling at the moon.

Print Dungeon and Dragon combined sold about 50 000 issues a month under Paizo. That wasn't profitable enough to keep them in print. What makes you think that a couple of thousand OOP pdf's is profitable enough?

 

[Mark CMG]

Just because they were losing money, or not making enough profit to make it worth the time (take your pick which one) does not mean that it was a good idea in the first place.

Obviously you are just making up reasons to justify your own position (though I cannot understand how sales of older edition PDFs harms you), since the WotC position is that they cut off PDF sales due to piracy issues. Financial concerns were not cited and since they were traditionally at the top of RPGnow's sales lists, it obviously wasn't a concern at the time (nor likely would be).


(BTW, Really? You're going to throw up the incredibly weak "conspiracy theory" method of trying to discredit people who want to give revenue to WorC? That's your fallback? Let's set that old chestnut aside, please.)

 

[scruffygrognard]

These sorts of claims are very hard to take seriously in the absence of statistical date about purchasing patterns of a range of RPGers over time. To just take one example - namely, me - I've purchased 20 4e hardbacks over the past two years, which is more than the entire number of 3E hardbacks I purchased over the 8 or so years of that edition. And by GMing a 4e game I've given rise to multiple DDI subscribers who otherwise wouldn't have been playing D&D (because if I was still GMing Rolemaster they'd be playing that game).

It wasn't a claim... I was offering my perception of WotC's actions in both the marketing and creation of 4th edition.

To my eyes there were enough significant changes made to the game, whether they be in style, implied background, rule mechanics, etc, that I could only conclude that they were breaking from what D&D was in order to rebuild the game for a new audience.

Whether I was correct in my perception or not I know that the broad changes to the game turned me off and drove me away.

 

[Hussar]

All right. Let's play it straight then.

WOTC cuts off the PDF's due to piracy. We'll take them at their word.

Where's the problem? They are not obligated to sell anything. They stopped selling a product because, apparently, piracy was a concern and to combat this, they chose to take their ball and go home.

Why the angst then? Why the claims that WOTC is afraid of pdf's cutting into their profits? Why aren't you equally critical of these claims? After all, apparently the piracy claim is the ONLY valid interpretation.

You can disagree with their policy. Sure. That's groovy. You can be annoyed about it. But, boycotting a company because they choose to no longer make something available seems incredibly self centered.

"Hey this company makes all these things that I want to buy, but, because they no longer make THIS, I won't buy from them."

Buh? What?

The sale of older pdf's doesn't harm me in the slightest. I couldn't care less whether they were there or not. Do not care. But, what annoys the crap out of me, is self-righteous fans demanding that their needs be served, and any counter argument is summarily dismissed as "making up reasons".

They don't sell pdf's. Let it go. Why keep bitching and whining about it?

The fact that the WOTC pdf's were often best sellers on Drive Thru only proves how incredibly small Drive Thru's sales are. When a twenty year old OOP product sells better than any new one is a commentary on new products.

It's pretty obvious to me. If the pdf's were a signficant revenue source, they'd be selling them. They're not selling them, therefore, they were not a significant revenue source. People voted with their wallets and the pdf's lost. Sucks to be a fan of the pdf's, but, them's the breaks. Get over it and move on.

 

[Sammael]

WotC currently makes virtually nothing that I want to purchase. If they were to add older edition materials to the DDI, I would likely subscribe to the DDI for the convenience. Judging from the response to this thread, I'm not alone. Now, if WotC market research shows that the cost/benefit ratio of this operation is not favorable, then it makes little sense for them to do it. However, the only public reason WotC gave for pulling the PDFs was "piracy," which, of course, is ridiculous, since any given 4E book is now scanned and available from the usual illegal DL sites within a week of its release. The only think different is the quality of the release, but OCR works wonders nowadays. In other words, the pulling of PDFs did absolutely nothing to reduce piracy, so their only stated reason for not selling the PDFs is moot. Anything else, including Hussar's arguments is pure speculation.

 

[Mournblade94]

NOTE THIS POST WAS IN REFERENCE TO DANNYALCATRAZ ON THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 23. For some reason I screwed up quoting.

Yeah its weird!

Marvel has licensed characters to movie studios like fox. Basically they have no legal input on what Fox does with the characters in film. If FOX wanted to make Wolverine: The Gardening Years, Marvel has no say as long as they produce movies.

Incidentally that is why Spiderman went back to Marvel. They could not get a director for Sony's SPiderman IV. Now marvel is producing it in house. Marvel is no longer licensing characters. Unfortunately XMEN and Wolverine still have a long duration.

If Marvel wanted to make their own WOLVERINE movie, or include Wolverine in the AVENGERS movie they would be sued. Marvel essentially has no right to make a Wolverine movie at this point, only fox can.

The character she hulk was created by Marvel when Marvel got word the original Lou Ferigno HULK SHOW was going to make a female version of hulk. Marvel went to work right away and created her immediately for the next month. WHY? If the TV show made She Hulk first, they own the rights to the character, and too this day, the She hulk would have to be LICENSED by marvel.

I often suspected there could be weirdness involved with 1st edition PDFs and such, of the same sort.