D&D 5E so... any word on PDFs yet?

[Sailor Moon]

What ever the reason is, it's unacceptable for a company like WoTc not to be aboard the PDF train.

 

[Grimstaff]

Is it possible WotC *wants* free .pdfs floating around on the net? After all back in the days of OD&D, TSR was unable to keep up with demand for years, resulting in thousands of zeroxed copies of the game floating around campuses.

These "pirated" copies got around far faster than any retail outlet could have done, and more than a few people think they contributed to the amazing surge in popularity of the game.

So maybe WotC is just trying to see if lightning will strike twice?

 

[Mistwell]

Does anyone have Lisa Stevens' phone number? Could you pass it on to the WotC folks so they can give her a call and she can disabuse them of the notion that open rules and easily available PDFs hurt sales. Thanks.

Not "hurt sales". Hurt sales AT RETAIL STORES. The pressure appears to be coming from the retailers. Unless you think retail stores are pressuring WOTC because they don't know they're own business?

 

[Zaran]

It's still silly. I own (or have owned) a physical copy of almost every pdf book I have. I always like to get a pdf of any RPG I buy just so I access it at work or on my tablet whenever I want.

 

[Mistwell]

But so does Paizo. They don't have the card game business to bolster but they still need FLGS to keep the game alive and draw new players from walk ins. I started a Pathfinder game at my FLGS a couple years ago and it is still going on, with consistent new player involvement -- and it isn't even an Organized Play, just a table game. I am sure the majority of their AP sales are subscription based, but core books and incidentals, as well as new players, come out of the FLGS. It's not a compelling argument against PDFs.

Unlike WOTC, Paizo directly competes with the retailers by selling the books directly from their website. They don't need the retailers nearly as much, particularly as they lack the MtG sales. Losing Paizo products for a store would be a minor blow, but losing all WOTC products would shut down some stores, and each loss also deals a blow to WOTC's MtG sales. The relationship therefore is more meaningful between retailers and WOTC than it is between Paizo and retailers.

Anyway, whether we find it compelling or not, it seems to be actually happening behind the scenes (the pressure from retailers) according to multiple sources now.

 

[Reynard]

Anyway, whether we find it compelling or not, it seems to be actually happening behind the scenes (the pressure from retailers) according to multiple sources now.

Have any truly reliable sources indicated this? Not that i would be terribly surprised -- bug retailers especially could easily threaten to drop their shelf space -- but it seems odd that WotC products don't take up any more room on the shelf at my local Barnes and Nobles than does Pathfinder or even Shadowrun. And game retailers tend to be so small I can't imagine they have much muscle.

 

[Mistwell]

Have any truly reliable sources indicated this? Not that i would be terribly surprised -- bug retailers especially could easily threaten to drop their shelf space -- but it seems odd that WotC products don't take up any more room on the shelf at my local Barnes and Nobles than does Pathfinder or even Shadowrun. And game retailers tend to be so small I can't imagine they have much muscle.

The message that Morningstar posted, and then swiftly removed after apparently they figured out their NDA doesn't allow it, sure seemed legit to me.

 

[MoonSong]

Yup. I suspect the number of players who would cut off their nose to spite their face when it comes to D&D... refuse to play the game even if they enjoy it just because they have to buy a book rather than a PDF... to be smaller than those who fall into that category want to admit.

I think most people who enjoy 5E, and wish to play 5E, will play 5E even if they have to carry around a Player's Handbook as well as their tablet. Or at the barest minimum, just not buy a Player's Handbook at all and then borrow someone else's at the table when it comes time to level up. But they're still going to play the game because they want to play the game.

It is easy to say that when you are in a place so close to the stores. D&D is relatively easy to access in the states, but outside it takes a lot of effort to get physical copies, not only the cost, but the time, it took me two months to tracks down a copy of the Monster Manual, and it will take me as much to locate some second printing spell cards. Physical distance is another barrier to entry.

If you want to get *technical* they're "scanned copies". Since there are no official counterparts, whether or not they're "pirated" depends on the legality of downloading a digital copy of a book you own in your country.

I'm not going to encourage piracy, especially if it comes at the cost of sales of a game I love. Piracy and stealing is bad. But archiving and format shifting are entirely different.
I'd prefer to buy my digital copy though....

I would love to buy a digital copy too.

Not "hurt sales". Hurt sales AT RETAIL STORES. The pressure appears to be coming from the retailers. Unless you think retail stores are pressuring WOTC because they don't know they're own business?

But how about selling pdfs only to locations without official wizard's stores? I just live withing walking distance from an official store, that sells no rpg stuf, at all. In fact most of the half dozen official stores that hold encounters in my country don't carry any product, you have to get lucky it is carried accidentally by a big comic store or import it directly.

Having pdf sells outside the states would help to expand the game, and tap into markets outside amazon reach. The hassle of importing a single phb is just too much...

 

[Mistwell]

But how about selling pdfs only to locations without official wizard's stores? I just live withing walking distance from an official store, that sells no rpg stuf, at all. In fact most of the half dozen official stores that hold encounters in my country don't carry any product, you have to get lucky it is carried accidentally by a big comic store or import it directly.

Having pdf sells outside the states would help to expand the game, and tap into markets outside amazon reach. The hassle of importing a single phb is just too much...

I think that is too small a market, or too complicated a thing to monitor, to make it worthwhile. If they're going to sell PDFs, it's going to be either the normal channels they already use, or something special to everyone.

 

[Jester David]

But how about selling pdfs only to locations without official wizard's stores? I just live withing walking distance from an official store, that sells no rpg stuf, at all. In fact most of the half dozen official stores that hold encounters in my country don't carry any product, you have to get lucky it is carried accidentally by a big comic store or import it directly.

Having pdf sells outside the states would help to expand the game, and tap into markets outside amazon reach. The hassle of importing a single phb is just too much...

I imagine the maintenance of that would be tricky. How would they police that? How would they check that you have no stores nearby? IP address? There are ways around that.
Plus there's all those people in the States that don't live near a store, in small towns or places where the FLGS went under. It seems silly to ignore them.

PDFs aren't going to hurt retail. Amazon and big chain stores are. If you're choosing to buy a PDF rather than a book, you were never going to buy the book anyway.
FLGS live and die because people want to buy from them. Period. WotC is already favouring game stores by limiting Organized Play. Anything more is costing them sales and potentially shrinking the player base.


As an aside, if there's an official store near you, talk to the owner. If they order from WotC anyway it should be no problem to get an RPG in with their Magic cards.