D&D 5E Well played WOTC (or Free RPG Day 2015)

[Shasarak]

It wasn't D&D, but a few years back they put some random old cards, some of which were quite valuable, in some booster packs for the Zendikar Magic set. This apparently made some people angry.

I can understand that if it was a folded card, or if the random card was taking up the rare slot.

 

[delericho]

It wasn't D&D, but a few years back they put some random old cards, some of which were quite valuable, in some booster packs for the Zendikar Magic set. This apparently made some people angry.

Not surprisingly - part of the value of those cards was tied up in them being rare. By issuing more copies, WotC reduced the value of the ones already "in the wild". So, if you were the owner of one of those cards you've just seen a loss of the value of that card.

(The absurdity of us living in a world where individual Magic cards can be "quite valuable" is another rant...)

 

[Staffan]

Not surprisingly - part of the value of those cards was tied up in them being rare. By issuing more copies, WotC reduced the value of the ones already "in the wild". So, if you were the owner of one of those cards you've just seen a loss of the value of that card.

(The absurdity of us living in a world where individual Magic cards can be "quite valuable" is another rant...)

They didn't print new cards (they are forbidden from reprinting many of the old cards), they just gave away old cards they had in a vault somewhere.

 

[delericho]

They didn't print new cards (they are forbidden from reprinting many of the old cards), they just gave away old cards they had in a vault somewhere.

That still reduces the value of the ones that were already out there, as the resource suddenly becomes less scarce.

Also: how are they forbidden from printing new ones? Do they not own the rights to the art or something?

 

[Staffan]

That still reduces the value of the ones that were already out there, as the resource suddenly becomes less scarce.

Also: how are they forbidden from printing new ones? Do they not own the rights to the art or something?

They have something called the Reserve List, consisting of many of the cards from earlier sets that weren't reprinted in later sets. This was created in the wake of Chronicles, when they did reprint many of the better cards from the previous expansions - which caused the old cards to lose value. There may or may not have been a lawsuit involved, given how tight-lipped Wizards are on the whole thing (Mark Rosewater has said "I can't tell you why we can't change the reserve list, and I can't tell you why I can't tell you." - that smells of lawsuit/settlement to me). They're not adding more cards to the list since 1999, but the cards that are there are there to stay.

 

[justinj3x3]

@exile: Why the hell would anyone want to work for free... That's something I really don't understand.

Do you work for free one day or one week per year?

Here in America we work an average of 107 days for free.

 

[delericho]

They have something called the Reserve List, consisting of many of the cards from earlier sets that weren't reprinted in later sets.

Thanks for the explanation.

(Mark Rosewater has said "I can't tell you why we can't change the reserve list, and I can't tell you why I can't tell you." - that smells of lawsuit/settlement to me)

Yep, that would be my surmise also.

 

[Gnarl45]

Here in America we work an average of 107 days for free.

Taxes?

 

[justinj3x3]

Taxes?

Exactly! Lol

 

[Dire Bare]

They've been releasing stuff on the site for over two years (nearing two and a half) and how much of the back catalogue have they done? Half?
Is it really realistic to ask someone to wait another two years for a small free product that *might* be considered for release? And, again, there are the free reward modules and content that may or may not be re-released.

The release rate always struck me as artificially slow. Designed to milk the "new product X is in DnDclassics!" as long and often as possible.
The really slow releases make sense for the old products that have to be scanned and OCRed and such. (Even then, getting a couple books done each day is quite possible.) And the new stuff - from late 3e onward - is all digital and just needs some clean-up and an export. Much of it was already PDFed prior to the great digital backstep of 2009.

Why should WotC and One Book Shelf (the company behind dndclassics.com) prioritize some minor free product from a few years ago? Is there a clamor for those prior Free RPG Day releases from WotC?

Yes, the site's been around for a few years and there are many products not yet uploaded to it, free or otherwise. But again, the D&D back catalog is HUGE, it's gonna take some time. Could they speed up the process? Upload 10 or more products weekly rather than a handful? Sure, they COULD, but I imagine there's probably like one dude who's job it is to make that happen. Plus, it's a license deal, which means in addition to any production work to create or clean up the PDF files, the two companies need to coordinate and get "approvals". All of that is work and takes time.

I'm sure you are correct to a degree, if they can stretch out new uploads as long as possible without totally frustrating their audience, then they have folks visiting the site more often for a longer period of time and probably buying new product. Once the catalog is "complete", website views will drop as will impulse sales. And, until the back catalog on dndclassics.com is complete, there will always be the "problem" of that one sourcebook you so desperately need but isn't on the site yet!

Would it be cool if they managed to complete the back catalog all at once rather than dribble it out? Sure. But that would probably be a stupid business decision to make on their part.