D&D General Hey, are we all cool with having to buy the same book twice, or what?

[eyeheartawk]

Most companies only provide the Hardcopy with PDF if you buy directly from them or using something like Drivethru's POD + PDF. I don't think WotC does either of those. Do they? Does Paizo supply you with a PDF copy if you buy their book from, say, Amazon? Or Pinnacle Entertainment Group? Or Chaosium? Or just about any publisher?

I ask the above because I'm genuinely curious about the

Yes.

 

[Iry]

I buy the D&D beyond version and then get a PDF for offline viewing. No physical copies for me. Too many Cheeto and Mountain Dew fatalities.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I generally don't use PDF versions of gaming material however I really enjoy the fact that when you do a Torg:Eternity kickstarter they basically throw in PDF copies of everything (including the cards) you are physically going to get when the campaign ships...but give you the PDFs as soon as they are finished being laid out and sent off to the printers.

This way I can get immediate access to everything I want, then I get the physical product once its finished being printed and assembled.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I mean, I'm not a DDB customer. But not because I don't think they have the right to sell that content, just that I personally have no need for it.

I think the difference is that it's two different companies, one of which is licensing content off the other.

The analogy, I guess, is if you have a paperback compilation of Lord of the Rings, are you therefore entitled to have the audiobook from audible for free? And if so, what is the incentive for anybody to make the audiobook for you?

The more apt analogy would be if I wanted to get an ebook of The Lord of the Rings the only way to get it would be to subscribe Lord of the Rings Online and only be able to access it through their app.

I just want to read about Hobbits not flying on Eagles, man.

 

[Parmandur]

The more apt analogy would be if I wanted to get an ebook of The Lord of the Rings the only way to get it would be to subscribe Lord of the Rings Online and only be able to access it through their app.

I just want to read about Hobbits not flying on Eagles, man.

No, the audio book analogy is appropriate, since with Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20 et al, you are not buying just the book, but also all the program functionality and labor involved.

It's not anti-consumer at all, and it's reasonable.

 

[Slit518]

It's been three years since D&D Beyond launched and I see many people, here and elsewhere, gladly pay for the physical copy of a release and then again for the virtual copy.

There are companies 1/100th the size of WotC that will gladly provide a virtual copy of the physical book you bought for free, and have been doing it for years (Not to mention they're generally normal PDFs that aren't tied to a service).

My question is this: is the consensus that this is fine and normal and the other publishers are wrong or should we be banging a drum about how this is a anti-consumer practice?

No, I am not happy about it, and that is why I haven't done it. The reason I feel WotC didn't initially do this is because DnD Beyond wasn't a thing upon D&D5e release.

 

[eyeheartawk]

No, the audio book analogy is appropriate, since with Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20 et al, you are not buying just the book, but also all the program functionality and labor involved.

It's not anti-consumer at all, and it's reasonable.

But I don't want the audiobook, I want the ebook.

Similar to how I want a PDF free of any particular platform or paid toolset.

Other companies not only provide this platform agnostic file, but also do so for free with a physical purchase.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

But I don't want the audiobook, I want the ebook.

Similar to how I want a PDF free of any particular platform or paid toolset.

Other companies not only provide this platform agnostic file, but also do so for free with a physical purchase.

Within phemtoseconds that PDF will be on torrent sites and other such things.

 

[CleverNickName]

This is all starting to sound eerily familiar.

I recently graduated engineering school. (It sucked, one star, do not recommend.) The publishers know that you need textbooks to attend classes. The college textbook publishers know this, and charge exorbitant fees for these books.

None of my college textbooks came with a free PDF download with the purchase of the hardcopy. Bootleg scanned PDFs could be found online, but they were often for older editions of the book that had different homework problems and renumbered chapters. And some of my college textbooks weren't available in hardcopy at all, they were electronic files that I could purchase a temporary online license to use, for only $xx.xx per month. If you had the option, you would choose both: the electronic version had a robust search-and-find feature, tabulated bookmarks, etc. that would make homework much easier, even if the copy and print features of Acrobat were disabled. But you also wanted to have a hardcopy for things like open-book exams (no computers allowed) and prep study for the FE and PE board exams.

So every semester, students would complain about the price of textbooks, and complain about having to buy a subscription to something they already paid to own. But it's still common practice for college textbooks (hell, it might even be the standard practice by now; I've been out of college for 4 years.) I don't see it changing anytime soon.

 

[Morrus]

Within phemtoseconds that PDF will be on torrent sites and other such things.

It is anyway. Just takes two phemtoseconds instead of one.