4ed PDFs - Are you still getting the books?

[malraux]

Well at least delete them now. Its better than risking spending up to 15 years in prison for. Up to 5 years for EACH illegal copy. I think the fine is around $3,000.00 per offense/copy.

IANAL, but by the copyright office's website, the max fine is $30,000/item for accidental downloading, $150,000/item for knowingly downloading. I'd be surprised if a criminal case were brought though, so at most its $450,000 + lawyer fees.

 

[Ecaiki]

I'll admit, I caved yesterday and downloaded the PHB only. After going through it I deleted it, and now I want them hard copy more then ever.

My only gripe would be the lack of options, though this will be solved with books like the Complete Arcane, and the PHB2 next year.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've not seen the .pdfs, but they've ensured I will buy 4E, now, given the information that others who have seen them have since divulged. I imagine the people who just got the book wildly early might have done the same thing eventually, but all they all seemed so lax about spilling the beans!

 

[Raloc]

Downloaded the PDFs. I wouldn't ever use them for actually running a game, but they did confirm that I like the direction of 4e and make me want the actual books (I hate reading PDFs, even if they are good quality non-scanned versions). Had the "cup of coffee" priced versions been out at this point, I would have bought them instead, and probably will buy them when they're available (or if they aren't for some time, I'll merely buy the books and attach my receipts as one poster mentioned). I mainly wanted to peek at the "example of play" and the art. Given that I don't actually have a group anymore though, me buying or not probably matters little. Even though I will be buying them in a week (or whatever) simply to read through them and look at the art.

Given this poll is at ~260 posters and only 4.5% said they wouldn't buy the books because of the PDF (whether it be because the PDF made them decide not to or the PDFs are enough for them to play with) it seems like this might be a representative sample, and thus seems like little negative impact. I doubt seriously that PDFs (even in 3.5e) had a serious effect on sales, given the general unpleasantness of using PDFs for games books. Likely the most affected books were those that already had little appeal aside from some specific rule or mechanic.

 

[silentounce]

The PDFS didn't have much effect on my decision to cancel my Amazon preorder.

The 4E - Core Handbook Errors thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=227743&page=10) that is already up to ten pages of problems and typos did.

I think I'm going to wait for a revised printing that clears up all the errors and mistakes before investing in 4E.

QFT, especially as a DM. I hate going through rulebooks with an errata and a pencil.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I was considering not getting the physical copies to save money but real books are so much easier to read and I don't own a laptop so it would be impossible to run the game from pdfs alone.

Pdfs do score in one area though - weight. Towards the end of 3e I was having to be pretty ruthless about which of my 30 books I could bring to a session.

 

[Torg Smith]

My option was not listed.
I will not download the illegal PDFs.
I have my preorder for the set with Amazon. If WotC offers the books in PDF without any DRM that will make my PDFs worthless if some server is shutdown (Google and Microsoft did this to their customers), I will buy them also.

 

[aboyd]

I'll chime in as one of the people who intended to NOT buy 4th edition stuff... until I saw a preview, and decided to put out money for it.

I was heavily skeptical. The preview didn't cause an about-face, but it did convince me that it'll be OK, or so-so, and I'm able to put money into something so-so if my friends will be playing it.

 

[Xethreau]

It is good to see that we have 30+ converts to 4e due to Pirating! >:3

 

[Sonny]

PDF's are fine, but nothing beats a physical book for me. Also, there's no such thing as a "new PDF smell". I know I can't be the only one who enjoys the smell of new rulebooks.