A Technical Look at D&D Insider Applications

[Lonely Tylenol]

I really fail to see how this is true. Can't you purchase gift cards and bank cards that work just like credit cards and hold no real information about their user?

Will they accept anonymous payment methods?

Furthermore, one can easily create an e-mail account on something like hotmail for "verification" purposes.

The only reason people use email for verification is to confirm:
1. That you are a real person
2. That you actually signed up for whatever registration they're trying to complete

I think it's safe to assume that most people know that free anonymous email is not a secure system for real monetary transactions.

This all being said because my biggest concern with this model is those who go into stores and take the numbers without buying a book...or even purchase the book from some place like Borders and take it back after unlocking the PDF. Then the person who actually buys the book gets screwed over. I don't see these measures as preventing that at all.

1. Call customer services
2. Explain that your code is no good
3. Send proof of purchase (i.e. store receipt) and photocopy of your unique code
4. Wait
5. Receive new code

(6. WotC investigates the registered code, demands photocopy of code from registrant, if registrant cannot provide this, the code is disabled)

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

You don't have to have a subscription.

It's amazing how consistently this point is ignored.

 

[Kesh]

Will they accept anonymous payment methods?

Sort of. There's "Gift card" credit cards which are purely anonymous, but usually can't be used online because there's no name or address associated with them. You usually have to physically swipe these through a card reader to purchase anything.

Then there's pre-paid/pay-as-you-go credit cards, which do have your name/address associated with them. So, those work anywhere, but no more anonymity.

 

[Imaro]

1. Call customer services
2. Explain that your code is no good
3. Send proof of purchase (i.e. store receipt) and photocopy of your unique code
4. Wait
5. Receive new code

(6. WotC investigates the registered code, demands photocopy of code from registrant, if registrant cannot provide this, the code is disabled)

Okay, given that you can't get your book with a pre-paid or gift card (this I really don't see happening since I've used gift cards to purchase numerous things on the internet, since I don't like using my actual bank account). How will WotC disable a code...the books are usable offline, which seems to suggest you can download it onto your hard drive or a CD or whatever. How can they take this back?

 

[3catcircus]

Except they are, because if someone steals your code, or guesses it, they can't register it without identifying themselves somehow so that the monetary transaction can go through. That has nothing to do with DDI.

Nope - they aren't. Because they don't need to protect my security in the first place if they simply allow me to go to their site or RPGNow or any other e-tailer and buy a pdf for a few bucks. No code needed, just my billing information. I don't have to buy the hardcover.

My point concerning DDI is that once a ton of people, like you, have the electronic editions, they'll be able to tempt you into subscribing by telling you about all the great features you'd be able to use with your electronic editions if you sign up. It'll be easier to market the DDI if you don't have to also make people buy data modules (one of the reasons I never got into e-tools) in order to access the functionality of their books.

Again - I don't care about DDI. I want portable information instead of lugging around a ton of books. Rather than buy the book to get a special code to then be able to download a pdf, I just want to go online, provide my billing information, and download a pdf. No DDI, no hardcover, just a pdf.

Almost every other publisher seems to understand this - Expeditious Retreat, Goodman Games, Necromancer, etc.

Who is suggesting that they do that?

I am.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Okay, given that you can't get your book with a pre-paid or gift card (this I really don't see happening since I've used gift cards to purchase numerous things on the internet, since I don't like using my actual bank account). How will WotC disable a code...the books are usable offline, which seems to suggest you can download it onto your hard drive or a CD or whatever. How can they take this back?

Well, obviously they can't. But they can lock down the account to disable future DDI access and PDF downloading, black-list the credit card associated with the purchase, and litigate for fraud and/or theft.

Since you'll be able to just download the PDF from a pirate site, the only reason you'd be stealing codes is if you wanted a real version for some reason.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Nope - they aren't. Because they don't need to protect my security in the first place if they simply allow me to go to their site or RPGNow or any other e-tailer and buy a pdf for a few bucks. No code needed, just my billing information. I don't have to buy the hardcover.

Oh, I see. You don't want to buy the hardcover. That's not the deal they're offering. You have to buy the hardcover to get access to the PDF. The issue we're talking about is whether it's a good idea to have a nominal charge on top of the price of the hardcover in order to unlock the associated PDF. Nobody has suggested that PDFs will be available on their own without hardcover purchase.

Not saying that you can't request such a thing, but that's not what the rest of us are talking about.

 

[CharlesRyan]

The problem *isn't* that people are looking for something to bitch about. The problem is the well-established Hasbro corporate attitude that may end up having corporate guys require WotC low-level employees to lie to our faces about what they are going to do...

Horsesh- . . . I mean, a load of baloney.

 

[3catcircus]

Oh, I see. You don't want to buy the hardcover. That's not the deal they're offering. You have to buy the hardcover to get access to the PDF. The issue we're talking about is whether it's a good idea to have a nominal charge on top of the price of the hardcover in order to unlock the associated PDF. Nobody has suggested that PDFs will be available on their own without hardcover purchase.

Not saying that you can't request such a thing, but that's not what the rest of us are talking about.

Hmm - I guess that WotC feels that the amount of 3.5 pdf product they sold at full (or close to full) hardcover price somehow means that people want to pay those prices twice for the same product just because it is in a different format? I know plenty of people who want only the hardcover or only the pdf. If WotC isn't offering them options, they'll go elsewhere.

Just take a look on ENWorld's front page - War of the Burning Sky: $6.99 for a pdf, $13.99 for a softcover, or $49.99 for a subscription to all 12 pdfs (which is roughly $4 each).

If a small press outfit offers the ability to buy just a pdf, or just a paper book, then the desire for those options exists - the market share of those who will buy from WotC is much larger, which means that the ratio of people who want only a pdf or only a paper book is much larger.

One need only look at the fact that Radiohead went platinum by offering their latest album directly to the consumer at whatever price the consumer was willing to pay to know that the market knows what it wants and is willing to pay a fair-market price to get it.

I'd love to see the sales figures of the WotC 3.5 pdfs at full book price vs. the number of pdfs by other publishers that got sold at a lower price. There are certain gems (MMS:WE and the From Stone to Steel products) that are worth paying $12 (MMS:WE) and $18 (FStS) for pdfs. Most everything else is in the $3.99 to $6.99 price range and fairly priced. Compare that to, for example, Complete Warrior, at $26.95 for the pdf and $29.95 for the hardcover. No way is the hardcover only worth $3 more. Now, if the pdf was $3, I'd gladly pay for the pdf in addition to the $29.95 hardcover. I'd wager that the number of copies of MMS:WE sold as pdfs is probably 10x the number of Complete Warrior pdfs sold at $26.95.

Right now, I can go on RPGNow and buy a watermarked pdf of various products. I give them my credit card information, click on the link, and a few minutes later, have a pdf on my hard drive. I don't need to enter secret codes or otherwise prove that I've purchased the hardcover in order to be offered the "privilege" of buying a pdf. I'm the customer, the privilege is on WotC's side - the privilege of me giving them my money. If they don't want to make it easy for me to give them my money for a pdf, then I can take my business elsewhere.


Look - paying a nominal fee for the pdf after you've bought the hardcover is what the issue is that is being discussed - but why is it an issue at all? Because they aren't offering the ability to buy the pdf by itself and they are making it onerous to buy the pdf after you've bought the book. They need to take a hint from all of the 3rd party publishers who offer their customers the option of buying a paper product, or a pdf, or both, without buying one being a prerequisite to buying the other. And it won't matter anyway, because as soon as the first person with too much time on their hands OCRs a hardcover and posts it on a p2p site, game over; WotC's paranoid special codes and secret handshakes to buy a pdf will be circumvented. Better to treat your customers as customers instead of potential thieves.

Bottom line - regardless of the existence of the DDI, if WotC doesn't offer the option to only buy a pdf or only buy a paper book, at appropriate price points, then they deserve to go the way of the buggy whip makers and record labels...

 

[3catcircus]

Horsesh- . . . I mean, a load of baloney.

I'm a fairly high-level (as far as those things go) guy in a huge corporation. Regardless of what I, or my management chain above me up through our company president, tells our customer, corporate executives (i.e. our company president's bosses) can turn around and order us to do something different. The same applies for *any* publicly-traded company, Hasbro included.