Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="portermj" data-source="post: 3852994" data-attributes="member: 26990">A few of my take aways:The getting a lower subscription for the DDI if you give up the magazines it interesting because it shows that there is no hard and fast point at which offering extra content becomes nickle and diming.One factor in the Paizo free PDF vs WOTC couple bucks Dataset and Ebook is that Paizo has less of a piracy concern.  Paizo has a much smaller audience so it is less worthwhile to pirate their product.  It is like how Macs don't get viruses because relatively few people use Macs compared to PC and so the effort it takes to make a virus is better rewarded by designing it to attack Windows users.  It isn't that Macs are better designed to stop viruses, remember, the first virus was written to affect Apples.  Likewise, it isn't that Paizo has better motives, it is that they don't have to worry as much about Piracy.Putting CDs in books doesn't seem like a good idea.  First, adding something that bulkly can affect the shipping weight raising the cost for retailers.  Second, I think CDs are on the way out and will be replaced by zip drives.  A sticker covering a printed code should be the trick.I don't think the pen and paper guy going into the Game Store to get codes is going to be much of a concern.  First, the person stealing the code would have to put some sort of credit/identity information to access the book.  Second, the person buying the book would physically have the book and a recipt which would be proof of ownership of the book and entitlement to the benefits of the code.  So the thief would be stealing something that would get noticed and he would be giving contact information to the people that would want to catch him.  I know there are dumb criminals, but that would be beyond dumb.I'm not sure how the secondary market would be affected.  One the one hand it would be nice if you could buy a used book and just pay the fee to get the dataset.  But on the other hand, there isn't a big cost to WOTC in not set up a way to account for the secondary market.  Setting up a system that is only concerned about the people first buying the books has to be cheaper than setting up a system that takes into account reselling.  Plus it sets up an incentive to basically pass the book around which would cut into sales of the real world books.Another aspect of the used book market problem is that when I sell a 3rd Edition Monster Manual I am giving up ownership of the entire product that I bought.  In other words, I had a book, I sold the book, now I don't have the book.  Buying the 4th Edition Monster Manual involves more than just buying the book.  It also involves buying the right to active the E-book and dataset.  If I sell the phsyical 4th Edition Monster Manual am I just selling the phsyical book or am I selling everything I got when I bought the 4th Edition Monster Manual in the first place?  Unless there is an easy way to transfer the digital property at the same time as the physical book I'm inclined to just say that buying a used 4th edition book means you are just buying the physical 4th edition book, nothing else.That said, I would like to see support for people that just want to buy the online product.  My opinion on what the price should be would be no more than what you get for selling a book to your distributors (25% MSRP?).</blockquote>

Verification