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Message: <blockquote data-quote="3catcircus" data-source="post: 3863932" data-attributes="member: 16077">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...</blockquote>

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