Any Confirmation of Pay-for-PDFs?

[am181d]

I know that we're no longer going to get free PDFs with our book purchases. Does anyone know if Wizards has *firmly* committed to fullish-price PDFs? There are certain books I'd like hard copies of, but I'd just as soon buy some of them in PDF and save the shelf space.

I assume that most 3e books are available in PDF. Has anyone bought any of those? What's the quality like? And the price?

(You may also use this thread to rant about PDFs in general, if you'd like.)

 

[Wolfspider]

I assume that most 3e books are available in PDF. Has anyone bought any of those? What's the quality like? And the price?

(You may also use this thread to rant about PDFs in general, if you'd like.)

The quality of the pdfs that WotC sells is excellent. Crisp and clear, as you would imagine.

The price, however, is not so excellent. No discout at all normally, which is why I wait to purchase mine whenever DTRPG.com is having a sale.

If WotC does not offer the 4e for sale as pdfs, that will pretty much decide the issue of whether to switch to the new system for me. I don't have the space for another set of books, RPG or otherwise, and I really have no desire to play the game without having access to digital copies of the books.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

WotC talked about having full 4E PDFs for sale during the GAMA Trade Show but no prices or ranges were given.

 

[am181d]

WotC talked about having full 4E PDFs for sale during the GAMA Trade Show but no prices or ranges were given.

Do you know if it was in the context of "this is something that will be available at launch" or "this is something that we're going to roll out someday"?

I'm trying to decide if I want to cancel some of my advanced pre-orders on Amazon.

Another question: Is there a good place (a thread on the Wizards boards maybe?) to bug Wizards about this? Or a generic customer service email?

 

[Daeger]

While I think they may do it, they definitely won't on the launch date due to pirates.

 

[Shroomy]

I'd assume that there would be .pdf copies of the 4e books sometime in the future, I think that WotC is going to concentrate their e-rules presence into the DDI's rule database.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I don't recall them giving any dates.

 

[Thasmodious]

It would be foolish on Wizards part to charge for digital access to books you already purchased, isn't that what the subscription is supposed to cover? If that happens, I'd really have to question a DDI subscription. Everyone would just do what we did for 3e, scan and file share. Can't stop digital access these days.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

It would be foolish on Wizards part to charge for digital access to books you already purchased, isn't that what the subscription is supposed to cover? If that happens, I'd really have to question a DDI subscription. Everyone would just do what we did for 3e, scan and file share. Can't stop digital access these days.

That was one thing they were really clear on to the retailers. The DDI subscription while it will have a rules database, that database will only contain those parts that are neccesary for character creation. It was made very clear that the rules database and DDI will not contain enough information to play the game and that purchasing the books would be neccesary to play the game.

This was for the rules database only. PDFs of the books are a different thing. I'm sure WotC sees a difference between making the rules available as part of the SRD or rules database, and charging for PDFs of full books.

 

[MaelStorm]

I agree with you Thasmodius. That's the main reason I won't subscribe to D&D Insider.

Plus, they should give a 15 to 25% reduction in price for digital copies. They save a load on distribution, transportation, and production. Why would they sell it full price?