Anyone else feel indifferent about the PDF thing?

[Jack99]

Yeah on the eve of the launch of the PHB2 the pdf debacle will lead over 40% of WotC's customers to dump them for another system (which would be the loss they'd probably need to have to loose their majority hold on the market share). How can you not understand that Rechan?

Must. resist. urge...

(makes saving throw)


Okay, I am fairly indifferent about this whole debacle. Although this is only because I am confident that WotC will soon (don't let me down Scott!) sell PDF of their 4e products, and I believe the chance that we will be able to buy old products is there as well.

Because I like having PDF's of my books (well, some anyway). Easy to transport, you can search them, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.

 

[Vendark]

It doesn't bother me yet, because I'm assuming they'll be available again in the near future, direct from Wizards.

If that doesn't happen, it will be a significant inconvenience. I buy hard copies of everything 4E, but I also buy pdfs of the adventures so I can edit, blow up and print out the map images to use as battlemats. Scans don't cut it; I need images with a decent res.

I really don't want to go back to drawing maps by hand. Fortunately, it should be 2-3 months before I finish running my group through Pyramid of Shadows, so there's time for them to bring them back before it becomes an issue.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm pretty much indifferent. I prefer physical books and I never felt WotC was really interested in selling pdf's of their products. For my taste they were way too expensive.

On the advent of 4E they were thinking about making a pdf version available to buyers of the physical books. That would have been a good thing for me. Selling them for (almost) the same price as a physical book, though - no thanks!

 

[Lancelot]

Indifferent to WotC's decision. I prefer physical copy to electronic copy by a massive margin.

I stopped reading Dragon and Dungeon when they became electronic. I loved getting my physical copy from Paizo, and I eagerly look forward to the upcoming "Best of Dragon Magazine" hard-copy compilation.

As noted by previous posters, the only thing that annoys me is the cluttering of the message-boards... particularly when there's other things I'd rather read about: Dave Arneson's passing, any previews of content in Arcane Power, news about upcoming mini releases.

I also agree with Vendark that I think this is a momentary thing. Give it a few months, and this material will be available in a *legitimate* electronic form again.

 

[Echohawk]

At some point I need to start selling my 2E collection.

Don't do it! Don't do it! If you sell, you just know you'll be posting here five or ten years from now about how you regret parting ways with good old print versions

 

[Gothmog]

Honestly, I don't see this is such a big deal. Almost certainly the PDFs will be available again in the future, once WotC takes some steps to stop pirating. Older supplements and books will probably also be offered again, so most likely this is a temporary suspension of PDF availability while WotC decides what to do.

Now WotC DID handle this badly, at least from our limited perspective right now, with a decision that reeks of a small-minded MBA. I can almost guarantee Scott Rouse, Mike Mearls, and the rest of the D&D folks had nothing to do with this, and probably aren't terribly happy about it, but they have to do what management says. Removing the PDFs will probably not noticably reduce piracy. However, if they are working on some sort of registration key for PDFs that has to be activated under a specific username, and they can track where those PDFs pop up online for pirated distribution so they can prosecute the pirates, then I'm 100% behind this decision.

As I never use PDFs, this doesn't affect me in the slightest- I much prefer the feel of a book in my hands. However, I can understand the anger of some PDF publishers that also rely on sales of WotC PDFs to move their own PDFs, and they have my sympathies. However, for everybody else worked into a frothing frenzy about this, I really have a hard time understanding the vile hatred and conspiracy theories being spewed. From what I've seen here over the last two days, the people saying this are the same folks who always take potshots at WotC, the same ones who seem to feel betrayed by WotC for the development and production of 4e, and the ending of the 3e line. This isn't a 4e or 3e thing, this is about WotC protecting their intellectual property and livlihood, and if WotC can figure out a way to stick it to the pirates, then good for them!

 

[Nymrohd]

Don't do it! Don't do it! If you sell, you just know you'll be posting here five or ten years from now about how you regret parting ways with good old print versions

Well I am not considering selling everything. You'll only pry my Planescape boxed sets from my cold dead hands (and I will rise as a revenant soon after and kill you if you do so!)

 

[Voadam]

I'm an angry customer . I buy a lot of pdfs. I was regularly buying between 1 and 4 old edition WotC pdfs a month. I think I have over 100 of them. They are not normally the majority of my pdf purchases in a month but I like them and was buying them. I've been buying them on and off since they started their original pdf sales shortly before 3e came out so for almost a decade now I've been buying them. I expected to keep on buying about 1-4 per month for the next decade or so. There were a lot I still wanted to get.

I don't expect people who don't buy pdfs to care as it is not their ox being gored. I expect that is the majority of gamers. I do buy pdfs, and these in particular, so this negatively impacts me personally, so I'm annoyed. And posted in that big thread saying as much.

 

[Ariosto]

The part that immediately bothers me is the part that probably was not even "on the radar" of whoever gave the order: out of print works, especially the original D&D booklets (which command "collector's item" prices in original form).

For WotC, no PDF sales means no revenue at all from those.

What bothers me in prospect is the possibility that WotC will turn to handicapped digital documents (online and/or downloaded) -- and that others will follow suit.

I don't see that as likely to hinder pirates nearly as much as it would hinder law-abiding consumers. There's already the factor that some pirate scans of old works may be of much better quality than the official offerings. A book reconstructed via OCR and careful proofreading and layout might be in more demand than a facsimile of blurry, askew gray pages.

 

[Hereticus]

I saw the news and, honestly, my reaction is: "So what?"

Anyone else have that reaction?

The sale of WotC books as PDFs doesn't seem, well, that big a deal one way or the other, to me.

It seems much ado about nothing.

I'd feel the same way if they stopped selling miniatures, since I've never owned or used one.

But I like PDFs, so this matters to me.

It seems that most people who are indifferent, have no interest in obtaining PDFs.