Can Wizards turn around their D&D support?

[Balesir]

Were E-tools online only or downloadable?

Because if downloadable, you're entirely missing the point.

The reason to migrate to online only is that then, even when you stop making new stuff for 4e, people playing 4e will still have to pay a subscription fee to access the stuff you've already made.

Yes, eTools was downloadable, but I think you are also missing half the picture. It would have been (actually, was, I assume) small-time profitable for WotC to sell PDFs of older edition material after 4E started up. They had all the PDFs - selling them was pure profit - but they stopped doing it. Sure, keeping a 4E OCB available for subscribers would attract subscriptions and make money - but that does not seem to be the way they work. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but every recent analogous example indicates that it won't.

 

[webrunner]

The thing that blows my mind about qutting PDFs is that the PDF watermarks actually allowed them to track down and stop the pirates. One such event was the catalyst to quitting PDFs.

By getting rid of them they got rid of an anti-piracy tool. The result is:

1- Pirates no longer have to worry about reprisal
and
2- They're not getting any money from PDFs at all

if I was a stockholder I'd be shocked at their pro-piracy stance. "We just scored a major win against piracy! So let's GET RID OF THE THING THAT LET US DO THAT"

 

[Dice4Hire]

The thing that blows my mind about qutting PDFs is that the PDF watermarks actually allowed them to track down and stop the pirates. One such event was the catalyst to quitting PDFs.

By getting rid of them they got rid of an anti-piracy tool. The result is:

1- Pirates no longer have to worry about reprisal
and
2- They're not getting any money from PDFs at all

if I was a stockholder I'd be shocked at their pro-piracy stance. "We just scored a major win against piracy! So let's GET RID OF THE THING THAT LET US DO THAT"

I think the serious pirates can get rid of watermarks. The amateurs they caught could not or did not care.

 

[Balesir]

I think the serious pirates can get rid of watermarks. The amateurs they caught could not or did not care.

I imagine that's true, but the fact remains that you grow a successful business by gaining paying customers, not by reducing the number of pirates. Sometimes, those goals may be compatible - sometimes they are not. If they are not compatible, only one of them will increase your profit. WotC seem to have lost track of (or decided to ignore) this simple reality.

 

[webrunner]

I think the serious pirates can get rid of watermarks. The amateurs they caught could not or did not care.

They had multiple levels of watermarks. They removed the obvious ones but there were ones hidden in pixels that the pirates didn't know about.

 

[Derulbaskul]

The thing that blows my mind about qutting PDFs is that the PDF watermarks actually allowed them to track down and stop the pirates. One such event was the catalyst to quitting PDFs. (snip)

The PDF decision was clearly driven by Hasbro's lawyers.

In a real business, the commercial heads would decide whether to accept or reject legal advice. I suspect that D&D is so small within both WotC and Hasbro that there was nobody with enough clout to say that pulling PDFs was a really stupid idea that did nothing to defeat piracy. (And it was a stupid idea and it did nothing to defeat piracy.)

Corporates (and other large entities) aren't always about making the right decisions; they're about not being blamed. That's particularly the case when you're part of a small unit.

[guessing] Also, to buy some time with the corporate masters to address poor financial results, perhaps piracy was blamed for falling sales. That would have triggered the silly decision and possibly bought some time from Hasbro to try and fix the loss of sales (which, of course, had nothing to do with piracy). [/guessing]

 

[the Jester]

On the contrary: CB was a pre-beta app released as if it was ready for prime time; result: chaos. MB is a pre-alpha app released as a beta (meh, you can't win 'em all), which is stable, reasonably quick, and does the key thing I need MB for, namely re-levelling monsters. The result is "a good start".

Well, since re-levelling monsters is the very easiest thing that the MB could do and is just about as easy to do by hand, I think calling it a "good start" is like calling an egg a "good start" substitute for a cake.

 

[MrMyth]

[guessing] Also, to buy some time with the corporate masters to address poor financial results, perhaps piracy was blamed for falling sales. That would have triggered the silly decision and possibly bought some time from Hasbro to try and fix the loss of sales (which, of course, had nothing to do with piracy). [/guessing]

I'm not so sure. I seem to recall the big 'piracy' event was around when PHB2 came out. Again, just going from recollection here, but the two things I remember hearing were that:

1) 10 times as many copies of the book were pirated online as were actually purchased; and
2) The first print run of the book sold out.

So it wasn't a case of the piracy actually affecting their bottom line - the book clearly sold just fine! But, of course, the usual concern over piracy wins out, and so forth.

It might seem nice to have some other reason at hand on which to blame this, but I think it is simply the standard paranoia about piracy, and lack of foresight in finding a solution that doesn't hurt both the company and the consumers more than it does the pirates themselves.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

It might seem nice to have some other reason at hand on which to blame this, but I think it is simply the standard paranoia about piracy, and lack of foresight in finding a solution that doesn't hurt both the company and the consumers more than it does the pirates themselves.

That's the real trick. Pretty much every anti-piracy measure that I've ever seen used hurts the consumer, does little to hamper piracy, and ultimately hurts sales or the product in the end.

DRM is lose-lose. The sony rootkit debacle, starforce, crippled CDs, and on, and on, and on...

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Pretty much every anti-piracy measure that I've ever seen used hurts the consumer, does little to hamper piracy, and ultimately hurts sales or the product in the end.

And implies that we are all thieves.
Nothing makes me want to pirate more than being called one.