Cost of Core Books PDFs

[fenzer]

To rattle the proverbial hornets nest, I am very disappointed in Wizards for suggesting full retail price for the digital media of the core books. Granted RPGNow and DriveThruRPG are discounting the pdfs, but I will never pay $25 for the digital copy of a book for which I have already paid $35.

 

[Scribble]

To rattle the proverbial hornets nest, I am very disappointed in Wizards for suggesting full retail price for the digital media of the core books. Granted RPGNow and DriveThruRPG are discounting the pdfs, but I will never pay $25 for the digital copy of a book for which I have already paid $35.

Would you pay that if you hadn't already bought the physical product?

 

[sjmiller]

To rattle the proverbial hornets nest, I am very disappointed in Wizards for suggesting full retail price for the digital media of the core books. Granted RPGNow and DriveThruRPG are discounting the pdfs, but I will never pay $25 for the digital copy of a book for which I have already paid $35.

Would you pay that if you hadn't already bought the physical product?

To be perfectly honest, no I would not. I personally feel that a pdf of a physical book should never cost more than half of the physical book's cost. So, in this case, I think the 4e PH pdf should cost no more than $17.50. The current cost of $24.95 is outrageous, and I know I will not pay it.

 

[Henry]

Look at it this way, fenzer -- is it better than them asking full price, which is what their strategy was before now? It's a LOT better, in my opinion -- and if it works for them, it may tempt them to lower their future prices further to entice future sales. Plus, linked, searchable, and it's the full product, unlike what's in the DDI compendium -- I'd call this a big step up.

 

[Intrope]

Well, Crothian (in the other PDF thread) has said the new PDFs are copy/paste enabled. If so, then the PDF of the Monster Manual is probably worth more than the physical book--just paste all monsters for each encounter into a document & you're good to go (no page flipping!).

 

[Scribble]

To be perfectly honest, no I would not. I personally feel that a pdf of a physical book should never cost more than half of the physical book's cost. So, in this case, I think the 4e PH pdf should cost no more than $17.50. The current cost of $24.95 is outrageous, and I know I will not pay it.

Why is that?

I'm kind of curious why the idea of a physical product is worth more then the ability to cut and past, and search, as well as portability?

To each his own, obviously, I'm just curious why people seem to see no value in those things?

(I guess if you don't use a computer to make adventures or things then yeah those things have no value...)

 

[jdrakeh]

Look at it this way, fenzer -- is it better than them asking full price, which is what their strategy was before now? It's a LOT better, in my opinion.

We're in total agreement here. Also, worth noting is the fact that the current PDF prices for the 4e core books are comparable to the same rates offered by other 'A-List' publishers on new PDF product. It's certainly not as if WotC is the only publisher with expensive PDF products.

It's funny, really, because there was almost no complaining about WotC charging full cover price for PDFs of their entire 3x line, but now that they've discounted the 4e core books to sell them for far less than their typical going rate, a bunch of people are suddenly up in arms.

Some people are trying awfully hard to be outraged, I think.

 

[Psion]

Look at it this way, fenzer -- is it better than them asking full price, which is what their strategy was before now?

Ayup.

My personal thumbrule is 50% of print unless the print product is particularly reasonable. But considering that 3e PDF products were (and still are) full print price, it's certainly an improvement.

The biggest issue I think they still face is that while it may beat MSRP, it doesn't beat amazon.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

We're in total agreement here. Also, worth noting is the fact that the current PDF prices for the 4e core books are comparable to the same rates offered by other 'A-List' publishers on new PDF product. It's certainly not as if WotC is the only publisher with expensive PDF products.

It's funny, really, because there was almost no complaining about WotC charging full cover price for PDFs of their entire 3x line, but now that they've discounted the 4e core books to sell them for far less than their typical going rate, a bunch of people are suddenly up in arms.

Some people are trying awfully hard to be outraged, I think.

I never bought a single full price PDF of WotC's. I didn't bother complaining, I just didn't buy them. I did buy them when they went sale but that's it. The value simple isn't there. While PDF's have a couple of advantages (copy/paste bieng one them) they have several disadvantages as well. The most serious is the need for a computer to view them on. Laptops can skirt the issue, but they don't solve it.

I'm with Psion on the 50% rule. I won't pay more than 50% of the full retail price for a PDF unless I desperately want it and those I could count on one hand. The pricing range drops even further when we talk about scanned versions. Now a better scheme is to offer the PDF version of the book with the purchase of the hard copy. Several vendors do this and because I can get the PDF and the hard copy book they get my money directly instead of say Amazon. Direct sales FTW!

 

[Xyxox]

Well, Crothian (in the other PDF thread) has said the new PDFs are copy/paste enabled. If so, then the PDF of the Monster Manual is probably worth more than the physical book--just paste all monsters for each encounter into a document & you're good to go (no page flipping!).

This simple fact does more to entice me to 4E than anything else I have seen.