Cost of Core Books PDFs

[Branduil]

Updates as they happen are always free.

But will they give you a new copy of your .pdfs with the errata integrated?

 

[SavageRobby]

And it occurs to me that I must have hurt your feelings, because now your just being snippy.

Heh. You're going to have to work harder than that to hurt my feelings.

You (and others) simply seemed bound and determined to state uncategorically that buying PDFs - at full price - is financially irresponsible. I disagree. I don't give a rat's tail-end if you don't care to buy them, but the claims that it is "financially irresponsible" or just plain stupid (which you didn't state, but others did) demonstrates a remarkably narrow viewpoint. Now, I notice that you decided to play the man, not the ball, so I can only conclude that you don't actually have any valid points to refute that.



Totally unrelated, it is interesting to read the many dissections of the cost structure of producing the gaming content (some better than others), and then use those estimations as a justification for thinking the sale price is "fair" or not. That doesn't even enter into my thinking - my evaluation is simply whether I think the cost provides adequate value or not, and whether I can achieve the same value for a lesser cost from a different source (within the bounds of legality, of course). I admit, I have a difficult time wrapping my brain around other ways of evaluating whether to buy something or not - even though my wife practically refuses to buy anything retail unless its on sale, the principle of it, she says.

 

[Treebore]

Heh. You're going to have to work harder than that to hurt my feelings.

You (and others) simply seemed bound and determined to state uncategorically that buying PDFs - at full price - is financially irresponsible. I disagree. I don't give a rat's tail-end if you don't care to buy them, but the claims that it is "financially irresponsible" or just plain stupid (which you didn't state, but others did) demonstrates a remarkably narrow viewpoint. Now, I notice that you decided to play the man, not the ball, so I can only conclude that you don't actually have any valid points to refute that.



Totally unrelated, it is interesting to read the many dissections of the cost structure of producing the gaming content (some better than others), and then use those estimations as a justification for thinking the sale price is "fair" or not. That doesn't even enter into my thinking - my evaluation is simply whether I think the cost provides adequate value or not, and whether I can achieve the same value for a lesser cost from a different source (within the bounds of legality, of course). I admit, I have a difficult time wrapping my brain around other ways of evaluating whether to buy something or not - even though my wife practically refuses to buy anything retail unless its on sale, the principle of it, she says.

It is financially irresponsible if your bottom line philosophy is "Pay a fair price for a fair days work". To me, that means a 2 to 300% mark up is fair. Beyond that it is excessive and greedy.

So people who are fine with paying excessive and greedy, great. I'll continue to insist on my definition of "fair".

To me your saying "Get overpaid by however much you can get away with" is
acceptable. For you it apparently is. For me it isn't.

 

[ki11erDM]

Useful facts to remember.

You talk like the PHB in pdf form is a totally different product. They are the same thing. They are both the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. The development costs are 'amortized' over sales of both pdf and hard copies combined.

And I don’t think anyone here is arguing that they aren’t making more money per PDF sold over hard copys, they most likely are making a dollar or two more. That is not the argument. It is whether or not it is ‘fair’ that they are making more money.

They are providing a product that they think has value and if you think it has value you can buy it. If you think it is overvalued or has little value you can choose to not buy it. I, personally, think they are overvalued UNLESS they are going to commit to updating the PDFs with errata.

 

[Crothian]

But will they give you a new copy of your .pdfs with the errata integrated?

I can't speak for Wizards or if this will happen, but in the past with many companies I have bought PDFs from when errata is added (or anytime they update the PDF) I would get a notification in an e-mail and a link to download the newest version.

 

[mwj258]

Problems Printing

Hi

First a personnal statement on what I want from a purchased PDF: I buy PDF's to print because I find it easier and more satisfying to read from a physical book rather than on a monitor, therefore printing is essential in any PDF I buy.

Now my Problem: Has anyone else had problems printing the RPGNOW MM and DMG? In the MM it is page 279(Book number page) / page 280 (PDF Page) that will not print, or allow any other pages to be printed when it is included in the pages selected to be printed. The DMG is even worse with multiple pages that wont print (didn't have time to track them exactly but found at least 3!).

Edit this is with both Adobe reader 6 and Adobe Professional 8.

To say I am Fracked off is an understatement, I bought the dead tree copies when they came out, but wanted copies I could fold flat, so seeing the PDF's and reading that cut and paste is enabled I decided to buy them but now I find you can't print them, or at least not all of each book.

Now to be fair, I think it is a simple mistake (maybe part of the indexing?) and not a plot by WoTC, and I expect that when the PDF's are updated this problem will go away, BUT I have already paid for a sub-standard product and I dont know when (or if!) this problem will be resolved.

I also think that the price is too high ,and would prefer 50% the price at which I would have considered buying most 4e PDF's, but at 70% of the paper copies I will now buy only those PDF's that I know will be useful, so no Forgotten Realms or other world/campaign books for me now.

I like 4E, it is the easiest DnD I have run in the last 32yrs, the players are having fun and I want to support WoTC, but trust is an attribute that is very fragile and once gone is very difficult to get back (in my mind). Combining the loss of functionality and, in my view, the high price has used up 2 of WoTC's 3 trust points from me.

To Scott I have this to say, please say this is a mistake and will be fixed quickly, because I think that the high price and the broken functionality is an Excellent way to drive your target audience to not purchase your products and/or find an alternative that is cheaper/unbroken.
I know that for me 1 more problem and I will be spending my money elsewhere.

Regards Mark

 

[malraux]

It is financially irresponsible if your bottom line philosophy is "Pay a fair price for a fair days work". To me, that means a 2 to 300% mark up is fair. Beyond that it is excessive and greedy.

How do you come to that value and how do you know what the mark up on the WotC books it? Moreover, shouldn't free market/supply and demand determine price? Besides, its not like WotC is going to be reporting profit margins on 200% on their 10-K.

 

[malraux]

Now my Problem: Has anyone else had problems printing the RPGNOW MM and DMG? In the MM it is page 279(Book number page) / page 280 (PDF Page) that will not print, or allow any other pages to be printed when it is included in the pages selected to be printed. The DMG is even worse with multiple pages that wont print (didn't have time to track them exactly but found at least 3!).

I've occasionally had weird problems with printing purchased pdfs. For me, I eventually traced it to a weird and unpredictable out of memory error. I got around it by dropping my print quality from 1200dpi to 600dpi. Obviously, this may not apply to your situation.

 

[mwj258]

I've occasionally had weird problems with printing purchased pdfs. For me, I eventually traced it to a weird and unpredictable out of memory error. I got around it by dropping my print quality from 1200dpi to 600dpi. Obviously, this may not apply to your situation.

Thanks for the reply. I was trying to use a professional colour laser printer and fiery combination, and used Adobe reader 6 and Adobe Professional 8, also the same problem with printing to PDF which often solves similar problems. The interesting thing was it was only 1 page in the MM that was a problem.
Never had a similar problem happen before, and I work in a print room.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Scott, I must say, this is a point where I feel you have really dropped the ball. A pdf can usually be updated quickly and easily. I know this because it is what I used to do for part of my last job. As long as the fixes are minor and do not cause changes in page breaks and the like, I can't see why WotC does not make the errata changes in the pdf before selling it. If the pdf is updated in the near future, will those buying it now be able to download the corrected version, or will they have to buy a new one? With a print copy the errata is not as big a deal, as they can be hand written into the book. Not so with the pdfs.

Now, I will freely admit, I have not seen the current errata, so I cannot tell if the changes are major page changes or not.

Guys Errata will happen. The game is a month old. We're working on it.