Do you want PDFs?

[CleverNickName]

The point of this poll, foked over from the "compromise" thread, is to measure the demand of electronic D&D books overall. You know, in a completely unscientific, unreliable, internet "for entertainment purposes only" sort of way.

A lot of people on these boards have some pretty strong opinions about electronic book sales (or the lack thereof)...I wonder if this is a legitimate segment of the market that WotC should be considering, or if it is just a very loud minority that's raising such a ruckus.

So it's a very simple question...do you want to be able to buy PDFs of your favorite D&D books? Vote for the one that best fits your opinion. Your reasons are your own.

 

[CleverNickName]

I would buy PDFs of D&D books. Mostly the older ones, but I would love to be able to buy electronic versions of some of 4E's ready-to-play adventures.

 

[El Mahdi]

I voted I want pdf's of all editions.

I don't play 4E, but I do like to mine their books for ideas. I also like good adventures, regardless of system. I simply adapt them to my houseruled 3E game. But, since I don't actually play 4E, I am not interested in buying hardcovers of their books. I also prefer using my computer during gaming, so pdf's are my medium of choice.

Also, I was right in the middle of rounding out my older edition pdf library when WotC so suddenly and foolishly pulled them.

I haven't bought a single WotC product since they pulled the pdf's. If they made them available again (without making a DDI account conditional to access - that's a deal breaker), then I'd buy their products again, even 4E products (despite the fact I don't actually play 4E).

 

[Shemeska]

I would buy pdfs I could have on my desktop, but I wouldn't pay for other electronic forms, for instance flash media online viewable books through DDI or anything similar - I want to buy, not rent.

I've bought pdfs for Shadowrun, WhiteWolf (some of their pdf only releases are quite cool), and Paizo is awesome with giving me free contributor pdfs, so I absolutely adore the media for quick referencing and research (both for in-game use and freelance background stuff). For table use or casual reading, I buy a hardcopy.

 

[Wombat]

I like pdfs, but as far as D&D is concerned, they are less of an issue for me.

I mainly like pdfs for games that I am less likely to play, or supplements where I have a strong passing interest but will probably not use day to day in my campaigns. Some pdfs, after I read through them, I subsequently buy in treeware form. This has proven true with 2-3 White Wolf supplements and some Malhavoc and Green Ronin D&D (3e OGL) supplements.

As for D&D specifically, well, I have all the pdfs that I need for 3e and I am not interested in switching to 4e at the moment, so I have no current need or desire for D&D pdfs. Thus I answered the poll as if the question were moot.

 

[Obryn]

I only want PDFs of books which I can't get in hardcopy, which isn't really an option up there.

-O

 

[Baron Opal]

I mostly want PDFs of out of print modules. However, that's a current desire probably born from their inaccessability. I do have a number of other pdfs, mostly monte Cook's stuff.

My desire for pdfs is also pretty storngly tied to pdf readers like the Kindle and iRex. My demand for pdfs would seriously increase if I had a reader that I was happy with. Having all of my pdfs portable like that would induce me to spend some serious cash.

This would also drive my desire for getting all of the Dragon and Dungeon magazines in pdf format since I would have an electronic book to store them all in.

 

[jaerdaph]

If they were to become available again, I'd continue buying pre-4e AD&D/D&D books in PDF format again.

 

[wedgeski]

Honestly I have little interest in them these days. I've used them as reference points for prep in earlier editions, but I don't like them at the table (prefer the adventure + my own notes), and for 4E prep, the electronic tools rule supreme at my DM desktop.

 

[Voadam]

I voted for old edition pdfs, but even though I don't play 4e if 4e pdfs were available and cheap enough to be an attractive price point for me I would buy them.

I was buying about $20/month worth of pre 3e WotC pdfs even though I play 3e. When they were available I was not buying the 3e ones because of their price and I was not buying the 4e ones because of their price.

The pre 3e WotC pdfs were the only things I was buying from WotC. I was nowhere near done with getting all the old edition D&D pdfs I wanted.
$20/month on WotC products has gone down to $0/month.

I am angry at WotC for removing them from sale. I am also mad at them for ordering their former pdf distributors to delete the files so they can't be redownloaded by customers like me if we lose our pdfs to hard drive failures, etc.

If WotC put them up for sale again I expect I would get them again.