Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
Yes, mainly as cheap alternatives to tracking down 1E modules.
Do you want PDFs?
- Thread starter CleverNickName
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Treebore
First Post
I agree with you for the most part, however there still are "middle man costs" associated with ePublishing - RPGNow isn't exactly a charity.
You also may have to consider "licensing costs" for games like Battlestar Galactica and Supernatural, for example, in the retail price of PDFs.
I liked WotC's flat rate of $4.95 for every single pre-3e product PDF. The pricing on 3e PDFs - not so much.
My rule of thumb is simple: if the price looks reasonable and I can afford it at the time, I buy the PDF.
That also depends. For one if RPGnow, or similar store, is charging a percentage comparable to a normal wholesale distributor AND your a big producer of books, you will be wise to do something exactly like Paizo has done and buy your own servers.
If your too small, well thats the price you pay until you become a "big dog". Shop around, find cheap server fees, they are out there.
Plus they also have to consider visibility issues, so even if Drivethru/RPGnow/whatever personality they are this week, is charging a hefty percentage it can also be looked at as advertising costs.
Still, it doesn't come close to justifying pricing along the same lines as print products. They still don't have to have a warehouse, warehouse personnel, shipping costs, printing costs, etc...
Even if they have their own servers its one room, probably large walk in closet size, and call in a tech when there are problems, or have one on staff, which ever is cheaper for the given company. Still, much cheaper than print books.
Obryn
Hero
But they do still have development costs, payroll, insurance, tech support, rent, tech costs, layout costs, etc. You might not believe it's 50%, but I have no problem believing it.
At which point, they also need to pay that server's costs, bandwidth, tech support, storefront software, payment processing fees, security, etc. Hosting your own server isn't free, either. You're minimizing the complexity and expense because I don't think you're cognizant of all the factors at work.
If it were inexpensive and easy, few companies of any size would bother with RPGNow's 40% fees.
-O
I, personally, don't use pdfs for gaming material. Sure, they may be a good read, but they aren't practical for the way my mind works to use as a gaming resource material. As such, I have nothing against them (if they are available and other people use/buy them, all the power to you). But I am so completely indifferent to the topic it doesn't affect me one way or the other.
Mercutio01
First Post
True, but you aren't locked into using RPGNow as the distributor if you are a publishing powerhouse like Wizards of the Coast. They could sell PDFs directly from their website and not have to worry about paying a middleman at all.I agree with you for the most part, however there still are "middle man costs" associated with ePublishing - RPGNow isn't exactly a charity.
Those costs would be figured into the print costs as well, so that argument is really a non-starter. Again, I was just figuring on cutting out the 1/3 cost for printing/shipping and the 1/3 cost for middleman/retailer. The licensing costs would be covered by the 1/3 left for the publisher itself. Now, to raise profit margins makes sense, so I might even go so far as 50%, as mentioned above, but any more than that, and a hard-copy, even at full price, is probably a better deal simply because of the medium.
If it was 50%, they wouldn't make any profits at all. Seriously. If you think the printing, warehousing, distribution, and retail costs only take up 50% of the total cost, you've got another think coming. That's even assuming no profit.Obryn said:
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El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
And don't forget the big one: Royalties!
Voadam
Legend
WotC did not sell pdfs of anything they licensed. No d20 Star Wars, no d20 WoT, No d20 CoC, No 3e Diablo, No 1e Conan, No 1e or 2e Lankhmar. Just hundreds of pure in house D&D stuff.
Obryn
Hero
I'm operating on a (possibly flawed!) assumption that WotC operates differently from smaller publishers given its scale. We know that they have a much larger staff than any 3pp, including brand management, marketing, customer service, etc. We know that they actually provide benefits to their employees, too, and presumably the employees are better-paid than at many places. Warehousing and printing - all the physical costs - also get cheaper on a per-unit basis as the volumes get larger, both because they are in a better position to negotiate, and the basic economic facts of high-volume production.
This doesn't leave me with any actual numbers, only the fact that WotC's scale likely means that a greater percentage of its costs are taken up on the office side of things rather than the printing side of things.
Again, it's a guess. So I'm not going to claim absolute truth here.
-O
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
I wasn't talking about only WotC. The recent discussion has been about what general percentage of the price of a hardcover book is different than pdf's. Quite obviously, it's situational and varies from publisher to publisher, and book to book. However, according to those in the industry, it seems the price to produce a pdf is still substantially more than 50%. I think I'll believe the experts on this rather than my, or random people on the internets, perceptions and opinions.
And Royalties aren't only for licensed products, but also for the authors of works. I have no idea whether WotC pays their authors royalties or not. That would probably depend on their standard practices and individual contracts with writers and game developers. And I'm sure none of us will ever know unless you can get WotC, or anyone who has written for them, to reveal the nature of their contracts and payments.
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