Eberron Campaign Setting now pdf

[bento]

I was making my morning rounds of RPG sites and noticed the Eberron Campaign Setting book is now available on RPGNow!

I think this bodes well for GMs as the book itself is full of spoilers. When I ran an Eberron adventure a few years ago I didn't want to loan out the book to my players, for fear they would read too much spoilers. This decision made generating setting-specific charater difficult so I ended up copying and binding a "players" addendum for them.

Which brings up a question. Why does't WoTC release a special "players guide" for Eberron that compiles the races, classes, feats, spells and equipment? This could be a "crunch" book and be a great companion to the player's guide that's already available. Price it at $20 and WoTC would probably sell five copies for every one copy of the complete setting book. It would also be attractive to GMs who want to use the races but not the setting.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Oooh, what a bargain! For the low low price of 13 bucks more than what I'd pay for the book on amazon.com, I can get a electronic-only version that I can't read on the loo or in bed and have difficulty handing around at the gaming table unless I blow more money for the paper and toner/ink I'd need to print it.

Seriously, those PDF offers stink.

Look at what Paizo does with Pathfinder: If you subscribe, you get 30% off the paper version and the PDF version thrown in for free. Wizards should do something like that with their books.

 

[Edgewood]

Oooh, what a bargain! For the low low price of 13 bucks more than what I'd pay for the book on amazon.com, I can get a electronic-only version that I can't read on the loo or in bed and have difficulty handing around at the gaming table unless I blow more money for the paper and toner/ink I'd need to print it.

Seriously, those PDF offers stink.

QFT. Here in Canada I can get the Eberron Campaign Setting hardcover for $31.47 CD at Amazon.ca as opposed to the $39.95 USD charged for the PDF version on RPGNow. WotC, what are you thinking???

As for the Op's comments about a special player's guide. That would be a fantastic idea, as long as they get a better price point than what they're asking for their current crop of PDF offerings. $20.00 USD is a bit much for a "crunch only" compilation though.

 

[bento]

Seriously, those PDF offers stink.

True - while I'm a fan of pdfs I have yet to purchase any of the WoTC titles.

If I'm going to pay full price, it will be at my FLGS, not an online vendor where I'm used to getting discounts.

 

[Glyfair]

QTF. Here in Canada I can get the Eberron Campaign Setting hardcover for $31.47 CD at Amazon.ca as opposed to the $39.95 USD charged for the PDF version on RPGNow. WotC, what are you thinking???

It's been said before, but the target market WotC has for these PDFs isn't those who want a cheap alternative to print products. It's those who want the product in electronic format instead of print and are willing to pay the MSRP for it.

WotC has a loyalty to it's print market and does not want to compete in any way with it. If one person buys the PDF instead of print because it's cheaper, then they are cannibalizing their print market.

Will that change? Perhaps. With WotC taking Dragon & Dungeon away from their retailers to electronic format might be a first step. Now WotC gets 100% of the income from that product.

Still that's not their current paradigm.

 

[Terraism]

It's been said before, but the target market WotC has for these PDFs isn't those who want a cheap alternative to print products. It's those who want the product in electronic format instead of print and are willing to pay the MSRP for it.

And yet, as it's also been said before, working on a basis whereby someone who's purchased the hardcopy gets a free (or, more likely, discounted PDF) wouldn't compete with their print market, and instead likely bring in more revenue.

For myself, I buy print books, and, on occasion, would love to have a PDF of them - but I won't pay $39.95 for a PDF of a book I already own. I'd pay $10 - $15, though, for the convenience. [Shrugs.] I get that it'd be tricky to handle, but I still think they'd make more money that way without endangering their primary audience.

 

[Glyfair]

And yet, as it's also been said before, working on a basis whereby someone who's purchased the hardcopy gets a free (or, more likely, discounted PDF) wouldn't compete with their print market, and instead likely bring in more revenue.

But that requires a major outlay. They need to set up a system where something is included in the book that they can track to make sure they bought it.

Even then quite a number of them will be passed on. A large percentage of those buying a WotC has no use for an electronic product. I doubt many of them will have any qualms about passing the "PDF coupon" to a friend for his use.

That requires an infrastructure outlay for a market they have not be focused on. They only created it to serve the market I mentioned because the hurdle wasn't too high (set up a relationship with an online vendor, produce PDF from existing files, send them PDF).

I can even point tho threads recently where people were scanning their books to save space and then selling the books. It's done.

For myself, I buy print books, and, on occasion, would love to have a PDF of them - but I won't pay $39.95 for a PDF of a book I already own.

Which is fine. WotC doesn't expect that. They just aren't interested in serving that interest right now. It might change (especially after the digital initiative), but that's their approach now.

 

[Asmor]

I don't know how Wizards arranges its books or sends them to the printers, but judging from the excellent quality of the previews they sometimes put online they're either already in PDF format or otherwise are in a format that's fairly simple to convert.

I completely understand why WotC doesn't put a discount on their PDFs, but let's just say that I don't feel terribly guilty about some things on my hard drive which I own physical copies of.

 

[Odhanan]

I guess WotC doesn't consider selling PDFs as having a significant impact on its business. In other words, they put the PDF out for a price like this and if it sells to the die hard fan, so much the better. Otherwise, it's better for them to actually sell the hardcovers, I think. Hence the price point.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The thing is that I'd appreciate having PDF versions of many of the books I own. I'd also be willing to pay little something extra. But I won't pay double.

They're getting on our nerves about how great their digital initiative is, that it's even better than sliced bread and that Dragon and Dungeon had to be sacrificed for the greater good, but at the same time, they ignore those who want to go hybrid with their D&D needs and use both the print and pdf version.

Makes me wonder whether they don't gear up to going all-pdf, for the old prices. Maybe The 4e stuff won't be released as treeware at all, only as PDF with some (probably annoying) DRM stuff attached and the old price point.

I don't quite expect them to follow Paizo's lead and give away the PDF with the Print version, but they could show that they really think that hybrid's a good idea and support it accordingly.