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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Exclusive interview WotC President Greg Leeds
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
zacharythefirst
First Post
Mr. Leeds would be a delight leading Buzzword Bingo.
Windjammer
Adventurer
Zachary, you made my day.
Guys, watch the video to its bitter end (or forward, once you got the initial joke). That's the perfect imagery for what WotC is currently doing, as faithfully predicted by Ryan Dancey for some time now.
JoeGKushner
First Post
Yeah, that interview was... m'eh.
Mephistopheles
First Post
Taking him at his word, in particular his stated intentions of maintaining the health of the industry and attempting to take some strides against piracy, I think WotC has chosen a remarkably poor way to respond to the situation.
His statement that "the piracy of our products was increasing at an alarming rate" implies that they've been aware of and observing piracy rates of their products for some time; the release of 4E PHB2 was not simply the first time someone at WotC asked the question of whether their products are being pirated and upon looking into it found that it was and this provoked the reaction to pull the plug on PDF sales.
As he has stated they were aware of the issue I guess there are two possibilities. One is that the piracy had been at levels they were willing to tolerate until they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. The other is that they were not willing to tolerate the level of piracy they had been observing even before they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. (In both cases I find the PHB2 spike perplexing: I see no reason that it would spike on PHB2 in particular and, further, would have expected their concern with the piracy of 4E to begin with the leak of the 4E core from the starting gate - which leaves the idea in the back of my mind that PHB2 may have been the first time they took a hard look at piracy of their products and have overreacted to what they found.)
In both of these cases I'd think the response to go for is to continue selling the product and give a high priority - perhaps even urgent in the case of the alleged piracy spike suddenly demanding action - to developing an alternative delivery system that you can switch to when it is completed; the product is out there in piracy channels already so it seems reasonable to continue collecting some income from the PDF market while you develop the alternative.
Instead they've chosen to halt sales of the product on very short notice and are now looking at alternative delivery methods; the product is still out there in piracy channels but they're not collecting any income from the PDF market and their customers are left out in the cold. It also does not do a lot to explain why they decided to halt all of their PDF sales regardless of how old the product is. Possibly the most troubling thing about this decision is that it was "vetted through all levels of the organization".
The only positive speculation I can come away from this with is that they've already been developing the alternative delivery method and have it ready to go and have simply botched up on the transition. How positive that speculation is depends on the form their alternative takes. If they make it more inconvenient to be a customer than people are willing to put up with and their customers lose interest in the product or resort to pirating they won't be achieving very much at all.
His statement that "the piracy of our products was increasing at an alarming rate" implies that they've been aware of and observing piracy rates of their products for some time; the release of 4E PHB2 was not simply the first time someone at WotC asked the question of whether their products are being pirated and upon looking into it found that it was and this provoked the reaction to pull the plug on PDF sales.
As he has stated they were aware of the issue I guess there are two possibilities. One is that the piracy had been at levels they were willing to tolerate until they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. The other is that they were not willing to tolerate the level of piracy they had been observing even before they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. (In both cases I find the PHB2 spike perplexing: I see no reason that it would spike on PHB2 in particular and, further, would have expected their concern with the piracy of 4E to begin with the leak of the 4E core from the starting gate - which leaves the idea in the back of my mind that PHB2 may have been the first time they took a hard look at piracy of their products and have overreacted to what they found.)
In both of these cases I'd think the response to go for is to continue selling the product and give a high priority - perhaps even urgent in the case of the alleged piracy spike suddenly demanding action - to developing an alternative delivery system that you can switch to when it is completed; the product is out there in piracy channels already so it seems reasonable to continue collecting some income from the PDF market while you develop the alternative.
Instead they've chosen to halt sales of the product on very short notice and are now looking at alternative delivery methods; the product is still out there in piracy channels but they're not collecting any income from the PDF market and their customers are left out in the cold. It also does not do a lot to explain why they decided to halt all of their PDF sales regardless of how old the product is. Possibly the most troubling thing about this decision is that it was "vetted through all levels of the organization".
The only positive speculation I can come away from this with is that they've already been developing the alternative delivery method and have it ready to go and have simply botched up on the transition. How positive that speculation is depends on the form their alternative takes. If they make it more inconvenient to be a customer than people are willing to put up with and their customers lose interest in the product or resort to pirating they won't be achieving very much at all.
Allenkwest
First Post
I think it would be rather great of them to include a code in the hardcover books, like to register them, and that code would also allow you access to a PDF file of the book you purchased. And that PDF would only work on the computer that it was downloaded too.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I feel happy just to have asked one of the questions (#5) that was dodged. 
Seriously though, now we need a new set of questions for a follow-up interview with someone:
1) How was the 10:1 estimation of pirated PDFs versus legally-purchased PDFs reached?
2) What other distribution options for digital products are being explored? Is there any sort of time-table for when we can expect to see them?
3) How do you expect the lack of PDF products will deter or otherwise slow those pirating your products?
4) Can you please reconcile the apparent contradiction regarding how physical copies of 4E books are selling out, and yet PDF piracy of those same books is apparently "increasing at an alarming rate"?
5) Again, why were digital distributors told that PDFs were being taken down with less than twenty-four hours notice?
That's all I can think of off the top of my head; not that it matters very much, since I doubt Mr. Leeds or The Rouse or anyone at WotC is in a position to actually provide us with some real answers.
Seriously though, now we need a new set of questions for a follow-up interview with someone:
1) How was the 10:1 estimation of pirated PDFs versus legally-purchased PDFs reached?
2) What other distribution options for digital products are being explored? Is there any sort of time-table for when we can expect to see them?
3) How do you expect the lack of PDF products will deter or otherwise slow those pirating your products?
4) Can you please reconcile the apparent contradiction regarding how physical copies of 4E books are selling out, and yet PDF piracy of those same books is apparently "increasing at an alarming rate"?
5) Again, why were digital distributors told that PDFs were being taken down with less than twenty-four hours notice?
That's all I can think of off the top of my head; not that it matters very much, since I doubt Mr. Leeds or The Rouse or anyone at WotC is in a position to actually provide us with some real answers.
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Nyarlathotep
Explorer
Maybe they could install an application to format your computer after you're done reading their PDF too.
Or they could do what they have already done, stop publishing PDFs. Which is functionally the equivilent of all the above listed restrictions.
Actually, there are firms that do track the main p2p type services like limewire. BigChampage is one that claims (probably overclaims) its ability to track trends in downloads. Since they are effectively performing large polls, the results are open to some interpretation.
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