Exclusive interview WotC President Greg Leeds

[CleverNickName]

This is what they need to do.
...Stuff...

I would not buy such a product. Ever. At any price, including free.

The product you describe might discourage pirating for a while (until someone writes an app to defeat these "features," anyway), but it would render the product absolutely useless to me.

I don't buy PDFs of books because I want to sit around reading them. I buy them because having a digital version:

...allows me to carry around my entire library on a single DVD, and not a three-hundred pound duffle bag (or even a five-pound laptop.)

...keeps me from having to tediously retype pages and pages of notes, stats, and descriptions when I am putting my notes together for a D&D game.

...lets me print out only the parts I need for a gaming session.

...will let me find the armor class of a Giant Serpentweed, in BECMI, in seconds.

...means I don't have to worry about whether or not I will be able to find a WiFi signal when I sit down to work on my adventures.

I could go on, but you get the idea. An electronic file that doesn't allow me to do these things might make a good conversation piece, but that's about all I could use it for.

 

[Festivus]

I appreciated the comment that Paizo and Onebookshelf would be working on ensuring that their customers got what they paid for.

I did finally find a copy of Keep on the Borderlands that I had bought on my old laptop, but still that was my biggest concern.

 

[Henry]

Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy? If that figure is true then this debate is over. Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales. I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.

I'm willing to bet that that actual number of illegal downloads has stood for quite a while, and cessation of legal PDFs is not likely to change it - what it will change is the fact that people were getting it within hours as opposed to months. Common sense says, if it can be viewed or heard, it can be copied.

I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.

 

[caudor]

I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.

This is exactly what I've been wondering. If not .pdf, then what?

 

[Henry]

Although the ratio of 10:1 sounds high, 10:0 is much worse.

(math joke) It's not worse, it's just undefined. (/math joke)

 

[Shemeska]

I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.

*blink* Huh. Was that the reason why some pdfs have never been offered for legal sale? They never finished making official pdfs of the entire TSR catalog?

For instance there has never been a legally available pdf of the 2e book, "On Hallowed Ground" for Planescape. Pirated pdfs existed, but never a good, official scan with indexing etc. Given the general opinion of the book, I've always wondered why they never had it out there. That would explain why though.

 

[malraux]

I do wish a longer time had been given on this. There really were a fair number of old edition pdfs I wanted to get as reference, but was waiting for the next big sale day. Some of the classic modules, like Keep on the Borderland, some 2e planescape stuff, 3e Eberron stuff, etc.

 

[DimitriX]

I'm also not surprised that they decided to pull ALL pdfs rather than just the 4e pdfs. WotC doesn't want you playing previous editions, they want you buying the new edition. The fact that they aren't printing the old edition stuff anymore makes sense. But that means that the only way to get this stuff is through downloads. If they aren't printing the old stuff, then there isn't any way that they can say that piracy is hurting sales of the old stuff because they aren't printing it anymore. And, I really don't think that the piracy of old edition pdfs is really hurting their bottom line. He didn't mention it at all in his 'reply'. They could have just decided to make the 4e stuff no long available in pdfs and not touch the 3e, 2e, or 1e materials. But, they didn't. Because they do want to dictate the game you play. Sounds paranoid, but I can't think of another logical reason why they would pull everything.

It seems like about once a month something else comes up that gives me that old TSR feeling.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I think WotC will use the piracy excuse to never again bring out any sort of reprints (electronic that is) of older versions of D&D. In fact, the longer the delay between now and whatever they were allegedly planning to offer, the more piracy will happen.

Then, they can simply point and say "Look! Look at all the piracy! Why, we can't put the effort in to making electronic files for all those old books! We'd never make our money back!"

Well played, WotC. Well played.

 

[blalien]

I will miss the official pdfs, but ceasing them will indeed reduce piracy. It will take quite some time before somebody gets around to scanning and uploading the new book. In that time, a lot of diehard D&D fans will not want to wait and will just pick up the book. Additionally, if you assume a torrent behaves like a virus, then just delaying its release by a few weeks will significantly reduce the number of people who ever see it. Think exponentially. Of course, piracy will never go away completely, but don't think that ceasing pdf sales won't make a difference.

I wouldn't miss the pdfs so much if they'd iron the bugs out of Compendium. And when is the freakin' Game Table going to be up and running?

Also, Wizards is not going to die. They are reporting record profits, and no RPG has anywhere close to D&D's market penetration. D&D is going to be around until something fundamentally changes the gaming community.