Frostburn at DriveThruRPG

[cjdc1973]

I am going to step out on a limb here...and probably get smacked.

I am one of those outlier gamers who purchases all of his books at his FLGS _and_ downloads a bootleg PDF copy from IRC or Usenet. I only ever download a bootleg for a book that I actually own a hard copy of which sort of puts me on murky legal ground. I do this because I have a real need for both a hard and digital copy of every manual.

As a result, while I am likely skirting dangerously close to copyright violations, the actual gaming companies actually never lose a sale because of the scanned PDF versions of manuals that I acquire through other means.

What I would like to see is hard copy manuals coming with software license keys like some video games. Those keys can be used to download a DRM copy from the vendor for free at one copy per license. This would encourage legal sales of hard copy manuals while still allowing for DRM style digital documents.

Jester

 

[Crothian]

Scanned and pirated is a FAR cry from designed-for-pdf in terms of quality though. I bet most of the scanned-in books are essentially just a set of image files wrapped in a pdf. Maybe with some attempt at OCR. But I doubt anyone went to the trouble of checking and correcting the OCR, never mind adding the bookmarks, hotlinks, etc that you would expect in a professional pdf release.

Do the books on DTRPG though been hyperlinked and bookmarked though? I don't have many items from the site but none of the ones I do had either of these items.

 

[Conaill]

Do the books on DTRPG though been hyperlinked and bookmarked though? I don't have many items from the site but none of the ones I do had either of these items.

Somehow, I'm not surprised. Considering one of the "services" DTRPG touts is that they'll take your print layout documents and turn them into pdf for you. Sigh.

At the very least, they should be much higher quality than scanned-in files, right? No error-prone OCR to worry about, no difficulty separating background from foreground text, etc. That alone should be a very attractive feature for any "warez" guys...

 

[Kaji]

I've mixed feelings.

On one hand, paying the full MSRP for a .pdf seems silly. WoTC cost for this is clearly less than it costs to print the books out, so it just seems reasonable to pass some of that saving on to the customer. I'd buy it for around $19.00.

On the other hand, I really dig electronic book for DND in general, and the idea that I would be paying to print out a full color version does not bother me, 'cause I'm very unlikely to print it out. As mentioned in another post, it will sit on my hardrive to be used as a reference.

But if it's full color, only one option, and no books marks, it will most likey be a dog once I open it, even though my laptop is fairly current and powered with decent memory. Entering the .pdf market requires at least SOME minimal amount of work to make the documents fully usable in that format.

I'm not even getting into DRM here. I'm not a screaming hater of it, but I think it has probelms, to be kind.

Final Conclusion? I'd probable buy it to support the idea if it weren't full price. If the price drops, I'll consider it again.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If a hardcover books is 30 bucks, the most I'll pay for it is about 12 bucks. No formula was determined to come to that figure, it's just the most I'm gonna pay for it. If you take away the physical costs of printing and shipping and storing it how much cost is left in that product? It's surely not just a few bucks off MSRP.

Actually the whole idea of MSRP is starting to annoy me. I'm thinking of dropping my game store of TWENTY years because they don't give any kind of discount, not even on my comics. Of course that is another topic.

 

[Psion]

They're gonna use FROSTBURN to gauge popularity? That's not good.

Perhaps they are using Frostburn to see if the DRM protection is worth a damn (or if it shows up as pristine cracked version within hours on warez groups.)

 

[cjdc1973]

I can speak from authority that there is neither a DRM or scanned version of Frostburn that has shown up on the Warez sites at the time of this posting. The latest WOTC related product to be found online was Dragon Magazine #324 which just showed up a few days ago.

As a general rule of thumb, the bootlegged RPG PDF's are non-OCR'd files scanned and distilled into PDF format. Depending on the quality of the scan the document can be from 15-100MB in size with most somewhere in the middle. Dragon #324 with the advertisements removed is 17MB in size.

A few of the high traffic PDF's have been OCR'd such as the 3.5E PHB, but not the DMG. These generally include all errata and FAQ changes that have been official published as they are all hand entered after the fact by the original scanner.

Jester

 

[Conaill]

I can speak from authority that there is neither a DRM or scanned version of Frostburn that has shown up on the Warez sites at the time of this posting. The latest WOTC related product to be found online was Dragon Magazine #324 which just showed up a few days ago.

Any of the other DTRPG files? Or have you only been keeping track of WotC books? The freebies they're putting up might be a target for pirating (they've got Sovereign Stone: Codex Mysterium up for free right now). How about Vampire: The Requiem?

 

[Darth K'Trava]

A DRM pdf is one that can only be read on a specific computer. You have to access the internet to get authorization to read the document every time you open it. This is designed to prevent piracy, but mostly it just frustrates casual gamers.

On an unrelated note, E.N. Publishing's next pdf will be sold at RPGNow for the neighborhood of $8.

Talk about a major pain in the ass..... I'd rather buy the book for the same price, if not slightly less at my local Waldenbooks....

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Actually, I do this now, legally, with my hard copy. (Which reminds me, one of my gamers never did pick up my copy of Feng Shui he wanted to peruse...)

We also do that with several other books that most of us don't want to put our hard-earned $$ into. I've read thru someone's copy of Races of Stone but don't plan to buy it in the near future. One of our DMs buys all the books and we pass them around also as most of us won't buy all those books either.