Future of WotC PDFs: Unofficial Sneak Preview?

[Greatwyrm]

While I wasn't inclined to believe their claims about "fighting piracy" by taking the current books off of pdf, the argument implodes when applied to out-of-print books.

I can just imagine how that meeting went.

"We must take action to stop these #$%^&*@ pirates! They're stopping us from making money on products we'd otherwise make absolutely no money on! Wharrrgggllbarrrrgglll!!!!"

 

[UHF]

I can just imagine how that meeting went.

"We must take action to stop these #$%^&*@ pirates! They're stopping us from making money on products we'd otherwise make absolutely no money on! Wharrrgggllbarrrrgglll!!!!"

I think that pretty much sums up the situation. There's no money to be had in PDF sales, but on the other hand it prevents some piracy, and makes some customers happy.

I'm in the "Are you sure you're losing money?" category. Microsoft spent millions of dollars studying how we obtain and store information, and essentially concluded that we are all just a bunch of information squirrels. Piracy is definitely copyright violation, but is the stuff even getting used? I think that number is relatively small.

 

[DracoSuave]

...Not to mention that taking the out of print books out of pdf circulation is actually encouraging piracy, since there is no other way to get many of the books. As far as I'm concerned there was no excuse for doing that.

Cause the manpower needed to keep that up and running is better spent doing something that makes more money?

That's a great excuse for a business.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Cause the manpower needed to keep that up and running is better spent doing something that makes more money?

That's a great excuse for a business.

A great excuse that really doesn't apply in this case. The pdfs were made, so no new production costs. Third party vendors were selling them, so no maintenance or upkeep. All they had to do was cash the checks at the end of the month.

 

[DracoSuave]

A great excuse that really doesn't apply in this case. The pdfs were made, so no new production costs. Third party vendors were selling them, so no maintenance or upkeep. All they had to do was cash the checks at the end of the month.

So no one was paid to watch over this and pay attention to it?

Huh.

I thought business works differently. I wasn't aware it consists of money engines you ignore that create revenue that magically appear in your bank account. Forgive me for actually thinking someone needs to be paid and give time to deal with that third party, or that lawyer's time needs to be used to make sure trademark violations resulting from it, or that someone needs to make sure the revenue is accounted for at the end of the day, or that someone needs to monitor the business done for whatever reason marketers need things monitored.

The cost of doing business is never free, and the larger the company, the more this is true. Someone needs to be on top of it, and even if it's just a small portion of their day, if they're spending one day a week chasing down a thousand dollars of revenue, and the other four days of that week chasing down ten thousand dollars of revenue... they SHOULD be spending that one day a week chasing where more money is.

Wizards is a company that knows how to print money, more than anyone who could ever post in this thread ever. I think they know what they're doing.

 

[Blindelf]

By the by, the new Essentials digest format would seem ideal for a real ebook format, and I would buy Rules Compendium for my Kindle instantly.

This is what I keep thinking...the new softcover format books already feel like they're laid out for an iPad, surely they have some new PDF or eReader initiative in the works.

 

[UHF]

This is what I keep thinking...the new softcover format books already feel like they're laid out for an iPad, surely they have some new PDF or eReader initiative in the works.

Dude... that sounds right. I'm not keen on the new format. I mean they could have gone with standard softcover books the same as the hard covers. The books would be way thinner.

Actually this format would work well on the iTouch.

 

[raindog308]

We're not quite there yet with ereaders. Ereaders are both technically excellent and have hit a market penetration where offering your novels and short stories (without much in the way of graphics, pictures, tables, charts, etc) makes good sense. And WotC is releasing all new titles, and some old titles, from their novel lines in ebook formats

But an affordable and quality full-color ereader than can easily support larger format books with lots of pictures, tables, etc . . . we're not quite there yet.

Welllll...

If you mean "handle any given PDF," then you're right.

If you mean "faithfully represent a book that contains pictures and charts, then I disagree, as Kindle has plenty of books with pictures, graphical illustrations, charts, etc.

The problem with game PDFs is that they don't render well on ereaders, but that's probably more a function of the PDF format. If each page of a book was changed to a high-quality JPEG (or other "boiled down to an image" format) and put in an ereader format, I think the Kindle, Nook, etc. would not have a problem.

 

[Dire Bare]

Welllll...

If you mean "handle any given PDF," then you're right.

If you mean "faithfully represent a book that contains pictures and charts, then I disagree, as Kindle has plenty of books with pictures, graphical illustrations, charts, etc.

The problem with game PDFs is that they don't render well on ereaders, but that's probably more a function of the PDF format. If each page of a book was changed to a high-quality JPEG (or other "boiled down to an image" format) and put in an ereader format, I think the Kindle, Nook, etc. would not have a problem.

Perhaps a Kindle or similar eReader could handle an RPG or similar style book just fine with a format other than PDF. But I'm not talking simply what's possible, but what is being done right now.

The only eReader on the market now that can comfortable handle RPG style ebooks is the iPad . . . and that's a hefty investment.

Let me know when I can purchase an relatively inexpensive eReader like the Kindle and download my full color comics, RPG books, photography books, and the like. Like I said, we're not quite there yet.

 

[Scribble]

It would be interesting if they went with a format readable by the nook... The NookStudy thing actually looks kind of useful for Gaming as well...