How does pulling old edition pdfs benefit WotC?

[Kask]

However, what they are doing is, on the face of it, removing the PDFs of out-of-print products for an indefinite period in order to combat piracy. This reason makes no sense. And that annoys me.

Of course, because that isn't why they did it. Refusing to sell product X does nothing to stop piracy of product X. It would only increase it.

 

[haakon1]

"Only" is an absolute. Be wary of using them.

For example, there is another reason in this case: Not selling old-edition pdfs is just simpler. One less thing they have to worry about. You may not think it is a good reason, but it is, in fact, a reason.

My guess is they have stopped selling the earlier edition materials to eliminate possible competition with 4e (which, even if it's doing well, could always do better).

My secondary guess is that justify this to themselves with a two part rationale:
1) Getting rid of the older edition stuff prevents confusion in buyers, who migh accidentally buy out of print editions when they wanted the "real" thing. I was this happen once at an FLGS, where a parent was buying their kid 2nd Edition a year or so after 3rd Edition came out. The FLGS owner told them something like "this is actually out of print, though some people prefer this version" and the parent decided to get 3rd Edition instead. I can see that happening and being a consumer complaint.
2) Very few of the older editions were likely being sold anyhow.

On the other side, as Bogey said in "Casablanca", there's maybe I love you, and maybe you love me . . . errr, that maybe some customers (such as myself) love the older editions and would still want to buy some materials and appreciate WotC more if they were available.

 

[amethal]

On the other side, as Bogey said in "Casablanca", there's maybe I love you, and maybe you love me . . . errr, that maybe some customers (such as myself) love the older editions and would still want to buy some materials and appreciate WotC more if they were available.

I'm far from an expert on older editions. Some of it sucked, but other stuff was awesome - and I'm constantly finding out about stuff I want.

For example, I've recently got into Mystara / Known World. I have the Rules Cyclopedia, and the Poor Wizards Almanac 3. Turns out there's a whole "Realms Shattering Event" that takes place in the period between the two, set out in Wrath of the Immortals. I look into getting the boxed set on eBay and elsewhere, and find its way out of my price range. A PDF would be perfect, but WotC won't sell it to me.

(I don't know if Wrath of the Immortals was available as PDF; they pulled them before I realised I wanted it. This is just an example.)

 

[JoeNotCharles]

The thing I don't get is that a lot of their recent strategy seems to encourage people to get the older edition supplements:

- The campaign settings are being done as just 3 books plus a bunch of Dragon articles. That's just a high-level overview and weird patchworks of detail. That used to be no problem for me: just pick up the PDF's of the older Forgotten Realms stuff for fluff, and use the Dragon articles as guides on how to convert anything not covered in the 4E supplements. And it's better from their point of view too, since they don't need to spend as much work on filling in the details.

- The Dungeoncraft column in Dungeon talks about using older supplements for ideas all the time.

- There's a new column in Dragon that goes through the publication history of some concept from the earliest edition. For example, Acererak from Tomb of Horrors. Ok, we get stats for Acererak but not much more detail, but the accompanying article tells you exactly which adventures he appeared in and why they're significant, so you can just get the PDF of Tomb of Horrors and Return to the Tomb of Horrors and use the 4E stats for the final boss.

- The encounter and treasure balancing system makes it a lot easier to convert a module and have it work out at about the right level than it was in any previous edition.

It especially makes no sense to pull the old PDF's right when they added the D&D Alumni column to Dragon. That really makes me think they're coming back in another form (probably with more direct control by Wizards), or just that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. (Which is pretty probable too.)

Actually, offering the PDF's of just the products spotlighted in D&D Alumni, for a limited time and at a higher price, might be a better business model than "5 bucks for everything".

 

[Mistwell]

However, what they are doing is, on the face of it, removing the PDFs of out-of-print products for an indefinite period in order to combat piracy. This reason makes no sense. And that annoys me.

Of course, because that isn't why they did it. Refusing to sell product X does nothing to stop piracy of product X. It would only increase it.

My guess is they have stopped selling the earlier edition materials to eliminate possible competition with 4e (which, even if it's doing well, could always do better).

The thing I don't get is that a lot of their recent strategy seems to encourage people to get the older edition supplements:

If they do offer the older stuff in an electronic format other than PDFs that gives them more security from piracy, then a basic assumption of all of the posts I just quoted will be essentially false.

WOTC said they pulled stuff for piracy. Personally, I think they just lumped older stuff in because it was not economically feasible to JUST offer older stuff. Regardless, if they offer it all later with some digital rights management protection, which is what they say they will do, then all these claims are pretty much false speculation.

 

[Wolfspider]

Personally, I think they just lumped older stuff in because it was not economically feasible to JUST offer older stuff. .

Not economically feasible to offer just the older books? Hmmm. How so? Does it cost WotC money to have them up for sale on WotC?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

If they do offer the older stuff in an electronic format other than PDFs that gives them more security from piracy, then a basic assumption of all of the posts I just quoted will be essentially false.

Any digital format is open to piracy. There has not been a single electronic format that has not been cracked, and cracked quickly. If WotC releases anything in any digital format that even resembles a book, it will be turned into illegal PDFs in no time flat. Even if it is not in the form of the book (DDI character builder for example) it will stil be distributed in a cracked format for free (See the DDI character builder for example again)

 

[baphomet68]

I really think that is the most likely answer - they just don't care about the non-4e stuff, and they have valid reasons to not care.

I disagree, sort of- I think WOTC see 3e as direct competition. Their giving a candid answer here - "We pulled the old PDF's to dispose of a competing game system" - would only anger people. They dont care about supporting the game, but they do care about making it a less attractive option. It is their #1 competitor in a sense; having low priced PDf's for sale in a depression must have seemed like a poor choice to them.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have to agree with this. 3.x is a direct competitor or 4E for gamer time and gamer interest. It may not be a direct competitor for funds though. That is a more difficult question. I have enough 3.5 books to play it forever. I bought all I wanted to buy (and a few I will never open again) so all the timer I spend playing 3.5 is not making money for WOTC.

I still run pure 3.5 games, 3E games and a couple hybrids, but there is only one system that WOTC will make money off of for me. 4E.

So I can see how removing 3.x stuff can directly benefit WOTC in that they get more people to play a system that they are making more money off of.

I have no hard numbers, and Enworld seems full of people who buy pdfs, but I do not think Enword is representative in that I do not think a large amount of people regularly buy pdfs of their WOTC-systems gaming.

 

[Voadam]

WOTC said they pulled stuff for piracy. Personally, I think they just lumped older stuff in because it was not economically feasible to JUST offer older stuff. Regardless, if they offer it all later with some digital rights management protection, which is what they say they will do, then all these claims are pretty much false speculation.

Why do you think they only offered old edition pdfs at paizo? Why no 4e or 3e pdfs (outside of 3e dragon and dungeon pdf magazines) there when they were selling pdfs through paizo?

This seems to suggest they thought it was economically feasible to do so.

Also they have not said they will offer old edition stuff later. They have only said they are actively exploring options to do so.