How Has the WotC PDF Situation Affected You REALLY?

[armorclass10]

well said, now they make nothing...if they don't want my money maybe someone else will. It's like we are all being taught a lesson, oh well another brilliant move.

Lot's of people call it nerd rage but WotC really isn't too good at delivering what they promise, i.e. e-tools, dnd insider, and then the whole 3.5 ruse....all of these plus the pdfs has me sour. Hell the whole mess is not needed, sue the 8 people you got and then move on.

 

[Harlekin]

It's spawned a bunch of threads which I find personally useless on my favorite D&D message board, thus pushing potentially interesting threads off the front page.

(In other words: not a whole lot.)

Cheers, -- N

This - and the virtol and hyperbole in all these threads has again made the climate here less friendly and welcoming.

 

[Shroomy]

Other than having to slog through redundant thread after redundant thread, this decision has not affected me in the slightest.

 

[The Ghost]

I voted boycott Wizards but in reality that is not true. I still plan on playing Magic: the Gathering and making purchases for that. In addition, if they produce another game that looks interesting, as Dreamblade* did, I will certainly give it a try.

As for D&D, well, I think I am done with Wizards. I have enough material from BECMI, 1E, 2E, 3.5E, and 4E to continue gaming for the forseeable future. I do not need to make any more purchases and with this latest disappointment from them - I do not want to make anymore purchases.

I did email them and explain what I felt their company had done wrong. Hopefully, they will learn from this and understand that acting then informing angers fans. OneBookShelf could learn from this as well. Paizo, I think, is the only company that still looks good after this.

* Sadly, Jonathan Tweet no longer works there and he always had interesting game ideas.

 

[Umbran]

Other. It's most prominent impact on me has been to make me have to spend notably more time monitoring threads that might blow up into arguments or rudeness.

 

[possum]

FWIW, I've been one of the most staunch defenders of 4e here (to the degree that people complained about my pro 4e stance elsewhere), so take that into consideration when you read my responses. How has the situation affected me?

1. I can't currently obtain legal PDF copies of OOP TSR products.

2. I don't have enough trust in WotC to commit to subscription-based services that they offer, as they have now twice demonstrated a willingness to cancel services or products on short notice.

3. Since subscription-based services are currently a huge selling point for D&D 4e, I don't forsee myself buying into said edition anymore. I had planned on buying into it full tilt (once the errata was incorporated into the core books).

Truth be told, I still don't have anything against D&D 4e (in fact, if anybody other than WotC was publishing it at this point, I'd probably buy it).

This. I haven't ever purchased a PDF product, but I did have my eye on some of the Dragonlance modules that were on sale. Now, I don't have that option anymore. I'm not usually one who goes for boycotts at the drop of the hat, but I will have to think harder about getting a 4E product.

I would say WotC product, but I love Saga Edition way too much...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Not at all - I had already stopped purchasing WotC material. Hard to buy less than nothing....

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Whoops - I lied, I will be purchasing a lot of PDFs in the next few weeks, but that is due more to PDF publishers having sales to support the format in the face of WotC's... being WotC. So it is having an indirect effect.

 

[Psion]

The poll makes no sense to me, so I'll just answer here:

I could say I'm so upset I'll boycott 4e, but I already don't play 4e, so no change there.

I could say I'll boycott wizards PDFs, but er, what's to boycott. I could buy them before, now I can't.

So it does affect me (I did buy, and regularly utilize the option to buy, classic PDF products whenever the desire hit me.) But there's not much boycott about it; WotC has chosen not to sell to me to (ironically) prevent the loss of sales to pirates.

I guess I could boycott SWSE, which I had not ruled out buying. But it's really not at the top of my shopping list right now, so it wouldn't really be a difficult nor meaningful boycott.

 

[Fenes]

The poll makes no sense to me, so I'll just answer here:

I could say I'm so upset I'll boycott 4e, but I already don't play 4e, so no change there.

I could say I'll boycott wizards PDFs, but er, what's to boycott. I could buy them before, now I can't.

So it does affect me (I did buy, and regularly utilize the option to buy, classic PDF products whenever the desire hit me.) But there's not much boycott about it; WotC has chosen not to sell to me to (ironically) prevent the loss of sales to pirates.

I guess I could boycott SWSE, which I had not ruled out buying. But it's really not at the top of my shopping list right now, so it wouldn't really be a difficult nor meaningful boycott.

This.

 

[lutecius]

I had a lot of good laughs this week. WotC's PR department fumbles more than a virgin trying to unhook his first bra.

Same here. I guess i'd be miffed if i was still buying wotc products but i'm not so that was pretty entertaining. Not just the PR, the strategy itself, assuming it really was about piracy, was interesting too.