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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5124542" data-attributes="member: 2067">Keeping in mind that this is all still very rampant speculation...Probably not an option for WotC for one reason or another right now. "Piracy" was what they trotted out when they cancelled the PDF sales, and though a lot of people don't buy that argument at face value, the fact remains that they stopped doing it for some reason, and they aren't likely to start again soon. If the reason was, indeed, piracy, then an iTunes/Amazon thing might at least dangle the promise of "electronic, but no piracy!" in front of them.Basically, they work through proprietary formats, EULAs, "licensed content" (rather than purchased content), DMCA locking properties, product siloing, and disabled functionality. The files you download can be legally, and passively, used only on the given player/product that they sell it to, and only in specific ways that, presumably, the content owner can specify (though there's a few stories of Amazon, for ex, mandating their own stuff even against publishers who wanted to free it up).It's something of a false promise, of course. Piracy frequently remains a "better product," and the legal bars and gates surrounding a Kindle or iPad file aren't going to stop that (and whatever software bars and gates may exist can be assumed to be broken).But publishers are buying the promise, more or less, sometimes even believing that they don't have much of an alternative, what with the dying big box stores freaking everyone out.And, of course, if the reason ISN'T actually piracy, that won't change anything, and then they were just looking at ways to expand the DDI's reach to people who don't use credit cards. Which, I'd say, is a good plan. Heck, I'd probably even say going with the e-reader format is a decent business decision for D&D (even though I think e-publishing is generally a lost cause, it makes some sense for visual-heavy reference/library material like D&D), if they do it. It's just something that torques me off, personally. Because I get a bit tetchy when I can't read my books on whatever I want to read them on.</blockquote>

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