I call shenanigans^
The costs to produce and release a PDF is less than the cost of producing a large volume of physical copies. Furthermore, many books are PDFs before they are ever printed, as part of the editing process. At least, ones that have sophisticated fonts/graphics/indices are.
Whoa, hang on a tick here. Aren't we talking about 2e and 1e era pdf's? Cos, I'll tell you right now, NONE of them existed as a pdf before print.
Additionally, very few of the books would actually exist in a pdf format before being printed. Why would they? You don't do layout in pdf format. There's a reason that Dungeon web enhancements under Paizo would take months to arrive after the issue hit the newsstands.
I'd love to hear the explanation about how bandwidth is more expensive then shelf space, too.
I could go on, but most of what you are saying is ludicrous. There are really only two rational explanations. Either WotC got rid of PDFs because they didn't want their newest edition to compete with the draw of previous editions/material, or the decision was simple incompetence.
I think it's a little bit of column A, and a little bit of column B.
No, there is only two explanations if you are not educated on business accounting practices, tax laws and the actual processes of bringing a book to print.
Heck, how long does it take Drive Thru RPG to pay WOTC for sold pdf's? I have no idea. Neither do you. It could be months after the fact. Which is lost interest on the money they could have just stuck in the bank instead of spending to provide a product. That has to be factored in as well.
While I have zero idea how long an online store takes to credit its content providers, I do know I've heard Erik Mona talk about how distributors would take up to six months (yup MONTHS) to pay for an issue. That's a HUGE amount of capital to have tied up for that long.
WOTC is not some guy producing pdf's in his basement. They have to pay all sorts of stuff before you start seeing profits. Never mind the accounting practices of their parent company as well.
Look, a good selling pdf is a thousand, maybe two thousand copies. It could easily be not enough to pay the guy who has to account for that.
As for "old players vs new". It's a false distinction. Old players draw in new players simply by deign of participation in the game. New players.. not as much. New players don't have as many good/experienced GMs, they can't organize as well... in many cases, they are kids and don't have the funds to support their hobby. New players, more often than old players, become lapsed players.
This is false. At least the funds thing is false. WOTC already showed, years ago, that older players spend LESS on gaming than older gamers. There's a reason the marketing research for 3e stopped at age 35. The new gamer has to buy his core 3, probably a module or four, few bags of minis, dice, whatnot. Even if he quits a year later, he's still spent more this year than the old gamer will in the next three. (ok, I'm making those numbers up, but, you get the point)
So long as you get a steady stream of new gamers, who cares if only 10% of them stay. It's the 90% that's funding your hobby. And it likely always has been.
The potential to draw in new players exists with every player. The opportunity cost of raising barriers to play/restricting 3rd party support are that you are shrinking your player base, and simultaneously stifling its growth. Or, to put it in other words, it hurts the hobby.
That's why the spam irritated me. It's supposed to be an olive branch? A way to expand the hobby by bringing in more players? I find it sickeningly ironic that I'm being handed an olive branch by the same people that chopped down the tree in the first place.
Well, you wouldn't expect an olive branch from someone who always did what you liked would you? Isn't that the POINT of an olive branch?
3rd party support brings about zero people into the hobby. There's a reason that for much of the history of the game, it's been D&D, White Wolf and then WAYYYYY back, everybody else. Paizo has apparently made great strides, mostly by picking up those who didn't go to 4e. But, note, that's by picking up existing gamers. Not by bringing in new ones.
How many people actually come to the hobby by way of a 3pp? How many people, what percentage of gamers, started gaming with Mutants and Masterminds? Or the Conan RPG?
Look, I can understand being pissed about not getting what you want. Really, I totally sympathise. But, trying to paint this as anything other than simple economics is ridiculous. Let's apply a little Occam shall we? Which is more likely? PDF's are such a raging success that they are actually cutting into WOTC's bottom line, despite the fact that a good selling pdf sells only a few thousand copies, OR; PDF's are too small of a market for a company the size of WOTC to spent the time and money on?
