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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Myrdin Potter" data-source="post: 7275111" data-attributes="member: 6843593">There are so many opinions here about why WoTC should do one thing or another. They are a subsidiary of Hasbro and D&D is a rounding error for WoTC (MtG drives their revenue and profit). They have released different versions of their rules in digital formats for years (and you can buy previous editions in PDF forum). A trivial search for the previous versions will find plenty of pirate options and most of the previous editions have clones built via the OGL rules that they released.The team that does D&D lost most of their staff, and they threw a Hail Mary pass of an open sourced play test for a new edition and then changed their old business practice of flooding the market with new rules a very measured release. They have exceeded all expectations and have enough of a hit in their hands that they were actually mentioned in a Hasbro earnings call. One thing that they did change this time around was strict rules on digital releases which does result in pirating and which they have messed up before, over and over again. They are slowly experimenting. They finally licensed a VTT (Fantasy Grounds broke that open). They allowed D&D Beyond and they significantly reduced the digital MSRP for the VTT option (again, Fantasy Gounds owners advocated for lower prices would turn into even more sales). I am pretty happy with their brand management so far and I know they have more data on what happens with PDF sales than I do. As I said earlier, OrcPub moved from the OGL SRD to offer the custom rules that 5e reserves for their product and only allows inside of the DMs Guild. They did it without permission. Because of the weak copyright rules on game mechanics, OrcPub may be right that their rewrite and use of playtest materials would have passsed, but they do not have the legal resources to fight.Personally, I approve of what WoTC did as they are making the best choices they can to protect their business and their brand while allowing it to be used via the OGL and not fighting in court. The number one reason that people have given to use OrcPub over DND Beyond is that it was cheaper to get the full content there. The better implementation and UI was not the reason as only the SRD was not enough.I have the hardcovers, the FG version and I paid for DND Beyond as well so I can do development work when I travel without carrying around the books. So I have paid three times, but I got a different version and options each time.Personally, I think they should make a .mobi and ePub version and sell it for kindle and other digital book readers, but not do a pdf as PDFs are too easy to pirate and they do enough volume to justify hardcovers. I also believe that OrcPub brought this upon themselves (really just himself) by going too far past the SRD/OGL to make money and into areas that other companies had paid WoTC for. His best option would have been to allow you to enter the info yourself (FG allows that) and you pay for the functionality.</blockquote>

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