D&D 5E so... any word on PDFs yet?

[Evenglare]

I don't buy the "No PDFs for stores because MTG is played there". Wizards always wanted to keep the games separate. That's a big reason why there is no Multiverse Magic setting. Magic has digital outlets that do very good. There's a new magic game that comes out yearly. If a big part of no PDFs for D&D is to support the stores and their ability to run magic, what has Magic done for D&D other than prevent PDFs? I don't buy it at all. That's not a valid reason to keep PDFs down, if so then they need to take down the Magic games from Steam, XBLA, PSN etc because it hurts their ability to sell cards and keeps stores open, right? Or is there a double standard? Magic gets to do what it wants because it's their money maker while D&D is back up support? There's gotta be another reason.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't buy the "No PDFs for stores because MTG is played there". Wizards always wanted to keep the games separate. That's a big reason why there is no Multiverse Magic setting. Magic has digital outlets that do very good. There's a new magic game that comes out yearly. If a big part of no PDFs for D&D is to support the stores and their ability to run magic, what has Magic done for D&D other than prevent PDFs? I don't buy it at all. That's not a valid reason to keep PDFs down, if so then they need to take down the Magic games from Steam, XBLA, PSN etc because it hurts their ability to sell cards and keeps stores open, right? Or is there a double standard? Magic gets to do what it wants because it's their money maker while D&D is back up support? There's gotta be another reason.

Why are you approaching it from WOTC's desires concerning keeping them separate instead of the stores perspectives? The store is who communicates with WOTC, about ALL their products that they sell. They're already communicating about MtG. If they have preferences regarding a different product WOTC sells, you think WOTC is going to tell them "don't mention it to us, we view those separate"? Of course not. They're going to pass that information on to the correct person in WOTC. And yes, of course there can be a double standard - MtG is FRIGGEN HUGE, so yes because it's the money maker it gets to do what it wants (obviously). And it doesn't have to be logical - if the stores complain, WOTC should listen to their retailers, even if it doesn't make sense to a fan.

 

[Evenglare]

Why are you approaching it from WOTC's desires concerning keeping them separate instead of the stores perspectives? The store is who communicates with WOTC, about ALL their products that they sell. They're already communicating about MtG. If they have preferences regarding a different product WOTC sells, you think WOTC is going to tell them "don't mention it to us, we view those separate"? Of course not. They're going to pass that information on to the correct person in WOTC. And yes, of course there can be a double standard - MtG is FRIGGEN HUGE, so yes because it's the money maker it gets to do what it wants (obviously). And it doesn't have to be logical - if the stores complain, WOTC should listen to their retailers, even if it doesn't make sense to a fan.

Then why don't they stop the Magic video games? Those are surely taking money away from the stores right? All those people could be funneling money into the actual physical game. Clearly digital games either A) are taking money from the stores which means those digital offerings need to be taken down or B) the digital products can exist along side physical games (which clearly they can since this has been going on for several years) which means that selling PDFs, which everyone admits is smaller than magic, will create no significant impact.

Either way, their business plan right now is either hypocritical (selling digital magic goods while not D&D PDFs) or at best lazy (not wanting to release D&D pdfs just because)

 

[Mistwell]

Then why don't they stop the Magic video games?

My guess is the retailers don't view those as a threat, or don't complain about it even if they do.

Either way, their business plan right now is either hypocritical (selling digital magic goods while not D&D PDFs) or at best lazy (not wanting to release D&D pdfs just because)

Why are you talking about a business plan like it needs internal consistency on that level? All you need to know is Product A makes 90% of the revenue and Product B makes 10%, so Product A operates under different parameters than Product B. That's not hypocrisy, that's how the world works.

And if that bothers you, talk to a company with a sales staff sometime. There will be someone on that sales staff who makes a large percentage of the sales, and the standards applied to that employee will be different than the standards applied to the other sales employees, even though they are doing the identical job. Because money is a meaningful issue in business. It's same in pretty much any industry. Take sports for instance: superstar players get treated differently by referees than non-superstar players.

We don't have to like it, but we don't have to acknowledge that is how the world works.

 

[bmfrosty]

I think it's driven by Hasbro/WoTC. They probably see FLGS as key to growing the TTG part of the brand back into what it was. The physical product and the local game store to play it at are a neat little ecosystem that they want to encourage. Selling the same product as digital probably is seen by them as hurting that.

Another subject:

I'm of the mind that piracy doesn't cut into physical sales *unless* the physical version is overpriced *OR* out of the price range of the target audience. Personal anecdote is that when I was 16 in 1991 or so I pirated everything (which was PC games downloaded at 2400 baud). In my early 20s, I started having more disposable income than free time, and I started paying for everything.

If they're pirating it, they probably don't have the disposable income to pay for it anyway.

 

[evilbob]

Edit: Just necroing this thread to see if anyone has heard anything along these lines. The consensus last time seemed to be that WotC had done the math and decided it was better to not risk cannibalizing even a tiny fraction of FLGS book sales with pdfs (possibly with the retail stores having heavy input into this opinion) and force all players who want an online version of their books to just pirate them rather than to provide something that pretty much every other gaming company provides and many gamers have come to expect from modern TRPGs. Obviously that statement betrays my bias in the matter, but just wondering if the rumor mills have produced anything else given that we're less than a month away from the first anniversary of the PHB. Thanks!

 

[Bugleyman]

The word seems to be what it has been since the beginning: "Go f__k yourself."

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't understand. There are already high quality pirate PDFs out there. In what way would Wotc lose out by providing the legal alternative?

But that's not really my question. My question is: how can you put forward the argument "piracy worries keep Wotc from PDFs". I can't find any rational sense in it.

Why would Wotc knowingly refrain from making a sale just to prevent what is already out there??

(there can be other explanations, and obviously I put more faith in those. Just genuinely interested in knowing how you can honestly believe in the "to prevent piracy" argument. Thanks)

 

[kalil]

Yeah, pretty much. The fully bookmarked high quality pdf has been available since BEFORE the the physical books where available where I live. If they were released legally I would buy them because I don't like pirated content. Why WotC adamatly refuses to take my money is... cursious.

 

[delericho]

I don't understand. There are already high quality pirate PDFs out there. In what way would Wotc lose out by providing the legal alternative?

Why do HBO hold back the DVD/blu-ray release of "Game of Thrones" when it's the most widely-pirated show out there?

But that's not really my question. My question is: how can you put forward the argument "piracy worries keep Wotc from PDFs". I can't find any rational sense in it.

Companies aren't always rational. So maybe that's the reason, as backwards as it is. Or maybe it's something else.

Or (my personal guess), there's a whole bunch of reasons all tied up together, so that you can't actually say, "it's this" or "it's that", because it's all (and none) of them.