Update: Malhavoc PDFs no longer available at RPGnow (merged)

[BradfordFerguson]

Hmm... you guys ought to visit the Necromancer Games General Discussion board and see the responses to Necro's decision to go the same route with their PDFs. Full price and you get to use your own paper and ink to print them! Talk about a deal... :\

Yeah Necromancer games is an imprint of Sword & Sorcery Studios and consequently White Wolf, so it's no surprise.

 

[marketingman]

Mo profit mo profit, and even more. Nomore worries about the price of paper spiking to new high before the print run is set, so it must be the cost of the electric current they need to run the systems.

 

[Psion]

I see where you're coming from, I just don't wanna give them a parting gift for adding an annoyance to my life.

Well, I know where you are coming from, and you gotta follow your conscience, but it's was not my point that we should stick it to Malhavoc, but that you should get while the getting is still good.

 

[Dragonblade]

The whole reason that I would buy PDF's in the first place is portability. If I can't copy PDF's to my laptop or to an emergency backup CD, then I have zero incentive to buy them.

I don't know how strict this new security system is but if it prevents me from copying my PDF's to a backup CD or my laptop, then I will no longer purchase them.

Locking down PDFs to the point of user/customer frustration just encourages piracy.

 

[Wombat]

As of the moment, I have an entirely different point against the move: between the time I last commented in this thread and now I have been attempting to simply open DriveThruRPG. It is without a doubt the single slowest site I have ever encountered. I have not been running any other programs except Solitaire and I only just finished loading the front page. Most of the pictures of that page displayed the red X in a white box -- couldn't load.

I have a cable connection; my computer is not that slow and I just defragged it last Wednesday.

As far as I am concerned, unless I hear of massive changes, I will not buy anything from the new site strictly due to time limitations.

 

[BradfordFerguson]

Hmm, maybe I will have to limit my reviews to non-DRM PDFs...

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I'm a tad confused as to whats going on.

Can somebody summarize whats going on, and why malhavoc is changing stores?

 

[Nick_Danger]

E-Books

I've dealt with e-books in the past and they were a pain in the arse then, I doubt they have gotten much better.

I tend to buy from home, but use elsewhere to print and love the universal portability of standard PDF files.

As far as I'm concerned, any company that goes to a less user friendly method of electronic sales will not only loose my online business but my offline business as well, since I tend to buy the print version of the main products and the e version of the supplements.

My 3 cents worth.

 

[Monte At Home]

At the risk of stomping on people's fun (because it's fun to run around and cry that the sky is falling), I'm going to be the killjoy here and say a couple of things.

Yes, Malhavoc is switching vendors. You can read our press release regarding the change here. The price of our pdfs has stayed the same.

I know that change can be off-putting. That's why we put out a brand new free (short) pdf on that site called Narrog the Earth Serpent so you could give the new vendor a try for free. I think that if you actually try DriveThru you'll find that it's not hard (you need the latest version of Adobe reader, but that's free too). They've got some nice How To and FAQ pages that you'll find to be very helpful (and if you want a laugh, click on the speaker on the menu board, in fact do it a number of times).

No, it's not the case that you can't transfer the between two machines. I know that some people are telling you can't transfer the file from your desktop to your laptop (or whatever), but, to be blunt, they're wrong. You can. You can also make backup copies and print just as easily as you could before. There are limitations in the cut and paste feature, but we're thinking about asking them to relax those a bit as well.

No, Malhavoc didn't try to buy RPGNow. Malhavoc doesn't have any kind of stake in DriveThru. (And for the record, as long as I own Malhavoc, we'll have no interest in getting involved in that side of the business at all.) However, we wouldn't have made the change if we didn't think that they could provide the service our customers require. In fact, if you talk to someone who's actually *used* DriveThru, you'll find that they'll most likely tell you that it was easy, quick, and that customer service (if you need it) is also quick and helpful.

 

[Psion]

Can somebody summarize whats going on, and why malhavoc is changing stores?

White Wolf is launching DriveThruRPG a new gaming PDF site to the tune of RPGnow. (One poster stated this was after a failed bid to buy RPGnow, but I have no idea about this).

The site operated exclusively though "Digital Rights Management" enabled PDFs, which means that you are limited on how much text you can copy to the clipboard and how many computers you can use the product on (which could case problems if you don't print them from your own computer.) And each one you want to use it on, you have to register with Adobe.

DriveThruRPG also only has exclusive arrangements to sell stuff, not to mention that Malhavoc is published through White Wolf. Malhavoc has ended their contract with RPGnow and their PDFs will be off that site by the 10th, and if you want them after that, they will be exclusively DRM versions from DTRPG.

In addition to all the white wolf titles, DriveThruRPG has wooed other print publishers like Eden, and got out of print titles by GDW and FGU into their catalog.

Many customers are concerned about the lack of convenience associated with Digital Rights Management. Others are put off by the fact that many prices as DTRPG are almost as expensive as the MSRP of the print product, whereas most consumers consider the printed product a significant added value, and you could get a print product cheaper through a big discount house like Amazon.