D&D General What Product Do You Wish They Sold For D&D

[Urriak Uruk]

I’m curious how much it costs to convert those old books to quality pdf’s. There is a process and i figure someone has to do them from almost scratch.

I think they probably had scans of them, or they literally have to get an intern to scan them or something.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

That seems kind of shortsighted, if it's the case. I mean, the books are already pirated, to the point of being just a Google search away. They're not exactly foiling anything if that's why they're not making legally-available PDFs of the current edition.

And, of course, the companies that do make legal PDFs of their books, such as Paizo, don't seem to be suffering for it. (Or even for the free online reproductions of their work that are legal, thanks to the OGL.)

So piracy is not really an "on" "off" switch. Anyone can pirate anything, with enough determination. The limiter is the determination, as every consumer has some tipping point where they decide "Eh, it's better to pay money than jump through these hoops to pirate," vs. "Eh, it's better to look for pirated material instead of paying this price." It varies from person to person (some folks will never pay, and some will never pirate), most people are somewhere inbetween.

So by making official PDFs available for purchase, this vastly makes piracy much easier, as one person just needs to buy a copy and slap it on a website with some ads to make a quick buck. Right now, someone needs to buy a book, scan each page, then slap it on a website. That limits the number of people who put up a pirated copy, making it harder for a person to find it, making it less likely overall that piracy happens.

 

[tetrasodium]

I’m curious how much it costs to convert those old books to quality pdf’s. There is a process and i figure someone has to do them from almost scratch.

Depends on book size. 30-50$ +shipping for an ocr'd destructive scan where they unbind the book and scan each page on a flatbed scanner or similar before linking the index. There are companies that do it.
Likely even less to add paizo style hyperlinks if its already a pdf that was sent to the printing press company.

 

[Reynard]

So piracy is not really an "on" "off" switch. Anyone can pirate anything, with enough determination. The limiter is the determination, as every consumer has some tipping point where they decide "Eh, it's better to pay money than jump through these hoops to pirate," vs. "Eh, it's better to look for pirated material instead of paying this price." It varies from person to person (some folks will never pay, and some will never pirate), most people are somewhere inbetween.

So by making official PDFs available for purchase, this vastly makes piracy much easier, as one person just needs to buy a copy and slap it on a website with some ads to make a quick buck. Right now, someone needs to buy a book, scan each page, then slap it on a website. That limits the number of people who put up a pirated copy, making it harder for a person to find it, making it less likely overall that piracy happens.

None of that explains how pretty much everyone else on the planet makes their work available in PDF. It's not about piracy. It is about maximum profitability, which very like increases piracy more than legal PDFs would.

 

[Alzrius]

Right now, someone needs to buy a book, scan each page, then slap it on a website. That limits the number of people who put up a pirated copy, making it harder for a person to find it, making it less likely overall that piracy happens.

That doesn't limit the number of people who put up a pirated copy, though. It just limits the first person who makes that copy. For everyone else, it's just a matter of downloading the pirated copy that the first person made and then uploading it somewhere else. Once that first pirate puts in the effort, there's no real restrictions anymore. At most, some subsequent pirates might clean up the file, or make a better one, but my understanding is that that's not a big deal.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah - their Gods & Goddesses book has been on my shortlist for way too long. It looks really good.

It is really good, just not enough. I want that level of detail, but for every deity, hero, and monster in the 1e Deities and Demigods. Of course that would be like at least a book per mythos!

 

[dave2008]

I’m curious how much it costs to convert those old books to quality pdf’s. There is a process and i figure someone has to do them from almost scratch.

Are you talking about having official PDFs or illegal ones? The cost issue for WotC is not in making the PDFs, but perceived lost sales due to pirating. The thing, you can already get illegal PDFs of the 5e books within 1-4 weeks of their launch anyway, so I am not sure it would really hurt sales.*

*Note: this move away started in 4e and WotC claimed they had a good bit of data indicated PDFs translated to lost sales.

 

[darjr]

This. I want this so badly. Not sure why someone hasn’t done this in KS. I know Jetpack7 did something like this but not quite.

Get some of the original artists to contribute

 

[billd91]

Are you talking about having official PDFs or illegal ones? The cost issue for WotC is not in making the PDFs, but perceived lost sales due to pirating. The thing, you can already get illegal PDFs of the 5e books within 1-4 weeks of their launch anyway, so I am not sure it would really hurt sales.*

*Note: this move away started in 4e and WotC claimed they had a good bit of data indicated PDFs translated to lost sales.

Frankly, I think argument about lost sales is dubious. Every D&D book will be pirated and probably within a week or so of release. Pirate versions will be available for a larger proportion of the publication's sales life than when they are unavailable. The sales lost to piracy would have to be incredibly high in that first week or so for piracy to be a factor.
I think, and have always believed, that piracy is a convenient scapegoat when their real intention is to push customers who want electronic media to their own online resources (in 4e days) or their licensed partners (now). And they can charge a higher license fee if those partners have exclusive rights to electronic distribution.

But hell yeah, I'd love PDF copies of the 5e materials just like I would have loved PDF copies of Star Wars Saga Edition. It's much easier to tote the material around on my iPad than carrying around multiple books to games outside of my house.

 

[Rabulias]

Another vote for PDFs. DnDBeyond is handy as a reference, but not much help when you find an old post or blog that tells you to "look at page 97 of Xanathar's Guide to Everything." Plus, my old brain deals with virtual pages better than linked infinite scrolling webpages, and I like the layout of the pages.

Runner-up (for print or PDF): Larger, more legible page numbers in the corners.