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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fox Lee" data-source="post: 5692757" data-attributes="member: 4346">I disagree with that - or at least, Id like to see some good evidence for it. The gamers I have had experiences with have played multiple systems and enjoyed several of them thoroughly, including a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of 3.5e, but as a group we still shifted to 4e because while 3.5e felt right, 4e still felt better. We initially resisted 4e precisely because we were already comfy with 3.5e, but 4e won us over - which is almost exactly what you describe WotC mistakenly expecting to happen.Now, I realise that's absolutely anecdotal - but, because I'm coming from that position, I'd need to see something convincing before I believe somebody else's anecdote instead.I think your broader point is correct though. I'm sure it's not economically viable for WotC to produce print-versions of books for all editions, especially because their production values are fantastically high (like 4e or not, the physical and visual production is top-notch). However, releasing PDFs is a ridiculously low investment, to the point where even indie publishers can do it sustainably. No doubt they would still push new editions and would want those to have the biggest playerbases, but it's undeniable that there are diehards who will never shift. If all it cost me was an online store and PDF production, I would surely volunteer to take their money as well.OTOH, there is also brand management at work here. If WotC doesn't want D&D to be associated with older imagery and ideas, I can kind of get that. There are things in 1st, 2nd and AD&D that would have seriously turned me off if I had known about them before I'd gotten into D&D (like the artwork). D&D would have seemed like goofy, silly fantasy to me, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted (hey, I was a teenager in the 90s - it was all about being taken seriously). Not to mention its attitude toward women.I still look at the recent Red Box and imagine it giving a negative impression to people who found their way to gaming through, say, anime, or Lord of the Rings movies, or Harry Potter. We've come to the point where elves and wizards and stuff can be cool again, and part of the reason is that they now tend to look amazing and be played by sexy stars in big-budget productions (I believe that this aesthetic is one of the primary draw cards for female gamers, too, though I have no evidence to present). The Red Box... sure, it's an awesome retro callback for the people who enjoyed classic D&D, but for new players I can only imagining it presenting a weird, old-fashioned, cheesy image that's totally wrong for a system that's probably the closest match to contemporary, big-budget fantasy.OH BOY can I ramble! Anyhoo, I agree with you mostly, and really I don't think it would hurt their brand to resell overpriced PDFs to old-edition grognards <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> But then, I'm not their brand manager, and it seems likely that they disagree.Or, like many big game publishers, they are just that scared of piracy. It's hardly impossible.</blockquote>

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