Who ELSE buys PDFs?

[lior_shapira]

I buy PDF's, though only from rpgnow so far because I think their prices are much more reasonable. I have that primal urge to print everything I buy but I'm really trying to fight it .

However, from amongst the 10 poeple I've played D20 with over the last 2 years I'm the only one who buys PDF's (and way more printed books). A lot of people aren't deep enough into the hobby to be interested in purchasing anything beyond the core books, and usually aren't involved enough to even know about the pdf market.

lior

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I don't buy pdfs at the kind of prices that are charged. A pdf is just some electronic text with zero marginal cost to the seller, I'm not paying more than about 10% what I'd pay for a proper printed & bound book. I think .pdf sellers expectation that they can get 50% or more of the price of a real book severely crimps the pdf market.

Well, since they tend to make a much lower number of sales, their desire to not lower the price to 10% of that of print books is somewhat understandable.

Personally, I have bought PDFs in the past, and likely will continue to do so in the future. I prefer print books, but sometimes none are available (either because they are out of print or because the company would make a loss if they decided to print them), and then I don't mind purchasing them as PDFs.

I think 50% of the price of printed books sounds about right.

 

[The Horror]

I've purchased several pdfs. Always games that are either out of print, or that I'd love to have but that would cost too much to ship to Australia (typically because they are too small page count wise to be worth the trouble).

The last ones I bought were the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, Hollow World, Talent Operations #3 (Godlike), My Life With Master, Dust Devils, and a book on Fantasy Adventure Seeds.


The Horror

 

[S'mon]

Well, since they tend to make a much lower number of sales, their desire to not lower the price to 10% of that of print books is somewhat understandable.

You don't think they'd sell more if they charged lower prices? After all, copyright royalties to authors are around 8%, and publishers sell printed copies to distributors at around 30-40% of cover price.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I feel that the pdfs are some of the most revolutionary things to occur in the gaming industry. There are some really great materials out there, written by unknowns who would never before have been published. Further, established companies can offer products that have run a long time in print as a pdf with a reduced price. In addition, all the original 1st edition goods on pdf are amazing.

Though I am not sure how many people actually use it. In my group I am the only one, but then again, I am the GM and take advantage of some adventures, ideas and other materials available.

 

[Pinotage]

I love pdfs. In fact, I've bought seven this month alone - six from rpgnow and one from Drivethrurpg. I'll keep buying them if the price is right. 50% of print value seems about right to me.

To answer the question, I don't think I would've know that much about pdfs and other publishers if it wasn't for EN World and the internet in general. Since I game exclusively online in PbP forums, most of the people I meet in games are internet savvy, though none that I know of visit EN World. Still, they seem aware of a lot of the 3rd party products out there.

Pinotage

 

[philreed]

As more and more established publishers release PDFs awareness will grow. When DTRPG opened last year, even with the negative hype, the overall effect was positive for PDFs. With companies like Green Ronin and Steve Jackson Games now in the PDF business things can only improve.

The next stage is for reliable POD with a large catalog of available products. That should have a drastic impact on direct delivery of product and PDFs.

 

[philreed]

You don't think they'd sell more if they charged lower prices? After all, copyright royalties to authors are around 8%, and publishers sell printed copies to distributors at around 30-40% of cover price.

I don't think they would. I've run frequent pricing experiments and extremely low prices have little impact on sales. Placing products on sale, though, sometimes affects volume but typically not to a point that the sale price created a greater profit.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

You don't think they'd sell more if they charged lower prices? After all, copyright royalties to authors are around 8%, and publishers sell printed copies to distributors at around 30-40% of cover price.

Nope. If the price is too low, the customers will assume that it hasn't any worth, and dismiss it out of hand. While the price of a PDF shouldn't be too high so it doesn't scare away the customers, it shouldn't be too low either.

Sounds irrational, I know - but humans are prone to irrational buying decisions like that. There's a whole scientific field dedicated to studying these effects...

 

[Dr Simon]

I buy PDFs for the following reasons:

1) RPGnow has loads of older stuff which feeds my nostalgia, or I missed it forst time around, or I can mine it for ideas.

2) I don't have to get of my backside to buy them.

3) I'm able to print them out for free (including colour covers)

4) As a rule I tend to only ever get the freebies from Drivethru (a couple of Goodman DCCs excepted)

I also like the concept of cheap and/or free products for tiny niches, such as the Enworld supplement all about the spiked chain etc. This is purely in theory as I've never bought such a product, but I am appreciative of the fact that they exist.

What I dislike about PDFs:

1) crap scans of older products

2) new products with a heavy page background that makes my computer think too hard

3) no new-book smell. I love the smell of a new book (although my 1st Ed. PHB (ca. 1982) smelled (and still does) of sick).

It's not worth buying a PDF for anything like the same price as a print book, especially if you also have to pay for printing. Any convenience is instantly negated by that.

I'm not sure of the intent of the original post, but PDFs can be bought in a non-gaming situation. Most scientific journals publish their articles as PDFs now. Institutions can get a bluk registration for downloads, but it is possible for individuals to pay for reprints.