Who ELSE buys PDFs?

[DaveStebbins]

In my groups, I'm the only person who comes to EN World, but I know one of the guys is a frequent customer at RPGNow. Mostly Worldworks stuff, but he knows what's available and is there often.

As for the cost of a PDF, as has been stated, everything is there except for the printing cost. Development, writing, editing, art, layout. It's all there. You can try to cut corners, but it will show in the final product. And don't forget distribution! DriveThruRPG takes a little more than a third of a product's selling price as their cut, so distribution costs are real too. Add to that the one to two orders of magnitude that a PDF sells less than a print product and you can see why people aren't getting rich making them. Heck, I think at RPGNow a product gets a bronze award added to its page when it reaches 25 sales.

-Dave

 

[derbacher]

I've bought seven in the past month. 4 from EnPublishing during the server sale (Librum Equitis, Arcane Strife, Three Arrows, and EnArsenal - spiked chain), 2 from The Other Game Company (Monster Cards and Spell Cards) and Hot Pursuit. I recommend them all, but especially Hot Pursuit. This has been a great system for chases (I used it in the regular Sunday game this week). Everything is clearly laid out and easy to use, and it makes sense!

As far as who buys them, it seems to me the point we're missing here is that DMs buy them more than the regular (or casual) player. They provide new options and enhancments at a great price, and you can "choose what to use" and only print out the parts you need.

 

[pogre]

I buy a few every year. Mostly adventures that are priced lower than the printed version or unavailable in print form. The only other things I have bought are Buy the Numbers and Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe.

 

[Ace]

I'll buy PDF's under restricted circumstances

#1 They are very cheap -- I am pretty full up on D20 stuff and don't really need more stuff - I like "rules options" but not ebough to pay more than a couple of bucks for em

#2 No DRM -- I want to be able to back up my stuff without trouble

#3 There is no way to get something I really want for a system

The most I have paid for a PDF is about $5 -- this was for Little Town of Hamlin for All Flesh Must Be Eaten -- this was a collectable for me (I am an Eden completist) -- otherwise I usually cut it off at about $3 --

I have bought from ENWorld Store and Emerald Publishing during the sales FREX

The reason I am so choosy and cheap is that I almost never get to use the stuff -- my DM pool is either 3 core books only (pretty much) or I have to read it first -- and I am not about to print it up (too costly) -- I may use it IMC but the guys are only at 4th level


Oh yeah -- if you are curious

I will never buy a setting unless it for Unisystem or True 20 (aka Blue Rose)

The only two PDF's I really want are a good pirate rules set (not just the ship ones) and a Faerie lore guide that is more folkloric (and less D&D)

If I buy more PDF's (soon not right way) they will be probably be things like EN Arsenal -- I got the one on sale and was impressed -- I like crunch in general

 

[Clint]

I buy pdfs. I love having corebooks as pdf for quick searching. I also love buying niche supplements and one-off weirdness.

I will not buy pdf at full printed retail price. I will never buy DRM content of any kind.

I'm very happy with RPGNow, especially since they eliminated minimum checkout. I am also likely to buy at DTrpg now that they watermark instead of DRM. I'm also looking forward to shopping at e23, because GURPS supplements rock.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I buy .pdfs.

Tend to be faster and cheaper.

I particularly like short adventures and supplements in this format.

Short adventures are fairly explanatory, the supplements are nice since I feel less bad paying five bucks for a few chapter I'm gonna use than 30 for 10 chapters I'll never touch.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The fifth has only purchased one as far as I know, though he is happy with his one purchase - Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe.

I was wrong, however he has only purchased Expeditious Retreat books, except for one that he did not like.

The Auld Grump

 

[reddist]

Reddist, would you buy an electronic download of new gaming goodness if it were in hyperlinked HTML format? The text of the PDFs of our Masters and Minions books is massively hyperlinked to our online SRD...

Probably not if it depended on an online source. At home, I am free to make use of online sources, but when I game I'd need to have the information at my fingertips. There is no wireless access in my friend's basement

I LOVE Andargor's SRD, and I am enteranlly grateful for his work. But that's for rules and crunch only, really. I don't see any point in creating such a document for fluff material.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I've bought quite a few PDFs -- mostly Malhavoc Press and out of print TSR stuff. I don't really like reading them on screen though, so end up printing most of them out. I do like cutting and pasting into my adventure notes though and printing out extra copies of the pages I need to run an adventure.

I don't know anyone who buys PDFs who doesn't at least hang out a bit on ENWorld and I don't understand who would buy a Wizards product at full price unless they lived somewhere abroad without a games shop.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Vigilance]

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.

Experience has shown that drastically lowering price brings in a few sales of people on the fence, but price is not as important a determining factor to buying a PDF as desire.

Usually the increased number of purchases from a sale about washes even with the decrease in profits per sale.

In other words, when you run a sale you increase your volume, but your profits remain about the same.

Chuck