WotC Official PDF versions - would you buy them?

[3d6+15]

And the Kindle is doing very well for Amazon.

I know this for certain, I would pay more for a nicely formatted Kindle Edition (Amazon DRM and all), than I would for a PDF I have to monkey with myself to get it to look decent on the Kindle. (manipulating images and tinkering with formatting, etc...)

Anybody from WotC listening? I will buy an extra "copy" of every book I own if I can get it from the Kindle Store. (Just pass along a little savings to me for not having to print it, please.) srsly

 

[Dice4Hire]

I will get the books and pay the lowest price I can pay for them, but pdfs are for me a convenience to look up, not in any way a substitute or addition to the physical books. I might pay 5.00, but since WOTC likes to charge 100%, that is jsut insulting, so I feel no need to pay them for being so.

 

[coyote6]

I didn't realize the cheap PDFs were dead. That's very disappointing; I hate lugging a bunch of hardback books around, so I run 3e from notes & my laptop (for the SRD). I figured that though 4e won't have a useful (to me, anyways) SRD, I'd be able to substitute the cheap PDFs.

That actually makes it less likely I'll run D&D 4e. Bummer.

 

[jeffhartsell]

I agree that with rules creep having only hardcopy books is a PIA. And the current view we've been given of DDI does not appear to be a good alternative to a searchable PDF or XML version a la the SRD.

Time will tell what they decide to do with the DDI initiative. Maybe the income stream will be good enough they will realize the offering PDFs for cheap will also make them money.

I also will not buy full price PDFs for the same reasons others have mentioned. The main one being I can resell a hard copy.

 

[mattdm]

I really wish their plan of practically free PDFs of the books with purchase of the hard copies had worked out, but I can understand their piracy concerns.

Which was the concern? That people might give them money for legitimate PDF versions of the book rather than just getting them from a filesharing system completely for free? (Because if their plan is that magically there won't be easily available pirated PDFs no matter what they do, uh, time to wake up.)

I want to buy the books. I also want access to them from my laptop (even when there's no net connection, so the subscription web site doesn't cut it). I'd be happy to pay, say, a 25% premium on the cost of the paper books to also have a legit digital copy.

 

[mattdm]

But copyrights say we are not allowed to copy in whole, or part, someone else's work. Making an archive "copy" of a VHS, CD, DVD, or book is techincally illegal, it is just not worth the time to police it.

No, not necessarily. Copyright isn't absolute. Intellectual property owners' copyrights are balanced by end-users' fair use rights, and making that archive copy can indeed be fair use. Obviously the media sellers (and particularly the middleman companies) want you to believe otherwise, but there it is.

Another use ruled legitimate by the courts is taping a TV show to be viewed later (which is why we have Tivo, et al), and arguably, digitizing a book you own for your own personal use is comparable.

Some more reading: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html

 

[Psion]

50% cover. And I'd buy a hardcopy too if I ended up using it in my game a lot.

 

[Graybeard]

I would be willing to pay up to 50% of cover price for a PDF. I would also likely buy the hardcover depending on the book. If I am gaming at my house, having the books is not a problem. If I am gaming elsewhere and have to lug all the needed books with me, that is a pain, literally. The PDFs in that case would be better since all I would need is my laptop.

 

[Fifth Element]

... it's not "What's a widely accessible and attractive pricepoint?", it's "What's the highest we figure we can get away with?".

Define "get away with". If you mean "the price point at which they believe they will maximize profit (profit per unit times units sold)" then I'd bet you're right.

One could argue for a lower price for preview stuff, so they can act as a sort of loss leader. But suggesting they raise prices "because they can" misses the point entirely. If they can maximize profits with a higher price (even if it results in a lower number of units sold), then you should expect they will do that.

 

[Night]

I'll probably be buying them for - yes - full hardcover price from drivethrurpg in PDF form the moment they're available. I largely game online with friends spread out across the country, these days, and while I'm firmly anti-piracy the ability to let my friends look over a book while they're making characters etc is no worse, in my opinion, than letting everyone at your game table look a single copy over. I just hate that WotC isn't offering a bundled package for me, because I'd love to have the hardcovers as well.