WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[Roman]

So the link in my post above is a little vaguely named....

No, it's just that ENWorld for me is extremely slow (it usually is) and it takes more than a minute to load a thread or the reply window and then another minute before it posts, so by the time I posted, the question had already been asked by somebody else and you had already provided a link...

 

[Mephistopheles]

Because again I don't thibnk it's about stopping piracy altogether. As you said, it happens. But I think WoTC realized that how they WERE attempting to mitigate the problem didn't work at all. And since they were making the pdfs available day one, it probably actually helepd the pirates. (Now people who might otherwise have gone out and bought the book because they couldn't find a good pirate copy quick enough were finding them on day one, or at most day two. It's not about the hardcore pirates. It's about the people who are generally willing to buy stuff they want unless presented with an increadibly easy alternative.)

It is probably true that it helped pirates, but it is also probably true that it helped customers. I still question the soundness of a response that works against the wants of your customers in an effort to secure the business of people who are obtaining your product without paying for it.

 

[Roman]

It's December 1997. TSR's just had another round of layoffs right before Christmas. The company owes the printing company some money, due to an earlier arrangement TSR's president made to get some books out the door. Printer says, "cough up some money." TSR says, "we don't have any cash right now, but the distributor just made another order of the Player's Handbook... if you print that, we can ship it to them, and they'll pay us for it, and we can pay you." Printer said, "no, we want to be paid before we print anything else for you."
So we waited.
And waited.
And people started to wonder why their subscription issues of Dragon and Dungeon hadn't appeared in their mail yet. The reason is that they hadn't been printed yet.
Then people started to wonder where all the January products were. The reason is that they hadn't been printed yet.
And here I am, TSR Online Coordinator, the online face of the company. Nobody gave me anything official to say about the situation, so I said nothing. And the emails kept rolling in. And the newsgroup posts asking the same questions. And still I was given nothing official to say.
And people were getting angry.

So I took the truth that I knew, and made a statement that was true, though it didn't give anything close to the whole story, because I wasn't authorized to say anything specific. What I said was, "Due to a problem with the printers, we have been unable to release any new products or magazines since December."

Which is true: the problem was that the printer wouldn't print anything for us until we paid them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the WotC customer service people were given a very limited amount of information (if that), told that they could only say X, Y, and Z, and yet are left holding the bag when people come asking for more information. It's a sucky position to be in, and they have my sympathies.

Edit: Note I am NOT comparing TSR's financial situation at that time to Wizards's situation now, I'm just talking about the tough position customer service-type people get put in when things are happening at the company that a part of the fan base is negatively vocal about.

Thanks a lot for the explanation! I appreciate it. I also agree with not taking it out on the unwilling and possibly even unwitting messangers (customer service people) even if I think the company is at the very least being misleading. That said - I don't think anybody has done that here - nobody is blaming the messanger or customer service for this.

 

[merelycompetent]

Thanks a lot for the explanation! I appreciate it. I also agree with not taking it out on the unwilling and possibly even unwitting messangers (customer service people) even if I think the company is at the very least being misleading. That said - I don't think anybody has done that here - nobody is blaming the messanger or customer service for this.

It helped a great deal that Sean (aka VeggieBoy) had, by that point, established a good reputation on r.g.f.dnd (usenet). The vitriol directed towards him was vastly reduced from what his predecessor in that position earned. It was also blatantly clear by that point that the problems originated well above Sean's level. I'm sure that there are archives of the whole thing stored somewhere, if you really want the gritty details. Even so, Sean had to endure an undeserved amount of..., well, a certain grandmother would object strenuously to the accurate, technical terminology, but you get the picture.

Companies often put their frontline, PR people in very uncomfortable, and untenable positions. The public/audience equally often forgets that as frustration rises.

 

[Dausuul]

There might be other reasons as to why WotC did what it did, but 'fighting piracy' does not even figure on my list of possibilities, because that would be so mind-bogglingly stupid and ineffectual (and actually likely to increase piracy) that it just cannot be.

You've never worked in a corporate environment, have you?

 

[William Ronald]

I am still going over this complicated affair, but I would like to make a few comments based on what I have read so far.

All businesses, I believe, depend heavily on their reputation. Indeed, perhaps credibility is the ONLY thing that companies have in the end. If you have faith in a company and its products, you will patronize that company. If not, you will likely move on elsewhere.

I do not like the removal of the PDFs. First, it does seem to have infuriated a great many gamers. People were expecting products and cannot get them now. So, I understand the anger. What I am puzzled at is what seems to be poor handling of the public relations storm around this. (I realize that often companies can't always comment on some things, such as legal matters and future plans.) I have to wonder why things were handled in this way. It has hurt the company's image with many customers, and may make other companies more reluctant to carry WotC's products or create works derived from WotC's products.


I do understand why WotC is concerned about piracy, but I am not sure what can be done to stop it. For every way to stop piracy, someone will find a way around it.

So, I would hope that we get some more communication soon from WotC, particularly on what happens next. At the same time, we should remember that while we may hold different opinions in this thread that we are bound together by a love of gaming and a desire to have fun. So, I would hope that in the end, we will continue to talk with each other. I like to think that what unites us is ultimately more important than what divides us.

So, let's keep talking -- whether or not we think WotC was justified in its actions or what game we play -- and hopefully we can all meet as friends at the gaming table.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It is probably true that it helped pirates, but it is also probably true that it helped customers. I still question the soundness of a response that works against the wants of your customers in an effort to secure the business of people who are obtaining your product without paying for it.

Exactly. Pirates are not customers. Customers are customers...except when you refuse to sell to them, at which point they stop being customers.

Rule #1 of running a successful business: Sell products to customers.

 

[Storm Raven]

PR doesn't mean squat if it means losing your rights.

When you discover copyright violations, you are obligated to defend them. If you don't, that non-action can be used against you later.

No. You are not.

This bit of misinformation gets trotted out every time a case involving copyright shows up, and it is dead wrong. As in, the statute governing copyrights is exactly the opposite of this.

You can lose trademark protection if you do not defend your trademark. You do not lose copyright protection until the period of years defined in the copyright statute elapses, no matter how much copying you ignore.

Copyright. Trademark. Two different things, with two different standards.

 

[Orius]

I dunno. Maybe this is all a tragically ineffectual response to online piracy... but I can't help but think that perhaps WOTC has realized that a lot of people consider 4E inferior to the legacy products. And they're tired of competing with those golden games... so out they go.

People have been bringing up that view the whole thread, but it seems a tad paranoid to me. But that's nothing new in discussions like this.

Anyway, pulling all PDFs doesn't seem like just cutting the legacy stuff. The stated problem was PHB2 piracy. Some people of course don't believe anything WotC says, so reject everything they say. But the PHB2 problem is believable, especially if they're worried about other new books being heavily pirated.

Also, if they were cutting legacy support, wouldn't they have pulled the site archives? Everything is still there, the free old edition PDFs, the 3.x articles, and so on. Granted, it's not the easiest to find if you haven't been there in a while, but the site's always been kind of jumbled.

Piracy is a lot like getting repair parts for your car from the junkyard. It's used, maybe not as high quality as you might get from your quality (insert car brand here) dealership, but you might get the selection that maybe more suitable to your problem. And it's much cheaper than having to deal with your dealership. But you could also be getting a piece that was just as defective, if not more so than the problem piece you have in the car already.

No, getting pirated stuff is like getting parts from a chop shop; they're obtained illegally. Getting gaming material from a used book store is more like getting parts from a junkyard.

 

[Echohawk]

Also, if they were cutting legacy support, wouldn't they have pulled the site archives? Everything is still there, the free old edition PDFs, the 3.x articles, and so on. Granted, it's not the easiest to find if you haven't been there in a while, but the site's always been kind of jumbled.

At the risk of straying off topic, I'd like to say thanks to WotC for maintaining such a thorough archive of their web site content. The lay out of their web site could perhaps be improved, but it is very cool that URLs I have for D&D articles published back in 2001 or 2002 still work just fine.