Scribble
First Post
Yes, they do, actually. Or, at the very least, Minion Development/RPGNow did prior to the merger with DriveThru to become OBS. I assume that it is still part of the company.
That said, as I mention earlier, this sounds far more like the GW push to 'help' brick and mortar stores by forcing Internet retailers to adhere to slavish, often absurd, standards in order to carry GW stock at all.
Then, after they effectively locked out most online distributors, they turned their sights on those brick and mortar stores they were previously trying to 'help' by forcing them to adhere to the same (or similar) standards.
Uhh... did you read their authorized online seller stuff? There aren't any slavish or absurd standards aside from pretty much always maintaining your brick and morter store.
Except that they were not going exclusively through OBS — they were (and apparently are) still going through Paizo. And there are other PDF distributors that they could go through, to boot.
Yeah but the current edition stuff is well was drivethru exclusive.
I think it's far more likely that they're trying to 'help' brick and mortar stores by crippling online vendors, a plan which is both far cheaper and easier to implement (and, again, which GW has proved works to the manufacturer's advantage with regard to IP control).
They already had that stuff in place before, (about Brick and Morter) just through the distributor. Did you read any of the retailer rewards stuff linked to the press release?