WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[freyar]

(Seems like ENWorld has been slowed down a bit by this tonight, too!)

When I got the Paizo email, I thought about going to pick up a few of the older PDFs I'd wanted to get someday. But I can't say that I feel like giving WotC any money right now (sorry, Paizo, I'm sure I'll buy something from you soon. ).

 

[El Mahdi]

I hope Scott Rouse is somewhere with a big bottle of Jack. He's gonna need it. He must feel like the Secret Service guy who was tasked with keeping President Clinton out of trouble with women.

Man, I need more XP to give out! This is Golden!

 

[zacharythefirst]

To be fair, from the comments it seems the straw that broke the camels back was the people who "properly paid for the product" and then put it up in some sort of file sharing.

No, there's nothing fair about it.

 

[MerricB]

Still, WotC probably won't "get it" unless there is an active boycott.

To some extent, Wizards have provided their own boycott. (There will be no sales of PDFs!) They're already stopping a revenue stream.

However, I think Wizards understood the problems with piracy when 4e was released. I remember illegal pdf copies of the 4E rulebooks being available several days before I even got my copies of the books on the official release day. I've seen D&D miniatures on-sale on ebay before they are even released.

The amount of illegal stealing and piracy of Wizards products is terrifying, and to expect them to do nothing about it is foolish.

This solution? Oh, I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I'm very glad to see that they are taking legal action against some of the pirates, but this can't be all of them. And so, we lose a great resource. I hope that Wizards can get the pdfs back some day soon, but I'm pessimistic enough about the world to not expect it for a few years.

And that sucks.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

NOTE: I haven't purchased any WotC PDFs, and nor have I read the contracts on RPGNow or DriveThru RPG. Consider this entire post a question, not a comment.

I'm a little confused by how people can lose access to additional downloads that were included when they bought a product.

If I were arguing this -- and see the disclaimer above, namely that I don't know the specific terms of the purchase agreement -- I'd argue that by purchasing WotC Book.pdf with the understanding that I may download it multiple times, I'm actually purchasing X copies of WotC Book.pdf, along with the service of the PDF distributor providing file space for those extra copies as backups.

Would this be shot down by any specific terms in the contract?

(As an aside, I think it's really, really sweet of WotC to drive customers away to other RPG companies, on what's becoming a semi-regular basis. It shows an admirable willingness to share the RPG market. Kudos, WotC! Ignore these folks telling you it was a bad move ... they just don't understand your corporate altruism.)

 

[XunValdorl of Kilsek]

Im sorry but if the Music/Movie industry couldn't stop pirating what makes little peon Hasbro think they have much of a chance?? I think wizards is ran by a bunch of dumbasses who obviously don't know how to conduct business. The stupid move only makes people want to pirate more.

 

[Urizen]

I think they're cutting their nose off to spite their face.

They want to stop (or slow down) people from pirating their books, so what do they do? they stop selling PDFS at online retail outlets.

Yeah, good idea. Just throw away the money you were getting from all those sales (maybe not much comparatively, but money's money, after all) so that you can try and prevent something you never had a chance of preventing anyhow.

OH and as an extra-added bonus, you piss your customer base off in the process!

Two thumbs up, wizards.

 

[Filcher]

My only hope in this whole debacle is that Paizo makes trillions of dollars tonight in .pdf sales and is able to buy all D&D material rights and licenses from WOTC and we never have to deal with a Hasbro big corporate BS again. Imagine that? Dungeons and Dragons under a company run by gamers again?

Right. Because PDF sales through Paizo don't drive a WotC revenue stream.

I find your argument unpersuasive, Jtlawyer.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You know, I've thought of the part that's more insane then the multiple people agreeing with this - it's that they gave no freaking warning whatsoever.

Just out of the damn blue, "Oh hey, pdfs are banned after tonight."

WOW GUYS! THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP!

 

[Henry]

It seems as if WotC is following the advice of the RIAA and TSR to the letter. Alienation of their supporters seems to be the number one priority for the past 8 months or so, despite the best efforts of people like Scott and...well, I'd say Linae, but she was let go... and Dave, but... he was let go, too... and Randy, but...

It's just REALLY hard to support a company who is dead-set on negative PR like that.