WotC should make an online SRD....

[Ferghis]

The underlying assumption to your claim however is that a company has no influence on how much piracy there will be.

WotC is NOT selling PDFs. Some guy has to scan the book and you wind up with a lower quality product.
Piracy level A.

WotC IS selling PDFs. This means that a full quality product is available.
Piracy level B.

You are suffering from the assumption that A == B. Similar to bootleg movies made by some guy with a camcorder in the theater, less people will want product A due to lack of quality (not searchable in this case).

You also assume that all piracy is the same and therefore a valid comparison. Pirated software is full quality and so falls in to the Piracy level B category. Whichever option WotC takes determines if your comparison is valid. Currently it is not as WotC is pursuing option A.

I have to say that although that isn't exactly my assumption, there's some juice to this point. The point made above is that if a company engages in e-commerce, their product will be prone to more piracy than if they did not. This is true.

However, there is more to it than that. Companies engaged in e-commerce can engage in anti-piracy measures. So, the difference between A and B is not very well defined. Also, companies engaged in e-commerce can tap into an additional market that companies not engaged in e-commerce cannot. So, even if there might be some additional piracy, it's also quite possible that the income produced by that additional market more than makes up for it.

In brief, while it's true that e-commerce can create piracy, it's also true that e-commerce can both soften that impact and create additional revenue.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

I have to say that although that isn't exactly my assumption, there's some juice to this point. The point made above is that if a company engages in e-commerce, their product will be prone to more piracy than if they did not. This is true.

However, there is more to it than that. Companies engaged in e-commerce can engage in anti-piracy measures. So, the difference between A and B is not very well defined. Also, companies engaged in e-commerce can tap into an additional market that companies not engaged in e-commerce cannot. So, even if there might be some additional piracy, it's also quite possible that the income produced by that additional market more than makes up for it.

In brief, while it's true that e-commerce can create piracy, it's also true that e-commerce can both soften that impact and create additional revenue.

No one argues that it can create additional revenues, what is argued is wether there is profit or not. profit =/= revenue

 

[DracoSuave]

Yes, he did. He talked about preserving gaming stores and sales of physical books.

Actually...

I talked about preserving gaming stores because Wizards has other product lines that require gaming stores to sell and make money, and those gaming stores not only offer the product, but can demonstrate the product in order to create new sales--and more importantly--new customers.

Also, when your number 1 product line for your entire company requires brick and mortar stores to flourish, you tend to prioritize your number 2 product line to operate in the same distribution channels and model. This is smart business.

Let's be absolutely frank here.

Wizards of the Coast prints money.

And when you make suggestions that somehow, the distribution for the money they are printing is irrelevant in any way to how they do business; how they -must- do business, that displays abject ignorance for the business at the most fundamental level.

Wizards will protect the brick and mortar, because the brick and mortar distributes the money they print. Bottom. Line.