WotC should make an online SRD....

[mysticknight232]

Why can't they incorporate PDF'd books into the Compendium? It's the same information, just in a different format. Isn't that the same thing or am I missing something here?

 

[Otterscrubber]

I happen to agree, but I don't think there are any legal alternatives.

Still, the Compendium's search feature is better than the ones usually found on a wiki or SRD style site. For example, much easier to search for wizard powers that have the word "Fire" in them. On the other hand, I do wish that words that had some kind of definition were linkified, so if a power allowed a grab, I could click the word grab to see what the grab rules were, instead of having to search for them again.

Exactly, there are items, feats, skills, powers, etc.... listed, but no RULES listed as there was in 3e SRD. I dont mind paying for it, in fact I have bought almost all the books and have a subscription account, it would just be nice to have all the rules listed as well. Especially with all the updates and changes that have been made. I would not begrudge WotC from charging for these services....after all we are not communists

And I think it would be very hard for someone to just play the game without any of the books anyways so I dont think WotC would lose too much from the very small amount of folks who might never buy a single book and strictly try to play by looking everything up online. I'm sure they have crunched the $$ numbers on this though. There will be a day when cranking out another crappy supplement book will not be viable and this will actually make them more ongoing revenue.

 

[Otterscrubber]

I happen to agree, but I don't think there are any legal alternatives.

Still, the Compendium's search feature is better than the ones usually found on a wiki or SRD style site. For example, much easier to search for wizard powers that have the word "Fire" in them. On the other hand, I do wish that words that had some kind of definition were linkified, so if a power allowed a grab, I could click the word grab to see what the grab rules were, instead of having to search for them again.

Exactly, there are items, feats, skills, powers, etc.... listed, but no RULES listed as there was in 3e SRD. I dont mind paying for it, in fact I have bought almost all the books and have a subscription account, it would just be nice to have all the rules listed as well. Especially with all the updates and changes that have been made. I would not begrudge WotC from charging for these services....after all we are not communists

And I think it would be very hard for someone to just play the game without any of the books anyways so I dont think WotC would lose too much from the very small amount of folks who might never buy a single book and strictly try to play by looking everything up online. I'm sure they have crunched the $$ numbers on this though. There will be a day when cranking out another crappy supplement book will not be viable and this will actually make them more ongoing revenue. Especially if I could do it on my iPhone


**Edit: Appears there are some rules listed, but not others.....in fact there is a Rules Category. I will look into the compendium a bit more before I post more misinformed opinions

 

[Ferghis]

Why can't they incorporate PDF'd books into the Compendium? It's the same information, just in a different format. Isn't that the same thing or am I missing something here?

The books contain a ton of fluff that's nowhere in the compendium. Plus, as others have pointed out above, the books are a source of revenue that would probably suffer a lot if they could all be downloaded with the subscription.

 

[Ferghis]

There will be a day when cranking out another crappy supplement book will not be viable and this will actually make them more ongoing revenue.

I agree with this sentiment and hope. I'm not sure I've seen any crappy supplements so far, though. However, that might say more about the supplements I look at than anything else.

Especially if I could do it on my iPhone

I play off my iphone all the time. I use iplay4e and the compendium.

Appears there are some rules listed, but not others.....in fact there is a Rules Category. I will look into the compendium a bit more before I post more misinformed opinions

I'm pretty sure it contains all the rules, even though it's not organized very well. But no reason that should stop anyone from posting misinformed opinions...

 

[DracoSuave]

Of course one might at this juncture point out that NOT selling PDFs didn't work either as its still just as easy as ever to download any of the books AFAIK. Essentially their policy amounts to sticking your head in the sand. Oh well.

No, their policy amounts to someone has to take an optical scanner and do the job which makes it the pirate have to work harder to do it, increasing the amount of time between book release and pirate's release by a window of a couple weeks. During those couple weeks, you don't have the option of 'Buy book' or 'download', you only have 'Buy book.'

So, no, it isn't at all like sticking your head in the sand.

Contrast with before where the length of time between release and pirated copy distributed was about 5 minutes.

The choice was between being the instrument of their own piracy (and then having that product copied in places where the law could not reach, and thus Wizards has no legal recourse against the pirate involved) or not being so, and they made the simple choice not to spend the time and money to enable the piracy.

 

[Piratecat]

I can't find the data, but I remember reading that a huge percentage of book sales happen in the first two weeks after launch. Anything that can push piracy back during that time reaps a disproportionate amount of additional sales.

Of course, I can't find the data underlying this, so take it for what it's worth.

 

[MrMyth]

No, their policy amounts to someone has to take an optical scanner and do the job which makes it the pirate have to work harder to do it, increasing the amount of time between book release and pirate's release by a window of a couple weeks. During those couple weeks, you don't have the option of 'Buy book' or 'download', you only have 'Buy book.'

The problem is, from what I understand, the torrents do still go up within a few days.

Apparently when they first pulled the PDFs, it added a couple extra weeks between the book release and the pirated copies - but after a couple of books, that window got smaller.

My personal theory on what they should do is release the books, and then release PDFs one week later. I imagine the people who normally scan them aren't going to bother spending the effort to get them out in a few days, when they can just wait until the next week and have them distributed them.

But as Piratecat says, having that one week where the physical books are the only option - I bet that will make a big difference. The people that want the content as soon as possible will go out and buy it. The pirated versions don't show up any sooner than before - they show up later, if anything - while PDFs are available for purchase for those who want them. Everybody wins!

Of course, I have no particular expertise in the field and this plan could have horrible fatal flaws. But it seems the best approach to me.

 

[Ferghis]

For what my uneducated, guesswork-based opinion might be worth, I think that they would make more money overall if they sold the pdfs after a few weeks, assuming the pdfs would be high-quality, properly bookmarked, and watermarked with the purchaser's info. I think that folks who buy the books will probably keep doing so. Most folks who pirate it will keep doing so. But some who pirate it, and some who wouldn't have bought the physical book, would buy the pdf.

I also think the number of identically-named powers would decrease, but I'm less positive of that.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think, using their experience having actually released PDFs, they found it to be inviable.

Anything else is guesswork, but they actually have experience in doing so. You can question how it 'could make them money' but the fact is, they didn't, and as a business, you can probably gather it was because it was not making them money.

Let's say they put it in PDF form. Few customers actually get both PDF and hard copy. So if the PDF gets bought or pirated, that's a lost sale on the hard copy.

Hard copies require manufacture. And that incurrs costs. In this case, you need to sell enough copies to not only cover the costs of their manufacture, but also the manufacture of future copies, so that you can have a continued supply.

PDFs do put a dent in that, and I can see why a company that is in the business of creating hard copies (the buyers of which are their largest market) would not create something that not only harms your primary sales revenue in a 1:1 sense (negating the sale of the hard copy) but also directly affects the loss of other sales from piracy.

Would you spend money to lose sales in this manner? It doesn't make business sense, and I can see their point of view on it. It's easier for them to -not- spend the money and -not- impact their primary sales than it is for them to make it available.

Yes, it COSTS money to produce PDFs, and the worst part is, PDFs put out directly by wizards don't have anything to compete against PDFs that are pirated, especially when said pirated PDFs are the exact same file. So, from a business standpoint, the only feature you're selling is 'They are legal' which is hard (and expensive) to enforce.

Contrast that with DDI which -can- compete with illegal PDFs because it is a far more inclusive product. Sure, it doesn't include the fiddly rules and such, but for what it is, there's no product, legal or otherwise, that competes with it.

tl;dr:

If you think that the PDF market is large enough to be sustainable for D&D, you're being naive.