WotC should make an online SRD....

[DracoSuave]

I'd ask your numbers, but we both know that neither of us have any, so let's both agree that Paizo may or may not be bringing in any number of cats who may or may not be dead into the hobby.

I did a search for ads for Pathfinder on google.

None.

You talk of Shrodinger's Customers, I offer you in rebuttal, Schrodinger's Marketing, which itself may or may not exist.

Once again, I refer us back to Schrodinger's Customers.

Your entire argument lies on us just sorta nodding and going "Oh man, that's so right, those pdfs are just garbage. The Man is trying to keep us out of the book and mortar stores, man! Righteous!"

No, it's based on the fact that Paizo

a) Is not the market leader. Do I need sales figures to show that Wizards of the Coast is? I figured this was simply already fracking -obvious-

b) That Paizo is selling a product to an existing market. They're doing 3.5... um... point five, after all, as well as a slew of 3.5-compliant products. Now, tell me, when your target audience is 'People who like 3.5' how does that cross over with 'People who never played an RPG'? I could draw a venn diagram for you, but here's an ascii version instead.

O O

c) Paizo isn't advertising online to any great degree. In fact, there are more ads for Dungeons and Dragons Online than there is for Paizo's anything. They're entire marketting consists of reaching out to existing roleplayers who played a previous product. This isn't even a subject for debate! Show me one product that isn't.

D) The bulk of their roleplaying work is based on Wizard's products anyways. I do not need to prove that a product line that is based on the 3.x SRD and the OGL is based on 3.5 and the OGL. I'd be better off spending that time to prove that when something has fire, it is burning.

No.

Online shopping is a thing. it is a very popular thing. Pretending it is not a thing does not cause it to cease existing.

Neither am I. I am facing the reality that as a -thing-, it has some uses, but those uses are not the same as other uses.

And Timmy likes those other uses.

I don't buy apples and then mash them up myself when I want apple sauce.

Pdfs have a lot of great options and utility that normal books don't. Again, this ain't the 80's. It's easier to carry an external HD then a full bookshelf.

I don't disagree. PDFs -are- useful. But 'useful' and 'profitable' are not the same word.

Here's how it breaks down: Bob wants a pdf of <book>. That pdf is not for sale, but it is available for illegal download. The owner of <book> will not be selling the pdf. What are Bob's choices? He can either 1) suck it down, or 2) Just download the damn thing and wonder why the owner doesn't want his money.

No one is disputing that Bob wants a PDF of <book>. This is probably because Bob has exposure to <book> and already uses <book> or has a use for <book>.

This is because Bob knows about <book> and has found a place for <book> in his life.

Bob is needed for the industry. But for the -leader- of that industry, you also need Mary, Timmy, and George.

Mary, Timmy, and George have never had exposure to <book>. How does Bob wanting a PDF of <book> help these three learn about <book> and make the decision to include <book> in their lives?

Physical books and pdfs are not created equal. One is good at somethings, the other is good at others. Wanting to have a pdf should not be a crime. WotC has made it one.

No, they haven't. Remember, their ORIGINAL stance was 'Yes, let's make this available.' Circumstances have shown that it is not worth their time to do so.

In this case, the -consumers- have spoken, and the -company- responded. It's as simple as that. In this case, it is likely the consumers spoke by stealing their work instead of buying it, because it was easier to do so.

That's what you haven't addressed... how does PDFs legally aquired compete successfully with illegal PDFs?

That's a big question.

They found a leech, ripped it off, and didn't bother treating the open wound, causing blood to pour out. That's pretty much hemmorhaging.

If there's an open wound, it was the aforementioned consumers who held the knife.

Sure we can. Watch: I am criticizing their business sense, as they are losing potential money over their decision not to sell pdfs.

They are losing potential sales of one sort. They may not be losing potential profits.

That we know of from the extremely limited press releases that also promised a return of some type of online sale of books.

Again, you're applying the smaller market mentality to that of a larger distribution.

The distrubution and publication models of, as an example, Changeling: The Dreaming (a game that has a cult following, rabid, but could not sustain a publisher in the long term) cannot POSSIBLY apply to, say, the Adventurer's Vault 2.

As an analogy, you're using the business model of Mom's Hardware store and asking 'Why doesn't WalMart do that?'

The question doesn't even make sense. The scale is completely disproportionate.

Because to myself and many others, the policy did not fail - it was caused by faulty decision making.

Blaming Wizards for responding to a market is a fallacy. So far, your entire argument has always been 'I want this, and I can't have it, so Wizards sucks.' The counter argument has always been 'You're not the entire market. What about those other guys?'

What on earth are you going on about? I'm not claiming WotC is this horrible evil overlord that's keeping The People down, and that everything they do is crap. I'm saying they made a mistake and they're sticking with it. You know, like humans do. WotC isn't some horrid mythical beast that cackles with seven heads and ten horns. By the same line, they aren't angelic figures bringing in the seven seals for the Lion of Judah. It's a business run by people, and both people and businesses have been known to make mistakes.

And, in their judgement, putting out PDFs -was- a mistake.

I don't think you remember that guy who came onto THESE forums because he was being taken to court because HE bought Wizard's PDF, and then distributed it on scribd.com.

That's not 'schrodinger's' anything. That's an actual poster here.

Not to mention, why are you suggesting my response is in any way trying to suggest that you think Wizards is The Big Bad?

It wasn't. Are you even reading what I'm saying?

And yet once again, Schrodinger's Customers.

...Which I've used three times, and it's a shame, because I'm really only refering to the popular consensus on what the whole Schrodinger's Cat means rather then it's actual meaning in Physics. But, well, it (hopefully) gets the point across.

The problem is, Schrodinger's anything only exists as a matter of -observation-. Once there is interaction, there's no more Schrodinger's anything. No quantum state.

Wizards interacted with PDF customers. They decided it was not worth their efforts.

Everything you've said is based on a 'Schrodinger's' argument. To you, there's this untapped market that Wizards is ignoring because either they lack business sense (they don't), or because they're stuck in the past while bringing up publishers that are riding on the coat-tails of Wizards' past (Paizo.)

To Wizards, however, they've openned the box, looked at the cat, and didn't like the smell.

So, my point is: What has changed since then?

How does it happen with PDFs? Billy is surfing the internet because he saw Penny Arcade mention this cool thing called 4th edition. Wow, there's a thing for it on the internet he can buy, and he can just read it straight off his laptop! Done and done.

Awesome.

You've mentioned a marketting campaign Wizards is already doing, and with great success... marketting games to gamers.

Now, how does having PDFs available translate into a sale from Wizards, rather than from torrentz.zomg?


Here's the whole situation, with Wizards putting out PDFs.

1) There's already pirated versions available. No one debates this.
2) Any product any company creates has to compete in the market. In the case of Wizards' PDFs they have as their number one competitor their own PDFs, but for 100% less cost.

So, you're saying 'They're losing potential sales!' but they're looking at it as 'This product cannot favorably compete with our number one competition.' So they have two options, make their product more favorable (which they can't, because the main competition IS their product) or put out a different product.

Spending thousands of dollars on legal bills is the only way they can do the former. Not spending any money at all on the practice is how they can do the latter.

Please explain to us what's changed since the last time they tried to do this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Woah there DS, cool your jets a bit man. Nothing you've said particularly strikes me as completely wrong, but it all does strike me as fairly parochial thinking to a certain extent.

Lets get something clear, businesses do things that are antithetical to their own interests all the time. There are a whole lot of possible reasons for that. Arguing that business X is doing something and therefor it must be the right thing to do is like arguing that the guy getting tanked at the bar and driving his car must be able to hold his liquor and its OK because obviously he wouldn't be stupid enough to do that if it was the wrong thing to do, lol.

Now, we here sitting in our living rooms chatting on this board realistically don't have enough information to know if the whole "no more PDFs" thing is a monstrous mistake or good business practice. We can theorize all day, but basically we don't know the numbers, we don't know the company's long term strategy or their actual reasoning for doing what they're doing.

It is reasonably clear however that in the long run its not exactly forward thinking to take yourself out of what is almost surely going to be the major distribution channel of the future. It looks more to me from where I sit like they saw a problem, someone up in corporate land somewhere got nervous about it and pulled the plug. These kinds of decisions are surprisingly rarely entirely rational. Most business managers are far more worried about making a mistake than passing up an opportunity. Nor do they work on such a rational basis even in terms of purely bottom line decisions as one might think. I've worked for any number of large corporations. Good decision making is actually kind of rare in most of them.

 

[DracoSuave]

Woah there DS, cool your jets a bit man. Nothing you've said particularly strikes me as completely wrong, but it all does strike me as fairly parochial thinking to a certain extent.

Lets get something clear, businesses do things that are antithetical to their own interests all the time. There are a whole lot of possible reasons for that. Arguing that business X is doing something and therefor it must be the right thing to do is like arguing that the guy getting tanked at the bar and driving his car must be able to hold his liquor and its OK because obviously he wouldn't be stupid enough to do that if it was the wrong thing to do, lol.

Now, we here sitting in our living rooms chatting on this board realistically don't have enough information to know if the whole "no more PDFs" thing is a monstrous mistake or good business practice. We can theorize all day, but basically we don't know the numbers, we don't know the company's long term strategy or their actual reasoning for doing what they're doing.

It is reasonably clear however that in the long run its not exactly forward thinking to take yourself out of what is almost surely going to be the major distribution channel of the future. It looks more to me from where I sit like they saw a problem, someone up in corporate land somewhere got nervous about it and pulled the plug. These kinds of decisions are surprisingly rarely entirely rational. Most business managers are far more worried about making a mistake than passing up an opportunity. Nor do they work on such a rational basis even in terms of purely bottom line decisions as one might think. I've worked for any number of large corporations. Good decision making is actually kind of rare in most of them.

I'm not saying they're automatically right.

I am also not going to say they're irrational. Yes, obviously pdfs are a very viable distribution source. The problem is monetizing that source in such a way that it can compete in the market it's in.

Your nearest competition for your product is someone else selling your exact product for free.

HOW do you compete with that? You can claim they're being irrational all you like, but -that- question hasn't been answered with nothing but rhetoric about how not doing so is 'hemorhaging money' and doing so would therefore be like printing money.

Yes, electronic distribution of paper materials is 'The Way of The Future (TM)' but simply doing so doesn't work for Wizards.

So the question then is, what has changed -now- that wasn't around back -then- to make it viable?

Hell, Wizards IS a leader in the field of taking their paper and gaming products and turning it digital. They DO understand the hows and means to turn physical game into digital money printing.

How do you make a digital book to compete with pirated pdfs?

That's the hard question and no one has any answers other than 'But I want the PDF cause it's printing money!'

 

[Mirtek]

a) Is not the market leader. Do I need sales figures to show that Wizards of the Coast is? I figured this was simply already fracking -obvious-

But Pathfinder is the strong second, almost even in sales of core books. ICV

 

[Ferghis]

Yes, electronic distribution of paper materials is 'The Way of The Future (TM)' but simply doing so doesn't work for Wizards.

So the question then is, what has changed -now- that wasn't around back -then- to make it viable?

My guess is that Wizards has not properly examined the profit potential in pdf sales. I could very well be wrong, but my opinion, as I said before, is that there is plenty of profit potential because the revenue will substantially outweigh any loss. I'm guessing that some upper manager decided to nix such sales based on an opinion that was about as educated as mine is (that is to say, based on assumptions). I don't think they did sufficient research, but only because I think the research would have indicated they should make pdfs available for sale in some strange manner (delayed sale, pricing, watermarks, etc.).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Let me squeeze your entire argument into four points.

Nobody needs or even wants a pdf. Even if you did want a pdf, there are plenty of customers who don't want them

Fallacy. Bob buying a pdf has no alteration on Mary, Timmy, and George. Those three don't want it? Great! Bob does want it though, and a pdf does not have distribution costs, nor does it have much if any creation cost. The buying habits of those who do not want pdfs has no crossover with those that do.

Pdfs only work for people already into your game

False. A good number of tabletop games that exist are or started off solely as digital sales with physical copies rarely if ever making rounds at bookstores and instead being localized to conventions for press reasons.

Pathfinder doesn't need heavy marketing. It works off of word of mouth and convention visits. They've managed to stir up positive reactions rather then WotCs negative ones due to business decisions.

The vast majority of indy games, by they Dogs in the Vineyard or Maid RPG are sold almost entirely through digital sales. Hell, I know the translator for Maid RPG - there was little to no marketing and, aside from a relatively small number of copies sold at conventions, most copies sold were pdfs and were sold digitally. And the game did indeed make a profit.

I already know you're going to state that those rules don''t apply to WotC. Why not? The only reason you've given is "Well they're big and that means they're different." Certainly, I agree that it might indeed not work for WotC - but you've given excuses, not reasons.

pdfs can literally never make money because there are zero people who would buy them rather then just download them

This argument relies on the assumption that every single customer will always take the cheaper option given the choice, regardless of illegality or quality.

There really isn't anything to say here other then "You are wrong"

Wizards cannot make mistakes. You claim their marketing is wrong, but it can't be, ergo, you are incorrect

Fallacy. You're approaching from the idea of "Wizards can't screw up. Therefore, they didn't screw up."

 

[Kingreaper]

Let me squeeze your entire argument into four points.



Fallacy. Bob buying a pdf has no alteration on Mary, Timmy, and George. Those three don't want it? Great! Bob does want it though, and a pdf does not have distribution costs, nor does it have much if any creation cost. The buying habits of those who do not want pdfs has no crossover with those that do.

Bob wants a copy of the book. Bob would prefer to get a PDF, but wouldn't mind paying for a book.

Bob can't get a PDF. Bob buys the book. The Bookstore earns money, that helps to persuade it to keep stocking D&D books. Then Mary goes into the bookstore, and sees the D&D books. And buys one, because, heh, they look kinda cool.

Pathfinder doesn't need heavy marketing. It works off of word of mouth and convention visits. They've managed to stir up positive reactions rather then WotCs negative ones due to business decisions.

Word of mouth and convention visits are WITHIN the gaming community. WotC is a big boy, and needs to get people who AREN'T gamers yet.


EDIT: not saying they're right to not stock PDFs. But it fits with their general "encourage gaming stores" ethos.

 

[The Little Raven]

I just want to point out that Paizo did not build their business on PDFs. They built their business on physical products for years, then switched to a PDF model and retained their customer base.

Yet their IP is still completely unprotected from rampant distribution on the web.

The multiple pending lawsuits that WotC is engaged in against pirates disagrees with your "completely unprotected" assessment.

But Pathfinder is the strong second, almost even in sales of core books.

Your link indicates some venues have Pathfinder selling almost as well as the core books. And this is only in hobby stores. It doesn't take into account that D&D is available in far more venues than Pathfinder.

The difference between the top spot and the strong second is still HUGE. D&D, by itself, sucks up over HALF of the market share, with Paizo being in the group that splits up less than half the market share.

 

[DracoSuave]

Let me squeeze your entire argument into four points.



Fallacy. Bob buying a pdf has no alteration on Mary, Timmy, and George. Those three don't want it? Great! Bob does want it though, and a pdf does not have distribution costs, nor does it have much if any creation cost. The buying habits of those who do not want pdfs has no crossover with those that do.

A PDF does have distribution costs. They are not major, but they exist. Bandwidth isn't free, son. Hosting isn't free, son. This things you take for granted as free for both the end-user and the supplier are not, in fact, free for either.

The cost isn't necessary large, but 'non-existant' isn't a word I'd use when describing what a business does. And even a negligible cost is still a cost.

False. A good number of tabletop games that exist are or started off solely as digital sales with physical copies rarely if ever making rounds at bookstores and instead being localized to conventions for press reasons.

My point has never been that PDF distribution is bad for -small- companies. My point is that, as it is, it is bad for a -large- company.

Again, -scale- makes it a HUGE difference.

Pathfinder doesn't need heavy marketing. It works off of word of mouth and convention visits. They've managed to stir up positive reactions rather then WotCs negative ones due to business decisions.

Most of the people who play D&D and buy D&D don't give a crap about the fact they decided against putting out PDFs. Their market does not care. A -segment- of their market cares, and thinks it's more important than it actually is in the larger scheme of things.

Also, Pathfinder isn't inventing new gamers. It doesn't want to. That's WHY it doesn't need heavy marketing.

Again, it's a bad example to compare Pathfinder (a product which builds on the work Wizards did before, and on the market Wizards itself built) and D&D4.

That's the one point you've decided to gloss over... Pathfinder's market is the one created by Wizards. The relationship there is not competitive but parasitic.

The vast majority of indy games, by they Dogs in the Vineyard or Maid RPG are sold almost entirely through digital sales. Hell, I know the translator for Maid RPG - there was little to no marketing and, aside from a relatively small number of copies sold at conventions, most copies sold were pdfs and were sold digitally. And the game did indeed make a profit.

No one is saying that indy games cannot prosper digitally. In fact, I'll even say that indy games are -best- distributed digitally. Which sucks for those of us who want to be able to get a hold of physical copies at our local stores.

But that's the realities of business. Some businesses are better off working one way and others are better of working another.

I already know you're going to state that those rules don''t apply to WotC. Why not? The only reason you've given is "Well they're big and that means they're different." Certainly, I agree that it might indeed not work for WotC - but you've given excuses, not reasons.

The fact that Wizards, being the market leader, and not relying solely on the attraction of existing gamers, must use a different marketing model than those who are not the market leader, and are relying solely on the attraction of existing gamers.... the fact those are two completely different marketing strategies?

Your head is in the sand on that point.

Timmy is 12 years old. He is your future gamer. Is he gonna learn to play D&D by advertising on enworld.org and on rpg.net? No. Because he doesn't go there. Because he's NOT A GAMER YET.

No, you attract him by giving him the opportunity to play, to pick up the books, and to read through them. He needs to hold the product to buy it. PDFs don't have the ability to look through them at the store to drum up interest.

You ARE aware that's one of the reasons they put pretty art in the books, right? It's for marketting. So that if you grab the book in the store, you see the art, and have the imagination stirred.

PDFs, on the otherhand, cannot be marketted like that. At. All.

This argument relies on the assumption that every single customer will always take the cheaper option given the choice, regardless of illegality or quality.

No, it relies on the fact that -a lot- of customers will. The numbers for the books Wizards put out were pretty damning. We're not talking 50% legal here, or even 10% legal.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it. A LOT of people pirated (and still pirate) them pdfs. It is not a small number. The number of pdfs bought was a small number.

I don't need to prove that zero people will buy the pdfs. All I need to prove is that there's enough piracy out there that a PDF will not be able to favorably compete.

Wizards simply does not want to compete in that avenue. At. All.

There really isn't anything to say here other then "You are wrong"

Of course the premise you claim I made is wrong, and I don't doubt that.

But, then, you weren't arguing on the merits of my argument, but by some argument you claim I made, which I have just endevoured to clarify.

Fallacy. You're approaching from the idea of "Wizards can't screw up. Therefore, they didn't screw up."

Again, you're misrepresenting my argument. Which all your points were.

My argument was:

They've handled the product well enough until now. They've taken a dying brand in Dungeons and Dragons and through it, not only revitalized the brand, but revitalized the industry. They did so through having their finger on the pulse of the market in a way that you cannot understand by only adopting a 'I want pdfs so I should have them' mentality.

When it comes to taking a core product and marketting it successfully, they have shown time and time again they are capable of doing this, and they have shown great flexibility in adapting to the changing market.

Their product lines are under continual evolution, both in how they feel, and in terms of how they are distributed, and they have a tendancy in their marketting decisions to desire to reach the customer.

As well, they are no strangers to the digital format, having multiple product lines that translate over into that medium. D&D4th edition is the ONLY rpg system that is integrated with online distribution channels. They converted their magazines to pdf format, and even changed their layouts to accomodate the aspect ratios of most monitors for readability.

So to claim they don't have their fingers on the pulse of the future is ignorant. I don't see World of Darkness Interactive, or any similiar initiative from any other company in the business. For all intents and purposes, Wizards is the ONLY company who is using the computer medium as more than simply a pdf distribution tool, they are using it's ability for computation to do things other than look at books.

They are, in short, FAR more advanced in terms of using computer networks than you give them credit for.

Not to mention, they have a history of successful marketting on a scale that you simply do not. In terms of expertise in this field, in both computer distribution, and in general marketing, it is a more cogent argument to accept them as an expert in the field rather than yourself.

AND here is the clincher.

They tried it.

You might have had a point had they not taken the plunge and expense to get involved in that side of distribution. But they have, and given their expertise in the field, it would be a non-cogent argument to suggest they made a mistake simply because -I- wanted the pdfs that are no longer available.

It's a simple reality of the entertainment business (and yes, Wizards is an entertainment company), whether that business be publishing, television, music, or what have you, that sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

It does not matter that -somebody- wants it. Enough people have to want it to make it worth doing. And demand for pdfs isn't even enough... there has to be a demand for -legal- pdfs, and wizards deemed (by actually doing so) that it was not worth doing.

They have expertise. You do not. I can understand their position on this.

Does it suck for those who want legal pdfs? Yes.

Does it suck for the pirates? A little, they actually have to buy a scanner.

Does it suck for the product line? Ultimately, no it does not.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Really?

Your argument is "If they have hosted pdfs, they can never sell physical books again?"

Because last I checked they can sell both.

Yes, they tried it, and they pulled the plug. Was that a good idea? We don't know.