WOTC switch to watermarking, finally...

[ShinHakkaider]

Over at DTRPG and RPGnow I noticed that the WOTC products were back up. I checked and it seems that they have shifted over to watermarking, not only that but they their books are no longer cover price.

Good move on thier part, now I'm really more inclined to buy thier product now. Especially modules and adventures. If they release thier EXPEDITION TO books like this that would be awesome.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, the inappropriate price is even more of an issue, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, *was* an issue. Excellent news. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MerricB]

Over at DTRPG and RPGnow I noticed that the WOTC products were back up. I checked and it seems that they have shifted over to watermarking, not only that but they their books are no longer cover price.

Good move on thier part, now I'm really more inclined to buy thier product now. Especially modules and adventures. If they release thier EXPEDITION TO books like this that would be awesome.

Wow.

Arms and Equipment Guide - $18.87
Book of Challenges - $15.37
Book of Vile Darkness - $23.07
Complete Arcane - $20.97
Complete Warrior - $18.87
Defenders of the Faith: A Guidebook to Clerics and Paladins - $13.97
Deities and Demigods - $20.97
Eberron - Magic of Eberron - $20.97
Eberron - Shadows of the Last War - $6.97
Epic Level Handbook -$27.97
Fiend Folio - $20.97
Frostburn - $24.47
Heroes of Battle - $20.97
Heroes of Horror - $20.97
Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations - $24.47
Masters of the Wild - $13.97
Monster Manual II - $20.97
Oriental Adventures - $24.47
Races of the Wild - $20.97
The Forge of Fury - $6.97
The Sunless Citadel - $6.97
Unearthed Arcana - $24.47

Cheers!

 

[Nikosandros]

Ouch! This news might spell doom for my wallet!

Now, what about PHB II and Spell Compendium?

P.S.
I must say that they are still rather expensive.

 

[Oryan77]

Those prices are still expensive.

It's a pdf file. They don't need to pay for printing/paper ect. It's a file that just gets copied over and over from a website. There's not much cost for them to sell it other than web maintenance costs.

It shouldn't be dirt cheap, but I bargain shop for my books and I've easily gotten all of those books for cheaper than that and several of those I've obtained at half those prices.

I'd rather buy the real deal than spend more for an electronic version.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'd agree, even though they've made an improvement there.

50% of the hard copy price is reasonable, IMO. Anything more is silly/greedy.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I disagree. Magnum Opus, for White Wolf's Promethean: The Created, is a $18.89 PDF with 147 pages on RPGNow.

Complete Arcane, at $20.96, is 192 pages.

You have to remember that Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf and all of these companies still have much larger overheads than your average one-man PDF publisher. These have to pass down to the consumer, just as they do in print prices.

Now, sure, I can buy Complete Arcane in hardcopy for $19.77 on Amazon, and Magnum Opus for $17.81, but there's an economy of scale operating there which doesn't apply to RPGNow or DriveThruRPG, even once OneBookShelf itself is up and running.

Of course I'd love to see half-print-price or less on these files. I'm not sure it'll happen until the volume of sales is there.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Those prices are still expensive.

It's a pdf file. They don't need to pay for printing/paper ect. It's a file that just gets copied over and over from a website. There's not much cost for them to sell it other than web maintenance costs.

It shouldn't be dirt cheap, but I bargain shop for my books and I've easily gotten all of those books for cheaper than that and several of those I've obtained at half those prices.

I'd rather buy the real deal than spend more for an electronic version.

That's mostly the point, they don't want to compete with the print version. They always said they made the material available for folks that can't get the books.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Of course I'd love to see half-print-price or less on these files. I'm not sure it'll happen until the volume of sales is there.

It would be ironic then, if (IMO) more reasonable pricing would've led to significantly increased sales.

I would've bought a good number of their PDFs, for example. But I'm not about to guess to what extent it would be true overall.

 

[Pyrex]

Yay! I can now buy PDF's for what it'd cost me to buy the hardcopy on Amazon!

Oh, wait. Maybe that's not so good...