WOTC switch to watermarking, finally...

[mhensley]

This, on the other hand, is not a legitimate point. Internet pirates are not, by and large, price-sensitive. A $6 discount is not the price of most people's morals--they're either happy to steal (at any price), or they aren't.

I don't know. Rationalizing theft is a lot easier if the product is seen as being overpriced and that the company is gouging you.

 

[Bacris]

I would agree with that argument except for one thing. The middle man and retailers cuts are gone. (60% of the retail price). So they could sell these pdf's at 40% of retail and still get the same profit margin they get on print. With a lot less hassle and printing and shipping costs eliminated.

Now if only they would get smart enough to realize most of us would buy print AND pdf if pdf was 40% of retail.

This isn't exactly accurate. There is still a middle-man, OneBookShelf, who gets 30% of the price. So if they drop the price to 40% of retail, they are making 28% of retail.

Do I think they should be full book price for a PDF? Not really, so I'm hoping the 30% off sale becomes what the prices are changed to permanently.

 

[JoeGKushner]

This isn't exactly accurate. There is still a middle-man, OneBookShelf, who gets 30% of the price. So if they drop the price to 40% of retail, they are making 28% of retail.

We don't know that. WoTC is such a unique entity in this sense, that I'd be surprised if that was truly the case.

If that was true, I'm sure we'd see WoTC just set up their own online venue where you could purchase the books straight from WoTC and keep that 30% of the price no?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

We don't know that. WoTC is such a unique entity in this sense, that I'd be surprised if that was truly the case.

If that was true, I'm sure we'd see WoTC just set up their own online venue where you could purchase the books straight from WoTC and keep that 30% of the price no?

And I think that's pretty good evidence that PDF sales are a fraction of a drop in the bucket for WotC. It's not worth the investment, and not worth irritating the retail channel.

I can understand the rock and hard place they find themselves between. For me the marginal utility of PDF isn't worth the additional cost of having both print and electronic.

What I'd really like to see is a coupon available from retail merchants that was redeemable for a free or heavily discounted PDF version of a purchased title. I think that would be a nice 'value added' package that the brick-and-mortar places could offer to differentiate themselves from Amazon, etc., and help justify the additional markup at marginal expense to WotC.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Unless the price is significantly cheaper, I really have zero incentive to get a pdf rather than a hardback - only exception I can think of is for books that are out of print...

Agreed.

I understand that Wizards is out to make money, and that they have operating costs, and that they don't want the PDF's to compete with the print versions.

I don't think the digital medium will ever replace the print medium, but the digital marketplace is expanding rapidly, and they'd be foolish not to allocate more resources in that area in the long run.

While I applaud them for switching to watermarks and reducing the price of their PDF books, it still seems a little too pricey for me to invest, since I don't typically use a laptop in my gaming sessions, and it costs as much to print and bind a book myself as it does to buy the print-version in the first place.

 

[JoeGKushner]

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!

Looks like those are temporary sale prices though as Complete Warrior notes the download price is $26.95 and the announcement under Publishers notes that this is only going to last till I think it said the 12th of March. :\

 

[Mercule]

But here's the bottom line: If Dungeonscape is worth $30 to you, then it's worth $30. If the physical, bookiness quality of the hardcover is part of that value to you, then buy the hardcover. If the portable, searchable quality of the PDF is valuable to you, buy the PDF. If it's not worth $30 either way, just don't buy it.

Oh, you cunning capitalistic bastard, you.

Actually, this is exactly the right answer and bottom line, IMO. Everything else is whining and moaning.

I happen to think that a hardbound book is worth about twice as much as a PDF, and that Amazon happens to have the most appropriate prices for hardbounds (actually, I'm a cheap SOB who also doesn't think FLGS are particularly important to the hobby, anymore).

That said, I might be induced to pick up a few titles (modules, mostly) if made available in PDF. I've already been lobbying Paizo to make a PDF subscription to Dungeon available.

 

[sckeener]

I wonder why Complete Adventure and Races of Destiny are not in the list. They were before. When I went to drivethrurpg's download section to redownload all the wotc books I have bought, those were two that I couldn't. When I clicked on the link it went to a dead page. Then when I went looking for them in wotc's list of products, I couldn't find them.

I wonder why they were skipped....

 

[sckeener]

That said, I might be induced to pick up a few titles (modules, mostly) if made available in PDF. I've already been lobbying Paizo to make a PDF subscription to Dungeon available.

That would be dreamy. I already rewrite so many adventures that would make it easy....

My current method is to scan the adventure I am working on and edit a word document with all the changes I make....usually by the end I've rewritten the adventure. It would be so nice to be able to do something as simple a find and replace!

Since I rewrite most of the adventures I've been working on AD&D stuff, mostly converting it to 3.5. Since many of my new players are 3/3.5 players, they have no clue what is coming at them.

I like it that way. No way they can pick up the latest issue and get a clue. I'm sure I will be doing the same stuff with my current dungeons in 10 years....probably with 5th edition

 

[Maggan]

I can understand the rock and hard place they find themselves between. For me the marginal utility of PDF isn't worth the additional cost of having both print and electronic.

What I'd really like to see is a coupon available from retail merchants that was redeemable for a free or heavily discounted PDF version of a purchased title. I think that would be a nice 'value added' package that the brick-and-mortar places could offer to differentiate themselves from Amazon, etc., and help justify the additional markup at marginal expense to WotC.

I'd like that. I like to buy the physical books for reasons unknown to me, but for some books I would also buy a pdf if it was heavily discounted as a "bonus" because I bought the print version.

Well, we'll see what happens.

As for the rock and the hard place, considering the miniscule sales numbers I hear quoted for pdf products compared to print products, I would think that it is a very small rock.

/M