WOTC switch to watermarking, finally...

[amethal]

Anyone know if these books incorporate the errata?

I couldn't find anything to say that they do, so they probably don't.

Making the errata'd version of the PDFs available would be great.

Monster Manual 3 would be a best seller

 

[Voadam]

If, on the other hand, you think PDFs are a good a way (or a better way) to get your RPG content (they're portable, they're searchable, and you can do some cutting and pasting from them), you are the market these products are aimed toward. And if you're in this market, then there's no reason for the price to be lower.

Not quite.

I feel pdfs have great utility value for gaming. I love cutting and pasting descriptions, monsters stats, NPC stats, pictures, and maps for my games. I own hundreds of gaming pdfs. For storage I prefer getting more pdfs over physical books. I own tons of physical RPG books and pdfs but only buy pdfs now.

I want the things I have in print (more than a bookcase full of RPG books) in pdf format and have been slowly duplicating my collection in electronic format. I buy new products I don't already have in pdf format as well now.

So I am the market these books are aimed towards.

However price is still an issue.

I have tons of RPG pdfs I want, more than I will get on my monthly gaming budget in the next ten years even if no new stuff comes out that I want. So each month I choose how I spend my budget and my choices come down to content subject, quality of RPG material, useability for me as RPG material (I play 3.5), useability of the pdf (scanned versus original electronic format, DRM, etc.) and price.

I'm buying the $6 98-page necromancer games pdf module that I want that is currently on special sale for 75% off before the $7 32 page WotC pdf module that I want that is on sale for 30% off. I don't need either of them and not getting them while getting other stuff would be ok.

I want all the WotC pdfs offered. I don't need any of them. I am more likely to pick up WotC books at 30% off the cover price than at full cover price. If they were cheaper I would be more likely to pick up more.

As things stand I expect I will get the necromancer one and maybe two WotC ones while they are on sale and reserve some of my budget for other products I want. If the WotC books were cheaper I'd probably spend a bigger portion of my monthly budget on the sale instead of reserving it for others that I haven't decided on yet.

I will get RPG pdfs every month that I enjoy. Whether I get any particular product in a given month is partially a factor of the product's price.

 

[sckeener]

Anyone know if these books incorporate the errata?

Not that I could see. Redownloaded all the ones I bought and took a look at the deities and demigods book....I didn't see any of the updates in it.

 

[Voadam]

How good are the files as pdfs? I've had some bad experiences with some scanned ones that screwed up text when copying and pasting (Manual of Monsters).

 

[Henry]

How good are the files as pdfs? I've had some bad experiences with some scanned ones that screwed up text when copying and pasting (Manual of Monsters).

If they're new files, then they're probably as close to the original files as you're going to get -- perhaps with some reduction of art pixel quality to shrink the size of the document. Older PDF's that were scanned and OCR'ed (like a bunch of old 2nd edition stuff sold through RPGNOW, etc.) are going to be pretty bad occasionally. However, these 3E and 3.5 books, from the couple I've seen, are the "real deal."

 

[Psion]

I'll add to that: They got into it to also serve customers who believe that PDF is a format that has alternative value to hardcover--not less value. If you think PDFs are worth less than hardcovers, they you aren't the market these products are aimed toward.

I think it's unfortunate that enough publishers are hesitant view the reduction in publication and deployment cost and the attendant ability to make their offerings available at a more competitive price as one of the advantages of the medium, and in doing so, sell it short.

 

[Psion]

With this 30% off sale exactly matching the price recommended and used by White Wolf for their PDFs I suspect that WotC is testing the PDF market as something other than a "we're just selling to people in Siberia and/or cyberfiends".

Considering the limited time offer aspect, that was my impression.

I certainly intend to do my part to help encourage them.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Considering the limited time offer aspect, that was my impression.

I certainly intend to do my part to help encourage them.

I'd like to as well -- probably OA, maybe Lords of Madness.

But I really wish more of the modules were available. Those are the kind of thing I particularly like in PDF.

 

[Glyfair]

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?

No. WotC has made it pretty clear they don't want to be in the "store" business anymore. In fact, setting up their own store likely would cost more than they'd save (including staffing costs).

Now, if & when this online "club" starts then they might gain the infrastructure to do this. Right now, they don't have it.

 

[Glyfair]

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 think this idea isn't practical. Hobby stores don't deal with coupons and I expect very few would remember to give a customer a coupon (especially since they'd have to keep track of coupons for every WotC book they carry).

WotC could include one in each book with a unique code. However, they'd have to shrinkwrap the books or otherwise hide the number. If they don't then people will open the book and get the serial number. If they do, people will take the coupons out of the book at the stores.

While a nice idea, it's just not practical.

I think it's more likely they'd have a "deluxe" version available with the PDF on an enclosed CD-ROM. That's not very likely either since the logistics would require a very large market or a very large markup (probably with other bonuses available in the package as well to compensate).