WotC to publish D&D PDFs again?

[TarionzCousin]

Starting to sell PDFs would be a good public relations coup and a good source of revenue in the buildup to D&D Next.

I would think WotC could use some good PR for 5E.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

WOTC has already stated, multiple times, that they will (re)investigate digital book delivery systems for DNDN. I see this as nothing more than pure speculation at this point.

The Manhattan Project took six years to make an atom bomb. WotC has taken something like half that time (or more, and counting) investigating digital versions of 30 year old modules. I think they've had the time to figure something out.

 

[Henry]

I think, however, the lag was in the old "competing with themselves" idea - that if they sell you pdfs of old books (especially cheap pdfs), they are giving you reason to not be a customer for their current line of products, which probably have a higher profit margin, and for which they very much want to build the ever-useful "network externalities".

It may be now they either have data, or at least the idea, that sale of old material does not negatively impact sale of new material.

Yeah, it's the "Selling Two Cokes" Theory -- that making two products that are the same is cannibalizing the market. Now, to an extent it can be true (the way WotC unintentionally broke its market into Planescapers, Birthrighters, Realmsers, etc.) but for the majority of it, gamers are rabid completists, and they'll play multiple kinds of systems. Ryan Dancey thinks differently, but I don't think TSR competed with itself -- it spent so much time overproducing product lines that it couldn't justify the demand in terms of sales. I don't think it cannibalized itself so much as it couldn't justify its resources spent in terms of sales. Why in the world would you plan a whole year of Birthright before you really found out how well the intro product sold? Why plan a massive shipment of Dragon Dice after the initial product had promising, but merely "decent" sales?

Fact is, most AD&Ders are either going to buy AD&D products, OR both that and new stuff, OR nothing at all. We gamers as a rule are NOT going to say, "OH, well, I can't buy new supplements for AD&D, so I'll buy the newest D&D instead." We just go off and make our own stuff. Instead of "two cokes for sale", it's like "legal liquor or bust" - we gamers would like to get legal AD&D brand liquor because its cheaper and has less legal hassle, but if we can't, we go make bathtub AD&D gin instead.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, it's the "Selling Two Cokes" Theory -- that making two products that are the same is cannibalizing the market. Now, to an extent it can be true (the way WotC unintentionally broke its market into Planescapers, Birthrighters, Realmsers, etc.) but for the majority of it, gamers are rabid completists, and they'll play multiple kinds of systems. Ryan Dancey thinks differently, but I don't think TSR competed with itself -- it spent so much time overproducing product lines that it couldn't justify the demand in terms of sales. I don't think it cannibalized itself so much as it couldn't justify its resources spent in terms of sales. Why in the world would you plan a whole year of Birthright before you really found out how well the intro product sold? Why plan a massive shipment of Dragon Dice after the initial product had promising, but merely "decent" sales?

Fact is, most AD&Ders are either going to buy AD&D products, OR both that and new stuff, OR nothing at all. We gamers as a rule are NOT going to say, "OH, well, I can't buy new supplements for AD&D, so I'll buy the newest D&D instead." We just go off and make our own stuff. Instead of "two cokes for sale", it's like "legal liquor or bust" - we gamers would like to get legal AD&D brand liquor because its cheaper and has less legal hassle, but if we can't, we go make bathtub AD&D gin instead.

I dunno. I know few gaming completionists, at least with respect to all of the stuff for a particular game. Even back in the 2e days, I saw mainly people focusing on completing a particular product line, not the whole catalog for a game. For example, I have pretty much all of the OA and Al-Qadim stuff from 2e and had, at one time, all of the Complete x Handbooks. That's a lot right there. But I didn't pick up much from the other campaigns from Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Planescape, Dark Sun, Mystara, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Birthright and probably a few other things I no longer recall. There was no effing way I could afford all of it nor did all of it appeal to me.

But I will say that I did prioritize the things I wanted and if I couldn't afford something from FR because I was buying something from Al Qadim, that did mean the product lines competed with each other. I would also take the idea that there wasn't enough demand for some of the lines to justify the investment as supporting evidence that they had actually sliced and diced the market into chunks that were too small to be worth their support.

 

[Balesir]

As a side note, I've seen a few people in the forums float an idea which I think sounds pretty cool. When it comes to D&D Next specifically, the idea of an Apple-style app store whereby third-parties could sell content which plugs into WotC's own online tools would be pretty awesome. Not only does WotC make money directly off a OGL/GSL style license, but those publishers don't have the barrier to sales that "it doesn't work with the character builder" has often caused.

It would be better than nothing, but houserules still need some method of incorporation, I think.

I'll say again that I think the approach adopted by my favourite PC games maker would be ideal: they make PC games that are deliberately mod-friendly, so the database elements are open for modding, and upgrades to the core programming (new mechanics - in the DDN context, new modules, I would guess) are released as DLC. Database stuff is also released as DLC; the fact that users could enter the stuff themselves is no barrier to this if the quality is good and the price is right. Bug fixes (for both database elements and core programming) are free patches, of course.

Oh, and they don't use DRM. See this interview here to read how their CEO explains exactly why they don't; it's a set of reasons that applies as much to TTRPG support software as it does to PC games.

 

[talien]

Building on the OGL model that publishing adventures was not profitable for WOTC, it makes sense that by launching a backwards compatible D&D it will get a huge boost from the entire back catalog. I lay out my argument for why this will happen here: Will Wizards of the Coast reprint 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons? - National RPG | Examiner.com

 

[JediSoth]

I suspect a big part of the reason WotC seems to move so slowly when changing tracks is due to the Hasbro legal department. Big ships turn slowly. I see it every time my company draws up a contract with a large client. Smaller clients can turn around a document in a day where the large corporation takes weeks because it goes through their legal team rather than their attorney-on-retainer.

 

[Umbran]

The Manhattan Project took six years to make an atom bomb. WotC has taken something like half that time (or more, and counting) investigating digital versions of 30 year old modules. I think they've had the time to figure something out.

Comparing to a project that had the resources of a major industrialized nation, the threat of world domination by an aggressive power, and perhaps the brightest minds on the planet working on it is fair? Really?

 

[darjr]

Well that was a surprise. The latter half of the podcast has a bit about a big RPG coming from Fantasy Flight and that Sean Patrick Fannon may be working on it. Wonder what that RPG could be? Very cool.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Comparing to a project that had the resources of a major industrialized nation, the threat of world domination by an aggressive power, and perhaps the brightest minds on the planet working on it is fair? Really?

Oh for God's sake...like I was serious. Good Lord. No, Umbran, not really. It's called "hyperbole."

The point is that the decision should not have to take 4 years to make. No matter how it's rationalized, it should not take this long to decide to sell pdfs again.