WotC_GregB talks about using a laptop at the game table.

[SSquirrel]

that comes out to $7.50 a game. That's 1 pack of smokes

You must be in a bigger city like Chicago. My wife had me buy her a pack there 2 years ago and I about fell over. She has since quit

What would be an excellent scenario, is if they offered an offline rules database subscription.

You download the rules db, every month it asks for your username/password (like iTunes), sync's with gleemax, and presto: Offline Rules DB. They can get there subscription, and they can curb piracy because few would be willing to share passwords if they could only sync the offline application once a month. (Or quarterly or whatever)

Offline rules database for reasonable cost sounds like a big win here.

 

[MaelStorm]

If you stop paying your cable bill, you'll have paid all this money for nothing, since you don't get to keep what you watched. Welcome to the world of subscription services.

I can copy information I want to keep to my hard drive while I have that service, and I can continue to enjoy what I did keep after my service is gone.

 

[The Little Raven]

Yes but the only thing to do w/your cable box is to hook it up to a TV and use it to watch things. DDI is coming at people and seems to be understood that it will always be there, at least for the length of the edition.

It's no different than people opting to watch movies on cable, rather than buying them. They're choosing to get a subscription service instead of a physical product, because they feel it's a better solution to their entertainment needs. DDI provides you with a service (and a product as well, since Dragon and Dungeon will be compiled into downloadable/printable PDFs) that only functions so long as you pay for the service.

They would have to put their campaign on hold until they could go out and buy enough of the books they need to play, since they have based all their game on information only found thru a subscription service. Or they would pirate pdfs. Neither is a great option.

And I'd have to put my Lost-watching party on hold until I can get all the DVDs (some of which aren't out yet), or pirate the shows off the internet. It still doesn't mean that ABC is making me pirate anything, it just means that out of the options available to me (wait and buy or pirate), I'm taking the easy path.

 

[The Little Raven]

I can copy information I want to keep to my hard drive while I have that service, and I can continue to enjoy what I did keep after my service is gone.

And you can cut/paste or transcribe whatever you want from the DDI to your hard drive, just like you can get around most cable box's copy protection methods.

 

[MaelStorm]

And you can cut/paste or transcribe whatever you want from the DDI to your hard drive, just like you can get around most cable box's copy protection methods.

If you have the choice between a print screen and work hours to format it or buy a PDF which one will you choose?

 

[The Little Raven]

If you have the choice between a print screen and work hours to format it or buy a PDF which one will you choose?

This wasn't the issue under discussion.

You stated that not offering a PDF for sale (implying a reduced price, since it's not a physical product) means that WotC is pushing people to do something illegal. That's silly and completely wrong. I mean, if I claimed Ford was promoting car theft because they priced their vehicles higher than most people can afford, I'd rightfully be called a fool.

And personally, I would buy a PDF if available, but if it isn't, then it's PrintScreen and hours of formatting for me, because that's just how I roll.

 

[SSquirrel]

It's no different than people opting to watch movies on cable, rather than buying them. They're choosing to get a subscription service instead of a physical product, because they feel it's a better solution to their entertainment needs. DDI provides you with a service (and a product as well, since Dragon and Dungeon will be compiled into downloadable/printable PDFs) that only functions so long as you pay for the service.

Except that the situation I posed is WotC taking their DDI ball and going home, kinda like if your cable company went out of business or decided to stop selling cable service to people. You are totally behind the service, but they pull the rug out from under you out of nowhere is when it causes issues. Which is a future possibility only, not even really a super likely situation IMO. I was just generating the scenario that I personally would be hoping to avoid and upset about most. I did mention Dragon and Dungeon as downloadables, but that was outside the issue, other then most likely making up some portion of your monthly fee for DDI.

And I'd have to put my Lost-watching party on hold until I can get all the DVDs (some of which aren't out yet), or pirate the shows off the internet. It still doesn't mean that ABC is making me pirate anything, it just means that out of the options available to me (wait and buy or pirate), I'm taking the easy path.

Besides there are other venues available to pick up those missed episodes. You can buy them rather cheaply for $2 an episode at iTunes. Those ARE yours and you download them and watch however much you want. ABC also has many shows on free viewing on their website. You just have to watch the SAME commercial over and over So ABC has more and better digital options than D&D does currently as right now it is either full price for print or print price for digital. Soon it will also throw in monthly subscription price and I really do hope it all goes well, I just don't see it as anything close to as good from a consumer viewpoint as selling reasonably priced pdfs.

You also mentioned distributors not being happy about cheaper pdfs, which is interesting b/c other game companies sell their pdfs at half price yet still get into the same stores that WotC does. I know that retail stores threatening not to carry companies is one of the main reasons for video games having the same downloadable price as they do in stores typically, but I have not heard teh same for the RPG business.

 

[MaelStorm]

This wasn't the issue under discussion.

You stated that not offering a PDF for sale (implying a reduced price, since it's not a physical product) means that WotC is pushing people to do something illegal. That's silly and completely wrong. I mean, if I claimed Ford was promoting car theft because they priced their vehicles higher than most people can afford, I'd rightfully be called a fool.

And personally, I would buy a PDF if available, but if it isn't, then it's PrintScreen and hours of formatting for me, because that's just how I roll.

Good for you. Personally I won't pay for a subscription on top of my internet cable subscription service and then work hours on top of it to keep that info after I log out of DDI. No, thank you.

 

[The Little Raven]

Good for you. Personally I won't pay for a subscription on top of my internet cable subscription service and then work hours on top of it to keep that info after I log out of DDI. No, thank you.

Well, if you choose not to take on that task, then don't try and pin a choice to pirate material (if you chose to; this is not an accusation) on Wizard's shoulders.

 

[Gundark]

As Breschau pointed out, if they would let people legally buying ebooks for a cheaper price or if they would offer their customers who buy their book the possibility of having a PDF for a small fee like 5$, their costumers would not look to obtain a PDF on a P2P network or on torrents servers. If you think that is silly, that's what some costumers will do. If you buy a PDF you would think twice before giving it away. But if you obtain one for free you don't care because you didn't pay for it. .

Sorry I'm not buying it. There are a plethora of scanned books that people bought and where still inclined to illegally share on a P2P. Me? I wouldn't go thru the effort, but there are people who will. I wouldn't even bother sharing a free file, it's not worth my time. There are people however who go so far as to remove the watermarked name on a PDF and share it on a P2P network. WotC didn't "make" anyone do this, the person made the decision. Even with the current DDI there will be pirated copies that'll make there way onto the internet. WotC won't have "made" these people do it.

Even offering a pdf for cheap on the DDI doesn't garentee that there will be people who will pirate it for free

Sorry while I see where you're coming from it's the "WotC is making people more likely to pirate" thing which is bothering me.