4th edition ebooks? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

4th edition ebooks?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
chemrmnce123
Dec 28, 2011 14:11:30 Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase.
#2
mboss77
Dec 28, 2011 14:13:21
Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase.

Unfortunately, they are not available in an e-book format, nor a pdf format.
#3
IlexGarodan
Dec 28, 2011 14:14:56
Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format?

Not legally, no.

#4
chemrmnce123
Dec 28, 2011 14:46:40 aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D:
#5
IlexGarodan
Dec 28, 2011 14:59:48
aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D:

Not legally, no.

Unless you count the free retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and the like. Paizo sells PDFs of their Pathfinder line, but I won't get into that here.
#6
rian_king
Dec 28, 2011 15:36:50
aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D:

Not legally, no.

Unless you count the free retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and the like. Paizo sells PDFs of their Pathfinder line, but I won't get into that here.

so then why even bring it up?
#7
SYB
Dec 28, 2011 16:32:27 The legal electronic format is a DDI membership.

-SYB
#8
Hippolyte
Dec 28, 2011 16:53:50
Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase.

The good news is that you can get all the rules, the Character Builder, the Monster Builder and all the magazines on-line through a subscription to the Dungeons & Dragons Insider. The bad news is you can only download the magazine articles. Best get a laptop with wifi.
#9
ritorix
Dec 28, 2011 17:24:27 WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. Their loss. Keep clicking "I want this on Kindle" on amazon.

So you have to get DDI and use the compendium. Luckily the compendium is far superior to searching through PDFs of multiple books and errata. No fluff material in the compendium though, just straight rules.

For ebooks, you wont be able to use the character buidler. It runs in Silverlight, which means no ipad/android can run them without doing something complex like remoting into a PC that is running them (I have!). The best thing to do is use third-party workarounds. There are apps to clean up the Compendium interface, apps for playing and DMing, and you can print a character sheet to PDF or use iplay4e in your browser.
#10
calronmoonflower
Dec 28, 2011 21:38:50
aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D:

Aside from the SRD for 3.5 there are third party books that you can get in e-formats.
But that is all.
#11
old_dog
Dec 28, 2011 21:57:41
WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. Their loss. Keep clicking "I want this on Kindle" on amazon.

WOTC did do digital publishing for a bit with 4e and previous editions. They pulled them when the lawsuit against serveral users was filed for pirating. It was then we found out about the 1x1 pixel size image embedded in the PDFs that had the purchasers identifying information inside.

When the lawsuit is done then I would assume that the Hasbro/WOTC legal department will give the approval to sell PDFs under a new protection process.
#12
sjmcc13
Dec 28, 2011 22:40:49
WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing.

as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things.
though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc.
persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books.
#13
ViolenceJack
Dec 29, 2011 6:05:11 Quite frankly, they are not getting my money until they stop making these decisions that make it less worthwhile. I move around, living sometimes in Canada and sometimes in Japan. I don't want to carry books. I did take all my D&D books here (currently in Okinawa), and I use them, but I hate running a game outside my home because it means lugging them around. I have a netbook that is just fine for reading PDFs, and my wife just got a tablet that I could probably borrow as well. That'd be awesome. But I can't.

Likewise, I run Linux at home. They went to a web-based character builder, so I thought it would be useful to me. Joke's on me! Still can't use it. It's why that little insider symbol disappeared from beside my name, and I haven't bought any physical books since my wife's scholarship was confirmed and I knew I'd have to lug them all around between countries.

So here's hoping whatever it is standing in their way with ebook versions gets gone real fast, because I want Heroes of the Feywild.
#14
PaladinNicolas
Dec 29, 2011 9:30:48 First of all, I apologize for any English mistakes I make. I actually consider that DDI is not as good as having an electronic version of D&D books for various reasons, being some of them the fact that fluff is missing in the former and that once the subscription expires you no longer have access to the content. Honestly, with progresses in EPUB and other formats, I consider that WOtC could counter piracy somewhat (which has continued in spite of their cancellation of electronic purchases) and is missing customers due to their decision not to sell eBooks. Nonetheless, I recall that in last GenCon Mike Mearls or someone else said during Q&A that they were considering whether to sell ebooks and that they were analyzing how to price them, but so far nothing of the sort has been announced yet. I honestly regret their position, because I would buy many books in an electronic format since I am constantly traveling and do not know where I will end up, and having bought 2E books that I could not bring with me I am not interested in spending much money in dead-tree versions.
#15
bone_naga
Dec 29, 2011 10:46:24 I think the piracy issue is a flimsy excuse. You can already find every 4e and 3e book in pdf, so they are only cheating themselves out of sales (at least as pertains to ebooks, see the rest of my theory below). People sharing the books with a group is no different than what most groups do with physical books. What I think is the pdf selling/piracy gave them an excuse to shift to the subscription model, which they then took a step further by moving all the tools to online only. Looking at that trend, I seriously doubt WotC is going to go back to selling ebooks. Which means I won't be buying much from them since it's not practical for me to carry an entire bookshelf around with me and online-only just doesn't work for me since I won't be able to access it half the time.
#16
kalontas
Dec 29, 2011 10:57:21
I think the piracy issue is a flimsy excuse. You can already find every 4e and 3e book in pdf, so they are only cheating themselves out of sales (at least as pertains to ebooks, see the rest of my theory below). People sharing the books with a group is no different than what most groups do with physical books. What I think is the pdf selling/piracy gave them an excuse to shift to the subscription model, which they then took a step further by moving all the tools to online only. Looking at that trend, I seriously doubt WotC is going to go back to selling ebooks. Which means I won't be buying much from them since it's not practical for me to carry an entire bookshelf around with me and online-only just doesn't work for me since I won't be able to access it half the time.

Yeah, it's a non-excuse. I have already seen links to Book of Vile Darkness about three days after its official publication. So it's not stopping anyone, it's just adding some hassle to the piraters, and removing a lot of money from their (Wizards') coffers.
#17
reaper_93
Dec 29, 2011 13:07:50 I think the biggest issue with DDI is a lack of book fluff, and I think that if they made a way to access that fluff electronically they would be making boatloads of cash. Pure speculation on my part but I know I'd be much more willing to buy PDFs or subscribe to online access of the books than I am to buy physical books.
#18
thecasualoblivion
Dec 29, 2011 15:09:57 Are any other RPG publishers doing Kindle or Nook yet? I think WotC is going to have to bite the bullet and go down that road at least sometime soon. Maybe go back to PDFs(for people who must have their art), maybe not. But the way books are going, there is no excuse not to jump on eBooks.

That being said, I'm not sure how WotC's publishing works, but the issue with PDF piracy might have had more to do with dead-tree books than anything. There has been some conflict between PDFs and brick-and-mortar stores and the big publishing houses. They don't like PDFs to begin with, and I'm sure they don't like that there are 10 pirated copies for every PDF sold. I also don't think PDF revenue was ever really significant for WotC, and I believe they've said as much. With it an insignificant piece of revenue, and some of their partners complaining, the PDF issue could run a little deeper than people have thought.
#19
bone_naga
Dec 29, 2011 19:07:17
I think the biggest issue with DDI is a lack of book fluff, and I think that if they made a way to access that fluff electronically they would be making boatloads of cash. Pure speculation on my part but I know I'd be much more willing to buy PDFs or subscribe to online access of the books than I am to buy physical books.

True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me.
#20
reaper_93
Dec 30, 2011 11:11:30
True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me.

Well, while we're speculating, if I was in their shoes here's what I'd do:

Create an online sub service that gives access to online versions of all of the books (just like DDI so you don't need to worry as much about piracy), and then reduce the cost of a DDI sub so that combined they still cost more than a DDI sub does now but apart they each cost a little bit less.

Maybe the economics of that don't work, since I have no access to sales data, but I'd definitely be down for that sort of model personally and my guess is that a lot of other people would be, too.
#21
PaladinNicolas
Dec 30, 2011 13:27:03
True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me.

Well, while we're speculating, if I was in their shoes here's what I'd do:

Create an online sub service that gives access to online versions of all of the books (just like DDI so you don't need to worry as much about piracy), and then reduce the cost of a DDI sub so that combined they still cost more than a DDI sub does now but apart they each cost a little bit less.

Maybe the economics of that don't work, since I have no access to sales data, but I'd definitely be down for that sort of model personally and my guess is that a lot of other people would be, too.

I see your point, but I respectfully disagree and would not be interested in such a scheme at all, because I would like to be able to purchase a book and not simply to pay in order to have access to some material for a while, especially if I plan to play offline and years from now. Temporal options are not what I am looking forward to. I still think that WOtC is missing many customers (such as myself) due to their stance, although hopefully they plan to do something about it soon (I hope staff from Wizards reads this and similar threads and are aware of the wishes of many of us).
#22
reaper_93
Dec 30, 2011 13:52:44 That's why I say if I was in their shoes. I figure that I wouldn't be able to overwrite their "pay per time" business model for DDI overnight. Straight sales of PDFs would be preferred by many, I'm sure, but they seem to think that DDI works best as a per-month plan, so they seem to have something figured out regarding "ALL CONTENT EVER PUBLISHED for X dollars/month."
#23
bone_naga
Dec 30, 2011 17:14:59 Yeah that wouldn't work for me anymore than DDI does now. For one, I can't stand having services being online only. Two, I don't want to "rent" the rulebooks, I want to own them, I just want to own them in digital form so I don't have to carry them everywhere. And of course I want some in print, it's just that those would be the more heavily used ones.
#24
warrl
Dec 30, 2011 18:11:44
WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing.

as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things.
though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc.
persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books.

The latter, in my opinion, is why we have the online Character Builder. (For looking things up, back when the original Character Builder was still supported, I preferred it to the Compendium.) Why they spent the better part of a year replicating software capability that already existed. (They still aren't done; on the other hand they have added new classes, powers, etc. and even new character-building mechanics such as themes. So they haven't spent the *entire* time *just* replicating the old CB.)

For the electronic editions, as I understand it, the real problem was not with one person in a group buying a book and then sharing it with the rest of the group. The problem was with a few FLGS buying a book and then selling it to *many* customers *without* paying appropriate royalties.

#25
thecasualoblivion
Dec 30, 2011 19:22:09
WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing.

as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things.
though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc.
persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books.

The latter, in my opinion, is why we have the online Character Builder. (For looking things up, back when the original Character Builder was still supported, I preferred it to the Compendium.) Why they spent the better part of a year replicating software capability that already existed. (They still aren't done; on the other hand they have added new classes, powers, etc. and even new character-building mechanics such as themes. So they haven't spent the *entire* time *just* replicating the old CB.)

The old CB was being pirated pretty hardcore as well.
#26
ViolenceJack
Dec 30, 2011 20:12:36 I can understand their getting burned by online retailers acting dishonestly, I really can. That is definitely a valid problem. Individual people downloading a pirated book via torrent or whatever? Not so sure... those people are likely one of two categories: never were going to buy the book anyway, or they want to see it before they buy it (and for whatever reason, they can't/won't check it out in a store). I'm quite open about that being the way I download/acquire new music. I have very particular tastes, and so I download any music I think I might want, and buy it if I like it (admittedly, it might take me a while to delete it, but if I don't like it, obviously I'm not listening to it).

I don't honestly know if I'd do the same thing with D&D books. They don't offer them for legal download in electronic format, and that's the only way I'll purchase them, so I just go without - I use the books I already purchased in hardcover, and that's all. I live in a non-English speaking country where I don't really speak the local language well enough (actually, it's more like I don't read it well enough.... my spoken Japanese is just fine, I just never really study kanji these days) to read D&D books. So my option is to buy, sight unseen, via Amazon and maybe return it if I don't like it? Not going to happen. I have enough to have a lot of fun.

I would give them money if they offered ebook versions though, simple as that. Until that happens, I don't want to give them money. Same with the online tools. They went with Silverlight, and that means I can't use it under my primary OS. I don't have any computers in my house that run Windows or MacOS (between me and my wife we have... 4 - a desktop and two netbooks running Ubuntu, and a tablet running Android). It's like every decision they make is one that drives me away from giving them money. I know I'm a corner case with the DDI thing, but I don't think I am with the ebook thing.
#27
bone_naga
Dec 31, 2011 1:01:37
For the electronic editions, as I understand it, the real problem was not with one person in a group buying a book and then sharing it with the rest of the group. The problem was with a few FLGS buying a book and then selling it to *many* customers *without* paying appropriate royalties.

That's a pretty flimsy excuse. Just sell it only through a reputable dealer. Or they could set up their own pdf store. It's not exactly rocket science.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 chemrmnce123 Dec 28, 2011 14:11:30	Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase.
#2 mboss77 Dec 28, 2011 14:13:21	Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase. Unfortunately, they are not available in an e-book format, nor a pdf format.
#3 IlexGarodan Dec 28, 2011 14:14:56	Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? Not legally, no.
#4 chemrmnce123 Dec 28, 2011 14:46:40	aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D:
#5 IlexGarodan Dec 28, 2011 14:59:48	aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D: Not legally, no. Unless you count the free retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and the like. Paizo sells PDFs of their Pathfinder line, but I won't get into that here.
#6 rian_king Dec 28, 2011 15:36:50	aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D: Not legally, no. Unless you count the free retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and the like. Paizo sells PDFs of their Pathfinder line, but I won't get into that here. so then why even bring it up?
#7 SYB Dec 28, 2011 16:32:27	The legal electronic format is a DDI membership. -SYB
#8 Hippolyte Dec 28, 2011 16:53:50	Does anyone know where i can buy the entire 4th edition book collection in ebook format? My DND group needs them and i have a kindle so downloading them all onto the kindle seems to be the best option available rather than gathering all the books up in print and lugging them around in a suitcase. The good news is that you can get all the rules, the Character Builder, the Monster Builder and all the magazines on-line through a subscription to the Dungeons & Dragons Insider. The bad news is you can only download the magazine articles. Best get a laptop with wifi.
#9 ritorix Dec 28, 2011 17:24:27	WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. Their loss. Keep clicking "I want this on Kindle" on amazon. So you have to get DDI and use the compendium. Luckily the compendium is far superior to searching through PDFs of multiple books and errata. No fluff material in the compendium though, just straight rules. For ebooks, you wont be able to use the character buidler. It runs in Silverlight, which means no ipad/android can run them without doing something complex like remoting into a PC that is running them (I have!). The best thing to do is use third-party workarounds. There are apps to clean up the Compendium interface, apps for playing and DMing, and you can print a character sheet to PDF or use iplay4e in your browser.
#10 calronmoonflower Dec 28, 2011 21:38:50	aw... are any of the editions legally in pdf/ebook format? D: Aside from the SRD for 3.5 there are third party books that you can get in e-formats. But that is all.
#11 old_dog Dec 28, 2011 21:57:41	WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. Their loss. Keep clicking "I want this on Kindle" on amazon. WOTC did do digital publishing for a bit with 4e and previous editions. They pulled them when the lawsuit against serveral users was filed for pirating. It was then we found out about the 1x1 pixel size image embedded in the PDFs that had the purchasers identifying information inside. When the lawsuit is done then I would assume that the Hasbro/WOTC legal department will give the approval to sell PDFs under a new protection process.
#12 sjmcc13 Dec 28, 2011 22:40:49	WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things. though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc. persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books.
#13 ViolenceJack Dec 29, 2011 6:05:11	Quite frankly, they are not getting my money until they stop making these decisions that make it less worthwhile. I move around, living sometimes in Canada and sometimes in Japan. I don't want to carry books. I did take all my D&D books here (currently in Okinawa), and I use them, but I hate running a game outside my home because it means lugging them around. I have a netbook that is just fine for reading PDFs, and my wife just got a tablet that I could probably borrow as well. That'd be awesome. But I can't. Likewise, I run Linux at home. They went to a web-based character builder, so I thought it would be useful to me. Joke's on me! Still can't use it. It's why that little insider symbol disappeared from beside my name, and I haven't bought any physical books since my wife's scholarship was confirmed and I knew I'd have to lug them all around between countries. So here's hoping whatever it is standing in their way with ebook versions gets gone real fast, because I want Heroes of the Feywild.
#14 PaladinNicolas Dec 29, 2011 9:30:48	First of all, I apologize for any English mistakes I make. I actually consider that DDI is not as good as having an electronic version of D&D books for various reasons, being some of them the fact that fluff is missing in the former and that once the subscription expires you no longer have access to the content. Honestly, with progresses in EPUB and other formats, I consider that WOtC could counter piracy somewhat (which has continued in spite of their cancellation of electronic purchases) and is missing customers due to their decision not to sell eBooks. Nonetheless, I recall that in last GenCon Mike Mearls or someone else said during Q&A that they were considering whether to sell ebooks and that they were analyzing how to price them, but so far nothing of the sort has been announced yet. I honestly regret their position, because I would buy many books in an electronic format since I am constantly traveling and do not know where I will end up, and having bought 2E books that I could not bring with me I am not interested in spending much money in dead-tree versions.
#15 bone_naga Dec 29, 2011 10:46:24	I think the piracy issue is a flimsy excuse. You can already find every 4e and 3e book in pdf, so they are only cheating themselves out of sales (at least as pertains to ebooks, see the rest of my theory below). People sharing the books with a group is no different than what most groups do with physical books. What I think is the pdf selling/piracy gave them an excuse to shift to the subscription model, which they then took a step further by moving all the tools to online only. Looking at that trend, I seriously doubt WotC is going to go back to selling ebooks. Which means I won't be buying much from them since it's not practical for me to carry an entire bookshelf around with me and online-only just doesn't work for me since I won't be able to access it half the time.
#16 kalontas Dec 29, 2011 10:57:21	I think the piracy issue is a flimsy excuse. You can already find every 4e and 3e book in pdf, so they are only cheating themselves out of sales (at least as pertains to ebooks, see the rest of my theory below). People sharing the books with a group is no different than what most groups do with physical books. What I think is the pdf selling/piracy gave them an excuse to shift to the subscription model, which they then took a step further by moving all the tools to online only. Looking at that trend, I seriously doubt WotC is going to go back to selling ebooks. Which means I won't be buying much from them since it's not practical for me to carry an entire bookshelf around with me and online-only just doesn't work for me since I won't be able to access it half the time. Yeah, it's a non-excuse. I have already seen links to Book of Vile Darkness about three days after its official publication. So it's not stopping anyone, it's just adding some hassle to the piraters, and removing a lot of money from their (Wizards') coffers.
#17 reaper_93 Dec 29, 2011 13:07:50	I think the biggest issue with DDI is a lack of book fluff, and I think that if they made a way to access that fluff electronically they would be making boatloads of cash. Pure speculation on my part but I know I'd be much more willing to buy PDFs or subscribe to online access of the books than I am to buy physical books.
#18 thecasualoblivion Dec 29, 2011 15:09:57	Are any other RPG publishers doing Kindle or Nook yet? I think WotC is going to have to bite the bullet and go down that road at least sometime soon. Maybe go back to PDFs(for people who must have their art), maybe not. But the way books are going, there is no excuse not to jump on eBooks. That being said, I'm not sure how WotC's publishing works, but the issue with PDF piracy might have had more to do with dead-tree books than anything. There has been some conflict between PDFs and brick-and-mortar stores and the big publishing houses. They don't like PDFs to begin with, and I'm sure they don't like that there are 10 pirated copies for every PDF sold. I also don't think PDF revenue was ever really significant for WotC, and I believe they've said as much. With it an insignificant piece of revenue, and some of their partners complaining, the PDF issue could run a little deeper than people have thought.
#19 bone_naga Dec 29, 2011 19:07:17	I think the biggest issue with DDI is a lack of book fluff, and I think that if they made a way to access that fluff electronically they would be making boatloads of cash. Pure speculation on my part but I know I'd be much more willing to buy PDFs or subscribe to online access of the books than I am to buy physical books. True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me.
#20 reaper_93 Dec 30, 2011 11:11:30	True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me. Well, while we're speculating, if I was in their shoes here's what I'd do: Create an online sub service that gives access to online versions of all of the books (just like DDI so you don't need to worry as much about piracy), and then reduce the cost of a DDI sub so that combined they still cost more than a DDI sub does now but apart they each cost a little bit less. Maybe the economics of that don't work, since I have no access to sales data, but I'd definitely be down for that sort of model personally and my guess is that a lot of other people would be, too.
#21 PaladinNicolas Dec 30, 2011 13:27:03	True, but I think the concern is that if more people bought pdfs then they wouldn't buy DDI. WotC seems to be putting all their eggs in one basket with DDI. Which could be either good or bad for them, but it's definitely bad for me. Well, while we're speculating, if I was in their shoes here's what I'd do: Create an online sub service that gives access to online versions of all of the books (just like DDI so you don't need to worry as much about piracy), and then reduce the cost of a DDI sub so that combined they still cost more than a DDI sub does now but apart they each cost a little bit less. Maybe the economics of that don't work, since I have no access to sales data, but I'd definitely be down for that sort of model personally and my guess is that a lot of other people would be, too. I see your point, but I respectfully disagree and would not be interested in such a scheme at all, because I would like to be able to purchase a book and not simply to pay in order to have access to some material for a while, especially if I plan to play offline and years from now. Temporal options are not what I am looking forward to. I still think that WOtC is missing many customers (such as myself) due to their stance, although hopefully they plan to do something about it soon (I hope staff from Wizards reads this and similar threads and are aware of the wishes of many of us).
#22 reaper_93 Dec 30, 2011 13:52:44	That's why I say if I was in their shoes. I figure that I wouldn't be able to overwrite their "pay per time" business model for DDI overnight. Straight sales of PDFs would be preferred by many, I'm sure, but they seem to think that DDI works best as a per-month plan, so they seem to have something figured out regarding "ALL CONTENT EVER PUBLISHED for X dollars/month."
#23 bone_naga Dec 30, 2011 17:14:59	Yeah that wouldn't work for me anymore than DDI does now. For one, I can't stand having services being online only. Two, I don't want to "rent" the rulebooks, I want to own them, I just want to own them in digital form so I don't have to carry them everywhere. And of course I want some in print, it's just that those would be the more heavily used ones.
#24 warrl Dec 30, 2011 18:11:44	WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things. though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc. persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books. The latter, in my opinion, is why we have the online Character Builder. (For looking things up, back when the original Character Builder was still supported, I preferred it to the Compendium.) Why they spent the better part of a year replicating software capability that already existed. (They still aren't done; on the other hand they have added new classes, powers, etc. and even new character-building mechanics such as themes. So they haven't spent the entire time just replicating the old CB.) For the electronic editions, as I understand it, the real problem was not with one person in a group buying a book and then sharing it with the rest of the group. The problem was with a few FLGS buying a book and then selling it to many customers without paying appropriate royalties.
#25 thecasualoblivion Dec 30, 2011 19:22:09	WOTC has decided not to participate in the new era of digital publishing. as has been said, they did do it, but they got burned buy some of the stores selling the pdfs, and the player base abusing things. though not selling digital copies could be seen as an attempt to support the FLGS's you know those places that act as organized play locations, group finders, etc. persionally I think it is fine with insider, they were just not fine with groups tendencies to buy 1 copy of a digital item and give everyone a copy, as that can be seen as cheating them out of sales, or buy 1 month of insider every 3-6 months and get all the information for a fraction pf the price of the books. The latter, in my opinion, is why we have the online Character Builder. (For looking things up, back when the original Character Builder was still supported, I preferred it to the Compendium.) Why they spent the better part of a year replicating software capability that already existed. (They still aren't done; on the other hand they have added new classes, powers, etc. and even new character-building mechanics such as themes. So they haven't spent the entire time just replicating the old CB.) The old CB was being pirated pretty hardcore as well.
#26 ViolenceJack Dec 30, 2011 20:12:36	I can understand their getting burned by online retailers acting dishonestly, I really can. That is definitely a valid problem. Individual people downloading a pirated book via torrent or whatever? Not so sure... those people are likely one of two categories: never were going to buy the book anyway, or they want to see it before they buy it (and for whatever reason, they can't/won't check it out in a store). I'm quite open about that being the way I download/acquire new music. I have very particular tastes, and so I download any music I think I might want, and buy it if I like it (admittedly, it might take me a while to delete it, but if I don't like it, obviously I'm not listening to it). I don't honestly know if I'd do the same thing with D&D books. They don't offer them for legal download in electronic format, and that's the only way I'll purchase them, so I just go without - I use the books I already purchased in hardcover, and that's all. I live in a non-English speaking country where I don't really speak the local language well enough (actually, it's more like I don't read it well enough.... my spoken Japanese is just fine, I just never really study kanji these days) to read D&D books. So my option is to buy, sight unseen, via Amazon and maybe return it if I don't like it? Not going to happen. I have enough to have a lot of fun. I would give them money if they offered ebook versions though, simple as that. Until that happens, I don't want to give them money. Same with the online tools. They went with Silverlight, and that means I can't use it under my primary OS. I don't have any computers in my house that run Windows or MacOS (between me and my wife we have... 4 - a desktop and two netbooks running Ubuntu, and a tablet running Android). It's like every decision they make is one that drives me away from giving them money. I know I'm a corner case with the DDI thing, but I don't think I am with the ebook thing.
#27 bone_naga Dec 31, 2011 1:01:37	For the electronic editions, as I understand it, the real problem was not with one person in a group buying a book and then sharing it with the rest of the group. The problem was with a few FLGS buying a book and then selling it to many customers without paying appropriate royalties. That's a pretty flimsy excuse. Just sell it only through a reputable dealer. Or they could set up their own pdf store. It's not exactly rocket science.