So, is anyone aware of any plans or even investigations by WotC regarding the possibility of putting PDFs of D&D products (both 3.5 and 4e) on sale once again? I have emailed customer service in the past but they won't reveal anything that hasn't been formally announced.
I would literally be willing to spend over $1000 should 3.5 and 4e PDFs be made available once again, despite having the hardcopy books I would purchase all the Eberron PDFs (3.5 & 4e ones), all of the Monster Manuals, Complete Series, Races of Series and environment books (Stormwrack etc).
For 3.5 stuff DDI doesn't cut it obviously, but even for 4e it doesn't help as it doesn't provide all the fluff content of the books. I had a year's subscription to DDI but have not renewed it and am not collecting any more 4e books because I simply have no space to put them - but I would be willing to spend on PDFs.
I really hope that WotC are not keeping PDFs off sale in hopes of combatting piracy as I think we all know that isn't working, at most it delays it a few weeks.
I have been sent a completely OCRed and bookmarked PDF of the Eberron Players Guide by my GM (I won't provide names) when I joined a campaign, I had thought it was a PDF of his house rules and such but when I realised what it was I immediately deleted it and asked the GM not to distribute such files.
I am staunchly anti piracy but in all my life I have never been so tempted to pirate as now. I am standing firm though and won't pirate, though I am beginning to think I am losing out while those who wish to pirate get what they want - all the while WotC receives no income from the missed sales.
I must admit, it is getting to the point where I am thinking about dumping Eberron and 3.5 as my preferred setting and system and buying into Pathfinder RPG and Golarion - I play it anyway for Pathfinder Society organised play and the PDFs are available for sale. I am not a big PF RPG fan (the Grapple rules are a mess compared to 3.5) and prefer 3.5, also I find Eberron a better setting than Golarion, but at present PDFs are my main medium and WotC just aren't providing me access to that.
Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant, so.. anyone heard anything?
Seems like the pirates still get what they want while the honest folks get nothing.
Yep, that is exactly how I feel.
Mind you, if WotC removed PDFs from sale to try to encourage people to sign up to DDI then I can sort of understand that, I must admit my DDI acocunt did help me prep in terms of monster stats that I could copy as image from the monster builder (the offline one) and paste into Word documents (something I do a lot of with PDFs as well).
However, for those running 3.5 games DDI doesn't help a bit and so removal of the 3.5 PDFs will not encourage DDI use. And even in my 4e campaign I ran I wanted to reference 3.5 books like Faiths of Eberron for fluff information so again DDI was useless for that.
To sort of make a point of how important PDFs are to me, I love the Eberron setting and I have read the Eberron Campaign Setting book cover to cover twice - and guess what? I bought the PDF of that.
Later I bought all the Eberron books in hardcopy cheaply seocnd hand in July 2008 (including all the scenarios). How many of those do I have PDFs of? None. How many of those have I read now? None.
Compare to my Golarion / Pathfinder books that I have bought and read:
Gazateer
Guide to Absalom
Osirion, Land of Pharaohs
Seekers of Secrets
Rise of the Runelords Players Guide
Hollows Last Hope
Crown of the Kobold King
Carnival of Tears
Along with several Pathfinder Society scenarios
How many of those have I got in hardcopy? Just the Gazateer. How many in PDF? All of them!
And I am currently reading Revenge of the Kobold King and will then be reading Guide to Darkmoon Vale.
So if I love Eberron so much and am just "okay" with Golarion as a setting why have I read so mant more books in the Golarion line? Because they are available in PDF.
WotC - please start offering PDFs again!!!!!!!
I doubt you will see pdf's of current stuff anytime soon. WOTC's lack of direction and there poor sales of D&D in general will prob cause pdf's not to come out due to fear of privacy and damaging already poor sales.
Cite your references, please.
With that said, I certainly don't object to Wizards starting up PDF sales again, or even a print on demand service. WoTC would bring back many grognards by doing so!
To the OP: I'd love to see PDF's come back too. But if we get an announcement I shouldn't expect it before GenCon. They will take the opportunity to announce something like that at a big Con.
Also if its not PDFs that I can download, backup and keep but an online thing I am not interested - its the same reason I don't sunscribe to Marvel comics, instead buying hardcopy of those I want to read.
I too purchase Paizo products and receive them in hard and PDF copies, and the bulk of time reading them is on my iPad.
I hate to add to the doom/gloom, but reading Steve's latest editorial can't help. He implies that PDFs may go away for the "magazines".
Thanks for pointing that article out.
I dropped my DDI subscription when my year was up because the tools had all gone online and weren't as good as the offline ones (and also didn't import my offline characters).
Downloading back issue (articles?) of Dungeon and Dragon was about the only thing that would encourage me to renew my DDI, even if only for a month - if they were to go online only DDI would hold absolutely zero interest for me and I really think at that point I would give up on ever visiting the D&D website full stop.
They announced that means of digital distribution of other material is being discussed and they are struggling with how to price PDFs.
Stay tuned!
They announced ebooks for the D&D branded novels that will be available on Kindle, Nook and Sony e-Reader. There is full intention to bring all of the past-released books to the format as well, releasing 3 backlist books per week.
They announced that means of digital distribution of other material is being discussed and they are struggling with how to price PDFs.
Stay tuned!
I call that BS on Wizards part! They know damn well what the prices should be. If they don't, then they only need to go to Paizo for some help.
What about D&D e-books to another language?
Nothing mentioned...
I call that BS on Wizards part! They know damn well what the prices should be. If they don't, then they only need to go to Paizo for some help.
Many publishing houses are struggling with pricing for digital content. It's a very hot topic of debate in the world of books and other related intellectual properties. There are entire classes devoted to it in master's programs across the country, it's setting the library world on fire, and tech blogs that report on Apple iBooks produce stories all the time that reference the tug-o-war that is digital content distribution. -- It's a real issue.
I'm not sure why they'd do PDFs when they could do iBookstore/Kindle instead. That way at least, there's some basic copy protection and they can sell through Apple/Amazon to people who already own iPads/Kindles.
Because not everyone owns an iPad or Kindle? Whereas PDFs can be read on mobile phones, PCs, laptops, net books as well as iPads and to some degree Kindles even.
Also with PDFs you can keep the same layout of the physical book which is great for when people prep with electronic copy but play with hardcopy as page references match up.
They announced that means of digital distribution of other material is being discussed and they are struggling with how to price PDFs.
Well at least they seem to still be thinking about it, but I wish they would just put the PDFs out there again at maybe 30% off the original retail price and see how it goes.
Hell, they could even put them out at full RRP like they did originally and see how they go, and then discount them from there, or do bundles that provide discounts of 30%, e.g. buy the PDF for Complete Arcane for $29.95 or buy all eight Complete books for $165.62 (all the Complete book PDFs were priced at $29.95 except for Complete Warrior which was $26.95).
Well at least they seem to still be thinking about it, but I wish they would just put the PDFs out there again at maybe 30% off the original retail price and see how it goes.
Hell, they could even put them out at full RRP like they did originally and see how they go, and then discount them from there, or do bundles that provide discounts of 30%, e.g. buy the PDF for Complete Arcane for $29.95 or buy all eight Complete books for $165.62 (all the Complete book PDFs were priced at $29.95 except for Complete Warrior which was $26.95).
The real issue with pricing is the possibility of killing of the FLGS should the prices be cheaper online than on their shelves (just look at the disparity of pricing between FLGS and Amazon and the grumblings of FLGS owners over the fact). Gaming stores support the hobby through exposure, hosted events and availability of meet-up resources. Squashing that squashes the face-to-face social aspect of the game in favor of the digital content and virtual table-top experience. -- Do we or WotC truly want that?
Food for thought.
I'm not sure why they'd do PDFs when they could do iBookstore/Kindle instead. That way at least, there's some basic copy protection and they can sell through Apple/Amazon to people who already own iPads/Kindles.
Because not everyone owns an iPad or Kindle? Whereas PDFs can be read on mobile phones, PCs, laptops, net books as well as iPads and to some degree Kindles even.
There are three big problems with PDFs:
Amazon, Apple, and B&N won't sell them. Mom & Pop gamestores aren't equipped to sell them.
Kindle files can be read on PCs, laptops, netbooks, Macs, iPads, and Kindles, so there's no value in PDFs other than not having to deal with Amazon.
Piracy
There are other problems as well - PDFs are a little harder to use on tablets, Amazon tries to undercut competitors if it doesn't have the product, tablet users are the ones most likely to buy these files, anyone not capable of selling the PDFs is going to be annoyed at WotC if they're selling the physical product, etc...
There are three big problems with PDFs:
Amazon, Apple, and B&N won't sell them.
True, but are those the best storefronts for the PDFs anyway? If I was looking for a D&D PDF I would never dream of looking in Amazon - my first point of call would likely be DriveThruRPG.com (aka RPGNow.com). I believe that site has become the most popular place to goto for RPG PDFs other than the publishers themselves. I don't think anyone who would wish to purchase D&D PDFs would think to look in Amazon, Apple or B&N but not to have heard of, if not already got an account, at DriveThru.
Mom & Pop gamestores aren't equipped to sell them.
True, but are they better equiped to sell the Kindle or other eBook versions?
Kindle files can be read on PCs, laptops, netbooks, Macs, iPads, and Kindles, so there's no value in PDFs other than not having to deal with Amazon.
That is true, but from what I have been led to believe Kindle files are not good at presenting tables and charts, and also images are usually fewer so I am unsure whether it could handle all the art that would be in the physical product.
Also I don't imagne Kindle versions would retain the same layout as PDF versions which for me is really important. Also, can you copy and paste from Kindle documents, both in terms of text and images?
I am not saying Kindle and eBook formats couldn't work, but I do believe PDF does have some value that cannot be provided by those formats.
Piracy
Piracy of PDFs is a fact of life unfortunately, the point is though the lack of any legal PDFs if anything makes it worse - even I, a staunch anti PDF piracy person has been extremely tempted to download illegal copies because I do not have the option to buy them legally.
Watermarking can help, but basically it has to be accepted that piracy will occur whether you legally sell PDFs or not, just like retail stores have to accept a certain level of "shrinkage" due to theft. I have personally seen a PDF copy of the 4e Eberron Players Guide, OCRed and bookmarked - that PDF was never on sale legally but it is out there.
There are other problems as well - PDFs are a little harder to use on tablets
True, but to be honest of all my RPG PDFs the 4e core books were some of the better performing PDFs on my phone (so not as powerful as a full tablet) due to the clean black on white format and lack of background images (Paizo PDFs are bad for this). Some publishers put out printer friendly PDFs which also are easier to handle on mobile devices. There is some room to manoeuvre.
anyone not capable of selling the PDFs is going to be annoyed at WotC if they're selling the physical product
Maybe so, but the LGSs need to learn that they have to compete in other areas, customer service for example, the ability to browse products etc. Also, I used to never buy an RPG book unless i could get it in PDF, so if a PDF wasn't available the LGS wouldn't have got my money anyway.
And even then, there are programs in place to try to support physical game stores - check out www.bits-and-mortar.com
True, but are those the best storefronts for the PDFs anyway? If I was looking for a D&D PDF I would never dream of looking in Amazon - my first point of call would likely be DriveThruRPG.com (aka RPGNow.com). I believe that site has become the most popular place to goto for RPG PDFs other than the publishers themselves. I don't think anyone who would wish to purchase D&D PDFs would think to look in Amazon, Apple or B&N but not to have heard of, if not already got an account, at DriveThru.
I'd like to contest this point...
Only those D&D/RPGers that have an online presence, skim forums/blogs and/or interact with others who do would have knowledge of DriveThruRPG.com. Despite our blessed situations, the digital divide is alive and well in America and nations across the globe. Sad and disconcerting, but very true.
I'd like to contest this point...
Only those D&D/RPGers that have an online presence, skim forums/blogs and/or interact with others who do would have knowledge of DriveThruRPG.com. Despite our blessed situations, the digital divide is alive and well in America and nations across the globe. Sad and disconcerting, but very true.
true, but then I also imagine those looking for a digital version of a D&D rulebook are likely to have a great deal of overlap with those who have an online presence.
Basically, I am not saying Kindle and eBook editions are a bad idea, what I am suggesting though is that those mediums do not make PDFs redundent as PDFs do provide utility that those forms perhaps do not (or do not do as well).
Ideally WotC would produce Kindle, eBook and PDF versions, but I would suggest starting with PDFs first, mainly as they already had the books in that format, its a format many RPGers are used to, and WotC are maybe not the best company to blaze the trail for Kindle editions of their rulebooks given their past history of technology vapourware.
Ideally WotC would produce Kindle, eBook and PDF versions, but I would suggest starting with PDFs first, mainly as they already had the books in that format, its a format many RPGers are used to, and WotC are maybe not the best company to blaze the trail for Kindle editions of their rulebooks given their past history of technology vapourware.
The true beauty of digital content distribution is the ease of rolling out updates and the opportunity to always have an errata-inclusive draft to play with!
PDF's work great on the NOOK and NOOK colour ereaders.
And iPads!
"Q: Any plans for digital distribution of physical books? A: We’re looking at it, but nothing to announce yet. They know this was problematic."
"Q: Digital distribution – opening the vault for novels, what about older editions of the RPG? A: Can’t give specifics (don’t want to say anything until they’re ready to go)… it’s like a band when you like the first 3 albums and when the 4th comes out they destroy the old ones. Not great. They do use the older editions as sources and inspiration for the current edition."
"Q: Can’t buy Mordenkainen’s online? And with PDFs, it’s not that I can’t afford to pay full price, but it’s irking that they charge it. A: Have to keep stores happy – it’s where they get new players. It’s an awkward balance. What about full price for novels? If they want a book store to charge full price for the physical, how can they sell for 2 bucks? They have to keep authors happy (royalties). Also, there’s some pride – you don’t want to tell creators that their work isn’t worth much money. It’s the broad publishing problem. Mearls buys PDFs from RPG Now, too; not gonna pay $50 for a PDF. They’re really grappling with this. Authors are often nervous about changing their contracts."