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Skeld
(Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Roleplaying Game, Campaign Setting, Companion, Modules, Battles Case Subscriber)
So, let me get this straight: if you bought legacy PDFs from say 1e/2e with the understanding that the digital product would be available for you to download in perpetuity, you're screwed. Is that more or less the story here? And without recompense?
Sorry to vent, but this has to be the most boneheaded, knee-jerk, over-reaction I've seen in a while. I can see killing off the 4e PDFs. I can even see ditching 3e PDFs since there are still books in the stores. But 1e/2e? Those haven't been available on the open market in years.
I guess at the end of the day, or at midnight PDT, you just have to laugh at how foolish this is.
-Skeld
Hugo Solis
(Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Adventure Path, Campaign Setting, Companion, Modules Subscriber)
Add my vote to the "WotC is Lame" column. This is just poor customer service (yes, we're still their customers even though we bought through Paizo) and doesn't do anything at all to make me reconsider my decision not to participate in that company's own electronic product offerings. I didn't really have a lot of faith in them anyway...now I have absolutely none.
This is pretty poorly considered, no matter what the reasoning.
M
I'm surprised that WOTC a) is able to stop stores from allowing already purchased PDFs from being downloaded, and b) that they're actually doing so. This seems certain to stop anyone from ever buying a WOTC pdf in any format that they're available ever again, for fear that they'll pull the rug out from under customers again.
Joel's got the right of it. I'm not a 4e guy, but I still picked up a lot of old edition stuff in PDF (hey, get the Rules Cyclopedia while you can. It rocks). Now, my last reason for interaction with WotC is gone. If their PDFs do go back online, I wouldn't trust them not to do it again with the whole no-notice thing. They don't have my custom, and they don't have my trust.
Joel's got the right of it. I'm not a 4e guy, but I still picked up a lot of old edition stuff in PDF (hey, get the Rules Cyclopedia while you can. It rocks). Now, my last reason for interaction with WotC is gone. If their PDFs do go back online, I wouldn't trust them not to do it again with the whole no-notice thing. They don't have my custom, and they don't have my trust.
I agree wholeheartedly, ZacharyTheFirst (by the way is that King Zachary? Duke Zachary? Emperor Zachary? Inquiring minds, you know...). I am now through with Wizards of the Coast. I shake their dust from my feet, wash my hands of them, and deny them water and fire. As far as I'm concerned they could just as well have hired back Lorraine Williams secretly. My money will no longer go to WotC, instead, it's going to Paizo (can't really use the Pathfinder system as I'm long since disenchanted with feats and skills, but I love the writing and imagination), to Troll Lord Games (home of my FRPG of choice, Castles and Crusades), to Pied Piper Publishing (Rob Kuntz's company) and to anyone else I choose -- just not WotC.
I believe this means that there is no longer any way that anybody can buy any Greyhawk material, or pre-cataclysm Realms material, except through second-hand book stores and the legacy shelves of game stores.
In two days, if somebody new to the hobby wants to find out what this "Greyhawk" stuff was, they really have no recourse.
I believe this means that there is no longer any way that anybody can buy any Greyhawk material, or pre-cataclysm Realms material, except through second-hand book stores and the legacy shelves of game stores.
In two days, if somebody new to the hobby wants to find out what this "Greyhawk" stuff was, they really have no recourse.
Maybe the older stuff was popular and they thought it was affecting the sales of the new stuff....
Those PDFs will remain since they are ours to sell under a different agreement.
Well, that is a kernel of good news in an otherwise disappointing development.
While I am here, I want to say thanks to Paizo for the e-mail regarding this issue. I would not have know if not for the e-mail from the Paizo customer service team. So, thanks for the timely note, you guys are great. I shall be busy "stocking up" this evening at the Paizo store.
Happy gaming,
Don Brown (Greyson)
Stansbury Park, Utah
Do they're doing this because people are snarfing their pdfs via torrents and ed2k?
Let's see, if they cut off channels through which people can get their pdfs, what will people do?
Hmmmmmmmm.
And for that matter, the thingies that are really trading on bittorrent are their current rulebooks and magazines. So maybe they should cancel everything....!!! Right?
Really, first they go INTO the pdf business, then they do something like this? It reminds me of my grandfather's driving when he was 88.
Several years after the recording and movie industries finally realized that the war against file sharing is futile, WotC suddenly discovers the existence of Torrents/eMule, likely as part of their Digitial Initiative (tm).
As part of leveraging their core competencies, WotC goes with the "late 90s" method of fighting against "piracy", namely "panic, pull PDFs from teh interwebs, fill lawsuits".
The lawsuit in Poland is going to be a fun - courts here usually don't even bother unless the person in question made a living from selling "pirated" works. Ah, the joys of the statutory legal system :)
Ha! I thought the same. I feel as if this is one of those situations that went something like this:
WotC Peon 1: "Sir, the 3rd quarter sale reports are in for March. You... uh... might want to look at this..."
WotC Lord: "What?! Why are these sales so low!"
WotC Sane Peon 2: "Uh... maybe it.. uh... has to do with the global economic crisis? Maybe the rise of MMOs and console gaming? Maybe because we are posturing to compete with them? Because we've driven 3rd party companies away? Because we have tenuous 'online suppot'?"
WotC Lord: "FOOL! That is all nonsense!"
WotC Peon 1:"Uh... perhaps... perhaps... the internet is responsible? I... I mean, internet piracy. I read somewhere... uh... sometime... uh in the 90's... where it's becoming a problem."
WotC Lord: "Let me see here... pirate ba--ok. Number one--ok. 4000 seeds! Who knows how many sales were lost to this! Quickly, terminate the sales of every one of our products in pdf form, that should easily solve our low sales!"
Do they're doing this because people are snarfing their pdfs via torrents and ed2k?
Let's see, if they cut off channels through which people can get their pdfs, what will people do?
Hmmmmmmmm.
And for that matter, the thingies that are really trading on bittorrent are their current rulebooks and magazines. So maybe they should cancel everything....!!! Right?
Really, first they go INTO the pdf business, then they do something like this? It reminds me of my grandfather's driving when he was 88.
Exactly, and while doing all that, they should of course completely ignore the comparable experience of the music industry, which is only now beginning to realize that draconian anti-piracy measures like this are completely worthless.
Wonderful.
Reminds me of the Securom debacle Electronic Arts kept dragging out. Crap like this does NOTHING to stop piracy. It ONLY punishes legit, paying customers.
Just had to rush to buy up the last of the Planescape supplements I don't have. I just hope I can make it home in time to download them all tomorrow, and that Paizo's servers can hold out against the storm(God bless you guys keeping those babies running).
I really enjoyed being able to take my time and pick up old D&D material that I had no way of getting back in the day. Old Ravenloft and Dark Sun stuff. And fringe stuff that I never did get to check out. Birthright. Hell, Jakandor. It was great, and actually affordable.
For all the guys that find out too late and are unable to get your stuff before it's gone, remember, don't blame Paizo/RPGNow/DriveThruRPG/whatever. They're not the ones that pulled the trigger.
Man I'm raging so hard right now.
Lifted from Enworld written by WotC_Trevor
Hey all. I wanted to step in and add shine a mote of light on the subject. First off, this cesation of PDF sales has absolutely nothing to do with the Internet Sales Policy. I know it's the 6th of April and I can definitely see how the two would appear linked, but the truth is, this is a completely seperate matter.
Unfortunately, the truth is that due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you.
Well, hell, it worked so well for prohibition, how can it possibly not work with PDF's?
*sigh*
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Lifted from Enworld written by WotC_Trevor
Hey all. I wanted to step in and add shine a mote of light on the subject. First off, this cesation of PDF sales has absolutely nothing to do with the Internet Sales Policy. I know it's the 6th of April and I can definitely see how the two would appear linked, but the truth is, this is a completely seperate matter.
Unfortunately, the truth is that due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you.
Well, hell, it worked so well for prohibition, how can it possibly not work with PDF's?
*sigh*
^_^
Paul L. Ming
I like how they say "due to recent findings"....
Man, where have they been the last ten years?
Nuts!
I'm in Australia and we live in the future, so I didn't get the notification until too late. I can only hope there'll be some option emerging in the near future where they will make the PDFs available again. I've been saving for the Planescape and Dark Sun PDFs.
If there's not, surely that's only going to drive legitimate customers towards illegal sources?
No ill will to Paizo at all, but the nerd-rage is pretty compelling towards Wizards.
As they say on the WOW forums... 'It's a slap in the face!'.
Add: To bring Amazon back into it, if I was a 4e customer, would this move really force me into my FLGS more often by getting me off pdfs through online stores and onto the paper copies? Probably not--I'd just do more business with Amazon, and I bet that would be true of a lot of customers.
It looks like their new Internet Sales Policy will shut out Amazon, won't it?
Wow...
Yet another ham-handed decision on the part of WotC (more probably Hasbro, IMO; this sounds too much like a "corporate HQ" bright idea). I wonder if this is just another way to try and sell their DI (Dungeon, Dragon, virtual tabletops, and now online access to classic TSR material)? My intuition tells me that this has more to do with poor subscriber numbers for the DI than loss of 4e sales...
Luckily for me, I already have pretty much everything I want of the old TSR/WotC stuff in either hardcopy or PDF (mostly hardcopy), since it's now too late to buy any more PDFs.