They're offering the 4e books as PDFs for download! What a concept! I have a feeling they deliberately waited until after the print launch to do this. Thank you Paizo for not cheeseying (sp?) out like this.
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Yeah, that's pretty nifty for 4e fans. The thing that strikes me as odd was WotC telling us all in a room at GenCon 2007 that if you buy the books, each would come with a personalized code you could enter on their site and access the electronic book for free. On the other hand, I was in mental anguish during that con and may have misheard that. :-)
-DM Jeff
Well I already have my PDFs of 4e a month now :D I do not need to tell you how. A good thing so I could see that buying the books was not worth it. And if I did buy the books I would not buy the PDFs. Those should come free as an addition to the books.
But Paizo they let me download PDF from their site for free and since it is great and they are friendly I will buy their finished paper product in 2009. Maybe even this Beta one if it really impresses me.
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Yeah, that's pretty nifty for 4e fans. The thing that strikes me as odd was WotC telling us all in a room at GenCon 2007 that if you buy the books, each would come with a personalized code you could enter on their site and access the electronic book for free. On the other hand, I was in mental anguish during that con and may have misheard that. :-)
-DM Jeff
Yeppers I remember that as well. Funny how that didn't pan out.
I remeber watching a youtube vid of the 4e presentation where it was said that buying the books would give free access to dndinsider. That was cancled as well ... at least there're handing out Dungeon Mag and Dragon Mag for free until their dndinsider website goes up ...
I could be wrong, "official licensee" kind of sounds like there is no "electronic version for a nominal fee" every in the cards at this point.
Well I already have my PDFs of 4e a month now :D I do not need to tell you how. A good thing so I could see that buying the books was not worth it. And if I did buy the books I would not buy the PDFs. Those should come free as an addition to the books.
Yeah, that preview release PDF a week before release saved me $70. It took 20 minutes reading that and I knew it wasn't for me. Of course I would probably have read it in B&N and come to the same conclusion in any case.
But Paizo they let me download PDF from their site for free and since it is great and they are friendly I will buy their finished paper product in 2009. Maybe even this Beta one if it really impresses me.
Incidentally Wizards is copying them on that too, they released a "Open Playtest" version of the 4e Artificer in Dungeon Magazine.
Yeah, that's pretty nifty for 4e fans. The thing that strikes me as odd was WotC telling us all in a room at GenCon 2007 that if you buy the books, each would come with a personalized code you could enter on their site and access the electronic book for free. On the other hand, I was in mental anguish during that con and may have misheard that. :-)
Well I didn't go to gencon but early on I heard that you would have online access to the rules using a code from the book and that the cost of the online access would be comparable in price "to a cup of coffee".
Personally, having access to the rules online similar to d20srd was more useful to me than a PDF so I was happy with that. Regardless, of what it was, one more broken promise.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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F%!#ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books. Get a clue WotC - do what Paizo does and either give me a subscription option where I get a free pdf or sell it to me at a nominal charge. I'm still going to acquire a pdf of the books that I have hard copies of, it's just that you're not going to receive any cash if you don't price it at a reasonable level.
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f@*%ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books. Get a clue WotC - do what Paizo does and either give me a subscription option where I get a free pdf or sell it to me at a nominal charge. I'm still going to acquire a pdf of the books that I have hard copies of, it's just that you're not going to receive any cash if you don't price it at a reasonable level.
What you don't think $20 is fair for an electronic document that you have to pay for the paper and ink if you want it printed? It's not fair for a product that uses almost no additional resources and has almost no distrinution costs? You don't think $20 is fair?
Me either!
:)
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f~@!ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books. Get a clue WotC - do what Paizo does and either give me a subscription option where I get a free pdf or sell it to me at a nominal charge. I'm still going to acquire a pdf of the books that I have hard copies of, it's just that you're not going to receive any cash if you don't price it at a reasonable level.
But you could get all three core books for the low, low price of $75! Who can say no to such a tantalizing offer? It's $5 cheaper than the book? How can you deny such a steal!
Alright, I'm done. Sorry everyone.
I do wonder how these PDFs sell, though. It seems to me that if anyone is going to get the rules, they'll get the books, and if you've already shelled out $100 for the books, you're not going to be wanting to pay $75 for the PDFs. I wonder how long it'll take for more companies to realize that the small amount of profit generated by selling the PDFs is not worth as much as the goodwill engendered by giving them away (as Paizo), or at least selling them for a minimal charge ($1-$2 as originally intended, IIRC).
f@*%ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books.
QFT. Though, personally I am happy that Wizards published 4e as PDF at all. Maybe they figured that since it was already in the wild there was nothing to lose. Wizard's isn't the only one guilty of this though, stupid amazon eBooks are more expensive than paperbacks and that's after you spend $300 on their reader. One of these days publishers will catch the hint.
Incidentally you can still get the 3 core books from Amazon for $66 shipped free. I guess it's cheaper to print a book and Fed-Ex it than to push 180GB of data over the internet. Crazy.
I have yet to see what the PDF pricing will be on the Pathfinder RPG hardcover. For that matter the campaign setting is up and no PDF pricing for it either.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?
Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?
Some time ago they figured out that they would be unable to figure out technically how to give people access to only the rules they own so they gave up and said online rules access would be DDi ($15/ month) only but would be the full ruleset (all books).
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Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?Some time ago they figured out that they would be unable to figure out technically how to give people access to only the rules they own so they gave up and said online rules access would be DDi ($15/ month) only but would be the full ruleset (all books).
Yes but why aren't they sharing?
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They're offering the 4e books as PDFs for download! What a concept! I have a feeling they deliberately waited until after the print launch to do this. Thank you Paizo for not cheeseying (sp?) out like this. Press release here
Umm.. I hate to break it to you but.. you do know they did this with the 3e books too?
f~%~ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books. Get a clue WotC - do what Paizo does and either give me a subscription option where I get a free pdf or sell it to me at a nominal charge. I'm still going to acquire a pdf of the books that I have hard copies of, it's just that you're not going to receive any cash if you don't price it at a reasonable level.
They used the same pricing scheme for the PDFs of their 3e books. It shouldn't be a surprise there isn't a significant markdown.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Yes but why aren't they sharing?Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?Some time ago they figured out that they would be unable to figure out technically how to give people access to only the rules they own so they gave up and said online rules access would be DDi ($15/ month) only but would be the full ruleset (all books).
Because the terms of the GSL are not open enough to allow them to share?
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Because the terms of the GSL are not open enough to allow them to share?Yes but why aren't they sharing?Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?Some time ago they figured out that they would be unable to figure out technically how to give people access to only the rules they own so they gave up and said online rules access would be DDi ($15/ month) only but would be the full ruleset (all books).
So they can't share their IP or what they are smoking?
Yes but why aren't they sharing?Has WotC ever followed up on the digital copy of the rules claim they made in the early days of the 4e buildup? I know that one would supposedly have access to any book they purchased while logged in to the DDI, but I have heard little else about it since the announcement last year at GenCon. Is this their version of that, and if so, what are they smoking, and why aren't they sharing?Some time ago they figured out that they would be unable to figure out technically how to give people access to only the rules they own so they gave up and said online rules access would be DDi ($15/ month) only but would be the full ruleset (all books).
You mean why aren't they sharing hits from the bong they are taking turns at? The whole concept of full priced PDFs and $15/ month for online rules access is so crazy it demonstrates that they are either taking hits from some of Columbia's finest or that they just have no clue about how to market products in the digital era.
Online rules for $25/ lifetime would be worth it. $10 a year I would probably pay. What they don't seem to understand is that online rules don't replace the books they supplement them. Having freely available online rules makes people more likely to buy your product not less.
Unfortunately, WotC is merely following a lot of other folks in the industry on this one. For some reason, a lot of companies, including Amazon.com, insist on charging full price or close to full price on ebooks, even though the actual cost of publishing no longer includes paper, binding, or even shipping.
(And yet somehow I managed to slip my fantasy novel onto Kindle for only a dollar...but that's an aberration, unfortunately.</shameless plug>)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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f~%~ing ridiculous. Pdfs are not books, they should not be priced like books. Get a clue WotC - do what Paizo does and either give me a subscription option where I get a free pdf or sell it to me at a nominal charge. I'm still going to acquire a pdf of the books that I have hard copies of, it's just that you're not going to receive any cash if you don't price it at a reasonable level.They used the same pricing scheme for the PDFs of their 3e books. It shouldn't be a surprise there isn't a significant markdown.
Yeah, but it was f$%~ing ridiculous then too. I guess it's not surprising that they would continue doing it, but it is damn annoying.
They're offering the 4e books as PDFs for download! What a concept! I have a feeling they deliberately waited until after the print launch to do this. Thank you Paizo for not cheeseying (sp?) out like this. Press release hereUmm.. I hate to break it to you but.. you do know they did this with the 3e books too?
Well, as far as I know, when 3E launched, PDF publishing online for profit was still slightly new. I feel like they cheesed out because they didn't offer the PDFs on launch day along with the print versions.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Well, as far as I know, when 3E launched, PDF publishing online for profit was still slightly new. I feel like they cheesed out because they didn't offer the PDFs on launch day along with the print versions.
Had to make sure that first run of books sold out. What better way to guarantee that than to provide no alternatives?
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Wizards did initially plan to include codes that could be entered in DDI for access to the books. However, that plan was infeasible as there was no way to protect the codes from "casual pirating" (i.e. walking into the store and getting the codes from the books, either screwing with the potential real customer whose code would no longer function or the storeowner).
It is not as easy for WotC to offer PDF subscription services to their customers as it is for Paizo because WotC doesn't have a direct sales channel to support it, and due to their nature as a publisher it is unlikely that they would create one.
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Wizards did initially plan to include codes that could be entered in DDI for access to the books. However, that plan was infeasible as there was no way to protect the codes from "casual pirating" (i.e. walking into the store and getting the codes from the books, either screwing with the potential real customer whose code would no longer function or the storeowner).
It is not as easy for WotC to offer PDF subscription services to their customers as it is for Paizo because WotC doesn't have a direct sales channel to support it, and due to their nature as a publisher it is unlikely that they would create one.
That makes sense, but nothing in there stops WotC from selling the PDFs at $5-10 apiece. Charging more for the PDFs than it costs to buy them off of a site like Amazon is kind of ridiculous.
Wizards did initially plan to include codes that could be entered in DDI for access to the books. However, that plan was infeasible as there was no way to protect the codes from "casual pirating" (i.e. walking into the store and getting the codes from the books, either screwing with the potential real customer whose code would no longer function or the storeowner).
This is indeed a challenge, but they should have come up with a plan then announced the concept rather than announcing it then later realizing they had no clue how to make it work. I don't see this as being that tough though, it's no different from keeping software serial numbers from leaking. Of course it's easy to armchair QB also ;)
It is not as easy for WotC to offer PDF subscription services to their customers as it is for Paizo because WotC doesn't have a direct sales channel to support it, and due to their nature as a publisher it is unlikely that they would create one.
Umm, did you miss the fact that Paizo is also a publisher? It's just that Paizo is a modern publisher that recognizes the value of the internet. Wizards is stuck in the old school mode of thinking the internet is a marketing tool which is otherwise a nuisance that enables piracy. I must admit they are coming around but this proves they are still way behind the curve.
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That makes sense, but nothing in there stops WotC from selling the PDFs at $5-10 apiece. Charging more for the PDFs than it costs to buy them off of a site like Amazon is kind of ridiculous.
I'm sure there is some sort of pricing model that is slowly being settled upon by real publishers for PDF's (as opposed to small press/PDF only publishers). To be honest, WotC's price point for the PDF's is nearly identical to Paizo's (about 66% suggested print price) and Paizo has the same problems with their PDF's being more than the price for the print products from Amazon (for example, Guide to Korvosa is available for $12.43 on Amazon, $12.99 for the PDF from Paizo).
The ultra-low PDF pricing of small press/PDF-only publishers works great for them...they largely control their distribution and don't have anyone to answer to except their customers. However, full blown publishers (whether WotC, Paizo, or more mainstream publishers like Del Rey, Random House, etc) cannot price their PDF's too low or they will alienate their distributors and retail partners.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I'm sure there is some sort of pricing model that is slowly being settled upon by real publishers for PDF's (as opposed to small press/PDF only publishers). To be honest, WotC's price point for the PDF's is nearly identical to Paizo's (about 66% suggested print price) and Paizo has the same problems with their PDF's being more than the price for the print products from Amazon (for example, Guide to Korvosa is available for $12.43 on Amazon, $12.99 for the PDF from Paizo).
True, but Paizo provides free pdfs for subscribers. All I ask is for the option to acquire a cheap pdf if I buy the hard copy. I don't mind if the pdfs in general are not sold at a nominal fee, but if I buy a hard copy, I expect a pdf at a nominal price.
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It is not as easy for WotC to offer PDF subscription services to their customers as it is for Paizo because WotC doesn't have a direct sales channel to support it, and due to their nature as a publisher it is unlikely that they would create one.Umm, did you miss the fact that Paizo is also a publisher? It's just that Paizo is a modern publisher that recognizes the value of the internet. Wizards is stuck in the old school mode of thinking the internet is a marketing tool which is otherwise a nuisance that enables piracy. I must admit they are coming around but this proves they are still way behind the curve.
Paizo is certainly a publisher. Rather I meant that WotC (via Hasbro) is an older publisher that has a collection of relationships to distributors and retail partners that would be threatened if Wizards chose a direct sales route to customers. Paizo on the other hand is a newer company and was able to build up its relationships with the old-school distribution chain alongside its direct sales marketplace.
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I'm sure there is some sort of pricing model that is slowly being settled upon by real publishers for PDF's (as opposed to small press/PDF only publishers). To be honest, WotC's price point for the PDF's is nearly identical to Paizo's (about 66% suggested print price) and Paizo has the same problems with their PDF's being more than the price for the print products from Amazon (for example, Guide to Korvosa is available for $12.43 on Amazon, $12.99 for the PDF from Paizo).
The ultra-low PDF pricing of small press/PDF-only publishers works great for them...they largely control their distribution and don't have anyone to answer to except their customers. However, full blown publishers (whether WotC, Paizo, or more mainstream publishers like Del Rey, Random House, etc) cannot price their PDF's too low or they will alienate their distributors and retail partners.
OK, I see where you're coming from with this, but Paizo has the advantage that their PDFs are free to subscribers. I would never buy a PDF from Paizo if I weren't a subscriber (the only time I've ever done it was to see the quality I could expect from their adventures; I bought the PDF for Crown of the Kobold King and then immediately subscribed).
The point still remains that WotC should have found some way of providing PDFs to their customers for less than the price that they are offering now. Perhaps to DDI subscribers, they could offer a cheaper version of the PDFs.
It's true what you say about the industry, however. PDF prices are pretty high across the board, which is a major problem. Here's hoping they eventually settle at a lower price point, because I don't think a digital version of a text is useful enough to engender this kind of price.
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True, but Paizo provides free pdfs for subscribers. All I ask is for the option to acquire a cheap pdf if I buy the hard copy. I don't mind if the pdfs in general are not sold at a nominal fee, but if I buy a hard copy, I expect a pdf at a nominal price.
Oh, I hear ya and I'm thankful for the fantastic benefit Paizo provides for their subscribers. I'm just not sure how Wizards can provide that same benefit to their customers without direct access to a means of distribution.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Oh, I hear ya and I'm thankful for the fantastic benefit Paizo provides for their subscribers. I'm just not sure how Wizards can provide that same benefit to their customers without direct access to a means of distribution.True, but Paizo provides free pdfs for subscribers. All I ask is for the option to acquire a cheap pdf if I buy the hard copy. I don't mind if the pdfs in general are not sold at a nominal fee, but if I buy a hard copy, I expect a pdf at a nominal price.
You make a good and logical point.
Oh, I hear ya and I'm thankful for the fantastic benefit Paizo provides for their subscribers. I'm just not sure how Wizards can provide that same benefit to their customers without direct access to a means of distribution.
You make some good points. I think much of this speaks to an industry that is going to need to re-engineer than it does one specific company. The crazy pricing on eBooks, PDFs, and digital audio books needs some serious rethinking. How this will reconcile with paper publishing and distribution is a big problem.
So they won't be available at Paizo, like past TSR/WotC products are available?
Why, pray tell, not? <snicker>
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I have yet to see what the PDF pricing will be on the Pathfinder RPG hardcover. For that matter the campaign setting is up and no PDF pricing for it either.
I don't believe there is pricing for the PDF versions because Paizo usually gives any PDF action to the hardcopy buyers for free. I haven't seen large books by them available in PDF that you could buy separately from the hard copy.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I have yet to see what the PDF pricing will be on the Pathfinder RPG hardcover. For that matter the campaign setting is up and no PDF pricing for it either.
Generally, we price our PDFs at 30% off the MSRP of the print edition (with some rounding applied).
(And you don't see PDF pricing for PDFs that aren't yet available, because you can't preorder a PDF.)
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Chief Technical Officer
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...Paizo usually gives any PDF action to the hardcopy buyers for free. I haven't seen large books by them available in PDF that you could buy separately from the hard copy.
Subscribers get free PDFs of the products they receive as subscribers; they're available for separate purchase for anyone else. As for the "large books" thing, I guess that's true for the moment, but only because all of our "large books" thus far have been licensed D&D products, for which we didn't have the license to create PDFs. But there will indeed be PDFs of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting and the Pathfinder RPG, and any similar products in the future.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Wizards did initially plan to include codes that could be entered in DDI for access to the books. However, that plan was infeasible as there was no way to protect the codes from "casual pirating" (i.e. walking into the store and getting the codes from the books, either screwing with the potential real customer whose code would no longer function or the storeowner).This is indeed a challenge, but they should have come up with a plan then announced the concept rather than announcing it then later realizing they had no clue how to make it work. I don't see this as being that tough though, it's no different from keeping software serial numbers from leaking. Of course it's easy to armchair QB also ;)
Gary and I explored the notion for our own products long before Wizards talked about it at Gen Con last year, but we came to the conclusion that there's no way to do it that provided sufficient protection for us, for our customers, and for our retailers, at reasonable cost, and with no negative side-effects. We really wanted to believe that Wizards had actually cracked that nut, but we weren't holding our breaths.
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Subscribers get free PDFs of the products they receive as subscribers; they're available for separate purchase for anyone else. As for the "large books" thing, I guess that's true for the moment, but only because all of our "large books" thus far have been licensed D&D products, for which we didn't have the license to create PDFs. But there will indeed be PDFs of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting and the Pathfinder RPG, and any similar products in the future....Paizo usually gives any PDF action to the hardcopy buyers for free. I haven't seen large books by them available in PDF that you could buy separately from the hard copy.
Will the PDFs be a separate purchase from the hardcover for subscribers? In other will I have to pay twice for the same thing in a different medium? If so how much will the PDF cost? Is there a rate reduction for Hardcover buyers? How big is a hummingbird egg? Why aren't we extracting DNA and creating clones of the extinct Moa bird to help feed the world?
Subscribers get free PDFs of the products they receive as subscribers; they're available for separate purchase for anyone else. As for the "large books" thing, I guess that's true for the moment, but only because all of our "large books" thus far have been licensed D&D products, for which we didn't have the license to create PDFs. But there will indeed be PDFs of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting and the Pathfinder RPG, and any similar products in the future.
So I guess the question is are the large books available as part of a subscription where you get the PDFs included? Somehow this seems unlikely but if so which subscription because I'll definitely sign up for that one.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Will the PDFs be a separate purchase from the hardcover for subscribers?
No... subscribers get free PDFs of the products they receive as subscribers.
The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting is part of the Pathfinder Chronicles subscription, so Pathfinder Chronicles subscribers will get a free PDF of that book when their subscriber copy ships.
The Pathfinder RPG is not part of any subscription, but there will be a group of people that get the PDF for free (and I'd tell you who it is, but I totally forgot what we decided on that right now...)
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The Pathfinder RPG is not part of any subscription, but there will be a group of people that get the PDF for free (and I'd tell you who it is, but I totally forgot what we decided on that right now...)
But I'm one of the ones, ain't I? Come on. You can tell me. I know I'm special.....
And hey! Stop dodging the hard questions! I am waiting on Moa DNA extraction until I hear an answer!!!
The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting is part of the Pathfinder Chronicles subscription, so Pathfinder Chronicles subscribers will get a free PDF of that book when their subscriber copy ships.
OOOoo. Now I have 2 subscriptions starting at the end of the month... Here I was so against DDi because I didn't want to drop $15 a month on it and now I'm paying $18-50+/ month to Paizo. Ahh well at least I will have the comfort of owning a physical copy of the stuff and use of the PDFs if I ever decide to cancel the subscriptions.
Wizards did initially plan to include codes that could be entered in DDI for access to the books. However, that plan was infeasible as there was no way to protect the codes from "casual pirating" (i.e. walking into the store and getting the codes from the books, either screwing with the potential real customer whose code would no longer function or the storeowner).
That makes sense, but nothing in there stops WotC from selling the PDFs at $5-10 apiece. Charging more for the PDFs than it costs to buy them off of a site like Amazon is kind of ridiculous.
The code idea was cheesy. Pretty easy to include a CD with a PDF copy of the book in the back and anything else they wanted to push.
Regarding the last simple greed (Maximize profits without printing costs) seems to prohibit charging $5-10 a pdf until the stuff is really old. Probably some truth regarding the major distributors like Amazon requiring the pdf to be priced higher than the hard copy Paizo and Wotc PDFs are almost always priced higher than the Amazon hard copy.
The code idea was cheesy. Pretty easy to include a CD with a PDF copy of the book in the back and anything else they wanted to push.
A CD in the back of the book is worse from the POV of the publisher because people can easily copy/ pirate the PDF file on the disk anonymously. If you have people purchase and download a PDF then you can stamp their name on the PDF and track who copied it.
Overall about the only way is a sealed serial number but even that is expensive attaching a sealed card to each book. People could steal the codes but it would be obvious to the buyer.