WotC halts PDF sales


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Seldriss wrote:
Welcome to the maquis.

And us Chetniks, C&C players salute you, our brothers in arms! :)

Dark Archive

Gorbacz wrote:
Ah, Titanium Dragon. I really think that one day he will drive over to Paizo offices with a shotgun. I hope SKR has his crossbow handy at all times, you guys gonna need it someday ;)

Frankly, I can't believe he's still around; I can only assume he's a WotC employee in disguise or something.

He's one of the primary reasons I stopped posting there - at the time he was a card carrying member of the "4E Crusaders" - a fan forum group dedicated and created for the sole purpose of patrolling the WotC forums and flaming and bashing people who had concerns about 4E.

I lost all respect for WotC when they at least peripherally condoned the behaviour by not banning 90% of the members of that group for everything from racial slurs to libel.

I had many, many arguments with that immature brat.


Hey Paizo folks. Can someone tell me when Paizo got notice by WotC of the PDFs being pulled? Some joker over on the Gencon forms is saying that "for all we know Paizo may have dropped the ball and know about "this" for a month". I'm pretty confident Paizo just found out yesterday.

I'd like to shut him up!


David Schneider wrote:

Hey Paizo folks. Can someone tell me when Paizo got notice by WotC of the PDFs being pulled? Some joker over on the Gencon forms is saying that "for all we know Paizo may have dropped the ball and know about "this" for a month". I'm pretty confident Paizo just found out yesterday.

I'd like to shut him up!

The truth never shuts up a troll. They have immunity to reason and common sense.

Dark Archive

David Schneider wrote:

Hey Paizo folks. Can someone tell me when Paizo got notice by WotC of the PDFs being pulled? Some joker over on the Gencon forms is saying that "for all we know Paizo may have dropped the ball and know about "this" for a month". I'm pretty confident Paizo just found out yesterday.

I'd like to shut him up!

From the tone of Vic's posts at the beginning of this thread, it sounds like we, as fans, were being given information as close to real-time as possible.

I'm guessing they found out about it the same time everyone else did, which was hours before the deadline.


Pat Payne wrote:
Eric Hinkle wrote:


Another rumor I erad is that Wotsy means to stop any and all sale of their books through online stores. No more D&D on Amazon, Noble Knight, etc. Can anyone verify this rumor? It sounds nuts to me, even for Wotsy.

There is NO way they can legally do that. They do not own those physical books anymore. If they do that, they might as well order EVERYONE to turn in their older-edition books (and Charleton Heston's already voiced my opinion on that ;)) The only reason they could pull such a takedown order is if they found one of the books to be legally actionable, and even then, it would most likely be the stores themselves taking it down to avoid prosecution or a legal action (in much the same way that the infamous Vanessa Williams-loses-her-Miss-America-Crown-Centerfold issue of Penthouse from IIRC '84 is forbidden to be sold in the US, because of a 15-year-old Traci Lords doing a pictorial).

Even WotC would not be that stupid.

If you are talking about used titles, you would be correct. But the current situation appears to be about their new releases, which they can most certainly restrict simply by limiting their distribution channels. Would it be smart to do so? Obviously as we have seen from this latest incident "smart" does not generally come into the equation in regard to their decision making.


Titanium Dragon's slander against Paizo is vehement and ridiculous, but he does seem to make one good point:

I have not actually bought any PDF's from Paizo, so I don't know for sure and this is mostly an academic discussion for me, but it has been implied that Paizo promised redownload opportunities in perpetuity even though it's contract with WotC did not permit it to do so. Of course, it is entirely feasible that Paizo had some sort of 'at our discretion' clause in there, so perhaps it is not to blame for misinformation - I don't know - as I said, I have not yet purchased any PDFs from Paizo.

Regardless, even if there is no such clause, WotC has bean at the very least complicit in disinformation by not asking Paizo and RPGNow to qualify the 'in perpetuitiy' downloads statement. And, of course, WotC is fully responsible for the moronic decision to pull the PDFs...

Silver Crusade

DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Proposed addition to Press Release wrote:

Gotta say, that would have had me reacting differently at the very least.

Gamers in whatever alternate universes that happened in are pretty lucky.

Jon Brazer Enterprises

Gary, the Post Monster General, said he had 1 hour's notice. One Hour.

Scarab Sages

Don't know how many saw this but WotC finally made a PR stament, to a reporter.

I think the following quote to be the most interesting to me,

Wizards of the Coast PR Manager Tolena Thorburn wrote:
"We didn't do this lightly, and we understand our fans enjoy that format. Most of the fans who have legally purchased PDFs are also customers who have the physical product. Until we have another digital solution, I think our fans at least are not being deprived of the product, and I think that's really important, that they have the product that they know and love."

Liberty's Edge

DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Gary, the Post Monster General, said he had 1 hour's notice. One Hour.

Jeez, when did he get the notice? I hope it wasn't over lunch or in the middle of the night.

You know what is ironic to me... It seems that most of the pirated books are 4e material. That means that 4e'rs were killing their own game. Oh the irony...


Pat Payne wrote:

There is NO way they can legally do that. They do not own those physical books anymore. If they do that, they might as well order EVERYONE to turn in their older-edition books (and Charleton Heston's already voiced my opinion on that ;)) The only reason they could pull such a takedown order is if they found one of the books to be legally actionable, and even then, it would most likely be the stores themselves taking it down to avoid prosecution or a legal action (in much the same way that the infamous Vanessa Williams-loses-her-Miss-America-Crown-Centerfold issue of Penthouse from IIRC '84 is forbidden to be sold in the US, because of a 15-year-old Traci Lords doing a pictorial).

Even WotC would not be that stupid.

Not quite. It's possible that the big operations like WotC have different terms, but Amazon usually works on a commission model - you send them your stock, they store it and ship to to customers, and send the money to you after deducting their (substantial) percentage. However, you retain ownership until a product is actually sold, and I'm pretty sure that you can ask for it to be returned at any time.

That being said, I'm sure cutting out Amazon would be pure suicide for WotC, so it's all a bit academic.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Wicht wrote:

I think the following quote to be the most interesting to me,

Wizards of the Coast PR Manager Tolena Thorburn wrote:
"We didn't do this lightly, and we understand our fans enjoy that format. Most of the fans who have legally purchased PDFs are also customers who have the physical product. Until we have another digital solution, I think our fans at least are not being deprived of the product, and I think that's really important, that they have the product that they know and love."

Yeah, as long as you're looking at the 4e faction of their customer base. I think people are most outraged over the unavailability of the older editions, which many people still played/read and in whom WotC has no interest.

Also, did everyone hear that WotC subversives took back an American freighter ship which had been held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia? Their plan is already working!!!


VagrantWhisper wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Ah, Titanium Dragon. I really think that one day he will drive over to Paizo offices with a shotgun. I hope SKR has his crossbow handy at all times, you guys gonna need it someday ;)

Frankly, I can't believe he's still around; I can only assume he's a WotC employee in disguise or something.

He's one of the primary reasons I stopped posting there - at the time he was a card carrying member of the "4E Crusaders" - a fan forum group dedicated and created for the sole purpose of patrolling the WotC forums and flaming and bashing people who had concerns about 4E.

I lost all respect for WotC when they at least peripherally condoned the behaviour by not banning 90% of the members of that group for everything from racial slurs to libel.

I had many, many arguments with that immature brat.

It sounds like you are falling for trolls, just like I do (though less than before, I hope). Learn not to - your time is too valuable.

I'm amazed rascism is allowed to stand on wotc forums - few others put up with that (none that I know of).

Liberty's Edge

yoda8myhead wrote:


Also, did everyone hear that WotC subversives took back an American freighter ship which had been held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia? Their plan is already working!!!

I heard the pirates had already stolen all the electronic media onboard...

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Roman wrote:

Titanium Dragon's slander against Paizo is vehement and ridiculous, but he does seem to make one good point:

I have not actually bought any PDF's from Paizo, so I don't know for sure and this is mostly an academic discussion for me, but it has been implied that Paizo promised redownload opportunities in perpetuity even though it's contract with WotC did not permit it to do so. Of course, it is entirely feasible that Paizo had some sort of 'at our discretion' clause in there, so perhaps it is not to blame for misinformation - I don't know - as I said, I have not yet purchased any PDFs from Paizo.

Regardless, even if there is no such clause, WotC has bean at the very least complicit in disinformation by not asking Paizo and RPGNow to qualify the 'in perpetuitiy' downloads statement. And, of course, WotC is fully responsible for the moronic decision to pull the PDFs...

At DriveThruRPG, where I have been able to find the only affordable copies of Tome of Horrors Revised, Advanced Beastiary, Tome of Horrors II, etc. :), the purchase gave me five downloads. The presumption, I'm sure, being that if your drive fries, you can redownload, or if you suddenly need access to a book and are not at your home machine, you could download it elsewhere.

I never made purchases from RPGNow, so cannot speak for there.

At Paizo, it doesn't say a limit to number of downloads, nor does it say "forever" ...

However, everything I've ordered that has a PDF is in my downloads, and the only thing I have to do if I need to download another copy is to repersonalize it. I can see where some folks felt they had it "forever" even though this was never stated.

BUT, and this is the biggie to me, the fact that WotC ordered all three to cease and desist, with such short notice (and the fact that somewhere I read that they gave a 24 hour notice is pure cow puckey in my book) meant that folks that did not have a current copy, due to loss of disc, hard drive, or lack of time after a buying spree to get it all downloaded. In my mind, this is nothing less than theft by WotC, as a buyer was promised a certain number of downloads from DriveThruRPG with the purchase ... and they are unable to meet that obligation because of WotC's actions.

I am lucky in that I hadn't gotten into buying all my old books from 1st and 2nd editions, and wasn't looking at too many things for 3.x (and most of those were from other companies anyway), but the tightness of the deadline is ridiculous, and I truly hope that RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, and by extension if they succeed, Paizo, are able to get WotC to unbend and allow those that had purchased PDFs in good faith to get proper copies of their purchases.


Gamer Girrl wrote:
I never made purchases from RPGNow, so cannot speak for there.

It's the same.

Gamer Girrl wrote:
At DriveThruRPG, where I have been able to find the only affordable copies of Tome of Horrors Revised, Advanced Beastiary, Tome of Horrors II, etc. :), the purchase gave me five downloads. The presumption, I'm sure, being that if your drive fries, you can redownload, or if you suddenly need access to a book and are not at your home machine, you could download it elsewhere.

There is also the possibility of "lost in transit." ISP drops, power outage, etc.

Dark Archive

Gamer Girrl wrote:
I truly hope that RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, and by extension if they succeed, Paizo, are able to get WotC to unbend and allow those that had purchased PDFs in good faith to get proper copies of their purchases.

I very much hope so.. it sucks that i lost my oDnD & Greyhawk downloads.. never saved them to my flash drive, so they're gone forever


veector wrote:
David Fryer wrote:
Link please. I want to see the firestorm, but i don't have time to wade through all the boards to find it.

There's some pretty nasty anti-Paizo stuff about half-way down on this page. It continues in the next pages of the thread.

I can't remember which page I got the quote from.

EDIT: One of the most notorious posters is Titanium Dragon.

Wow. Weapons grade stupid.


DMcCoy1693 wrote:

Post by Charles Ryan on ENWorld (link):

Hi, all--

<snip>Here's something else I know for sure: Scott had to know there would be PR fallout for this approach (though I don't think anyone could have predicted the depth of vitriol).

As a regular participant over at ENWorld, I've seen lots of reasonable and good posts by Charles Ryan. But he doesn't think anyone could have predicted the depth of vitriol? Really? Because I'm not surprised at all, nor, I imagine, are most of the posters here. In fact, this is the kind of reaction, depth of vitriol included, I would have expected.

And if ENWorld weren't currently innundated with people posting about this very topic to the point where I can't connect, I'd tell him this in the same thread...


I remember clearly when Wizards first posted some old modules as free PDF downloads on their site: Ravenloft II and some other less notable source material. I thought it was a grand gesture, especially since they were recognizing that some older gamers might like to have/see that content, even if they're not playing it. Sort of a museum of the game kind of thing.

But if the intent was really to stop the piracy of 4E products. Why why why piss other people off for no reason? Even pulling the 3E stuff I could see as "we would rather support the most current version of the game and not encourage anything OGL anymore". That makes sense because in a way, they're competing with the OGL. But to remove all the 1E and 2E stuff? That's completely assinine.


Pat Payne wrote:
Lanx wrote:
The moderators already warned the crowd a few times that everyone should honor the CoC and be respectful, but why these three posters which are the epitome of unrespectfulness are not already banned is beyond me.
Because I wouldn't be surprised that the great majority of what they're saying is EXACTLY what WotC would like to say if they weren't afraid of being sued.

Sometimes I think that some of those guys are hired. But then I remember the near limitless potential of people to be stupid, and suddenly I'm not so sure any more.

Still, I doubt their most rabid fanboys have anything to fear. I guess they could insult you, your mother, and your sexual orientation, your nation, and whatever they want, and they'd get nothing more than a friendly warning.

bugleyman wrote:

Ah yes, Pathfinder. Though there are things I don't like about 3.5 that are still in the PF beta, I think I may have to overlook those in favor of supporting the continuation of OGL fantasy gaming.

Depending on what it is, you could houserule them, and discuss your houserules with others, and get a D&D that works very well for you. The giving wotc the finger by supporting the OGL is only icing.


Gamer Girrl wrote:
Roman wrote:

Titanium Dragon's slander against Paizo is vehement and ridiculous, but he does seem to make one good point:

I have not actually bought any PDF's from Paizo, so I don't know for sure and this is mostly an academic discussion for me, but it has been implied that Paizo promised redownload opportunities in perpetuity even though it's contract with WotC did not permit it to do so. Of course, it is entirely feasible that Paizo had some sort of 'at our discretion' clause in there, so perhaps it is not to blame for misinformation - I don't know - as I said, I have not yet purchased any PDFs from Paizo.

Regardless, even if there is no such clause, WotC has bean at the very least complicit in disinformation by not asking Paizo and RPGNow to qualify the 'in perpetuitiy' downloads statement. And, of course, WotC is fully responsible for the moronic decision to pull the PDFs...

At DriveThruRPG, where I have been able to find the only affordable copies of Tome of Horrors Revised, Advanced Beastiary, Tome of Horrors II, etc. :), the purchase gave me five downloads. The presumption, I'm sure, being that if your drive fries, you can redownload, or if you suddenly need access to a book and are not at your home machine, you could download it elsewhere.

I never made purchases from RPGNow, so cannot speak for there.

At Paizo, it doesn't say a limit to number of downloads, nor does it say "forever" ...

However, everything I've ordered that has a PDF is in my downloads, and the only thing I have to do if I need to download another copy is to repersonalize it. I can see where some folks felt they had it "forever" even though this was never stated.

Thank you for the clarification. Somebody needs to post this on WotC forums to debunk the lies of a few posters about this matter.

Silver Crusade

Well, EN World is down. Must have been too crowded at the moment. Can't imagine why.

Sovereign Court

Seldriss wrote:
Welcome to the maquis.

Which one? The French Resistance or the Star Trek rebels?

;-)


Callous Jack wrote:
Seldriss wrote:
Welcome to the maquis.

Which one? The French Resistance or the Star Trek rebels?

;-)

Well, as we were talking about my people, that would be the french one of course.

Anyway the Trek ones took their name from it. Weird for a galactic faction.


veector wrote:
But if the intent was really to stop the piracy of 4E products. Why why why piss other people off for no reason? Even pulling the 3E stuff I could see as "we would rather support the most current version of the game and not encourage anything OGL anymore". That makes sense because in a way, they're competing with the OGL. But to remove all the 1E and 2E stuff? That's completely assinine.

Well put. The only pdfs Im sorry to see go are the old 1st Edition stuff like The Temple of Elemental Evil and Keep on the Borderlands.

Banning those makes no sense.


Wicht wrote:


I think the following quote to be the most interesting to me,
Wizards of the Coast PR Manager Tolena Thorburn wrote:
"We didn't do this lightly, and we understand our fans enjoy that format. Most of the fans who have legally purchased PDFs are also customers who have the physical product. Until we have another digital solution, I think our fans at least are not being deprived of the product, and I think that's really important, that they have the product that they know and love."

Anyone else things "arrogant jerk" right now? "That's what you get for not paying us twice, you wankers" my ass.

Sovereign Court

DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Gary, the Post Monster General, said he had 1 hour's notice. One Hour.

Classic Stormtrooper tactics!

*seething consumer outrage*

Dark Archive

Recipe: Mucked-up RPG Company Soup

-- 1. Recreate a game system that was already successful, replacing it with a limited, narrower version of itself. Encourage newer generations by modeling it after visually stunning computer games, but without the graphics that provided the "wow factor" of those games. Alienate your mature, financially stable fan-base in doing so.

-- 2. Take the two most successful, longest running RPG magazines off the market entirely. Further alienate your established consumers and fans. Provide them with a digital alternative, but without the flair or finesse of the original.

-- 3. Try and "wow" the RPG community by making your tabletop product online compatible. However, DO NOT make the software compatible with all platforms. Further alienate players in doing so.

-- 4. Release a corporate license that all but destroys your working relationship with other, 3rd party publishes. Give them the simple ultimatium, "our way or the highway."

-- 5. When your consumers complain, criticize, or otherwise try to advice you this isn't encouraging them to buy your product, ignore them. In fact, write them off as a financially insecure cross-section of a much larger consumer base. Insist your decisions are clearly aimed at creating a better product, even if all indications point toward you attempting to corner the market in a manner not too dissimilar to the monopolies of old.

-- 6. Now, check your consumers' collective pulse. If one is discovered, please remove all of the digital files of your older products, further alienating long-standing fans. For extra flair, do this with little or no warning. Consumers that wanted older versions of your product be damned. State that this is done to curb piracy and file a few lawsuits. Ignore the fact that people were trying to "legally purchase" your product. In fact, ensure that the only way they can secure digital copies of your work is by piracy because you don't offer them yourself.
-- 6a. State this is done to encourage people to buy products at local, "brick and mortar" stores. Ignore the fact that sales through large, online retailers like "Amazon.com" does not support local "brick and mortar" shops. Continue to sell through large stores.
-- 6b. Ignore all of the gamers in geographically isolated regions (like soldiers at war) that might rely on digital versions of your product. Moreover, assume your "world famous game" has a consumer base with access to "brick and mortar" stores because you do. Don't consider people in nations with Internet access, but without game stores.

Mix well, simmer on medium heat, and tighten grasp on mixing spoon. Watch disdainfully as your profit drops and your dinner guests head over to Uncle Paizo's for stew.


Bill Dunn wrote:


But he doesn't think anyone could have predicted the depth of vitriol? Really? Because I'm not surprised at all, nor, I imagine, are most of the posters here. In fact, this is the kind of reaction, depth of vitriol included, I would have expected.

They were there when they pulled the licenses. They were there when they told us what they did with our previously favourite game and game worlds. They were there for all the other f@&$-ups they did.

And the fans never took it lying down.

Did they really think that we have given up already?

Dark Archive

It's times like this we've got to appreciate companies like Paizo, White Wolf (who are also cutting their PDF prices) and Steve Jackson Games, who aren't governed entirely by total douchebags.

See the Steve Jackson Games response to the situation here:

http://twitter.com/SJGames/status/1470115668


As an guy who spends his work day neck deep in the minutia of Online Journal content (think JSTOR. My actual involvement is with other vendors and/or platforms.) for STM publishers, I've actually been involved similar events in the past, usually due to a large swath of Open Access content going back under license or content offers expiring for large blocks of subscribers. The failure here, and it is a major, major failure, is WotC not having an immediate solution. The transition to the end user should have been as transparent as possible.

No longer putting your content on JSTOR? Pulling your OA offerings? fine, maybe not advisable, but fine. Not having your new platform up and running on day zero? Epic fail. And I mean that in the business sense. You have eliminated a revenue stream and do not have a replacement.


Callous Jack wrote:
Seldriss wrote:
Welcome to the maquis.

Which one? The French Resistance or the Star Trek rebels?

;-)

The guys from Equilibrium.

Mikaze wrote:
Well, EN World is down. Must have been too crowded at the moment. Can't imagine why.

Or wizards tries to shut all nay-sayers up by telling enworld to shut down.


Pax Veritas wrote:
DMcCoy1693 wrote:
Gary, the Post Monster General, said he had 1 hour's notice. One Hour.

Classic Stormtrooper tactics!

"These weren't sandpeople. Look at the blast marks. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so preci--"

"Then why the hell couldn't they hit me, a freakin' untrained farmboy, when I was standing on a ledge with no cover a mere 30 feet away from them? Well?"

"Yes, Luke, I've got nothing. (I wish I were still doing Murder By Death right about now...)"


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Jason Sonia wrote:

Recipe: Mucked-up RPG Company Soup

-- 1. *snip* ...

Very, very well said.


F33b wrote:
No longer putting your content on JSTOR? Pulling your OA offerings? fine, maybe not advisable, but fine. Not having your new platform up and running on day zero? Epic fail. And I mean that in the business sense. You have eliminated a revenue stream and do not have a replacement.

LOL!

Scarab Sages

veector wrote:

One of the most notorious posters is Titanium Dragon.

Yah, he seemed to start it off with this:

WotC Board Asshat wrote:


Moreover, getting angry at WotC is wrong. WotC isn't the company which screwed you. Paizo, drivethrurpg, ect. are the companies which screwed you.

THEY promised you a service, and sold you that service. It isn't WotC's fault that this was not a service those companies could promise you.

Jon Brazer Enterprises

Pat Payne wrote:
"Then why the hell couldn't they hit me, a freakin' untrained farmboy, when I was standing on a ledge with no cover a mere 30 feet away from them? Well?"

They were ordered to miss.

"Are they away?"

"They've just made the jump into hyperspace."

"Are you secure the homing becon is secure aboard their ship? I'm taking an aweful risk here Vader. This had better work."

Only way they could into hyperspace and get away is if they were alive and they'd only go to the rebel base if they felt they just barely got away and they need to get the plans to the rebels right away.

Not to mention that Stormtroopers are freaking awesome the entire rest of the movie series.

[/bunny trail]


Disenchanter wrote:
outlander78 wrote:

The Register picked this up - fun article, normal comments

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/wotc_pulls_pdf_products_piracy_laws uit/

Linkified for those interested.

Mr. Leeds lives in his own campaign world. He's what used to be called, A Legend In His Own Mind.


veector wrote:
I remember clearly when Wizards first posted some old modules as free PDF downloads on their site

I remember that day too...cough, cough...hack, hack.

You know what your post in this thread made me do? Go back and re-download and back-up those old files. Paranoid? Maybe. But who knows what Wotci will do next.


hmarcbower wrote:
veector wrote:

One of the most notorious posters is Titanium Dragon.

Yah, he seemed to start it off with this:

WotC Board Asshat wrote:


Moreover, getting angry at WotC is wrong. WotC isn't the company which screwed you. Paizo, drivethrurpg, ect. are the companies which screwed you.

THEY promised you a service, and sold you that service. It isn't WotC's fault that this was not a service those companies could promise you.

I'm getting some of the same of this on the Gencon forms. Some guy saying that Paizo could have know for a month before letting the customers know!


hmarcbower wrote:
veector wrote:

One of the most notorious posters is Titanium Dragon.

Yah, he seemed to start it off with this:

WotC Board Asshat wrote:


Moreover, getting angry at WotC is wrong. WotC isn't the company which screwed you. Paizo, drivethrurpg, ect. are the companies which screwed you.

THEY promised you a service, and sold you that service. It isn't WotC's fault that this was not a service those companies could promise you.

That quote sounds notoriously familiar. In fact I'm pretty sure I read that same quote in ENWorld's massive WOTC Pdf thread, but under a different screen name than Titanium Dragon.


You know, when people's only defenses are "could of" and "for all we know," they are desperate and have run out of rational resources. They should stop posting, because they are only going to sound stupider from that point on.

Spoiler:
But we all know what they'll really do. Push the desperate, they just get louder and more insistent. Like any of them know s!@! about Paizo.


[Warning! Speculative post!]

From the end results apparent across forums, my first thought is that the current directives from Hasbro/WotC to their D&D division are to concentrate on 4E, and to cut support by Hasbro/WotC of anything D&D related except for 4E.
Whether or not that would make business sense, in terms of the overall picture I do not know. It is possible that by focusing exclusively on 4E and their current 4E fan base (and by this I mean those who only ever played 4E, and no other RPGs/systems, who are not at risk of being alienated by these actions), that they would be able to increase their profits. It certainly seems to me that it might be the case that someone at Hasbro/WotC had decided that this would work.

However, against this theory, I do not understand why they would need to sound off attempting to link their action over the PDFs to a lawsuit against pirates, if this is/was the policy. It would make better sense to me to just withdraw the PDFs and say 'we're doing it because we only want to support 4E' than to go on about lawsuits and pirates. The tying of the PDFs to the lawsuit suggests to me that the lawsuit may be the most important game going on for Hasbro/WotC, and that they have withdrawn the PDFs as part of some court tactic to try to support their case. If this is the situation, I think it is a very bad thing that a company is apparently more concerned about winning a lawsuit than in keeping customers happy.
It is certainly possible however that I do not appreciate some point of the case - that it might be OVERWHELMINGLY VITAL that Hasbro/WotC win the lawsuit and that their very existence would for some reason be threatened if they did not; that the stakes could be so high that they didn't care about losing customers and looking bad if that was the only thing which would save their corporate existence.

Then again it could just be as simple as there are some of those corporate executives in charge at Hasbro/WotC whose counterparts in the banking industry thought that sub-prime mortgages would be a REALLY GOOD idea for the world economy.
[/Warning! Speculative post!]

Edit:
Hah! Just seen your post before mine, Mairkurion. Please note with all the 'coulds', etc, I'm trying to understand/offer possible explanations for what might be going on over there at Hasbro HQ, even if that's not as exciting as just grabbing a pitchfork and torch and heading over to storm their gates.
With apologies to all Matt Prior fans out there, Wizards of the Coast's current D&D strategy reminds me of the way the England selectors keep selecting Matt 'I dropped Chanderpaul' Prior for the national (cricket) side because 'he gets runs' and not because 'he's the best wicket-keeper we've got'.


KaeYoss wrote:
Pat Payne wrote:
Heathansson wrote:
heh heh heh...

"

Andreas Skye wrote:


Compare this to what happened last year, when the whole 3 first core rulebooks "leaked" as final drafts into the internet (something which was discussed about in these forums).

Yeah, I remember. Hilarious: People hear about this, get a fangasm, hunt down and download the books to stop their anciety for their new favourite game - and, after reading it, cancelling their preorders in troves.

I think that's the main reason they hate the evil pirates: if those people had to wait for their actual books to arrive, some/many of them probably wouldn't have returned them, and anyway, they could have still counted them in their statistics.

And if that were the case, it is funny how that sprang no legal action or prosecution or produce any publicized retaliation. Even if some people did cancel their orders, it was a huge stunt of marketing and opinion-mongering over the internet. And quite possible that Wizards could have procured the leak. It is not such an uncommon procedure in industry.


Not sure if this situation is simply absurd or maddening. I have been purchasing 4th edition products and honestly enjoy the system so much that it started me thinking about running old school D&D products, Paizo Pathfinder, etc. and converting them to 4th edition. In fact I was already starting to make purchases of some of the old Mystara setting from this very site because I have been really impressed by the product lines here. Talk about poor timing? Yikes.

However, I think I will just go back to the Pathfinder products and let WOTC enjoy the money they already have from me to this point, but not a penny more.


Charles Evans 25 wrote:

[Warning! Speculative post!]

From the end results apparent across forums, my first thought is that the current directives from Hasbro/WotC to their D&D division are to concentrate on 4E, and to cut support by Hasbro/WotC of anything D&D related except for 4E. -sniped-

Well, they pulled all editions of D&D from 1st to 4th.


I think this move will continue to destroy fans and customers, furthering the polarization of the gaming community. Most likely, in eighteen months to keep the axe of Hasbro off their necks they will invent something to pull up their continuing shrinking sales. Knowing them, it will be 6th edition. Probably card based.(meh.)

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