.pdf versions of older Dungeon issues

[Guennarr]

Hi everyone at Paizo,

I am looking for old Dungeon issues (about issue #50) in .pdf form (printed versions aren't a choice for me considering available space in my D&D library). I remember having read that out of print issues were offered again as pdf-files in your shop.

When I had a look into your shop I just found a few condiderably more recent issues in .pdf form, though. Did I miss the right link?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Greetings,
Günther

[James Jacobs]

We actually haven't put many old issues of Dungeon up online as PDFs, mostly due to lack of time or manpower, I suspect. We've a few more recent issues online, but not much. I'll look into the possibility of getting some of the older issues online, though.

[justdmjeff]

James Jacobs wrote:

We actually haven't put many old issues of Dungeon up online as PDFs, mostly due to lack of time or manpower, I suspect. We've a few more recent issues online, but not much. I'll look into the possibility of getting some of the older issues online, though.

Lack of time and manpower?? Maybe I'm wrong in this, considering I do not work there and I do not have access to sales information, but I would suspect that a pdf of Dungeon #1 would be the most downloaded pdf in the history of paizo and at $5 a pop it would be pretty darn profitable. I understand if there are copies of a magazine still sitting in a warehouse you need to get rid of those first, but there are so many issues that are currently unavailable that baby boomers like myself would jump at the chance to get their hands on them at a reasonable price.

I personally owned Dungeon issues #1-#14 until I moved out of my parents house after college and mom(thanks alot) cleaned out my room. I would be more than happy to spend $70 to get all of them even in the form of pdf.

[justdmjeff]

Or is the problem legal rights? If that is the case, I guess we will never see any Dungeon issues from the times of TSR. I know sometime in 2002 pazio took over Dungeon. What issue was it exactly?

[Sean Mahoney]

There is a host of problems. Doing what you are proposing is a very time instensive project that takes up a lot of a skilled layout artists time. It is extremely unlikely that Paizo has access to ANY of the source files from before they took over and that would mean that all files would need to be recreated. Because they are then dealing with other peoples copy rights they have to make sure things are as close to identical as possible. You are also shooting for a multitude of output types so you have to design the document itself differently (reasonably small enough to download, but also printable in a good quality). Scans from magazines deal with Moire issues due to the printing processes involved so that is more time adjusting each and every graphic. You have to have the right font set which could mean expenditures to acquire those rights as well.

And to this point that is only one persons head aches... Add on that the costs associated with that person (peoples) time and you are already looking at a high spend. Time recruiting and hiring the person also has to be taken into account as a cost (hiring takes up a lot of a managers time... I hate it).

Then you start getting into all the legal aspects of things and they are mazelike since you are dealing with 3 different companies owning the magazine over the course of many years and what kind of records they kept on how rights were assigned from authors.

All in all, it is a very significant undertaking. It is doable. potentially, but a company has to look at it and ask themselves if that is the best return on their efforts. Even if you CAN do something isn't the same as deciding that you should do that thing.

Just my thoughts... I am not a Paizo insider but I do business development and project management as well as have a background in graphic art and layout.

Sean Mahoney

[justdmjeff]

Okay. Now that I have had more time to think it over, my earlier comment about Dungeon #1 being such a hot seller probably was way overstating it. Everything is 3.x now. No one except oldtimers would be interested in issues that old anyway.

[Sean Mahoney]

I also forgot to mention that a while ago there was a pdf version of the first Dungeon (I think). It was on a bonus CD with an issue of Dungeon or Dragon.

Sean Mahoney