Particularly distressing to me is the fact that a 4e product is the spearhead for losing all the good old edition products making up my non-Paizo PDF library.
Only until you realise that that's only a cop-out. Something their spin department thought would be the best "reason" to provide for this.
Even if they did it only with 4e, it doesn't help at all. If you treat people right, people will buy even though the stuff is available for free through illegal channels. Or legal channels. Look at PF RPG. The beta may not be the finished product, but it's good enough to enable you to get a lot, maybe even most, of the PF improvements without buying the book. And you won't break any law for downloading that.
And it's not as if Paizo stuff wasn't available illegally. Paizo is even supporting this after a fashion by having PDFs. It's not impossible to erase all trace of your PDF from the PDF with the right tools (probably easy if you know what you're doing), and Paizo knows that.
Does Paizo whine about how they lose sales over free illegal PDFs? No, they don't. Because they don't. Lose sales, that is. They seem to be doing very fine, constantly going beyond their wildest dreams.
And that's because they do their best to make people want to support them: They don't just sell PDFs, they give them away if you subscribe. They give a substancial discount to pdfs if you want only them and not the books. (I mean, back when wizards had pdfs.... Why pay more for the PDF than for the hardcopy?)
Sure, some people will always steal the stuff. Nothing can stop them. Well, nothing short of thought police. But if your product is good, and your attitude towards customers and potential customers is good, you'll sell.
Just before it starts, let's avoid any talk about intending to resort to piracy folks. Not classy, especially on the site of a small (but rad) company that depends greatly on its intellectual property.
Agreed. Though most of the talk was about how wizards encourages people to steal their stuff.
Seriously: With all their blathering about going with the times and embracing the future with their ddi, you'd think they wanted PDFs - thought of by many as the future of books - instead of suppressing them with some ridiculous excuses.
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Given the comical outrage we're seeing here, I wouldn't be surprised if pitchfork dealers see some excellent profits.I can understand seeing this decision as short-sighted (even though it may very well not be), but the truth is that most gamers don't give a damn about PDF sales - they weren't buying any to begin with. If you don't buy PDFs, there is no reason you should care about this decision. It's just a company experimenting with a different policy. If you do buy PDFs, you won't be able to. Oh no. It might be time to find another way to get your fix. But it's not time to start a crusade over something so trivial.
Dial back the rage a few hundred notches, please.
I was actually wondering on my way home how long it would take Scott to start posting patronizing comments on this thread.
Scott, if you read the comments here you’ll see that apparently many people have, do and want to buy PDFs. Perhaps they have good reason to be upset. I know I would certainly be angry if I could no longer access a PDF that I had paid for because the company changed its policy without giving its customers the courtesy of at least a few day’s notice.
Just looking for some clarification - is this a permanent withdrawal from sale or just until they finish taking people to court.
- If it is just because they were advised to do so by their "law talking guy" until the court case is over - Then it is a ham fisted ill advised pain in rear end therefore Don’t Panic.
- If it is because they are threatened by the competition and they are using the piracy as an excuse and the withdrawal of sale is permanent with no chance of PDF’s returning to the market then it a massive display of absolute stupidity.
- If it’s because they are threatened by the competition and they are using the piracy as an excuse and PDFs return but only sell from their site then it is bastardry, effective tactically sound bastardry. You destroy some of the online sellers and put a massive dint in the income stream of the competition.
I hope to hell that it is the first thing but by paranoia leans towards the last.
Well, I was about to buy PDFs of MIC, Complete Mage, and probably other 3.5 books I missed this week. I just spent the money on a subscription for Pathfinder instead now.
GG WotC.
But I have to agree that this move seems more likely to drive people towards pirating this material than away from it.
Exactly as I keep saying. Cutting legal ways and trying harder to punish the wrongdoers only encourages the wrongdoers to try harder to avoid your punishment.
You can't win that one. No. Chance. In. Hell.
Try to be the customer's friend, so he likes you for yourself and not just your product. If you do that, the guy who wants your product will be more likely to do it in a way that supports you, because he wants to. You're his friend.
Wizards doesn't do that. Pulling legal PDFs and doing lawsuits won't help them. As far as I know, it hasn't helped the music industry. Or the movie industry.
I guess that's why you see them going the other way in several instances:
For instance, I love my Ayreon special limited editions, complete with a making of DVD in a really nice box instead of a slim case without jewel case and hand-written title (though there's light scribe and printable blank cds and dvds now). I'll gladly buy that.
I also love how the latest Dream Theater Live album was double DVD and triple CD. All in one package for the price you used to pay for either DVDs or CDs. I like how it now costs me less to get both.
But the latest pop album from whatsherface? I don't want that stuff for free, but I can guess that others have little incentive to pay for that.
And what's with those "Pirating Movies is Evil. Do it and go to Hell" things you get on DVDs? They sometimes can't even be skipped. They tell me how bad people are if they get an illegal copy of the movie I'm about to watch.
Newsflash: I BOUGHT the damn movie. Or maybe stole the dvd from the store or robbed an old lady - no one ever says something about that, so I guess it's fine for the movie industry (they got their money). The fun part is that those illegal copies have the notice cut out, so you can enjoy the movie at once. They punish me for doing the right thing.
Idiots.
I was actually wondering on my way home how long it would take Scott to start posting patronizing comments on this thread.
There's some things you can always count on.
WTF is WotC thinking?!? ~thinks~ Oh. Wait a minute. They are NOT thinking. Got it!
As if coming up with 4th Edition wasn't already enough of an indicator concerning WoTC’s lack of intelligence, foresight and thought process all together. Paizo has my unbridled full support from now and will continue to have for many, many years to come.
What products were you looking forward to getting that you won't be able to now? I was gearing up to start on a Ravenloft spree, personally.
Maybe I should take advantage of this to unabashedly promote my sales page. I have a lot of older stuff for sale, including A LOT of Ravenloft stuff.
It's all available here:I haven't updated it in a long time, but, apart from some of the Dragonlance stuff, everything should still be available for sale - also, some parts of the page isn't fully done.
Inquire per e-mail (available on the front page) if you have any questions (I have slightly bigger pictures of the books if you're unsure about the condition).
Biggest problem for those in the US is, of course, shipping costs (it's definitely cheaper for anyone interested here in Europe).
I might also be willing to negotiate some of the prices - again, inquire by e-mail.
I notice, with some amusement, that WotC still have their own "Previous Edition Dungeons & Dragons Downloads" page up and the files are still there for download. The files that are available for free, and with no watermarking or other piracy protection whatsoever. Oops.
One minor thing that interests me is in another electronic medium. Mysteries of Westgate, a downloadable adventure pack for Neverwinter Nights 2, has been held up in developmental hell for a year and a half now because of DRM concerns. Last month, it was finally announced that it was ready to be released, and last week one of the developers stated that the product had been delayed again due to Hasbro getting involved. I wonder if WotC/Hasbro are about to pull the plug on that product due to piracy concerns as well.
These last few years have really started me thinking that Hasbro acquiring WotC is one of the worst things that could have happened to the RPG industry. For all their resources, they seem willfully ignorant of the kind of people that buy D&D products. At some point, that will end up hurting the brand, if it hasn't done so already.
Never used usenet - is it safe from viruses?Not as far as I know. The content is still not controlled by anyone if I remember correctly.
Some of the newsgroups* are moderated, and are fairly safe. Most of them are unmoderated, though; make sure your anti-virus and spyware filters are up to date if you plan to do any downloading.
It's probably safer than file-sharing networks, FWIW.
*- Newsgroups are semi-old school blogs, message boards, or RSS feeds (real old school would be a BBS); they are set up on a group of public (instead of privately owned) servers for access (they could also be set up to e-mail posts); the newsgroups are set up in a hierarchical structure (alt.binaries.pictures.cats for example is for people to post pictures of cats)
OK, so I grew up in the '80's; I was on the Internet before the World Wide Web existed (ftp and telnet).
I just checked it & I just see the stuff that was
never sold. Free stuff, errata, etc. That probably isn't going away.
There are no core rulebooks there, but still adventures and sourcebooks aplenty.
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Personally I'm stunned that any company could be this stupid. Oh wait, no we've been dealing with the RIAA and they're minions for years trying to do the same; the difference being, they continue to realize that the genie is already out of the bottle.
If Warner Music suddenly announced today that they were withdrawing all music they've ever released for sale on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. and that you couldn't access any of the music you already paid for the level of outrage across the country would be enormous. This is no different, and I wouldn't be surprised if WOTC starts taking major piracy hits because of it.
I've seen the 4E PDFs that were released before the game was ever even on the store shelves. They weren't watermarked and were clearly a printer's copy. Removing PDFs is going to do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of piracy if it's coming from within.
*shakes head* I've seriously never seen a company do something this stupid.
All (2) downloads complete. Surprised I didn't have a few more.
Numbskulls.
Thanks for the notice Paizo!
Hm... I wonder how big a cut Paizo got from the pdf sales, meaning: Will the additional money that people can now spend on PF instead of WotC 3E stuff compensate for the loss of sales from the PDFs?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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What really makes me wonder about WotC isn't their decisions: clearly they plan to sell their own PDFs out of their own website, which is not a bad decision.
What gets me is their execution. Time and again now I keep seeing decisions made with really poor execution: The timing of the announcment of 4e a year before it was ready, the Digital Initiative mismanagement, the GSL hot potato mess, and now this, the Great PDF Pull of 2009. All of the above aren't bad business decisions, but they're executed in what can only be described as amateurish and silly ways.
Although this does reinforce my decision to stick with Pathfinder and Paizo as the clearly correct choice. Bravo, Paizo!
Point at which I started spending money at Paizo.com: June 2008 (9 months ago)
Average amount I've spent each month at Paizo: $60
Total: $540
Amount of a World of WarCraft subscription for the same time period: $134.91
Congratulations WotC, with 4th Edition (personally not my game) and now this move, you're really winning gamers back to your products.
Well (expitive deleted)!
I didn't see the Paizo notice about this until this morning (7 Apr), so of course the various pdfs I had on my "buy and download sometime soonish" list are gone into legal limbo.
I guess I'll just have to hope that the Wotc lawyers get called to heel sometime soon. The older pdfs are really handy now that Pathfinder has saved them from the rubbish heap (not that Wotc would consider this when pulling their pdfs, of course...).
I personally like 4E and enjoy playing it, but I like playing all editions. I will continue to buy 4E products, but lament the passing of the pdfs, with the hope that they will become available again.
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Actually, Paizo's email took a long while to get to everyone; I recieved yours a couple of hours before I got Paizo's (though I appreciate the effort on both parts).
Don't I feel silly. I should have known you would have given such excellent customer service.
Thanks for the Heads up Snorter. I really appreciate the concern, although I don't have any WOTC stuff on PDF since I gave up on them a while back. I did however pass it on to several people in my group that were most grateful for the info. I got your mail a couple hours before Paizo's so the timeliness of it was awesome also.
You rock, Snorter!
I really don't think this was a wise move on hasbro's part. I am sorta watching their ticker and to start they opened lower then when they closed yesterday, and the stock seems to be heading to the second level of hell right now. who knows where it will be by the end of business today.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm,
Just wondering, legally, what the difference between having a PDF on Paizo's site for (re)download and the having the PDF backed up on a site like Carbonite.com?
Too late for me to get any backed up from drvethru now *sigh* Looks like I've enough Dungeon Tiles as well, so no more money to WotC from me.
Oh, thank God. The reassertion of WotC Orthodoxy has finally been issued, and calm will prevail as the gracious oil of rationality is poured out on the troubled waters of lesser minds.
Or people will exercise their right to feel as they do and express as they want.
We've all been been told at one time or anothing in our lives, "if you can't say anything good, you shouldn't say anything at all" and I am not saying anything now. I will let my silence speak for me.
....Just saying nothing at all.
It is finished.
:(
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I really don't think this was a wise move on hasbro's part. I am sorta watching their ticker and to start they opened lower then when they closed yesterday, and the stock seems to be heading to the second level of hell right now. who knows where it will be by the end of business today.
I don't think it impacts Hasbro's ticker as much as you think.
Oh, and WotC_Lawyer called. He's sending you a legal order to stop using 'levels of hell' as they're planning to take all references to the nine hells off the webs as well ;-)
What other pdf download stores are there? I should imagine (unfortunately) that any other ones have had a similar measure implemented, more's the pity.
It is truly very weird.
Oh, and WotC_Lawyer called. He's sending you a legal order to stop using 'levels of hell' as they're planning to take all references to the nine hells off the webs as well ;-)
I was referring to the Dante Alighieri's the Divine Comedy or a.k.a. Dante's Inferno and in that case they should be doing a nose dive to the ninth circle for traitors ;)
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I don't know how it works at other sites, since I only buy pdfs from Paizo and Drive Thru RPG, but every pdf I have bought comes with a watermark that has my name on it. There for if the illegal uploads in question don't have such a watermark then it couldn't have come from one of those sources. If the did have a watermark, hen sue the pans off the guy that uploaded them and be done with it. The press release seems like they know who was responsible, so why is there a need o punish the rest of us?
Edit: I just wish I had had time to get the rest of the Mystara and Monstrous Compendium pdfs.
Oh, and WotC_Lawyer called. He's sending you a legal order to stop using 'levels of hell' as they're planning to take all references to the nine hells off the webs as well ;-)
Some of the great things about Dante: 1. You can't copyright his intellectual property, only translations you make of him, and 2. When you go to any levels of his hell, you suffer in death what you perpetrated in life...hmmm....
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Oh, and WotC_Lawyer called. He's sending you a legal order to stop using 'levels of hell' as they're planning to take all references to the nine hells off the webs as well ;-)Some of the great things about Dante: 1. You can't copyright his intellectual property, only translations you make of him, and 2. When you go to any levels of his hell, you suffer in death what you perpetrated in life...hmmm....
Doesn't that put Wizards in the 9th circle of hell?
Edited for accuracy.
Well, we've already got two different interpretations on that, David! (See Woodraven above.)
Just took a gander at my ol' pals over at DriveThruRPG. It was odd to see:
Publishers
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Wizards of the Coast (0)
Products found in this section...
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Man, are they optimistic. (Not to mention, running low on hyphens as well.)
At first I thought maybe WotC was doing this to stop the sale of 3E books that are compatible with the soon-to-be-released Pathfinder RPG, but that doesn't explain stopping the sales of 4E books.
So now they've angered 4E players, 3.5E players, and every other player of D&D versions down the line who now can't download their PDFs through online stores they thought they had agreements with. If WotC is planning to start their own download store, that's fine, but it should have been up BEFORE this announcement came down, and something should have been worked out with sites that sell PDFs so that customers could still download them from WotC.
I may be thankful to WotC for making such a great version of D&D with 3.5, but I'm thankful to Paizo for supporting it the way WotC SHOULD have. You guys are the best.
Pathfinder RPG, here I come.
And if anyone is interested in letting WotC know how you feel, they're doing an online survey here. I've taken it and I know there's a spot near the end where you can give them your opinion to your heart's content.
Nerd rage aside, I'm now considering my other *legal* options. Are there any good websites where you can buy OOP D&D books that ships to Europe (apart from ebay)?
Noble Knight Games is highly recommended. They have a good collection of used D&D books and shipping rates for Europe are very reasonable.
two words for you David. Wikipedia, Wikipedia ;)
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Nerd rage aside, I'm now considering my other *legal* options. Are there any good websites where you can buy OOP D&D books that ships to Europe (apart from ebay)?Noble Knight Games is highly recommended. They have a good collection of used D&D books and shipping rates for Europe are very reasonable.
Amazon usually has good rates on oop D&D books. However, their third party sellers often have ridiculous prices. For example, Dragonlord Chronicles Volume 2 is just $0.01 from Amazon, but one of the third party sellers has it listed for $40.00.
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I didn't get the email from Paizo until 30 minutes after the deadline. No hard feelings though; I haven't given WotC any money since the MIC, and I didn't plan to buy their PDFs.
This honestly doesn't surprise me. Classic Hasbro. Who was it that said earlier in this thread, "TSR days are here again"?
Meh. This whole thing seems to amount to another corporate incomprehension of why DRM doesn't work. I wonder if Shamus over at TwentySided will pick up this story.
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On a completely incidental and unrelated note
Does anyone know where I can buy pitchforks and torches? :P
Given the comical outrage we're seeing here, I wouldn't be surprised if pitchfork dealers see some excellent profits.
I can understand seeing this decision as short-sighted (even though it may very well not be), but the truth is that most gamers don't give a damn about PDF sales - they weren't buying any to begin with. If you don't buy PDFs, there is no reason you should care about this decision. It's just a company experimenting with a different policy. If you do buy PDFs, you won't be able to. Oh no. It might be time to find another way to get your fix. But it's not time to start a crusade over something so trivial.
Dial back the rage a few hundred notches, please.
Is there really nothing you wont defend Wotc wise?
People spent hard earned money, and now have to scramble to make sure what they bought is secured. Further, folks will miss out on buying older stuff, which has nothing to do with their lawsuit. So everyone is being punished for a handful.
perhaps you should dial yours up a touch. I dont do PDF's, but I certainly understand the outrage. It has nothingto do with experimenting with a different policy.
http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Press/?doc=20090406
oevr at enworld a wotc employee stated its to stop illegal downloads.
I can understand seeing this decision as short-sighted (even though it may very well not be), but the truth is that most gamers don't give a damn about PDF sales - they weren't buying any to begin with. If you don't buy PDFs, there is no reason you should care about this decision. It's just a company experimenting with a different policy. If you do buy PDFs, you won't be able to. Oh no. It might be time to find another way to get your fix. But it's not time to start a crusade over something so trivial.
Dial back the rage a few hundred notches, please.
If you purchased the rights to access to a product for a certain number of times, then had that access and storage taken away from you with less that 24 hours notice, wouldn't you feel you had been robbed?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Oh, and WotC_Lawyer called. He's sending you a legal order to stop using 'levels of hell' as they're planning to take all references to the nine hells off the webs as well ;-)I was referring to the Dante Alighieri's the Divine Comedy or a.k.a. Dante's Inferno and in that case they should be doing a nose dive to the ninth circle for traitors ;)
I know. I was referring to the infamous TSR/Lucasfilm Nazi(TM) legend.
Director of Brand Strategy
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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?
I think you might be right. It depends what they mean by "physical location" in their online retailer policy. If that means a warehouse, it's not very restrictive, but if it means one must have a brick and mortar retail store, I think Amazon wouldn't qualify. I actually like that they are trying to (or claiming to) support small gaming stores. I love that. But there are ways to do so without alienating fans of the game who would otherwise pay you money without drinking the 4e kool-aid, and to not restrict the world's largest bookseller from distributing your materials.
Luckily, I've been buying hard copies on ebay of the older books I was interested in so I have no pdf's to scramble to get. Still, knowing that this will be the only way to ever get that 2e supplement I didn't know I wanted could get costly, especially since it will make physical copies worth more on the secondary market.