Thanks for the link.
The interview didn't do much to improve trust with WotC though...
A couple of things were made clear.
No more PDFs from WotC, they are looking for something else. I can't imagine any other cross platform format... Oh wait. They have already proven they aren't concerned with cross platform.
And they firmly believe the gaming hobby rests on their shoulders. I'm not suggesting it doesn't. Simply stating that if they think the hobby relies on them, they should strive to be better stewards.
|
Yeah, it was nice of the guy to say something, but I still get the impression that dude doesn't understand the gaming community. He needs to look at what happens when a gaming company thinks more like a business than like people who do it for the love of the game(with the side benefit of making a buck). TSR in the latter days, GW now, both damaged their public image with business decisions that don't facilitate customer service.
I wonder if they even understand that their market for OPP (thinking 1e/2e here) stuff probably isn't going to subscribe to jack. We like to OWN what we buy, not rent it.
Plus, frankly, dude doesn't look like he's ever thrown a d20. Stuffed a geek in a locker? Sure. Gamed? uh...
|
|
...He needs to look at what happens when a gaming company thinks more like a business than like people who do it for the love of the game(with the side benefit of making a buck). TSR in the latter days, GW now, both damaged their public image with business decisions that don't facilitate customer service...
Except that most sites can't show images of GW products, what else have they done? I'm not in the know, and that makes me wonder how many WotC patrons are asking the same thing right now--they may have just heard of the PDF thing, and aren't really concerned (like I don't care about GW's strange decision to disallow product images--I use Google Images or the GW site to get an idea of what the product looks like, then buy it from the lowest bidder), and they're wondering what the rest of us are so upset over.
|
|
First thing WotC needs to do is hire a quality public relations firm to rebuild their reputation. Second don't allow PDF books sale until the real book it out at least one year that should prevent pirated copies cutting into the bottom line.
AS I mentioned in another thread, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the legal and illegal acquisition of PDFs is made by kids, teens, and the financially-challenged. That is to say, people who probably would have a tough time buying the physical product in the first place--i.e., I doubt anyone is losing that much in sales of the physical book to those who couldn't buy it to begin with, since you can't lose what you never had. Plus, the Man himself said that it was pirating of digital copies of the PH2 that drove this decision. The actual book is into its second printing.
First thing WotC needs to do is hire a quality public relations firm to rebuild their reputation. Second don't allow PDF books sale until the real book it out at least one year that should prevent pirated copies cutting into the bottom line.
The problems with that thought are:
That won't prevent piracy, it will just force it back to the "old school" method of scanning books. And as I have tried to explain the that other thread, that practice got pretty darn sophisticated by the end of 3.5.
And that thinking assumes pirated copies stopped the pirates from purchasing the material.
|
First thing WotC needs to do is hire a quality public relations firm to rebuild their reputation. Second don't allow PDF books sale until the real book it out at least one year that should prevent pirated copies cutting into the bottom line.AS I mentioned in another thread, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the legal and illegal acquisition of PDFs is made by kids, teens, and the financially-challenged. That is to say, people who probably would have a tough time buying the physical product in the first place--i.e., I doubt anyone is losing that much in sales of the physical book to those who couldn't buy it to begin with, since you can't lose what you never had. Plus, the Man himself said that it was pirating of digital copies of the PH2 that drove this decision. The actual book is into its second printing.
A free copy of PBH2 PDF means you don't have to buy the hardback or the pdf, even if he didn't say it a pirated PDF is money not going into WotC's pockets and IMO, the real reason they pulled all their PDFs. PDF costs around 10 bucks so for every 10 bucks paid to WotC is 90 bucks they loose.
I've never been interested in PDFs of the 4e books--were they really only $10?
I would guess not, although I never checked. Their 3/3.5 PDFs were selling at full print price.
They were selling for about 50% of the retail book price. Amazon was selling the books for 40% so why bother paying that much for a pdf when I could get the book for the same price. *shrugs*
They were selling for about 50% of the retail book price. Amazon was selling the books for 40% so why bother paying that much for a pdf when I could get the book for the same price. *shrugs*
I thought that Amazon was more like 60%, and the 4e PDFs were 70% (except during the recent PDF sale when PDFs dropped to 50%).
I am pretty sure that I seen the Player's Handbook II for 18 dollars which is just under the 50% off mark, 49% to be exact. While the Amazon price for the Player's Handbook II is 22.26 which is roughly 36% off with free shipping as well.
Grr! What really infuriates me is 'big business' insisting that a pirated PDF is a lost sale. It is NOT as simple as that.
See this article in the New York Times (which cites other sources) - and that's 5 years old!
Did you read the article? It clearly states that every 10 pirated download equates to 1 or 2 lost sales, so Wotc has still lost revenue from illegal downloads just not as much as was implied.
Exactly. And I said 'it's not as simple as that'. My main beef is that business implies it's a 1:1 ratio, 1 illegal PDF = 1 lost sale - it isn't, it's more like 10:1 - as the article states.
I wonder if they even understand that their market for OPP (thinking 1e/2e here) stuff probably isn't going to subscribe to jack. We like to OWN what we buy, not rent it.
I don't know what you mean by OPP, but I'm sure that WotC would be delighted to sell you physical copies of anything, if they thought that a million other folks would also pay good money for it. They are in the business of selling books, after all.
Grr! What really infuriates me is 'big business' insisting that a pirated PDF is a lost sale. It is NOT as simple as that.
I agree that a pirated PDF is not necessarily a lost sale of a hard copy, but I've never heard of anyone pirating a PDF and then buying the (legal) PDF. I suppose it's possible, though.
While I dislike the fact that I can no longer buy legal PDFs from WotC, it does make a certain amount of sense that they would want to switch from providing PDFs to serving up content on a web site (which is what I suspect they're looking to do). Presumably they could then come up with a format that makes it at least slightly more difficult to duplicate, and possibly they could charge a subscription to get an on-going source of revenue. (I wouldn't be interested, though.)
I wonder if they even understand that their market for OPP (thinking 1e/2e here) stuff probably isn't going to subscribe to jack. We like to OWN what we buy, not rent it.I don't know what you mean by OPP
I assume it was a typo, and he meant OOP.
...I don't know what you mean by OPP ...
You down wit OPP? (yah you know me!)
So. Even if you accept as true the argument that for every legally bought PDF there are 10 illegally downloaded. (and WOTC's claim that they can track it)
What is the ratio now that you cannot legally buy a PDF?
<answer is left as an exercise for the student>
So. Even if you accept as true the argument that for every legally bought PDF there are 10 illegally downloaded. (and WOTC's claim that they can track it)
What is the ratio now that you cannot legally buy a PDF?
<answer is left as an exercise for the student>
For everyone thousands of illegally downloaded PDFs there are zero legally bought PDFs.
I am pretty sure that I seen the Player's Handbook II for 18 dollars which is just under the 50% off mark, 49% to be exact. While the Amazon price for the Player's Handbook II is 22.26 which is roughly 36% off with free shipping as well.
A 50% discount is a very odd number. Whoever sold those should have lost money in the deal. You can't buy this from either the games distribution network or Random House for 50% off the cover price. Usually if you buy something and then sell it for less then you bought it for you go out of business pretty quick.
I mean if ones dealing with a product the retailer is pretty certain they can't sell and their desperate to just loose less money you might find some pretty sweet deals but I can't see anyone (outside of a liquidation sale) doing that with WotC 4E books this early in the edition cycle.
Presumably they could then come up with a format that makes it at least slightly more difficult to duplicate, and possibly they could charge a subscription to get an on-going source of revenue.
Yeah, that is what I smell.
A 50% discount is a very odd number. Whoever sold those should have lost money in the deal. You can't buy this from either the games distribution network or Random House for 50% off the cover price. Usually if you buy something and then sell it for less then you bought it for you go out of business pretty quick.I mean if ones dealing with a product the retailer is pretty certain they can't sell and their desperate to just loose less money you might find some pretty sweet deals but I can't see anyone (outside of a liquidation sale) doing that with WotC 4E books this early in the edition cycle.
I was talking about the PDF. I was pretty sure I seen the Player's Handbook II PDF on RPGNow for 18 dollars. Amazon sells the actually book for the 36% off which is probably about what a distributor with Alliance Games would get after shipping and handling was included (per book atleast since you have to purchase 100 dollar order to get it shipped.)
|
I think WOTC is reacting just like the record labels did a few years ago. They are quite simply failing to understand their audience's needs and wants. The simple and easy reaction is to blame the technology and upset the legitimate customer of the technology.
Now I am going to switch from RPGs to music, for a clearer description of the path I think things will go.
A decade ago the music industry saw sales plummet over 30%. At the same time illegally downloaded copies of music was growing at seemingly alarming rates.
Rather than provide the consumer with what was demanded, affordable downloadable music, the industry spent millions, if not billions, trying to force consumers to buy products they did not want.
In retrospect we have learned that there were in fact three contributions to the poor sales. 1) An unstable economy that prevented consumers from spending as much money as the music industry wanted. 2) A new technology embraced by consumers and ignored by the industry. 3) Poor quality performances and music worth the money the industry demanded.
Shoot forward a decade and we find the industry has changed dramatically. Online downloads of music is the norm, as the industry finally woke up (thanks to Apple). A resurgence of quality music and performances (interestingly very often individually marketed or on independent labels). And also in an economy that is tanking. And yet, perhaps the sales have not regained lost ground, but they have stabilized and adapted to the new marketing and consumer demands of a new age.
Now compare the RPG industry. We have a tremendous growth of illegally downloaded versions of books. We have an unstable economy that prevents consumers from spending as much as we would like. And many would argue that the quality of publications has suffered over the last several years.
Simply put, the consumer does NOT want to pay full price for a PDF. Yet the consumer DOES want PDFs. Now, I saw on ENWorld that Vic had said consumers don't really want PDFs that consumers prefer books. And yet look at the numbers being tossed around during WOTCs lawsuit. Ten times as many people have downloaded illegal copies as legal copies. While I saw no cumbers to compare the illegal downloads to actual book sales, I suspect that the illegal downloads still surpass actual book sales (and even if book sales do surpass illegal downloads, the number of illegal downlaods is still substantial from what I can tell). That leads me to the conclusion that consumers DO in fact want PDFs.
Paizo has come been very successful with the subscription model for the delivery of books and PDFs. I suspect that in time a PDF only subscription is inevitable once they figure out how to make it work financially. I have seen them indicate as much. The trick is to figure out the proper way to make it work economically.
This economy is rougher than the one that brought down the music industry. If things do not improve quickly, simple economics will begin to take its toll on the industry. That alone will drive innovation.
Which leads back to quality products. We have seen new quality products produced from smaller presses, such as Paizo, Privateer Press, Green Ronin and Mongoose. While their products have always had a certain level of innovation, quite simply the industry leader has not been delivering that same level of innovation and quality.
So in a nutshell, I expect to see similar (not the same) changes happen in the RPG industry. Online sales of digital products will increase. The quality of the products will begin to increase due to smaller company interests. The large companies will still be the money making leaders, the brass rings of the industry.
But they will have to evolve. It will be a painful evolution to be sure, as all are. But in the end, we should see something amazing in about ten years.
Just imagine the devices we will have then. Hundreds of books at a table, all easily indexed and searchable at any time. Simple, affordable devices to read and organize them.
Someone come up with a way to organize, and search these documents and you will see an explosion in demand for PDFs (or whatever they will be then). And the option for hardcopy books will always remain, just like CDs still remain alongside the MP3.
The technology is so close to being right for pdf's at every tabletop. I've been looking at e-readers (kindle and it's kin). Kindle doesn't display PDF's. There's a conversion process that Amazon charges for that I understand has varying degrees of success.
Many devices are mobi-reader enabled. Mobi also has a pdf converter that just doesn't work for most of the D&D pdf's. Too much graphics/text mixed together.
There are some readers out there that read PDF's natively, but either they are priced way high, or they have too little internal memory to be truly useful, or something else gets in the way.
I don't have to have color, but what I would really really like to see is an 8x10 format e-ink reader that can natively hold PDFs and have enough internal memory (or microSD capability) that I can carry my pdf library around and keep it at the table. I often have my laptop at the table, but having it open is too big a temptation to surf or do something else disruptive to the table. I'd love an e-reader that can stay open to a page I'm on, jump from book to book, and take the place of a stack of hardcover books at the table (and in my gaming bag).
Crmanriq, while the technology isn't quite there yet for what you are looking for...
What might spark you're interest is Netbooks.
They, unfortunately, don't cut out the temptation to net surf. But if you don't plug them in, perhaps you can "trick" yourself into turning off your wi-fi to save battery life.
Just a thought.
Crmanriq, while the technology isn't quite there yet for what you are looking for...
What might spark you're interest is Netbooks.
They, unfortunately, don't cut out the temptation to net surf. But if you don't plug them in, perhaps you can "trick" yourself into turning off your wi-fi to save battery life.
Just a thought.
Looked at Netbooks too. It's really the concept of the 8x10 persistent display that can page through all my books that intrigues me.
I would like a netbook someday. If any manufacturer would put a thinkpoint (or whatever the red dot mouse replacement that comes on thinkpads is called) on a netbook, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Not with a trackpad though. Too much wasted space.
|
I don't have to have color, but what I would really really like to see is an 8x10 format e-ink reader that can natively hold PDFs and have enough internal memory (or microSD capability) that I can carry my pdf library around and keep it at the table. I often have my laptop at the table, but having it open is too big a temptation to surf or do something else disruptive to the table. I'd love an e-reader that can stay open to a page I'm on, jump from book to book, and take the place of a stack of hardcover books at the table (and in my gaming bag).
The iRex Digital Reader 1000 is almost there in terms of physical size. It takes SD cards, and I'm planning to try and get a form of Beagle search ported to it so that you can select a word in a book and it will list all of the other PDFs on the card that match - just as soon as I can afford one to hack on.
I'm after pretty much the same list of features that you are.
I don't have to have color, but what I would really really like to see is an 8x10 format e-ink reader that can natively hold PDFs and have enough internal memory (or microSD capability) that I can carry my pdf library around and keep it at the table. I often have my laptop at the table, but having it open is too big a temptation to surf or do something else disruptive to the table. I'd love an e-reader that can stay open to a page I'm on, jump from book to book, and take the place of a stack of hardcover books at the table (and in my gaming bag).
The iRex Digital Reader 1000 is almost there in terms of physical size. It takes SD cards, and I'm planning to try and get a form of Beagle search ported to it so that you can select a word in a book and it will list all of the other PDFs on the card that match - just as soon as I can afford one to hack on.
I'm after pretty much the same list of features that you are.
I looked at the iRex. As I said, the tech is _almost_ there. I'm hoping it gets there, as opposed to PDA's that were _almost_ there, and never quite _got_there_.
|
|
I looked at the iRex. As I said, the tech is _almost_ there. I'm hoping it gets there, as opposed to PDA's that were _almost_ there, and never quite _got_there_.
You've probably already seen then, but just in case: Plastic Logic
Looks like the form factor that you want should be available by the end of the year. Fingers crossed.
I looked at the iRex. As I said, the tech is _almost_ there. I'm hoping it gets there, as opposed to PDA's that were _almost_ there, and never quite _got_there_.You've probably already seen then, but just in case: Plastic Logic
Looks like the form factor that you want should be available by the end of the year. Fingers crossed.
I hadn't seen that one. I wonder what the price point will be given the marketing to "business leaders". This is usually a keyword for expensive.
Didn't see any spec on memory/card capability. Form factor is very nice.