WOTC is angry!

[Lord Jolly the Scribe]

I know this topic may not have to do much with Conan but it does to a point. Recently, a friend of mine discovered that Wizards of the Coast has suspended any rights to download old 3.5 edition books and then I believe it was yesterday that they brought lawsuits against 3 individuals for bit-torrenting the Player's Handbook 2.

My friend has a theory: he feels that due to the fact that the new 4th edition line is not selling, they are cracking down on any vestiges left of the 3.0 and 3.5 to force a sales push. He also feels that they may move next to kill the OGL licensing, shutting down games like Pathfinder.

I would like to know your opinions on this and also if this could be a danger to Conan that we might not see.

If I find out this forum has been removed, I will understand why as this is a very touchy subject. I just don't want to see one of my favorite games endangered.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Not to worry about that, WotC has no right to repeal the OGL. D20 has been published under that license and they cannot change that.

Apart from that, yes, WotC has made some very dubious / stupid calls in these recent months. Right now they're curbing PDF retailers, doubtless in order to pull up their own PDF shop within the next few months.

Only advice I can give is not to buy anything from WotC anymore.

 

[Teriudin]

All this WotC paranoia is frankly entertaining. It's probably just large corporate bungling of an attempt to reduce piracy rather than any tinfoil hat conspriracy to get rid of various competing games. Seems a lot of people are biting on the april fools joke last week.

And maybe that was the intent of this original post? Is WotC the new Microsoft, the faceless evil mega-corp that wants to take away our games? Is the anger we see on other game boards more fearmongering than fact?

Either way, it is good fun to watch while it lasts and I'm glad I own good, old fashioned paper of my conan and 4E books.

 

[decker423]

Everyone I know hasn't liked 4th ed. D&D. there's a used book store where gamers can buy/sell/trade game material (in addition to other books, DVDs, etc.) in my town and I swear, within one month of 4th ed. being released there were 3 copies of 4th ed. books on the "used racks" AND all of the 3.5 stuff has been selling "hot" for the last 2-3 months.

People vote with their feet. AND their money.

 

[wartorn]

The veneer of 4e has worn off for me as well. In the end it seems that the system only rewards the monster-bashing playstyle. Conan D20 and it's brethren have a healthy future ahead I think.

My dislike of the system aside, I think WOTC had to do something about the PDF piracy. It's now at the point where within a few days of product release you can download *perfect* PDF copies - not the mixed bag scans of the past - even on archaic p2p channels. Whether it's the right approach or not, it really wouldn't surprise me if WOTC simply killed all forms of PDF distribution for their books.

 

[Hervé]

Download illegally any WOTC product you like but please give good money to Mongoose! They need our support as much as we need their books! :wink:

Piracy in RPG is pretty much a matter of player responsability. We're in a niche market and the industry is having a hard time. If you want your favourite publishers to live on, support them by buying the books.

 

[Diabolus]

I buy hardcopies of rules books, but usually buy PDFs of adventures (OK, I bought a hardcopy of Trial of Blood, so I guess I do make a few exceptions) because I like to modify them to fit my campaign and it's easier to do after I've put the text into a word processor.

So I'm disappointed by the WotC movement. I was hoping that the Hasbro management would mean good things like going to the toy store and buying a bag of plastic orcs and dwarves and having skirmishes with my kid, but it's not been a good thing.

I play some 4e since my weekly group wanted to give it a try and to be honest I was sceptical, but it's as fun as any version. It's what you make of it. The hardbacks seem to be of decent quality (with a lot of art recycled from 3.x...)

 

[Clovenhoof]

I'm not buying the piracy ruse at all. Be logical about it: you want to reduce piracy, so you take away all opportunities to acquire content legally? Yeah, right.

I don't think this is a move to push other games or companies out of business either. They probably just want to, either,
A) force everyone who wants to play D&D to buy the new 4E, or,
B) sell all the content themselves and not have to share the profit margin with retailers.

Paizo has responded with a promo today offering 35% off virtually ALL Pathfinder PDFs until the end of the month; you just have to type in the promotional code "PDFLove" during checkout.
Their newsletter used several phrases like "We know about the importance of electronic media" and "We welcome the digital age". [emphasis mine]
Very refreshing.

 

[Dark Mistress]

While I agree that Piracy is a problem, but what WotC is doing is actually promoting piracy. They are removing the only legal way to get their products by PDF's.

And to say this will stop the pirates cause their is no PDF's to steal is silly. Their was ORC and scanned copies of DnD books since the internet went up just about and their always will be.

To me the only way to stop piracy is provide a cheap good service of your own electronic products and build a strong customer service rep so people want to buy your stuff and feel it is priced well.

Baen books gives PDF's away and sells them and has for a long time. While other book publishers fight against it they have pushed it forward. What i have seen is you can find stuff like Harry Potter online with in days of the book coming out despite no PDF. yet you rarely find Baen books anywhere.

Why? My only thought is most people, most not all. Would happily pay for a product if reasonably priced and if they feel the company treats them well. So they don't pirate. While if it is high priced or they feel the company treats them poorly many do it out of spit.

Anyways done with my rambling.

 

[zorlak21]

F WOTC
Play Conan rpg or Traveller or Exalted or Eden studios games and

Eden Studios is offering a PDF Lovers Sale. From now until Wednesday, April 15, all Eden Studios PDFs will be 50% off!

and

To celebrate White Wolf's continuing devotion to PDF products, we'd like to offer all of our fans a one-time 10% discount on their next purchase of any White Wolf PDF titles through DriveThruRPG.com. Simply enter the coupon code wwlovesyou to receive your discount! Also, White Wolf is offering a FREE download of the Exalted Second Edition rulebook! Both offers expire by midnight (EST) on Sunday, April 12th.

DriveThruRPG.com

 

[Dark Mistress]

piazo is also offering a 35% sale on all their PDF's as well. They are posting the info up on their page today or tomorrow what the code is you need to use. i believe it is pdflove but not 100% sure on that.

 

[zorlak21]

Love the Avatar Dark Mistress now if mongoose wood 50% off PDF

 

[Bygoneyrs]

Well WOTC always seems to be pulling things to force people into a path to buy their 4th ed D&D. Take away all other options and strong arm folks into doing what they want. Well 4th ed D&D isn't for me, and honestly none of the older gamers that I either game with or know via the web really perfer 4th ed D&D at all. To all of us it would seem it is more of a focus on leveling the playing field and combat bashing monsters. Sorry I am a RPGer that gets into Roleplaying as the primary focus.

D&D 4th ed is ok I guess for some folks, but this older player (age 45) just doesn't want to relearn the wheel and all it's mechanics again in how this version works. Plus I do not want to be bothered with buying all the stuff once again either. As many that know me, know I am very lucky to have a very RPG friendly wallet so I can pretty much buy it all in time. I just have decided to abandon WOTC and D&D 4th ed and continue to support d20 D&D 3.5, or Pizaro's d20 version and Conan.

I guess I might be painting myself into a corner, but I just don't see 4th ed D&D staying the course of time. Actually I am wondering when WOTC actually comes out with a 4.5 D&D verion....you know they will. Then everyone will have to "rebuy" the books all over again to keep up with the "In crowd of Gamers". I have done that twice already, and will not do it again. I will say although that both versions of D&D 2.5 ed and 3.5 ed were pretty good systems once the bugs were worked out. I actually liked or perfer D&D 2.5 ed the best honestly, but 3.5 is ok too. Throw in the new Pizaro stuff for updated 3.5, and Conan d20 stuff and one ends up with a pretty good game.

Oh well to each their own...D&D 4th ed just isn't for this old dog, and me and my wallet will now support others!

Penn

 

[Clovenhoof]

A lot of companies are jumping into the breach right now and making promotional offers for their PDFs.
Wonder if Mongoose is also going to do something in that vein? *hint hint nudge nudge*

 

[Demetrio]

While I understand why folk like discounts...

If you clamour for discounts, never again ask for colour art, and never expect future books to be as well crafted as they might have been had older product sold at full value. You gets what you pays for.

Niche product does not do well under the 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' philosophy. Quality suffers and/or firms go bust.

 

[Hervé]

I totally agree with Demetrio: quality has a price.

 

[decker423]

And I really LIKE the Mongoose products so I buy them. the only downloads I have are "Signs & Portents". I think and feel that if you really support a game company then you support it financially.
For other download issues, I'm all for "out of print" or "no longer in print" products. Fortunately, I had all of my 3.5 stuff downloaded before 4.0 came out. And like I said, all the people dumping their 3.5 books in my town's used bookstore are buying them back (suckers!).

If you like Mongoose, support it. Use it or loose it.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I usually buy splats or supplements as PDF, simply because they're so much cheaper than getting a hardcopy here in Germany. For example, the Conan Core rulebook costs about 50 Euros at a typical LGS, at the current exchange rate that's about $65-70, and the supplements are priced correspondingly. Now of course you need a proper Core book. But I rather spend 12 Euros for a PDF than 25+ Euros for a hardcopy.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Yes niche products have to be priced higher and can't have as big of sales. But for products that have been out for awhile and already sold the bulk it is going to sell. Often sales is a good way to get a little extra cash out of it, especially sales on PDF's

 

[Demetrio]

I almost always by pdfs. And can see why they're cheaper. About 75%+ of dead tree always seems about right to me.

And sales of old product is fine. Its's blanket sales across a range, often promted by 'sales wars' that do the real damage. Customers get funny ideas about how much money is being made off ful price - becaus ethey thing profit must be being made even at sale price.