Brett's Blog PDFs are Great Apr 07, 2009 | 1:58 pm Wizards of the Coast announced that it is discontinuing sales of its digitally-distributed titles. In other words, it will no longer be selling PDFs of its current releases (Dungeons & Dragons 4E) or vintage titles (classic D&D and other out of print TSR games like Gangbusters). They claim that there is too much piracy of these titles. I have news for them. The piracy was always there. Unscrupulous people have always scanned their books only to make them available on file-sharing sites. This is nothing new. Their PDF prices were also outrageous. Other publishers fear that this will hurt the RPG PDF market, particularly since Wizards has also been making lots of cuts to licensing rights. Those publishers have relied on D&D and the OGL too heavily, so they have reason to be scared. Precis Intermedia has a solid foundation independent of such licenses and third party actions, so I say bring it on. 8 Comments | Add Comment | Permanent Link | Return to Overview roryb Commented: Apr 07, 2009 | 3:27 pm Yes, really a silly move. It won't do anything to take pirated materials out of circulation...perhaps even the opposite. Slay the dragon, I say! We don't need it. If more people turned to indie games, they'd all probably be happier. I know I am. :P Brett Commented: Apr 07, 2009 | 3:37 pm I don't think I'd go so far as to say "slay the dragon," but I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards was preparing to sell off D&D. djlittle Commented: Apr 07, 2009 | 6:03 pm Well, with the abor..uh, I mean MESS they have made with the D&D game (including the crummy movies), I don't blame them for selling it. They aught to get back to 'basics' and drop 3.0 and up. Update with current artwork (and editing) and re-release the OD&D, and 1st and 2nd Editions. They had a great product before they messed it up. Well, it doesn't affect me. I have the old stuff (and in .pdf)., and I don't plan on supporting them with any of the new junk either. Brett Commented: Apr 07, 2009 | 7:58 pm I agree. I really liked OD&D, but found AD&D to be a complete mess. 3E was just too cumbersome and I haven't played 4E, but kind of like it. I have the Basic, Expert, and Companion boxed sets, but never got above that since it became pretty ridiculous. The only PDF I bought from Wizards was the rules Cyclopedia, but because of the background noise, found it impossible to print out. I think we all know that the PDFs will still be floating around the web in one way or another ;) cknason Commented: Apr 07, 2009 | 8:27 pm I honestly think WOTC doesn't know what to do with D&D these days. If they sell it, so be it. WOTC is more comfortable with CCGs and CMGs and all that jazz anyway. It's too bad the vintage stuff is being pulled, but that's life. There are plenty of game companies (like Precis Intermedia) that are cranking out better stuff than WOTC does anyway. Brett Commented: Apr 09, 2009 | 12:31 am Gleemax was a failure, so they might be looking at ways to consolidate their PDFs into an in-house digital initiative. paraplegic racehorse Commented: Apr 09, 2009 | 12:34 pm I think a big part of their problem has been being overly ambitious with their sales expectations... Just because the first printing of 3.0 PHB sold out in the first 10 ten days, they assumed they could sell anything. In point of fact, the market was just "ready" for a major update of D&D. The market was NOT ready when 4.0 hit the streets and probably wouldn't be for another three or four years. And, I think Eberron has not met their expectations. It seems to me that people really want Mystara, Dark Sun, Birthright and others revived. (I know I do.) Also, printing full-bleed, full CMYK color on high quality glossy paper in True Hardback (as opposed to bound-on-board) is very, very expensive. That expense, of course, gets passed on to the customer and I baulked at paying $20 for the 3.0 first-prints. $40 for a game book of those page-numbers is just way too steep. They might - MIGHT - find better sales with a perfect-bound, gray-scale second printing. CrazyBlend Commented: Apr 10, 2009 | 4:55 pm If WotC isn't trying to shut down D&D, they're being Luddish. For many of us, the portability of PDFs makes them far superior to printed books. My library of RPG materials, which would easily fill several bookcases, resides entirely on my laptop. And shame on WotC for leaning on the old, never-substantiated argument that every pirated copy equates to a lost sale. Add Comment