I've really enjoyed being able to purchase the hard bound and get an actual .pdf copy of the book (not access to a web-based variant) or even better - be able to purchase a .pdf copy of a book. In fact, I buy .pdfs much more often than hard bound books these days simply because of price and shelf space. I WISH WotC would grasp this market it could tap into. Its competitors see it. (Maybe with all the recent fallout, this is the time?)
And no - D&D Beyond doesn't compare to .pdf copies. Visually, the content isn't appealing. It isn't as readily accessible as .pdfs are. And at least for some competitors, bookmarking and hyperlinks make .pdfs so much more appealing. (With Monte Cook games, I can even do my own bookmarks.)
I might add, too, that it's not uncommon for me to buy a .pdf, and based on that purchase, turn around and get a hard copy based on how often and how accessible the information in the .pdf is. Having access to .pdfs is also an incentive to explore genres, settings, or even game systems I'm not initially drawn, too. (Having some serious discounts on .pdfs brought me into Numenera and the Cypher System and I never would have discovered the unique game system without these .pdfs.)
To such ends, I have no desire to buy any of the hard bounds from WotC until Planescape comes out, but if they came out in .pdfs at a reasonable price, I'd probably already have Shadow of the Dragon Queen even though I'm not into that setting.
I'll conclude my rambling by saying that when I can buy two .pdfs for the price of one hard bound, .pdfs simply makes more sense. Thanks Paizo! Thanks Monte Cook Games! Thanks Kobold Press! Thanks Green Ronin! ... Thanks DMs Guild! (hint hint)
I've really enjoyed being able to purchase the hard bound and get an actual .pdf copy of the book (not access to a web-based variant) or even better - be able to purchase a .pdf copy of a book. In fact, I buy .pdfs much more often than hard bound books these days simply because of price and shelf space. I WISH WotC would grasp this market it could tap into. Its competitors see it.
And no - D&D Beyond doesn't compare to .pdf copies. Visually, the content isn't appealing. It isn't as readily accessible as .pdfs are. And at least for some competitors, bookmarking and hyperlinks make .pdfs so much more appealing. (With Monte Cook games, I can even do my own bookmarks.)
I might add, too, that it's not uncommon for me to buy a .pdf, and based on that purchase, turn around and get a hard copy based on how often and how accessible the information in the .pdf is. Having access to .pdfs is also an incentive to explore genres, settings, or even game systems I'm not initially drawn, too. (Having some serious discounts on .pdfs brought me into Numenera and the Cypher System and I never would have discovered the unique game system without these .pdfs.)
To such ends, I have no desire to buy any of the hard bounds from WotC until Planescape comes out, but if they came out in .pdfs at a reasonable price, I'd probably already have Shadow of the Dragon Queen even though I'm not into that setting.
I'll conclude my rambling by saying that when I can buy two .pdfs for the price of one hard bound, .pdfs simply makes more sense. Thanks Paizo! Thanks Monte Cook Games! Thanks Kobold Press! Thanks Green Ronin! ... Thanks DMs Guild! (hint hint)
DriveThroughRPG, though in a partnership with WotC.
The problem with pricing PDFs at half the cost of the book is that it really kills in-store sales, and there are advantages to having your product in stores. Though as your FLGS increasingly dies off, the advantages become smaller.
Oh, I know who runs the DMs Guild. I'm saying WotC has a vehicle to do so and already has with old edition sourcebooks.
... Not to say WotC couldn't from its own website.
Wizards has been allergic to .pdf files of current books for a very long time, I think in response to piracy concerns. I think it's a bad decision, but on the other hand, a properly hyperlinked setup like D&D Beyond is more usable than a .pdf
Maybe WotC could try both models. For people who want to pay access rights to release via D&D Beyond and all its fabulous hyperlinks - WotC could cater to that market. For people who prefer .pdf books, WotC could tap into that market. (By the way, if you follow Monte Cook's Cypher System, they hyperlinks their .pdfs.)
Oh, I know who runs the DMs Guild. I'm saying WotC has a vehicle to do so and already has with old edition sourcebooks.
... Not to say WotC couldn't from its own website.
Wizards has been allergic to .pdf files of current books for a very long time, I think in response to piracy concerns. I think it's a bad decision, but on the other hand, a properly hyperlinked setup like D&D Beyond is more usable than a .pdf
Plus they can monitor data trends and such with D&DB.
I guess this aligns with the move for printed books to become „collectibles“ while you buy or rather probably subscribe to the living documents on DDB which I imagine is coming with OneDND. So the rules and content can change dynamically online, not exactly sure how that would work in practice (monthly updates?). I don’t really understand their aversion to PDFs, I mean it 5E is going to be replaced in 12 months does it matter? Most other TTRPG systems practically give the PDFs away.
The problem with pricing PDFs at half the cost of the book is that it really kills in-store sales, and there are advantages to having your product in stores. Though as your FLGS increasingly dies off, the advantages become smaller.
I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Major players in the industry have been doing it as a matter of course since before the turn of the century. Many of them offer a free PDF with physical purchase.
Wizards has been allergic to .pdf files of current books for a very long time, I think in response to piracy concerns. I think it's a bad decision, but on the other hand, a properly hyperlinked setup like D&D Beyond is more usable than a .pdf
This is very much a matter of personal preference. When I run in other systems, including older versions of D&D, I often have multiple PDFs open simultaneously and rely far more heavily on search than I do on bookmarks. I'm not wild about D&D Beyond's search function. In its defense, the site's metadata seems to be quite robust, but the engine returns so many junk results, and the filtering system is so basic, that it is difficult to be agile when a quick lookup is required.
D&D Beyond also pitches a fit occasionally when I try to keep multiple tabs of it open in my browser, constantly checking to make sure I'm a human and not a bot trying to manipulate the site through its API. I mean, come on, how proprietary do they really need to be? That'd be the first thing I'd want before subscribing here -- an open API so that developers can create third party tools to improve on and help dungeon masters customize the basic access to information available on Beyond.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
J Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
I'm 99% that this is wishful thinking, but at least a small discount seems reasonable right?
The problem is that there's no practical means of doing that.
Yeah from what I understand it's virtually impossible to set it up in a way that works even somewhat reliably. I think it's entirely reasonable to want/ask for, but the practical logistics of codes-in-books and people using those codes is another kettle of fish entirely.
Like; what would stop someone from going into a bookstore and just writing down the code off of various books, then going online and using those codes? Well now we need to keep the code secret somehow, so now we need some kind of packaging material or other product that will keep the code enclosed in the book until it's purchased - that's a lot of additional cost on the books simply to offer people a discount later on on something else. Even if you shrinkwrapped them all in plastic, which is the easiest way to conceal something, it's not hard or unreasonable for people to unwrap them in stores - I've seen people do it right in front of employees and then play dumb like they didn't know it wasn't okay to take the shrinkwrap off of a brand new product.
Then you have the issue of; what if someone buys a book and the code was already used by someone else?
how do you offer codes to all the people that already bought books? Is it fair to only offer it for future books but not past books?
This is something that I entirely understand why it doesn't exist, and I'm usually at the forefront of insisting companies should be doing more to stand by their product and give good service to their customers (because they're all making billions in profits and yet paying their employees like crap). Fine in concept, impossible in reality.
What about people who got books as gifts? They are often given as gifts for kids; just this year I got two different TTRPG books for christmas, I know for a fact that the billing address on the receipt of those books wouldn't be my own physical address.
I can understand how that process would work for something more... personal? Like a subscription service you're signing up for, but these are books, and in my mind books are pretty transient - moving from house to house etc. being given away, pinning down a digital code / gps location stuff seems sort of overly complicated for WotC to figure out given that it also seems just a bit risky, too. Even if they tried to do something like that it could potentially cause a lot of problems in other arenas, I can see why they wouldn't want to tangle with it...
What about people who got books as gifts? They are often given as gifts for kids; just this year I got two different TTRPG books for christmas, I know for a fact that the billing address on the receipt of those books wouldn't be my own physical address.
Your electronic store sells an electronic gift certificate (with a single-use redemption code) and also arranges for physical delivery. The problem with doing the same for in-store purchases is that you either include a physical slip in the book (which is easily lost, stolen or copied) or need to issue the ticket at purchase time (which requires hardware and software the store may not have).
The earliest reference to I can find to that archive being official is in 2018. Reduced cost copies are not the same as free copies. Free seems a very strange business model.
From 2009 until 2018, the Pathfinder SRD was hosted at paizo.com itself. Unlike the D&D SRD, the Pathfinder SRD was (and the Pathfinder 2 SRD is) updated regularly, and includes open game content from all major sourcebook releases, as you can see from the table of contents. I have not taken the time to do a line-by-line check, but in 14 years, I have yet to find a rule in one of my Pathfinder books (which I've bought, despite the game being available completely for free) that isn't in the SRD. My understanding is that only the lore, art, and adventure path plots and maps are not included.
Yeah from what I understand it's virtually impossible to set it up in a way that works even somewhat reliably. I think it's entirely reasonable to want/ask for, but the practical logistics of codes-in-books and people using those codes is another kettle of fish entirely.
Like; what would stop someone from going into a bookstore and just writing down the code off of various books, then going online and using those codes?
You understand that brick and mortar stores have employees, right? Game stores manage scratch-off gift cards and fiddly add-ons for products behind the counter all the time. I'm not saying I approve of unloading the responsibility for this onto the staff at the FLGS, but it's far from "virtually impossible."
I've bought multiple RPG books from publishers who simply offer a free PDF of the book upon providing proof of purchase, usually an e-mailed photograph of a receipt. It's that simple. Concerned about fakes? Require people to mail in the actual receipt. Annoying? Yes. But if someone is too lazy to do that, then they don't get a free PDF. That's fine. No one is saying getting a free or discounted PDF with purchase has to be easy, it just has to be possible. As far as I know, Wizards is still providing a mail-in replacement service for first-printing D&D5 core books that have fallen apart. It is well within the realm of possibility for them to implement and even automate such a scheme.
Most of your argument seems to boil down to, "People are going to commit fraud." Of course people are going to commit fraud. People commit fraud every day! People are going to shoplift D&D books. People already do shoplift D&D books! Wizards still publishes D&D, they still make a profit, and the world still turns. It's not relevant!
how do you offer codes to all the people that already bought books? Is it fair to only offer it for future books but not past books?
It absolutely is, yes. People would complain, sure, but people are complaining anyway. Wizards is under no contractual obligation to maintain the current terms of sale for their D&D books. Any of us who give a crap about the growing community would understand that it is a net positive overall, even if we personally lost out. I've bought four copies of the D&D5 core books, and I'd buy a fifth in a heartbeat if it meant getting well-produced official PDFs of the material.
Wizards doesn't produce PDFs of their material because their executives mistakenly believe that rampant PDF piracy would damage their bottom line. That's spurious, and we've known that for decades. There is no such thing as a successful 'digital rights management' system, for PDFs or otherwise, and no company has ever gone out of business for this reason.
There are probably some people for whom the PDF would encourage them not to subscribe to D&D Beyond, but as folks in this thread have been keen to point out, D&D Beyond is very different than a set of PDFs. It offers its own advantages and disadvantages. I don't have D&D5 PDFs and I'm STILL not a D&D Beyond subscriber, because it is so different than what I need.
Cut and paste again with feeling: Paizo offers Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2 online, completely for free.
If you know where to look -- and I don't, and you shouldn't try to find out (hello moderators!) -- you can find all of a certain other game that we all enjoy online completely for free, too!
Pathfinder and this other mysterious and highly enjoyable game are both somehow still profitable! That is not rain you feel, Wizards is peeing on your leg.
This is something that I entirely understand why it doesn't exist, and I'm usually at the forefront of insisting companies should be doing more to stand by their product and give good service to their customers (because they're all making billions in profits and yet paying their employees like crap). Fine in concept, impossible in reality.
Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, you're not doing the job you think you are.
Well first, D&DB digital books are offered at a discount. $30 is a 40% discount of the hardcopy rate. You can get the "compendium" version (not linked to any other site resources) for even less (60% discount to the hard copy).
Second, up until recently D&DB was a separate company, so asking them to provide a discount on digital goods would be like asking Amazon for a discount on an e-book because you bought a physical copy at Barnes & Noble. That relationship has changed with D&DB's aquisition by WotC, but there is still issue number 3, the physical difficulty of managing how to provide the link/code/etc for use in a manner that would not be susceptible to theft. Even if the code was inside the book, and the book shrinkwrapped, someone could still tear open the wrap to get the code and then a portion of that books value is then wasted. Plus, the unique code printing and shrinkwrap would be additional costs borne by WotC, so that, plus a theft margin would then be passed on to the consumer, likely in the form of higher costs for the physical copy/and or digital content.
Cut and paste again with feeling: Paizo offers Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2 online, completely for free.
Wizards/Hasbro is not Paizo. They are different companies subject to different pressures. And just because a competitor does something does not mean the company has to do the same. McDonalds sells chicken nuggets, but that does not mean KFC should sell nuggets too.
HAS is a publically traded company subjected to far greater transparency rules and scrutiny from the public and shareholders, and HAS's primary job is to be profitable, because that is really what all shareholders can really agree on. And unlike new start up IPOs, HAS is way past the growth stage where shareholders would tolerate a company being unprofitable. If offering PDFs are not going to significantly improve HAS's bottom line, they are not going to do it. And nobody in their right mind would green light PDFs for sale and risk falling revenue just to be roasted and skewered by shareholders later.
Paizo is a private company, so they are not subject to the same pressure to be profitable and can do whatever they want. With a smaller number of owners, it is also easier to find more common ground and prioritize other things besides just profit.
No. Asking for this is not reasonable, because there is no effective way to dole out this discount without raising the price like the bundles do, and having large discounts on digital products without the price spike could lead to digital disasters in terms of pricing because people would just be able to buy someones unused and unwanted discount and game the already low prices. Books on Beyond are far from static electronic file replicas of physical books, and they deserve to be treated separately due to that.
I learned all this many months ago, shortly after I started this thread in May of last year. This discussion had all the necessary talking points discussed, and this thread alone was one of many on the exact same topic. Though this conversation was unintentionally revived, that has now caused several of the exact same questions to be answered again and again.
Of course it is.
Pathfinder1 and Pathfinder2 have both been completely and legally free online since each of them was launched. Book purchase not required.
Is this where I drop the mic?
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
I've really enjoyed being able to purchase the hard bound and get an actual .pdf copy of the book (not access to a web-based variant) or even better - be able to purchase a .pdf copy of a book. In fact, I buy .pdfs much more often than hard bound books these days simply because of price and shelf space. I WISH WotC would grasp this market it could tap into. Its competitors see it. (Maybe with all the recent fallout, this is the time?)
And no - D&D Beyond doesn't compare to .pdf copies. Visually, the content isn't appealing. It isn't as readily accessible as .pdfs are. And at least for some competitors, bookmarking and hyperlinks make .pdfs so much more appealing. (With Monte Cook games, I can even do my own bookmarks.)
I might add, too, that it's not uncommon for me to buy a .pdf, and based on that purchase, turn around and get a hard copy based on how often and how accessible the information in the .pdf is. Having access to .pdfs is also an incentive to explore genres, settings, or even game systems I'm not initially drawn, too. (Having some serious discounts on .pdfs brought me into Numenera and the Cypher System and I never would have discovered the unique game system without these .pdfs.)
To such ends, I have no desire to buy any of the hard bounds from WotC until Planescape comes out, but if they came out in .pdfs at a reasonable price, I'd probably already have Shadow of the Dragon Queen even though I'm not into that setting.
I'll conclude my rambling by saying that when I can buy two .pdfs for the price of one hard bound, .pdfs simply makes more sense. Thanks Paizo! Thanks Monte Cook Games! Thanks Kobold Press! Thanks Green Ronin! ... Thanks DMs Guild! (hint hint)
Who do you think runs DMs Guild?
DriveThroughRPG, though in a partnership with WotC.
The problem with pricing PDFs at half the cost of the book is that it really kills in-store sales, and there are advantages to having your product in stores. Though as your FLGS increasingly dies off, the advantages become smaller.
Oh, I know who runs the DMs Guild. I'm saying WotC has a vehicle to do so and already has with old edition sourcebooks.
... Not to say WotC couldn't from its own website.
Wizards has been allergic to .pdf files of current books for a very long time, I think in response to piracy concerns. I think it's a bad decision, but on the other hand, a properly hyperlinked setup like D&D Beyond is more usable than a .pdf
Maybe WotC could try both models. For people who want to pay access rights to release via D&D Beyond and all its fabulous hyperlinks - WotC could cater to that market. For people who prefer .pdf books, WotC could tap into that market. (By the way, if you follow Monte Cook's Cypher System, they hyperlinks their .pdfs.)
Plus they can monitor data trends and such with D&DB.
I guess this aligns with the move for printed books to become „collectibles“ while you buy or rather probably subscribe to the living documents on DDB which I imagine is coming with OneDND. So the rules and content can change dynamically online, not exactly sure how that would work in practice (monthly updates?). I don’t really understand their aversion to PDFs, I mean it 5E is going to be replaced in 12 months does it matter? Most other TTRPG systems practically give the PDFs away.
Pathfinder.
Completely free online since launch in 2009.
Pathfinder 2, as well.
https://www.aonprd.com/
It doesn't seem to be impacting their physical OR digital sales: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43qxe?Pathfinder-Inventory-Update-Q1-2023
All of these companies also sell reduced-cost PDFs of their hardcopy content at a minimum: https://www.enworld.org/threads/pathfinder-cthulhu-level-up-d-d-competitors-start-to-sell-out.694836/
I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Major players in the industry have been doing it as a matter of course since before the turn of the century. Many of them offer a free PDF with physical purchase.
This is very much a matter of personal preference. When I run in other systems, including older versions of D&D, I often have multiple PDFs open simultaneously and rely far more heavily on search than I do on bookmarks. I'm not wild about D&D Beyond's search function. In its defense, the site's metadata seems to be quite robust, but the engine returns so many junk results, and the filtering system is so basic, that it is difficult to be agile when a quick lookup is required.
D&D Beyond also pitches a fit occasionally when I try to keep multiple tabs of it open in my browser, constantly checking to make sure I'm a human and not a bot trying to manipulate the site through its API. I mean, come on, how proprietary do they really need to be? That'd be the first thing I'd want before subscribing here -- an open API so that developers can create third party tools to improve on and help dungeon masters customize the basic access to information available on Beyond.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Yeah from what I understand it's virtually impossible to set it up in a way that works even somewhat reliably. I think it's entirely reasonable to want/ask for, but the practical logistics of codes-in-books and people using those codes is another kettle of fish entirely.
Like; what would stop someone from going into a bookstore and just writing down the code off of various books, then going online and using those codes? Well now we need to keep the code secret somehow, so now we need some kind of packaging material or other product that will keep the code enclosed in the book until it's purchased - that's a lot of additional cost on the books simply to offer people a discount later on on something else. Even if you shrinkwrapped them all in plastic, which is the easiest way to conceal something, it's not hard or unreasonable for people to unwrap them in stores - I've seen people do it right in front of employees and then play dumb like they didn't know it wasn't okay to take the shrinkwrap off of a brand new product.
Then you have the issue of; what if someone buys a book and the code was already used by someone else?
how do you offer codes to all the people that already bought books? Is it fair to only offer it for future books but not past books?
This is something that I entirely understand why it doesn't exist, and I'm usually at the forefront of insisting companies should be doing more to stand by their product and give good service to their customers (because they're all making billions in profits and yet paying their employees like crap). Fine in concept, impossible in reality.
Well, at least for in-store purchases. There's no particular challenge to selling electronic and physical copies as a bundle on an online store.
What about people who got books as gifts? They are often given as gifts for kids; just this year I got two different TTRPG books for christmas, I know for a fact that the billing address on the receipt of those books wouldn't be my own physical address.
I can understand how that process would work for something more... personal? Like a subscription service you're signing up for, but these are books, and in my mind books are pretty transient - moving from house to house etc. being given away, pinning down a digital code / gps location stuff seems sort of overly complicated for WotC to figure out given that it also seems just a bit risky, too. Even if they tried to do something like that it could potentially cause a lot of problems in other arenas, I can see why they wouldn't want to tangle with it...
Your electronic store sells an electronic gift certificate (with a single-use redemption code) and also arranges for physical delivery. The problem with doing the same for in-store purchases is that you either include a physical slip in the book (which is easily lost, stolen or copied) or need to issue the ticket at purchase time (which requires hardware and software the store may not have).
Are you serious?
Let me Google that for you.
2009 Announcement: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lai3?Welcome-to-Paizo
Wayback Machine archive from Dec 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20130130095959/http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd
Wayback Machine archive from Jan 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20171231122657/http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd
From 2009 until 2018, the Pathfinder SRD was hosted at paizo.com itself. Unlike the D&D SRD, the Pathfinder SRD was (and the Pathfinder 2 SRD is) updated regularly, and includes open game content from all major sourcebook releases, as you can see from the table of contents. I have not taken the time to do a line-by-line check, but in 14 years, I have yet to find a rule in one of my Pathfinder books (which I've bought, despite the game being available completely for free) that isn't in the SRD. My understanding is that only the lore, art, and adventure path plots and maps are not included.
Not so strange.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
You understand that brick and mortar stores have employees, right? Game stores manage scratch-off gift cards and fiddly add-ons for products behind the counter all the time. I'm not saying I approve of unloading the responsibility for this onto the staff at the FLGS, but it's far from "virtually impossible."
I've bought multiple RPG books from publishers who simply offer a free PDF of the book upon providing proof of purchase, usually an e-mailed photograph of a receipt. It's that simple. Concerned about fakes? Require people to mail in the actual receipt. Annoying? Yes. But if someone is too lazy to do that, then they don't get a free PDF. That's fine. No one is saying getting a free or discounted PDF with purchase has to be easy, it just has to be possible. As far as I know, Wizards is still providing a mail-in replacement service for first-printing D&D5 core books that have fallen apart. It is well within the realm of possibility for them to implement and even automate such a scheme.
Most of your argument seems to boil down to, "People are going to commit fraud." Of course people are going to commit fraud. People commit fraud every day! People are going to shoplift D&D books. People already do shoplift D&D books! Wizards still publishes D&D, they still make a profit, and the world still turns. It's not relevant!
It absolutely is, yes. People would complain, sure, but people are complaining anyway. Wizards is under no contractual obligation to maintain the current terms of sale for their D&D books. Any of us who give a crap about the growing community would understand that it is a net positive overall, even if we personally lost out. I've bought four copies of the D&D5 core books, and I'd buy a fifth in a heartbeat if it meant getting well-produced official PDFs of the material.
Wizards doesn't produce PDFs of their material because their executives mistakenly believe that rampant PDF piracy would damage their bottom line. That's spurious, and we've known that for decades. There is no such thing as a successful 'digital rights management' system, for PDFs or otherwise, and no company has ever gone out of business for this reason.
There are probably some people for whom the PDF would encourage them not to subscribe to D&D Beyond, but as folks in this thread have been keen to point out, D&D Beyond is very different than a set of PDFs. It offers its own advantages and disadvantages. I don't have D&D5 PDFs and I'm STILL not a D&D Beyond subscriber, because it is so different than what I need.
Cut and paste again with feeling: Paizo offers Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2 online, completely for free.
If you know where to look -- and I don't, and you shouldn't try to find out (hello moderators!) -- you can find all of a certain other game that we all enjoy online completely for free, too!
Pathfinder and this other mysterious and highly enjoyable game are both somehow still profitable! That is not rain you feel, Wizards is peeing on your leg.
Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, you're not doing the job you think you are.
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
Well first, D&DB digital books are offered at a discount. $30 is a 40% discount of the hardcopy rate. You can get the "compendium" version (not linked to any other site resources) for even less (60% discount to the hard copy).
Second, up until recently D&DB was a separate company, so asking them to provide a discount on digital goods would be like asking Amazon for a discount on an e-book because you bought a physical copy at Barnes & Noble. That relationship has changed with D&DB's aquisition by WotC, but there is still issue number 3, the physical difficulty of managing how to provide the link/code/etc for use in a manner that would not be susceptible to theft. Even if the code was inside the book, and the book shrinkwrapped, someone could still tear open the wrap to get the code and then a portion of that books value is then wasted. Plus, the unique code printing and shrinkwrap would be additional costs borne by WotC, so that, plus a theft margin would then be passed on to the consumer, likely in the form of higher costs for the physical copy/and or digital content.
Wizards/Hasbro is not Paizo. They are different companies subject to different pressures. And just because a competitor does something does not mean the company has to do the same. McDonalds sells chicken nuggets, but that does not mean KFC should sell nuggets too.
HAS is a publically traded company subjected to far greater transparency rules and scrutiny from the public and shareholders, and HAS's primary job is to be profitable, because that is really what all shareholders can really agree on. And unlike new start up IPOs, HAS is way past the growth stage where shareholders would tolerate a company being unprofitable. If offering PDFs are not going to significantly improve HAS's bottom line, they are not going to do it. And nobody in their right mind would green light PDFs for sale and risk falling revenue just to be roasted and skewered by shareholders later.
Paizo is a private company, so they are not subject to the same pressure to be profitable and can do whatever they want. With a smaller number of owners, it is also easier to find more common ground and prioritize other things besides just profit.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
No. Asking for this is not reasonable, because there is no effective way to dole out this discount without raising the price like the bundles do, and having large discounts on digital products without the price spike could lead to digital disasters in terms of pricing because people would just be able to buy someones unused and unwanted discount and game the already low prices. Books on Beyond are far from static electronic file replicas of physical books, and they deserve to be treated separately due to that.
I learned all this many months ago, shortly after I started this thread in May of last year. This discussion had all the necessary talking points discussed, and this thread alone was one of many on the exact same topic. Though this conversation was unintentionally revived, that has now caused several of the exact same questions to be answered again and again.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.-
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