Wizard's return to Drivethrurpg.com

[brothersale]

Hi all,
Wizard's have finally returned to the electronic publishing format, and while the first lot out is a little small (compared to their back catalogue) , there is some Ravenloft present, the four Children of the Night books, so if you haven't got them yet get them now (before they decide to change their minds again )

[Dimitri Mazieres]

This is great news! And it would be even better if sometime in the future they decide to offer Print on Demand options

And just to nit pick, the cover for The Created module was used in the Children of the Night: The Created product page

[alhoon]

And yet, Metzer's boxes that I've ordered in Drivethru and paid good money for, along with Wizard's almanacs etc are STILL unavailable.

[Jester of the FoS]

They're rescanning everything, so give them time. Their back catalogue is huge and the staff doing the scanning is likely very small.
Picked up the 1e Manual of the Planes and it's a pretty good scan. No obvious OCR mistakes and clean pages. There are bookmarks, which is nice.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

This is awesome news for those who don't have easy access to the old stuff. I'm a bit confused by the prices, though. COTN:Werebeasts is 9.99 while a very similar product, COTN:Created is 4.99. (and spoiler alert: Created is a way better book). Looks like they based the prices on a fraction of the original cover price, and used the price of "The Created" for "COTN:The Created". Snap it up now before they realize the mistake, I suppose.

IMHO, though, the prices are a bit ridiculous. But maybe I'm just very old-school in how much I think digital content should cost. I can't see myself ever paying more than $5 for a pdf, and that would have to be something really big or really great.

[HuManBing]

e-sales are usually in the $7-$10 range, with a few larger products (e.g. vector maps, multiple adventure series) set at around $15 or so. Core rulebooks for a system might run a bit above $20, as might a campaign setting.

This is what I've seen on Steve Jackson Games, at least, and that studio has moved their entire GURPS line almost exclusively to online PDF sales. The overhead costs of paper copy sales just doesn't justify it for their modest market share.

[High Priest Mikhal]

FINALLY! Soooo many products they quit publishing or distributing electronically that I wanted...I just hope there's a POD option. Or I'm going to have to buy a bare-bones laptop and install Adobe Reader on it. The only portable reader I have is a not-so-smart phone with a 6" by 3" screen that forces me to constantly scroll as I read tiny chunks of zoomed text. Yes, I read at a truly prodigious rate and absorb most of it like a sponge; the trade-off is my short term memory doesn't last more than a minute.

[alhoon]

I can't see myself ever paying more than $5 for a pdf, and that would have to be something really big or really great.

I've bought my now-defunct PDFs about Mentzer's boxes at 10$ all together I think in a special offer of 75% discount.

[Catman Jim]

I'm a bit confused by the prices, though. COTN:Werebeasts is 9.99 while a very similar product, COTN:Created is 4.99.

..especially considering you can buy the original print versions for the same price including shipping on Ebay.

I'm going to have to buy a bare-bones laptop and install Adobe Reader on it. The only portable reader I have is a not-so-smart phone with a 6" by 3" screen that forces me to constantly scroll as I read tiny chunks of zoomed text.

PDFs look fantastic on my new Kindle Fire HD 8.9"!

[Dimitri Mazieres]

And yet, Metzer's boxes that I've ordered in Drivethru and paid good money for, along with Wizard's almanacs etc are STILL unavailable.

According to this interview previosuly bought titles will be added to the customer's library as they are re-released:

Customers who previously purchased Wizards titles at DriveThruRPG or RPGNow should know that as those titles are re-released, they can check their Library page on DriveThruRPG to get downloads of the new and improved files. Wizards has asked us to make sure that all previous DriveThruRPG and RPGNow purchasers get the updated files for free!

[HuManBing]

Customers who previously purchased Wizards titles at DriveThruRPG or RPGNow should know that as those titles are re-released, they can check their Library page on DriveThruRPG to get downloads of the new and improved files. Wizards has asked us to make sure that all previous DriveThruRPG and RPGNow purchasers get the updated files for free!

That's good business sense right there, and great customer service. My opinion of WOTC will rise significantly if they implement this. E-publishing is fast, cheap, and convenient, and it's really in the best interests of publishers to make it easier - not harder - for fans to legitimately buy and download products that way.

[alhoon]

Not stealing your customer of the product is not good business sense. It's ... expected.
If they sent me an email of like "Hey, we saw you have bought the PDFs 3-4 years ago before we stopped hosting them. Now we host them again. Would you like to buy them AGAIN? Your previous titles are lost" I would be so furious that I would start bombing them with complain emails and check the net if there was a lawsuit against them for that very reason.
I would prefer to pay 50$ to a lawyer along with other enraged customers than buy them again for 30$.

[HuManBing]

Not stealing your customer of the product is not good business sense. It's ... expected.

Check the policy when you downloaded the PDF years ago. If the contract specifically states you may re-download at any time, then you may do so. If it doesn't, you cannot assume that you possess any rights beyond a single download. The "product" which you bought would be the single download rights to a single copy of the PDF. The company isn't "stealing" anything from you if you didn't specifically own the rights to it in the first place.

By comparison, Steve Jackson Games allows multiple downloads of its products (including a very good number of d20 products among them) but it specifically states this is the case, and it emphasizes that it wants to make customers' lives as simple as possible - especially if you have a hard drive crash or other accident. Many, and possibly most, in the digital download industry, do not extend these rights to their customers. Amazon, for example, only allows you multiple downloads if you use their cloud-based storage drive - if you merely download it to your computer, they will require you to pay again if you lose it to a hard drive crash.

I would prefer to pay 50$ to a lawyer along with other enraged customers than buy them again for 30$.

Greece must have different standards for legal fees than America (and any lawsuit against WotC will almost certainly have to take place in the district or circuit courts of Washington State, where they are located, and to which you very likely agreed when you initially bought the PDF in the first place - check the contract for "choice of venue" clauses). $50 of legal fees in America would buy you maybe 20 minutes of a lawyer's time - whereas contract lawsuits (especially against large companies like Hasbro) can drag on for months if not years.

[Zilfer]

Heh, at least I don't have to drive far to kick in their door if need be..... (Lives in Washington.... State of lots and lots of trees) I guess i'll have to take a look into this for older stuff. I don't have any of the 2e books though hopefully I'd be able to use them .

[High Priest Mikhal]

HMB has a point about this being a good business move. I remember reading the announcement that WotC was no longer publishing or distributing anything pre-4e, including 1e and 2e e-books. One of the first thoughts I had was, "This is going to hurt them." I wish I knew why they thought that was a good idea; by denying customers access to OOP items they lost out on major profits and spawned a market for new and used older books where owners could sell ones in fair to new condition for a premium (literally, we're talking $100+ per book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for some of the rarer and/or older products if they're in mint condition). If they'd jumped on that bandwagon they could have made bank. But they didn't; it's all independents turning a profit from that decision.