estirose: A pixel portrait of a woman (Default)
[personal profile] estirose
It's actually two very closely related issues. One has to do with sales of new and old WotC D&D PDFs, while the other has to do with previously purchased PDFs. All of this is through vendors.


TSR originally did D&D (Dungeons and Dragons). It was bought by Wizards of the Coast, which was bought by Hasbro.

A few years ago, several vendors started selling WotC-owned PDFs. Some of these vendors sold current and old (OOP) books and adventures in PDF format; others only offered older, OOP books.

By the time everything happened, there were only two PDF vendors that I know of selling WotC PDFs: RpgNow/DrivethruRPG and Paizo (who up until a year ago also published Dungeon and Dragon, D&D-related magazines).

Somewhere probably in April, WotC informed all online WotC PDF vendors that they were no longer allowed to sell WotC PDFs, citing piracy concerns (this may or may have to do with a suit over a leaked 4th Edition book). I've seen sources that said the vendors were given 24 hours to do so, but there's no official documents to back this up right now.

This is where the screaming started.



One of the services that most of the vendors offered was redownloading products. They were not required to, of course. But they did. Each copy had a watermark so you'd know who downloaded it.

When WotC shut down the selling/redownloading of their PDFs, one of the vendors (Paizo) basically emailed everybody who had purchased WotC PDFs and said " You have until noon on the 7th to make sure you have copies of everything you downloaded from us". The other (Drivethru) did not, and I don't know why. I myself didn't know that it was something other than a Paizo-WotC spat (Paizo forked WotC's 3.5 D&D in protest over 4th edition, I think?) until I hit the messageboards on the 7th to find out all PDFs had been pulled - and most of the WotC PDFs I'd bought were on the other service.



People like me buy PDFs because they're *convenient* and we want to support the publisher. I like being able to carry my reading material everywhere, and this sentiment is echoed with DMs and players who would rather haul a laptop or netbook instead of a pile of books.

Plus, you could get OOP that was hard to find at your FLGS. Want, say, a copy of the 3rd edition of Gamma World? Return to the Tomb of Horrors? Want it now? Well, up until this week you could go buy a copy of either in PDF format. Maybe you'd find it worth your while to chase down a paper copy.

But not any more.



As I mentioned earlier, the outrage is over two separate but related issues: the removal of the ability to download (watermarked) previously purchased PDFs and the removal of the ability to buy new PDFs.

On my personal end, I'm pissed because WotC gave consumers absolutely no warning. I am somewhat OCD; while I'm sure I have all my bought PDFs are backed up, I don't want to find that they're not. Also, I rather like being able to buy legal PDFs.

But, stepping back, here's what I think is the distilled controversy:
* WotC pulled the PDFs without warning, leaving gamers who had bought the PDFs unhappy for various reasons. (I suspect I'm not the only gamer with a touch of OCD or a desire to purchase legal PDFs.)
* There are arguments on whether WotC can be blamed for people being unable to redownload purchases from the vendors.
* Some gamers would have been okay with the pulling had WotC given some warning. The lack of warning and communication is what they had issues with.

On the reload issues, here are the points that seem to come up:
* WotC is not responsible for the vendors' redownload policies.
* People downloading should back up their purchases to a safe place.
* While WotC was not responsible for the redownload policies, they should have realized that customers would be pissed off by suddenly not being able to buy/download these PDFs and made sure that people were informed in advance.



WotC's official explanation is that their stuff is being pirated (they've sued 8 filesharers) and so they had to pull all purchased PDFs. Fans on messageboards dispute this.

* One theory is that 4E is not doing as well as expected, and it's easier to blame pirates than admit it.

* A side theory is that the PDFs were removed because the OOP stuff was stealing sales from 4E/not enough gamers were converting from prior editions, and that 4E and only 4E will be returned for sale electronically.

* A third theory is that WotC wants to open their own, exclusive store with heavier DRM than the current watermarking.

* A side theory of that is WotC will offer the current edition at a small discount, 3E at a bigger discount, and prior editions DRM free and cheap.

* The legal case requires removal, and the vendors can sell them after it.

There are arguments for and against all these theories, of course.

(Personally? If WotC cuts out OOP/Prior edition stuff or puts in heavy DRM, I am going to be reallly really pissed. DriveThru had Adobe DRM early on, and I frigging hated Adobe DRM activation.)



Well, we still don't know why WotC has suddenly pulled their PDFs. I am still annoyed at them about that (and very politely let them know that via telephone, to a very nice young man named Josh).

However, it looks like even though it was shorter notice than it really should have been, WotC did make a token effort to try to make sure people could back up the PDFs in question. Apparently, while WotC was talking to RPGNow/DrivethruRPG, there was a miscommunication about when the PDFs had to be pulled. DTR thought it was right then and there, while WotC meant the same amount of time Paizo got. So, DTR's customers didn't get a chance to download their final backup, but word is that they and WotC are negotiating to get a 24 hour download window up for backup only.

DTR and Paizo have both confirmed that they were told they had to drop their WotC PDFs on Monday 4/6. Paizo gave the customers until noon. DTR had the miscommunication as above.

I'm still cross because pirates of the 4E Players Handbook II <> massive removal of OOP stuff. I snag stuff that is 10-25 years old! It's almost not worth it to pirate stuff that old in digital form! But it's WotC's choice to make.

I hope they choose wisely....

Date: 2009-04-09 02:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nikkisilver.livejournal.com
This is an excelent post. You've really got everything down. You've even got all the theories I've seen.

For the record, I'm upset by it, too. I really have not enjoyed most of the business decisions Hasbro has made since they've owned the company.

Profile

estirose: A pixel portrait of a woman (Default)
estirose

July 2025

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
1314 1516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 18th, 2025 04:49 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios