# Exclusive interview WotC President Greg Leeds



## Morrus (Apr 10, 2009)

Thanks to you all for suggesting questions, and to Piratecat for gathering and compiling them!  

The interview with Greg can be read on the news page.

Information contained therein:



The decision was piracy related.
Pirated copies outweight legally purchased copies by 10:1.
WotC does not plan to resume sale of PDFs.
WotC is exploring other ways of selling digital products.  This includes older editions.
Third-party online sellers of WotC's PDFs are, to WotC's understanding, working with customers to ensure everyone gets what they're entitled to.
A quick clarification from WotC:
The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.​


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 10, 2009)

Well, Greg has CEO-speak down pretty well. Not a lot was said in that interview, unfortunately, and even less about what is coming up for the future.

I stand disappointed.


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## jensun (Apr 10, 2009)

That is remarkably unenlightening.  I predict the flames will continue.  

Which is unfortunate.


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## sjmiller (Apr 10, 2009)

I think I can say that this is one of the least informative interviews I have read in the gaming industry. It pretty much said nothing we already didn't know, and I think did little to comfort those who are upset by the goings on of late. There are so many unanswered questions that will probably never *get* answered.


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## blalien (Apr 10, 2009)

Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.


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## Piratecat (Apr 10, 2009)

Yup. I was hoping we'd have an explanation for why this happened, what they expected to gain from it, and how it got implemented. That didn't really happen.


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## Shroomy (Apr 10, 2009)

Its clearly not the most informative interview ever, but what did you guys expect?  IMO, most of those questions concern subjects a CEO should not be conversing about on a public messageboard (sales figures and strategy).  There were some nuggest of information:  the 10:1 ratio, they will not be going back into the pdf market, and that the decision was made in-house.


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## Dire Bare (Apr 10, 2009)

jensun said:


> That is remarkably unenlightening.  I predict the flames will continue.
> 
> Which is unfortunate.




Hmm, I disagree.  I think it was cool that Leeds himself took time to address the issue rather than handing it down the chain.  He gave well-reasoned responses to why WotC took the action it did, and what the shape of their future plans are.

I mean, 10:1 illegal PDF downloading to legitmate copies?!?!?!  I'm assuming by "legitmate copies" he means legally downloaded rather than physical copies.  But still, 10:1!!!! Holy Schnikes!!!

Did Leeds provide specific details of WotC's future digital distribution plan?  Of course not, and he'd be a fool to do so!  WotC quite rightly will keep the specifics under wraps until they have everything nailed down.

PDFs are not the only viable form of digital distribution, although they certainly dominate in the RPG field right now.  It's been a while since I checked it out, but Marvel Comics has (or had?) an online subscription service where you could access hundreds of their titles (old and new) online for like $10/month.  They weren't PDFs you could download, but rather you read them in a viewer on site.  Nothing to download, nothing to pirate!  I'd love to see WotC do something like this!


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## Rani (Apr 10, 2009)

Yeah, Shroomy's right, this interview is mostly what I expected. Doesn't make it any less disappointing however.


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## Ourph (Apr 10, 2009)

At least one question was answered. If they find a way to provide digital content, they plan to support out-of-print editions through that system. That, at least, is very good news.


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## Dire Bare (Apr 10, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.




Yeah, except they DIDN'T screw people over who paid legitimately.  It's been stated by WotC reps and store reps already that there was miscommunication, and files were pulled faster than WotC actually intended.  The timeframe was still intended to be very short, but not as short as it was.

Leeds pointed out that the two vendors who used to sell WotC PDFs, Paizo and OneBookshelf (which is both Drivethru and RPGNOW), are able to work with customers to insure they aren't screwed.  This has already been stated by both other WotC reps and by store reps.


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## Dire Bare (Apr 10, 2009)

Shroomy said:


> Its clearly not the most informative interview ever, but what did you guys expect?  IMO, most of those questions concern subjects a CEO should not be conversing about on a public messageboard (sales figures and strategy).  There were some nuggest of information:  the 10:1 ratio, they will not be going back into the pdf market, and that the decision was made in-house.




Yup, you got it!  Errrrr, or . . . 

THIS!

_(I'm behind on the posting trends . . . . _


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 10, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> I mean, 10:1 illegal PDF downloading to legitmate copies?!?!?!  I'm assuming by "legitmate copies" he means legally downloaded rather than physical copies.  But still, 10:1!!!! Holy Schnikes!!!




Yes, but taht is just an assumption. Sure 10:1 is al ALARMINg, MASSIVE number, but what does it really mean? If it is 10:1 pdf sales, then it is a problem, but that raises the question of what the ratio of PDF sales to physical books has been all along? Now, we all know Wizards makes far more profit on pdf sales than physical books, because printing, shipping, and such are not a real cost. 

Now, I would agree that if illegal downloads were 10:1 of ALL copies sold, including physical books, that is a massive massive number, and then WOTC would be justified in trying to stem that hemmohrage. 

But personally I think it is hte first case, in which case it is an alarmist number quoted out of context.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.



It means going forward 100% of phb1 and 2 pdfs will be acquired through piracy.  I don't see that as an improvement, either for the fans or WotC.


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## joethelawyer (Apr 10, 2009)

_Not appropriate.  - Morrus._


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## Haffrung Helleyes (Apr 10, 2009)

*reminds me of a song*

....when I listen to him,
all I hear is blah blah blah


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## The Black Kestrel (Apr 10, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> PDFs are not the only viable form of digital distribution, although they certainly dominate in the RPG field right now.  It's been a while since I checked it out, but Marvel Comics has (or had?) an online subscription service where you could access hundreds of their titles (old and new) online for like $10/month.  They weren't PDFs you could download, but rather you read them in a viewer on site.  Nothing to download, nothing to pirate!  I'd love to see WotC do something like this!




I'd hate it. I travel quite a bit and often for extended periods of time. The consequence of which I often lack access to the internet. I would be very much against an on-line only subscription service. Note I'm not interested in 4e materials, but only 3e and earlier so I may not be the target audience for the hypothetical initiative you describe.

With respect to the interview in general it it was not substantive enough for me. While the number of 10:1 for pirated vice purchased copies of the 4e PHB2 PDF is not entirely surprising I'm still shocked at the decision to pull PDFs completely with a pathetic grace period for securing downloads or an opportunity to buy books before they were gone forever. 

On a separate note I wonder how many of those illegal downloads lead to the purchase of a physical PHB2 (I know its beeen discussed on other threads, the question is rhetorical) which could also be related to it selling out.


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## Rani (Apr 10, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> Link deleted.





This is full of Win!


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## Dire Bare (Apr 10, 2009)

Dice4Hire said:


> Yes, but taht is just an assumption. Sure 10:1 is al ALARMINg, MASSIVE number, but what does it really mean? If it is 10:1 pdf sales, then it is a problem, but that raises the question of what the ratio of PDF sales to physical books has been all along? Now, we all know Wizards makes far more profit on pdf sales than physical books, because printing, shipping, and such are not a real cost.
> 
> Now, I would agree that if illegal downloads were 10:1 of ALL copies sold, including physical books, that is a massive massive number, and then WOTC would be justified in trying to stem that hemmohrage.
> 
> But personally I think it is hte first case, in which case it is an alarmist number quoted out of context.




I used the word assumption, but I'm actually pretty sure I understood it correctly.  10 pirated PDFs to every legit copy, both digital and hardcopy, doesn't actually make sense.  10 pirated PDFs to every legal PDF makes much more sense.  Which was my assumption, and unless I misunderstand, you're assumption too.  Even given that, I think that a 10:1 ratio is HUGE and is perfect justification for taking action.

Now, I disagree with the specific action taken, as I feel (as many do) that restricting the legal downloads won't really help much.  But I understand why they acted and I don't hold it against them.

Besides, they may have given up on the file format PDF, but they quite clearly have NOT given up on online digital distribution.  WotC is far from the only publisher who is uncomfortable with how easy it is to pirate a PDF file.


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## jensun (Apr 10, 2009)

Or Fail depending on your point of view.


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## Morrus (Apr 10, 2009)

Guys, let me be clear.  This is EN World, and EN World's rules apply even when you feel dissatisified with something.  We will tolerate no rudeness.  This includes linking to defaced pictures of individuals. You know the rules.

Discuss the issue, not the person.


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## caudor (Apr 10, 2009)

What has me curious is the mention of alternative methods of digital distribution of content.  Up till now, .pdf has been the method of choice (and still is for DDi).

As far as I'm aware, there are no feasible alternatives to .pdf for rich content.  Anyone have a clue what method he might be referring to?  What could possibly replace the .pdf?

I appreciate the interview, but I came away with more questions than answers.


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## joethelawyer (Apr 10, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.





How can they possibly know that?  What scientific sampling methods are out there to tell that ratio?   

B.S.


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## Azgulor (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> How can they possibly know that?  What scientific sampling methods are out there to tell that ratio?
> 
> B.S.




Sadly, I have to concur.  I clearly may be overlooking something but I fail to see how they could determine this.

I also still can't reconcile it against the PHB2 selling out.  They sold out the print run...so how did they lose sales?  Even if they wish to make the argument it MIGHT hurt future sales, every pirated copy does not equal a lost sale.


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## Windjammer (Apr 11, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.



It's already been pointed out how that figure is ambiguous between 90% of all copies and 90% of all PDFs. 

Piratecat here. They've asked us to clarify that Greg Leeds is referring to PDFs, not physical copies, when they use that figure.

That such an ambiguity is left to stand speaks bounds of the quality of this interview. Embarassing, just embarassing.
Obviously, all of those people in the 90% figure would have *purchased *the real thing as opposed to: "oh look here, lemme give it a cursory glance, and then forget it." Brilliant logic, there. Because that's how piracy works: utterly product-committed customers on the way to the cashier, turning left at the last angle.

The only thing that is conveyed by the interview is its existence. The heat is on, and they are reacting to it. Not a bad way to go. 

Not without humour either. "We hope to deter future offender." comes close to "They may be drunkards, Robin, but they're still human." Wheww!

But the one to top it all: 
"The truth is that the world is changing quickly, and as a business we need to be flexible enough to adapt to that changing environment."

Yeah, pulling legal PDFs off the market to fight a piracy boom that's been in full swing for YEARS - WotC are certainly on top of modern e-business.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2009)

Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> The piracy became a substantial concern when we saw thousands of copies of our recently released Player’s Handbook 2 being downloaded illegally within hours of its release. We cannot share sales figures, but I can tell you that we conservatively estimate the ratio of illicit downloads to legally purchased copies was 10:1.




I assume he means PDFs of the PHB2 being downloaded illegally within hours of the PDF's release. I'm not sure how he can tell hours from the physical book's release, just given the time that information takes to percolate up from the retail network.

That number sounds big, but it's not the whole story by any means. The PDFs could have been being downloaded before the release of the PDF, and I think that those numbers won't change even without the PDF. I imagine PDF sales of WotC books have never been very high (given the "full hardcover price" problem), so if they're looking at "All PHB2 Piracy vs. Number of Sold PDFs", those are VERY misleading numbers, and not something that any intelligent publisher should take without a heaping mound of salt.



			
				Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> We do not have any plans to resume the sale of PDFs, but are actively exploring other options for the digital distribution of our content – including older editions. We understand that digital content is important to our customers.




Good news, but I'm in a "I'll believe it when I see it" frame of mind for this. 

And, again, this can't have anything to do with piracy, unless WotC is taking a "baby with the bathwater" approach and just putting the kibash on ALL PDF's ever, period, which would be colossally ignorant.



			
				Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> While we understand that our actions will not eliminate piracy all together, we don’t want to make it easy to acquire illegally, either. We need to have a strong retail base in order to support (and grow) the hobby industry. We hope to deter future offenders – or at least slow down their path to obtaining illegal products.




My stars and garters, senior management is *completely, willfully ignorant*.

You know what not selling PDF's is to pirates? It's this:





"HUR HUR OKEYDOKEY"



			
				Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> The truth is that the world is changing quickly, and as a business we need to be flexible enough to adapt to that changing environment. We have and always will continue to find the best ways to be responsive to our community of fans and gamers.




Right attitude, but I don't see you backing that up with much in the way of positive development or communication. You're trying, and it's adorable, but it's kind of like you have a lisp and you're trying to say the word "sassafrass." It's coming out all garbled.



			
				Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> The D&D brand is critical to Wizards of the Coast’s success, and decisions such as this are not entered into lightly. We are all very hands-on, and decisions are vetted through all levels of the organization.




In other words, kiddos, there's no scapegoat for this decision. You can freely hold ALL of WotC responsible for this idiocy. From Mearls to Rouse to Greg Leeds (who IS this guy, anyway?), to his boss at Hasbro. 

To hold them responsible, I'm holding off on my WotC book purchases for a while. I'll keep the DDI. I'll only buy what I need to run my weekly 4e game, and only directly when I need it, nothing more (assuming I can't just get it from the DDI, of course). For me, at least, the decision to "crack down on pirates" like this won't result in more book sales for them, but in fewer. The most I can do is contribute my little bit to the feeling of futility they undoubtedly already have. 

I'll put that money into PDF purchases and Pathfinder, methinks.

And heck, if I really need a little tidbit that one of the books has for some odd reason, I'll browse the title in the store. Maybe read it in a cafe at Borders.

What I ain't doing is buying Wizards books. 

There are hundreds of thousands of other ways to get this information, perfectly legally.


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 11, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> Besides, they may have given up on the file format PDF, but they quite clearly have NOT given up on online digital distribution.  WotC is far from the only publisher who is uncomfortable with how easy it is to pirate a PDF file.




Well, WOTC already has online distribution of 4E, called the DDI. I do not belong to the DDI, but going with waht mutilple posters have said about subscribing to the DDI or buying books, it is easy to see all teh crunch of a new book on the DDI, and I suppose it would be possible to cut and past all the powers, class features and items into a messy word file or something, though I have no idea of the legality or illegality of that.

So if WOTC had said they would not sell further 4E files as PDFs to slow or stop illegal downloads, I could support that. I buy the books myself, and will continue to do so. But stopping all downloads is just weird, as everything 3.5 and back is out of print and will probably stay that way. So why not offer it for sale legitimately. Every single one of those files are alreads on file-sharing sites, so why not make what money you can.

If WOTC made sense, it would be a lot easier to support them.


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## Cassander (Apr 11, 2009)

For what it's worth, I believe a 90% piracy rate is pretty much standard among video games with DRM or not. So 10-1 doesn't surprise me.


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## Morrus (Apr 11, 2009)

Azgulor said:


> I also still can't reconcile it against the PHB2 selling out.  They sold out the print run...so how did they lose sales?  Even if they wish to make the argument it MIGHT hurt future sales, every pirated copy does not equal a lost sale.




PDFs don't tend to sell out.

And they didn't claim that every pirated copy equalled a lost sale.


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## Windjammer (Apr 11, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> And heck, if I really need a little tidbit that one of the books has for some odd reason, I'll browse the title in the store. Maybe read it in a cafe at Borders.



Those people will be cut down next, forced by WotC staffers equipped with shiny "Prolonged Reading not Appreciated!" buttons to the cashier.


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## Azgulor (Apr 11, 2009)

The most telling/interesting information I saw in the interview:

1. The decision to pull the PDFs was made internal to WotC, not handed to them by evil lawyers or Hasbro taskmasters.

2. The PDF format ain't coming back.

3. A stated commitment to making the older edition content available in the new TBD format.  Nothing stating it wouldn't require a DDI subscription, however.

4. The debacle has generated a stir/backlash serious enough that the CEO of the company felt the need to "go on the record" even if he didn't tip his hand in any meaningful way.  While I can salute his skill in revealing the absolute minimum to answer the questions, I don't think the interview helps WotC in soothing the rage.  If anything, the rpg community now has more fodder for speculation and conspiracy theories.  (Per my post above, I can't put any faith into the reported scale of the piracy.)

Finally, although I can applaud his efforts to tie the health of D&D and the RPG industry (it's only smart from a business standpoint to try and do so), it rings hollow to me.  The GSL and the pulling of all PDFs (which has a high potential for hurting online PDF retailers) seems to be much more about consolidating D&D's (& WotC's) position by reducing competition.  Again, probably smart business moves, but not ones designed to make it better for "everyone".

And yes, I can appreciate and admire the business accumen involved and still think the decisions suck as a consumer.


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## joethelawyer (Apr 11, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> In other words, kiddos, there's no scapegoat for this decision. You can freely hold ALL of WotC responsible for this idiocy. From Mearls to Rouse to Greg Leeds (who IS this guy, anyway?), to his boss at Hasbro.





Who is Leeds?  Here is his linked-in profile.   Lots of marketing experience in a variety of companies and product lines which I am sure is serving him well in his role at WOTC.


Greg Leeds - LinkedIn


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## joethelawyer (Apr 11, 2009)

Cassander said:


> For what it's worth, I believe a 90% piracy rate is pretty much standard among video games with DRM or not. So 10-1 doesn't surprise me.





What's missing from his 90% figure is any indication that the number has changed in any way.  It was probably 90% for the past 5 years.  To say "OMG its up to 90% !!" means that they have been tracking the percentage for some period of time and just realized that it went up, and up drastically enough that it caused WOTC to take this ridiculous action.  For all we know, the number was 95% last year and is down to 90%. 

Assuming, arguendo, that they can even track such a figure. After all, these are the people responsible for Gleemax and DDI.  Their technological skills are not the most stellar.


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## Jack99 (Apr 11, 2009)

What a weak interview. It told us even less than I thought possible.

And if they have to convert everything to a new undecided format, I shudder thinking about what kind of time-frame we are talking about.


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## tmatk (Apr 11, 2009)

4e is doing well, multiple printings, yet 90% of potential buyers are pirating *instead* of buying?  That is ludicrous


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## Azgulor (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> PDFs don't tend to sell out.
> 
> And they didn't claim that every pirated copy equalled a lost sale.




True, but until I see a WotC representative state that A) PDF sales account for a significant amount of D&D revenues and B) a 10:1 ratio of pirated:legal downloads represents a departure from other PDF sales I still don't buy the "Piracy-is-the-reason".  I'm not trying to dismiss the impact of lost revenue, I just have a hard time reconciling it with the sold-out print run.

My personal experience is that PDF purchases sometimes result in me buying a physical copy.  Since I don't download pirated stuff, I can't say if the same happens for those that do.  However, since PDF piracy is hardly a new phenomena, I still see this as a convenient excuse for taking the content fully in-house and eventually tying it to a DDI subscription.

Could I be completely off-base?  Yep, sure could be.  But lacking additional info, if it looks like BS, and smells like BS,... I'm going to think it's BS.

In any event, it's not speculation that this thing was handled poorly and has effectively been a PR blunder.  If it wasn't, Mr. Leeds' interview wouldn't have been necessary.  The fact that WotC felt the CEO needed to respond rather than say, Mr. Rouse, speaks volumes.


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## Morrus (Apr 11, 2009)

A quick note from WotC:
The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.​


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## Ashrem Bayle (Apr 11, 2009)

Wow. I'm absolutely astounded. To say so little with so many words, and at the same time prove how out of touch with reality he/they are.

It's... impressive.

How is it that he can go on talking about 10:1 sales losses and at the same time talk about how successful the books have been, and then claim piracy is killing them. If nothing else, it lends credence to the oft overlooked theory that piracy _helps_ sales.

Sales are better than ever!
Piracy is higher than ever!

How is removing the ability to pay for PDFs in any way going to curb piracy? I  simply cannot imagine a scenario where that will happen.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Apr 11, 2009)

Windjammer said:


> Yeah, pulling legal PDFs off the market to fight a piracy boom that's been in full swing for YEARS - WotC are certainly on top of modern e-business.
> [/SIZE]




Bingo! give that man a ruby d20! 

"Publish, _or _be damned!", with no publishing, WOTC loses all the pdf market, meanwhile, folk will still scan, create pdfs. 
WOTC is seen as useles for digital gaming....and gets marginalized.
WOTC goes bust around 2015. 
See RIAA and how it screwed it(them)self up doing much the same thing.

Wise man knows 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing!
You cannot sell what folk do not want ot, or cannot afford to buy.
Piracy = _free advertizing_, don't folk get that? Some of the game companies do, but won't admit it publicly.

Sell 4th ed pdf's cheap, out do the copiers.

Meh, what's the use. There is never any iceberg, the ship's unsinkable....
_"Dragon Dice, incoming!!"_


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## joethelawyer (Apr 11, 2009)

Azgulor said:


> In any event, it's not speculation that this thing was handled poorly and has effectively been a PR blunder.  If it wasn't, Mr. Leeds' interview wouldn't have been necessary.  The fact that WotC felt the CEO needed to respond rather than say, Mr. Rouse, speaks volumes.





I feel bad for Scott Rouse having to come on here and follow up that line of answers. His hands are likely going to be tied, in that he has to follow the brilliantly elucidated speaking points from the Leeds interview.  In any question asking for more detail or further clarification, he is going to have to say something like "That question was answered fully, and might I say masterfully by our magnificent CEO in his interview."

Just reading the thing forces a skill check to counter his Bluff for content veracity and a Concentration to actually get through it and determine that he said nothing.


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## Feylock (Apr 11, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> I mean, 10:1 illegal PDF downloading to legitmate copies?!?!?!  I'm assuming by "legitmate copies" he means legally downloaded rather than physical copies.  But still, 10:1!!!! Holy Schnikes!!!




I expected this number to be a LOT higher. like 100:1 or so. 10:1 is a small ratio considering how easily available piracy-pdfs are.

Also dont forget that many owners of the physical books are sometimes downloading their books in pdf format from torrents for ease of use.


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## JeffB (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> A quick note from WotC:
> The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.​




If thats the case I don't blame them one bit for pulling the PDFs. I just wish I had not been out of town when this went down- there were several more O/B/X D&D PDFs I wanted to purchase.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> I feel bad for Scott Rouse having to come on here and follow up that line of answers. His hands are likely going to be tied, in that he has to follow the brilliantly elucidated speaking points from the Leeds interview.  In any question asking for more detail or further clarification, he is going to have to say something like "That question was answered fully, and might I say masterfully by our magnificent CEO in his interview."
> 
> Just reading the thing forces a skill check to counter his Bluff for content veracity and a Concentration to actually get through it and determine that he said nothing.




Or, more likely, Rouse and the few other WotC employees in touch with the community will go on communications blackout.


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## Windjammer (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> A quick note from WotC:The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.​



Wow, that was quick! Thanks for that clarification. I'm glad you also put it straight on page 1. Little things like these further add to the impression that WotC at least deem it important to enter a direct means of customer communication at all.

This is in stark contrast to the non-communication about the termination of the German license of D&D. It currently looks 4E is _dead _as a German language product for good, and the complete silence over the whole affair for the past months has been a huge damper on the community.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Apr 11, 2009)

JeffB said:


> If thats the case I don't blame them one bit for pulling the PDFs. I just wish I had not been out of town when this went down- there were several more O/B/X D&D PDFs I wanted to purchase.




People buy the hardback at full price. They aren't likely going to also buy the PDF at the prices they are asking. Therefore, they pirate.

I'm certain that if there was a way to get the PDF for <$5 by showing proof you have the hardback, sales would more than quadruple.

But apparently WotC would rather sell zero copies for $20+ than a few thousand copies for $5.


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## Stankeye (Apr 11, 2009)

This is what they need to do.




Reproduction and Redistribution Restrictions: This security system has been implemented through the use of a free Adobe Acrobat plug-in that "locks" the PDF file to the computer on which it was first opened. Once a PDF file has been locked to a computer, it can be opened only from that computer.
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Copy & Paste Restrictions: The ability to copy and paste text from the PDF file has been disabled.


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## zacharythefirst (Apr 11, 2009)

*And now, my video response to Mr. Leeds.*


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## joethelawyer (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> A quick note from WotC:The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.​




I still say BS.

The only reason they had firm numbers of downloads with PHB2 was because some idiots uploaded it to Scribd, and Scribd provides information on numbers downloaded. Comparing those numbers to actual numbers of pdf's sold gives a ratio.  If several thousand were downloaded from Scribd and several hundred sold, you get a ratio of 90%.  However, I doubt you can track torrents, Limewire type services, and just plain old emailing or swapping on usb drives.

After this mess, I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to put stuff on Scribd again.  But if they did, I would imagine it would be harder to catch them, since the sale of the pdf had the hidden watermark.  A good old fashioned scan of a book has no such identifying features.

I know next to noting about how to pirate stuff, but it seems to me that if you are left only with other means of distribution than Scribd, which while they may be trackable on som individual basis if you know the person doing it and get a warrant to track all traffic through his IP address, I doubt you can just go out to some master internet tracker and get numbers of pirated copies downloaded.

So basically, what WOTC has done here is increase market demand for pdf's, taken away some of the guilt of doing it as well as their ability to track it, and alienate their customer base.  

Nice.


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## Morrus (Apr 11, 2009)

Stankeye said:


> This is what they need to do.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




What, like they used to do then stopped because of the massive community backlash against it?


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## Ashrem Bayle (Apr 11, 2009)

Stankeye said:


> This is what they need to do.




Make the PDf next to useless? I'm not sure that's going to increase sales.
In fact, the guys at RPGNow/DriveThruRPG can tell you just how ineffective any sort of DRM is.

People despise DRM. It's too much of a hassle, and it doesn't stop piracy. There are ways of stripping out protection, and it only takes one person to do it and post it to the net.


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## DaveMage (Apr 11, 2009)

Well, I think it was nice that he granted the interview - after all, he certainly did not have to.

On the other hand, if this is what we'll get from future interviews, I really don't see a point.

I miss Arneson & Gygax.


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## zacharythefirst (Apr 11, 2009)

Mr. Leeds would be a delight leading Buzzword Bingo.


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## Windjammer (Apr 11, 2009)

zacharythefirst said:


> *And now, my video response to Mr. Leeds.*



Zachary, you made my day. 

Guys, watch the video to its bitter end (or forward, once you got the initial joke). That's the perfect imagery for what WotC is currently doing, as faithfully predicted by Ryan Dancey for some time now.


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## Phaezen (Apr 11, 2009)

Oddly enough the 10:1 ratio of pirated seems to be inline with PC game findings of 80 - 95% pirate install ratios.

Sources and more info here and here

Phaezen


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## JoeGKushner (Apr 11, 2009)

Dice4Hire said:


> Well, Greg has CEO-speak down pretty well. Not a lot was said in that interview, unfortunately, and even less about what is coming up for the future.
> 
> I stand disappointed.




Yeah, that interview was... m'eh.


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## Mephistopheles (Apr 11, 2009)

Taking him at his word, in particular his stated intentions of maintaining the health of the industry and attempting to take some strides against piracy, I think WotC has chosen a remarkably poor way to respond to the situation.

His statement that "the piracy of our products was increasing at an alarming rate" implies that they've been aware of and observing piracy rates of their products for some time; the release of 4E PHB2 was not simply the first time someone at WotC asked the question of whether their products are being pirated and upon looking into it found that it was and this provoked the reaction to pull the plug on PDF sales.

As he has stated they were aware of the issue I guess there are two possibilities. One is that the piracy had been at levels they were willing to tolerate until they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. The other is that they were not willing to tolerate the level of piracy they had been observing even before they saw it spike with the release of 4E PHB2. (In both cases I find the PHB2 spike perplexing: I see no reason that it would spike on PHB2 in particular and, further, would have expected their concern with the piracy of 4E to begin with the leak of the 4E core from the starting gate - which leaves the idea in the back of my mind that PHB2 may have been the first time they took a hard look at piracy of their products and have overreacted to what they found.)

In both of these cases I'd think the response to go for is to continue selling the product and give a high priority - perhaps even urgent in the case of the alleged piracy spike suddenly demanding action - to developing an alternative delivery system that you can switch to when it is completed; the product is out there in piracy channels already so it seems reasonable to continue collecting some income from the PDF market while you develop the alternative.

Instead they've chosen to halt sales of the product on very short notice and are now looking at alternative delivery methods; the product is still out there in piracy channels but they're not collecting any income from the PDF market and their customers are left out in the cold. It also does not do a lot to explain why they decided to halt all of their PDF sales regardless of how old the product is. Possibly the most troubling thing about this decision is that it was "vetted through all levels of the organization".

The only positive speculation I can come away from this with is that they've already been developing the alternative delivery method and have it ready to go and have simply botched up on the transition. How positive that speculation is depends on the form their alternative takes. If they make it more inconvenient to be a customer than people are willing to put up with and their customers lose interest in the product or resort to pirating they won't be achieving very much at all.


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## Allenkwest (Apr 11, 2009)

I think it would be rather great of them to include a code in the hardcover books, like to register them, and that code would also allow you access to a PDF file of the book you purchased. And that PDF would only work on the computer that it was downloaded too.


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## Alzrius (Apr 11, 2009)

I feel happy just to have asked one of the questions (#5) that was dodged. 

Seriously though, now we need a new set of questions for a follow-up interview with someone:

1) How was the 10:1 estimation of pirated PDFs versus legally-purchased PDFs reached?

2) What other distribution options for digital products are being explored? Is there any sort of time-table for when we can expect to see them?

3) How do you expect the lack of PDF products will deter or otherwise slow those pirating your products?

4) Can you please reconcile the apparent contradiction regarding how physical copies of 4E books are selling out, and yet PDF piracy of those same books is apparently "increasing at an alarming rate"?

5) Again, why were digital distributors told that PDFs were being taken down with less than twenty-four hours notice?

That's all I can think of off the top of my head; not that it matters very much, since I doubt Mr. Leeds or The Rouse or anyone at WotC is in a position to actually provide us with some real answers.


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## Nyarlathotep (Apr 11, 2009)

Stankeye said:


> This is what they need to do.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Maybe they could install an application to format your computer after you're done reading their PDF too.

Or they could do what they have already done, stop publishing PDFs. Which is functionally the equivilent of all the above listed restrictions.


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## Nagol (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> I still say BS.
> 
> The only reason they had firm numbers of downloads with PHB2 was because some idiots uploaded it to Scribd, and Scribd provides information on numbers downloaded. Comparing those numbers to actual numbers of pdf's sold gives a ratio.  If several thousand were downloaded from Scribd and several hundred sold, you get a ratio of 90%.  However, I doubt you can track torrents, Limewire type services, and just plain old emailing or swapping on usb drives.




Actually, there are firms that do track the main p2p type services like limewire.  BigChampage is one that claims (probably overclaims) its ability to track trends in downloads.  Since they are effectively performing large polls, the results are open to some interpretation.


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## Redbeardin84 (Apr 11, 2009)

> 6. If you had the last few years to live over again and could completely revamp Wizards’ PDF and electronic media strategy from the ground up, what would you do differently?
> 
> I don’t know that I would try to re-do anything. The truth is that the world is changing quickly, and as a business we need to be flexible enough to adapt to that changing environment. We have and always will continue to find the best ways to be responsive to our community of fans and gamers.





Wanting to protect the profits and the brand, I can understand.  This answer confuses me and upsets me more than any pother part of the whole situation.

In 3rd edition, we were teased with E-Tools from day 1.  By the time the gaming community made what was released workable, it became time to reset editions.

Now I'm a big fan of the new edtion.  Old editions have taken a backseat in my circle.

Again however, at launch we were teased with never before available online utilities in the new edition.  I grant that with a WORKING Character generator that needn't be user modified to include crunch, they have on an academic level made the hurdle in comparison to previous company history.   But they also pitched E-books.  And they delivered on so little of what was pitched so far.

For this leader to publicly say he could not think of anything he would change, and there can't fairly be any faults assigned given that the world is expanding and becoming more sophisticated than WotC anticipated is either alarming or disingenuous.  

For 3E, 3.5, and 4th ed WotC has been over-promising e-solutions for its customers, and under-delivering.   If that is not something one would at least acknowledge when asked d to be retrospective on the matter, I cannot think I would take much solace in anything else he has to say.  Especially concerning Promisies of finding other e-distribution methods.

And to flat out state that a universally available format is not a e-distribution method that they will consider (PDF), one begins to wonder about the ease of use and compatibility of any future E-distribution formats.   Cars use tires because they have worked for decades.  Re-inventing the wheel?  Don't they advise against that in "CEO 101"?


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## Nagol (Apr 11, 2009)

Although the ratio of 10:1 sounds high, 10:0 is much worse.

I still think pullinf the extant files is unfortunate and not in WoTC's interest.   Refusing to support the format with product going forward would have provided just as much protection to new bookjs (i.e. almost none) whilst allowing some revenue generation from the compromised set.  

Now, the compromise continues, but the revenue is stopped.  How is that better?


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## JoeGKushner (Apr 11, 2009)

Allenkwest said:


> I think it would be rather great of them to include a code in the hardcover books, like to register them, and that code would also allow you access to a PDF file of the book you purchased. And that PDF would only work on the computer that it was downloaded too.




THis has to be a troll as that's almost exactly what was told to reader (not promised mind you, no hand on heart thing) but then that communication was blacked out and next think you know instead of a few dollars more on the DDI it was more expensive to buy the PDF than to buy from Amazon.com


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## Roman (Apr 11, 2009)

The interview was mostly uninformative, but I want to give the man some kudos for at least finally say _something/anything_. 

There is, however, despite mostly giving us what we new already one really new piece of information. The interview contains a stunning admission in that piracy was not the only thing responsible for pulling the PDFs - it was also a strategic business decision. This could mean many things, from bringing electronic sales in-house or switching to a service/DDI model or a warning shot to GSL companies that WotC will have no qualms about terminating their contracts directly removing OOP product competition with 4E and so on. 

Here is the relevant quote: 



> 1. Please tell us the reasons for the new policy on PDF sales. Is this a strategic business decision, a response to piracy, or a combination of the two?
> 
> The decision was made for both reasons.




This shows to me that the piracy argument for pulling PDFs was bogus to begin with. Taking what Mr. Leeds is saying at face value, I am willing to interpret it thusly: The part of the policy of not offering new products as PDFs could indeed be part of their anti-piracy fight. The part of their policy that pulled existing PDFs - that has nothing to do with fighting piracy and is motivated by other aims - I have provided a sampling of possible reasons above. 

Anyway, as far as I am concerned, this is a clear admission that the initial 'piracy-is-the-reason' statements were misleading (through omission - piracy could be responsible for not offering new PDF products, but not for pulling old ones) and there are clearly other reasons behind the decision. This is what most of us have long pretty much known anyway.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 11, 2009)

The interview was about as helpful as I thought it would be. I would like to thank PCat and everyone else that put forth effort to make this happen at all.

I'm still wondering how screwing people out of legally downloading Keep on the Borderlands impacts the sales of thier current products in the slightest?

Whatever. I don't need electronic access to 4E material anyway and the old stuff I can get at my leisure. Enjoy the lost sales WOTC.


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## Odhanan (Apr 11, 2009)

*shrug* Lots of words. No substance.


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## mangamuscle (Apr 11, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> I mean, 10:1 illegal PDF downloading to legitmate copies?!?!?!  I'm assuming by "legitmate copies" he means legally downloaded rather than physical copies.  But still, 10:1!!!! Holy Schnikes!!!



Colour me amused. Back in the days of the commodore 64 the number of illegal copies of top chart games was easily 1000:1 and nowadays music piracy makes even that figure seem small. Yet SSI nor sony music retired themselves from the "digital" market because that would be retarded, there is good money to be made in it, unless you are doing poorly and are in the look for an scapegoat.


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## conanb (Apr 11, 2009)

Allenkwest said:


> I think it would be rather great of them to include a code in the hardcover books, like to register them, and that code would also allow you access to a PDF file of the book you purchased. And that PDF would only work on the computer that it was downloaded too.




This would need to be tied to a DDI account. I can already see the kids walking in, opening the book taking the code and going home. Then the poor schmo who comes in and actually buys the book gets nothing. If you tie it to a registered and PAID DDI account then your all good. These codes would only be redeemed by paid DDI members. They get a double bonus, you buy the book and your on the hook for 7.95 a month to get a digital copy. And if you steal a code, well then they can ban that credit card. So now someone can't just steal a code from the book, they have to steal a credit card to redeem it. That's a whole different level theft as it delves into identity theft.


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## w_earle_wheeler (Apr 11, 2009)

Ever get the feeling that the original plans for the DDI was actually a meta-RPG?

Whenever I look at the DDI advertisement in the back of my hardcopy books, I just have to laugh.

Great Moradin's beard, what a cluster5%*c!


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> And yes, we can track it.




Colour me skeptical.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> However, I doubt you can track torrents, Limewire type services, and just plain old emailing or swapping on usb drives.



I can't belive I'm going to say this...

Joe, you're not paranoid enough.

I can't believe I just said that.

First, there's the general rule of the internet: there isn't really any anonymity on the internet. 

I mean, sure, you don't know me from Adam and my name could just as easily be Kevin Smith. But if I did something really bad, use your imagination for examples, Morrus has my IP address which he could use to fine me in various ways. 

It's the same thing with Gnutella, the network Limewire and it's siblings use, they all have to use IP address because the internet uses the TCP/IP protocol stack. Every computer sharing an illegal PDF has an IP address, and every computer downloading one has an IP address. Yes, WotC can track these things.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> Assuming, arguendo, that they can even track such a figure. After all, these are the people responsible for Gleemax and DDI.  Their technological skills are not the most stellar.




I think they're using ouija boards.  Or maybe a magic 8-ball.

"Are we losing sales to piracy?"

*shake shake*

"Signs point to yes."


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## guivre (Apr 11, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> Colour me skeptical.




Javascript can be embedded in a pdf so that it phones home. If you are reading a pdf with Acrobat and have not disabled Javascript, then yes they can get get some rough numbers.

Since most computer users are fairly naive about the software they're using odds are pretty good that most of those pdfs were tracked. Downloader opens the file in Acrobat pdf phones home with identifying information. It's not perfect and false positives are more than likely, but it does work. You're not going to get exact numbers via that method but you're going to get decent estimates. 

I haven't checked WotCs pdfs to see if they try to phone home, though I do disable Javascript in Acrobat when I use it for pdfs, which isn't often.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 11, 2009)

I have a feeling WoTC is doing what people keep telling them to do.  "Adapt to new business models".

They are hoping to move to a DDI where the files are not saved but remain "in the cloud".  

They also seem to be altering and simplifying the game.  Reading 4e, I was stunned to see how things have changed.  The way they've setup characters and monsters, all you'd really have to do is change the distribution model from rulebooks to a card set, similar to magic.  While this is not happening yet, I eventually see the game turning into a more traditional "game" that Hasbro uses--cards, owning physical objects that aren't books, etc.

This seems to be the new wave of the future.  Steam and iTunes are successful without DRM (and for those that say they are getting rid of the DRM for music, I suspect stuff like Subscription services might become more popular and cost-effective, plus like newspapers, if profits go down, things will change).  I fully expect WoTC, the leader of the industry, to adapt to this change...

Even if the change isn't what people expected...


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## mxyzplk (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Although the ratio of 10:1 sounds high, 10:0 is much worse.
> 
> I still think pullinf the extant files is unfortunate and not in WoTC's interest.   Refusing to support the format with product going forward would have provided just as much protection to new bookjs (i.e. almost none) whilst allowing some revenue generation from the compromised set.
> 
> Now, the compromise continues, but the revenue is stopped.  How is that better?




Yeah, really.  Do they realize there was just as much pirating before their products were available in PDF?  Enterprising folks would just scan and OCR them.  The most you could say is that they didn't bother for crappy fringe or indie products.  But when "PHB3" or whatever comes out - may take an additional 24 hours, but it'll be on as many sites making as many downloads.


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## 2WS-Steve (Apr 11, 2009)

Alzrius said:


> I feel happy just to have asked one of the questions (#5) that was dodged.




REF 72 -- try again when you're 130th level!


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## Wayside (Apr 11, 2009)

Want to know how many people have downloaded a torrent? Just go to the torrent's page or look at its tracker. You don't need Big Brother to find this information--it's right there for absolutely anyone to see. Other file-sharing methods can be traced with more or less difficulty, but all can be traced.


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## DimitriX (Apr 11, 2009)

Was it just me or did it seem like he said a lot without really saying a damn thing?


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## Shemeska (Apr 11, 2009)

Not quite approaching the level of this guy:
Political reference deleted. Dude, you know better. ~ PCat

"Do not believe any internet rumors! We are totally on top of all things on the internet and can stop piracy with our new policy! We have top people working on our digital products!"

But getting there. That was remarkably shallow on information, and won't help things at all. It's only going to cause more bad PR.

These are the same people who are close to a year past the promised release of the Character Visualizer, Dungeon Builder, and Virtual Tabletop, with no news for months, and a removal of most mention of them on the DDI website, but yet they can magically track the number of pirated downloads of their books' pdfs.

Sure they can. *pat pat*

That said, I would not be surprised if the ratio was much higher than 10:1 given WotC's pricing on 4e pdfs.


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Although the ratio of 10:1 sounds high, 10:0 is much worse./QUOTE]That is the truth. 90% piracy ratio is the norm, like World of Goo etc without DRM. However it is also at about 90% with DRM, it is always cracked.
> Now we will see people getting PDFs the only way they can, scanned books... grrrrrr


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## CleverNickName (Apr 11, 2009)

Stankeye said:


> This is what they need to do.
> ...Stuff...



I would not buy such a product.  Ever.  At any price, including free.

The product you describe might discourage pirating for a while (until someone writes an app to defeat these "features," anyway), but it would render the product absolutely useless to me.

I don't buy PDFs of books because I want to sit around reading them.  I buy them because having a digital version:

...allows me to carry around my entire library on a single DVD, and not a three-hundred pound duffle bag (or even a five-pound laptop.)

...keeps me from having to tediously retype pages and pages of notes, stats, and descriptions when I am putting my notes together for a D&D game.

...lets me print out only the parts I need for a gaming session.

...will let me find the armor class of a Giant Serpentweed, in BECMI, in seconds.

...means I don't have to worry about whether or not I will be able to find a WiFi signal when I sit down to work on my adventures.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  An electronic file that doesn't allow me to do these things might make a good conversation piece, but that's about all I could use it for.


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## Festivus (Apr 11, 2009)

I appreciated the comment that Paizo and Onebookshelf would be working on ensuring that their customers got what they paid for.

I did finally find a copy of Keep on the Borderlands that I had bought on my old laptop, but still that was my biggest concern.


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## Henry (Apr 11, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.




I'm willing to bet that that actual number of illegal downloads has stood for quite a while, and cessation of legal PDFs is not likely to change it - what it will change is the fact that people were getting it within hours as opposed to months. Common sense says, if it can be viewed or heard, it can be copied.

I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.


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## caudor (Apr 11, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.




This is exactly what I've been wondering.  If not .pdf, then what?


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## Henry (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Although the ratio of 10:1 sounds high, 10:0 is much worse.




_(math joke)_ It's not worse, it's just undefined. _(/math joke)_


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## Shemeska (Apr 11, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.




*blink* Huh. Was that the reason why some pdfs have never been offered for legal sale? They never finished making official pdfs of the entire TSR catalog?

For instance there has never been a legally available pdf of the 2e book, "On Hallowed Ground" for Planescape. Pirated pdfs existed, but never a good, official scan with indexing etc. Given the general opinion of the book, I've always wondered why they never had it out there. That would explain why though.


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## malraux (Apr 11, 2009)

I do wish a longer time had been given on this.  There really were a fair number of old edition pdfs I wanted to get as reference, but was waiting for the next big sale day.  Some of the classic modules, like Keep on the Borderland, some 2e planescape stuff, 3e Eberron stuff, etc.


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## DimitriX (Apr 11, 2009)

I'm also not surprised that they decided to pull ALL pdfs rather than just the 4e pdfs.  WotC doesn't want you playing previous editions, they want you buying the new edition.  The fact that they aren't printing the old edition stuff anymore makes sense.  But that means that the only way to get this stuff is through downloads.  If they aren't printing the old stuff, then there isn't any way that they can say that piracy is hurting sales of the old stuff because they aren't printing it anymore.  And, I really don't think that the piracy of old edition pdfs is really hurting their bottom line.  He didn't mention it at all in his 'reply'.  They could have just decided to make the 4e stuff no long available in pdfs and not touch the 3e, 2e, or 1e materials.  But, they didn't.  Because they do want to dictate the game you play.  Sounds paranoid, but I can't think of another logical reason why they would pull everything.

It seems like about once a month something else comes up that gives me that old TSR feeling.


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## thedungeondelver (Apr 11, 2009)

I think WotC will use the piracy excuse to never again bring out any sort of reprints (electronic that is) of older versions of *D&D*.  In fact, the longer the delay between now and whatever they were allegedly planning to offer, the more piracy will happen.

Then, they can simply point and say "Look!  Look at all the piracy!  Why, we can't put the effort in to making electronic files for all those old books!  We'd never make our money back!"

Well played, WotC.  Well played.


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## blalien (Apr 11, 2009)

I will miss the official pdfs, but ceasing them will indeed reduce piracy.  It will take quite some time before somebody gets around to scanning and uploading the new book.  In that time, a lot of diehard D&D fans will not want to wait and will just pick up the book.  Additionally, if you assume a torrent behaves like a virus, then just delaying its release by a few weeks will significantly reduce the number of people who ever see it.  Think exponentially.  Of course, piracy will never go away completely, but don't think that ceasing pdf sales won't make a difference.

I wouldn't miss the pdfs so much if they'd iron the bugs out of Compendium.  And when is the freakin' Game Table going to be up and running?

Also, Wizards is not going to die.  They are reporting record profits, and no RPG has anywhere close to D&D's market penetration.  D&D is going to be around until something fundamentally changes the gaming community.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2009)

*Thoughts*

WotC is already distributing the content of thier 4e rulebooks without .pdfs via the Compendium. This is one reason I never bought a 4e pdf, I didn't need it. I have offline access via my hardcopies.

WotC is also selling novels in non-pdf form on the Kindel and Sony Reader. 

Mr. Leeds made it sound like the 10:1 illegal to legal pdf was new for them.

People in this thread state that ratio is standard in the video game industry.

People in other threads have said that WotC is trying to make D&D like a video game to appeal to younger people.

There may be a connection there.


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## scruffygrognard (Apr 11, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> PDFs are not the only viable form of digital distribution, although they certainly dominate in the RPG field right now.  It's been a while since I checked it out, but Marvel Comics has (or had?) an online subscription service where you could access hundreds of their titles (old and new) online for like $10/month.  They weren't PDFs you could download, but rather you read them in a viewer on site.  Nothing to download, nothing to pirate!  I'd love to see WotC do something like this!




I'd hate this!!!!

You wind up having no access to the documents once the subscription ends and, most likely, couldn't print the materials you were "renting" while subscribing.  

Then again I don't like MMO subscriptions or the DDI service either.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 11, 2009)

I use Steam (from Valve, makers of Half-Life 2 and Portal), and you can't run their games unless you log in to their servers, but once you're logged in, you can do a heck of a lot.

Maybe WotC will just come out with a similar service/program. You log in to their site and can access a wonderfully-intuitive to navigate electronic database of all the books you own, with the ability to purchase access to additional books for a small microtransaction fee (say, $1 for a book you own, $3 for a book you don't). Then you can get access to any WotC book from any computer, and have added functionality of being able to, say, search for all paragon level fey lurkers.

Which I think is kinda like what they have now for the D&D Insider. All you'd need to do is add a component to let you view pre-4e content.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 11, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> Yup. I was hoping we'd have an explanation for why this happened, what they expected to gain from it, and how it got implemented. That didn't really happen.




Thanks for trying though!


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## Piratecat (Apr 11, 2009)

One other thing. I asked Greg Leeds about his vision for D&D. He liked the question enough that he wanted to take some time on it. I'm hoping to hear back from him in the next week or so. With luck, it'll give us a roadmap of where he sees the game and the hobby industry going.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 11, 2009)

cperkins said:


> I'd hate this!!!!
> 
> You wind up having no access to the documents once the subscription ends and, most likely, couldn't print the materials you were "renting" while subscribing.
> 
> Then again I don't like MMO subscriptions or the DDI service either.




Yeah, having the ability to possess items, rather than 'check them out from the library' as it were, will I suspect lead to an eventual solution where publishers just sell stuff digitally at a cheap rate, and higher for the hard copy. Basically the same way music is going now. Trying to implement DRM just won't satisfy customers.

Ultimately, I think you have to accept that pirating will happen, like jaywalking or speeding. You should design to mitigate the chances of people wanting to break the law.


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## Fedifensor (Apr 11, 2009)

I don't see why people are saying he's evasive - the question on everyone's mind was answered directly.



			
				Greg Leeds said:
			
		

> We do not have any plans to resume the sale of PDFs, but are actively exploring other options for the digital distribution of our content – including older editions. We understand that digital content is important to our customers.



It doesn't get much more clear than that.  He didn't say, "no watermarked PDFs", or "no PDFs unless they have DRM".  He flat out stated that you will not be able to purchase a PDF of a WotC book. 

Which means, if you want a legal electronic copy of a book, the only way to get one for now is to scan the hardcopy yourself...and most people don't have the time or patience to do that.  Not to mention that the only way to get a good quality version involves destroying the hardcopy in the process.

In the future, maybe they'll have some propitiatory format.  Will you have to be online to use it?  Can it be displayed on something besides a full-fledged computer (iPhone, eBook reader, etc)?  We don't know...but it's not far enough along for him to pass anything along to us.  As he stated, they are still "exploring other options".


As to whether this new policy will make a difference, the test case is less than two weeks away from being released.  If you don't see significant pirating of Arcane Power within a week or two of its release, and sales of the physical book meet or beat expectations, Mr. Leeds will be proven right.  If the book sells less than expected, or _legible_ copies hit the pirate sites within a few days of release, then the new policy will have had a negative effect for WotC.


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## Obryn (Apr 11, 2009)

Henry said:


> I'm willing to bet that that actual number of illegal downloads has stood for quite a while, and cessation of legal PDFs is not likely to change it - what it will change is the fact that people were getting it within hours as opposed to months. Common sense says, if it can be viewed or heard, it can be copied.



I think it's also critical to note that there's a difference between the two kinds of pirated PDFs.

WotC PDFs are gorgeous, high-quality, extensively bookmarked, errata'd, efficiently compressed, and allow both search and copy-paste.

Most quick pirate PDFs are scanned images, and many aren't even OCR'ed.  They are of lower quality, usually not bookmarked, have larger file sizes, and are seldom updated unless there's a really determined pirate out there somewhere.

Seriously, there's just no comparison.

I think you could make an argument - not necessarily a great one - that a WotC PDF comes close to being a replacement for the hardcopy, whereas your usual pirated PDF falls far short.

You could also make an argument that the development time used to make the bookmarked PDF isn't worth the sales money coming in for it.  Or, more extensively, that it is outweighed by the exposure to potential lost sales.

I still think this was a dumb move by WotC, and I'm no happier after the interview.  But the more I think about it, the more I think they have at least a _few_ points.  I don't think they believe they'll stop piracy.  I _do_ think they believe they can make sure what's available to pirates is substantively worse than the official books.

-O


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## Festivus (Apr 11, 2009)

*[SIZE=+0]double post, see below.[/SIZE]*


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## GMSkarka (Apr 11, 2009)

It still makes no sense:

First:  "We can track it" -- If piracy was that easy to track, there wouldn't be any piracy.   You can estimate, but you're probably wrong.

But just going with sample "X" figures -- if your sales looked like this:

100X = printed sales
10X = pirated PDFs
1X = legitimate PDF sales.

Getting rid of the 1X in legit sales doesn't do a damn thing but lose you the money from those sales.    A large segment of the 10X pirates were never going to be customers in the first place -- they just grabbed it because they could.   In addition, even without the legit PDFs to use as source, _you're still going to have 10X pirated_ -- they'll come from book scans, production files (y'know, like the CORE BOOKS were?), etc.

So all they're doing is irritating customers, and leaving the legit PDF money on the table.

The trends on this kind of thing and the failures of past responses are well-documented.   There's an entire array of study and dissection of ePublishing, digital commerce and piracy, yet it seems like nobody is bothering to educate themselves on it before making decisions.


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## Festivus (Apr 11, 2009)

Got this in my email tonight, seemed related to my query (as in an answer):



> *[SIZE=+0]An Important Note to All Customers of Wizards of the Coast Products. [/SIZE]*
> 
> *WOTC DOWNLOAD RECOVERY DAY, APRIL 15TH*
> 
> ...


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## Raduin711 (Apr 11, 2009)

what about a steam-style of DRM?  I am not a big fan of DRM, but my experiences with steam have been pretty positive.  I think it is a question of offering added convenience in exchange for the inconvenience of requiring the software.


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## wocky (Apr 11, 2009)

My two cents on the 1:10 ratio:

1 - Some of those people have bought or will buy a printed copy. It still is a lost sale of the PDF, but hardly the same as someone that downloads and prints the pirate copy. In a perfect world the PDF would come free with the printed book.

2 - Many, many, many of those will never give more than a cursory glance to the pirate book, if they give a look at all. It's usual for people to download much more stuff than they get to watch/read/hear. Most of these wouldn't have laid a cent for a legal copy.

3 - Some of these people live in countries where the exchange rate makes the books very expensive. I know because I live in such a country (Argentina). The "book price : salary" ratio makes D&D books and PDFs much more expensive for us. Arguably some people that download the files illegally would have bought them if left with no other choice... but most of them wouldn't have (not necessarily because they can't, but rather because at some price point they're not worth it).

I assume the number of illegal downloads that caused a lost sale of either a digital or printed copy of the book is much lower.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 11, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> ... Greg Leeds (who IS this guy, anyway?) ...




_President of Wizards of the Coast._

For those keeping score, that's the equivalent to _"Captain of the Titanic"_.



_Captain of the Titanic_:  This ship is an unstoppable behemoth, Completely Un-Sinkable!
_Crew Member_: What was that screeching sound!?
_Captain of the Titanic_: Don't worry, it was nothing.  Besides, we're unsinkable. ... (glug, glug ... gurgle, gurgle ...)


_President of WotC_: This company is the industry leader.  What's good for us is good for the industry.
_WotC Staffer_: What was that screeching sound!?
_President of WotC_: That was nothing, just some rabid fans.  Don't worry  you'll get used to the noise.  Besides, they'll stick with us because we're the industry leader. ... (glug, glug ... gurgle, gurgle ...)



Hmmmmm.



​


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## Shadowsong666 (Apr 11, 2009)

ok, now i read the complete interview and i think i am somehow missing the right words in my vocabulary.

How can an interview be just that long, dodgy, uninformative and boring? Does he know his audience? I really feel like getting handed the "your all idiots and don't see our great plan" stick. Or do they really think that i will just buy that stuff without another thought just because Leeds said so? He is not Steve Austin, anyway.

Oh boy - thats probably the lamest interview i read which wasn't given by a politician in a long time... its scary to know that there are people out there who think they walk the talk but actually sit there and say nothing. 

So - now that we have exclusive interviews all over the net - can we now get a meeting with Scott Rouse in an exclusive area - just us gamers, a podcast and no one else?


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## Pramas (Apr 11, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> One other thing. I asked Greg Leeds about his vision for D&D. He liked the question enough that he wanted to take some time on it.




I suspect it's this:

Underpants + ??? = Profit

But oh no, they took underpants gnomes out of 4th edition!


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## cdrcjsn (Apr 11, 2009)

Pramas said:


> I suspect it's this:
> 
> Underpants + ??? = Profit
> 
> But oh no, they took underpants gnomes out of 4th edition!





What!?

Gnome is in the PHB2.  And the underpants paragon path for gnomes was in the April 1st edition of Dragon.


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## Maggan (Apr 11, 2009)

Shadowsong666 said:


> How can an interview be just that long, dodgy, uninformative and boring?




It was on par with what I was expecting. This is pretty standard fare for a CEO giving interviews.

/M


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## Lanefan (Apr 11, 2009)

Too late now, I know; but one question I'd have loved to seen get asked is:

"Mr. Leeds, what was your gaming background before coming to WotC?"

This, to find out if he's a gamer dressed in a suit (which would give me a few shreds of hope) or just a suit (which wouldn't, so much).

Lanefan


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## Truth Seeker (Apr 11, 2009)

PC, thank you for the effort, on the getting the questons created and sent.

A worthy effort.

-Raad both interviews-

No comments.


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## f33b (Apr 11, 2009)

Obryn said:


> You could also make an argument that the development time used to make the bookmarked PDF isn't worth the sales money coming in for it.  Or, more extensively, that it is outweighed by the exposure to potential lost sales.




The cost of adding that functionality to a pdf pales in comparison to the cost of turning on your press, even if the press is in mainland China. Selling 10 9maybe 20  if your typesetters are based in California) pdfs would recoup that expense. 

We're talking _maybe _three billable hours from a competent programmer. All you have to do is write a script to match words and case/styling. Heck,  you can probably do the development once, and re-use it multiple times over the life of the typesetting system. Of course, adding bookmarks and an index to something that allows for full text searching is, well, kind of redundant.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 11, 2009)

caudor said:


> This is exactly what I've been wondering.  If not .pdf, then what?



That's an interesting question. While PDF is the undisputed champion, there are other formats such as Microsoft's XPS. In the ICv2 interview, Leeds spoke postively about WotC's experieces with the Kindle, but there's a script available which strips off the DRM. I suppose they could try creating their own solution, but I really hope that's not on the table.

The problem, of course, isn't just replacing PDF but replacing it with something that won't just be quickly cracked. Copy protection isn't a new problem; it's something that companies and organizations which dwarf WotC (and Hasbro, for that matter) in size, war-chest and tech savvy have been struggling with for the better part of three decades with results that could be charitably referred to as "mixed."

I suppose they could try some sort of on-line reader where you go to a website and read the book there. Of course this kills a large part of the usefullness of the electronic format. Also, it would be no great trick to dump the contents of whatever they feed you into a PDF and start sharing it.


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## Derulbaskul (Apr 11, 2009)

Dear Greg,

I read your anti-interview and would like to throw a few questions in of my own for your consideration.

*A BREAKDOWN IN LOGIC*
1. Your anti-piracy methods have now been proven to be successful in identifying pirates. That would tend to support leaving the PDFs for sale rather than pulling them. Would you care to comment?

*PROACTIVE LEADERSHIP*
If I was your superior in Hasbro I would be asking at least these two questions:

2. "Why didn't you explain yourself to your customer base BEFORE it blew up rather than giving non-answers AFTER?" How would you respond to that?

3. Some of us rely on the utility offered by your PDF products so that we can get our "D&D fix", for lack of a better term. "Why didn't you have a replacement programme in place at the time you made this announcement?"


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

joethelawyer said:


> I still say BS.
> 
> The only reason they had firm numbers of downloads with PHB2 was because some idiots uploaded it to Scribd, and Scribd provides information on numbers downloaded. Comparing those numbers to actual numbers of pdf's sold gives a ratio.  If several thousand were downloaded from Scribd and several hundred sold, you get a ratio of 90%.  However, I doubt you can track torrents, Limewire type services, and just plain old emailing or swapping on usb drives.



So you mean the ratio is even worse? 




Stankeye said:


> This is what they need to do.
> 
> 
> Reproduction and Redistribution Restrictions: This security system has been implemented through the use of a free Adobe Acrobat plug-in that "locks" the PDF file to the computer on which it was first opened. Once a PDF file has been locked to a computer, it can be opened only from that computer.
> ...




DRM that makes legal use of a PDF even more difficult than the illegal use is not the way to go. 

But I am afraid it might go into a direction they indeed intend to go, except that it won't be a PDF format.
They might use the DDI, a different format, and maybe some online-communication aspect to it. Of course, that still reduces the usability. 

I know that Microsofts XPS format (their equivalent to PDF) does also contain DRM functions, but I have no clue wether it has anything that PDF doesn't also have.

---

Edit: 

I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.


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## César Ayala (Apr 11, 2009)

I'm not a genius, but if the PDF is dead to WotC, what will happen with dragon and dungeon? Last time I checked em, they were PDF. And yes, they were all over the interweb in evul pirated pdfs.


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## Umbran (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.




I find this to be an excellent point.


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## Shadowsong666 (Apr 11, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I find this to be an excellent point.




But taking everything for the truth just because someone said so isn't really the right way either. I think it strongly depends on personal experience and how well someone is able to deliver the information he tries to send out. A good portion of disbelieve is really a good thing imho.

You read stuff, think about it and have a opinion on things. Thats totally ok as long as you don't get to upset about the person who delivers it. I mean, honestly, the messenger isn't important but the message he delivers is. I didn't hear anything new and i really wasn't able to get anything out of the interview that i could use as a "ok, they've done, they have a good reason for doing it and they have a great plan in their hand how to handle things in the future" statement... its more a blah blah blah - many words - no substance.

The reason for an interview and blant information we got have nothing to do with each other in that case. The one thing is the desire for information and the other is the delivery of information. People do not critic that he did answer the questions but that he really did answer the questions poorly imho. Well, good wording and stuff but you didn't get anything out of it. It just doesn't cool me down but helps getting more angry as i don't see a plan behind all that. Stealthy corporate strategies don't impress me because they simply are a very poor way of doing customer service. 

Enough said on that - i need a mead...


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## Jasperak (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.




Um, should we bother having PR firms and White House press secretaries then? Or never question politicians again, please.

You parse through the lies and read between the lines, and hold their feet to the fire when they are finally caught.

I respect Mr. Leeds for addressing these issues with his responses to the two interviews, but that doesn't change that fact that he is the CEO and his primary duty is not to tell the truth, but to parse his language in a way that does not hurt the shareholders he works for or bring undue damage to the brand. His addressing this issue directly tells me that this is one of the most important issues that they face right now. In the best of worlds the head of WOTC has to be a CEO first and gamer second. Others like Paizo, Green Ronin, Necromancer Games, or Goodman Games may be gamers first, CEOs second, but you never see that from a Hasbro Subsidiary.


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## Morrus (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.




I utterly agree. If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?


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## 3catcircus (Apr 11, 2009)

Allenkwest said:


> I think it would be rather great of them to include a code in the hardcover books, like to register them, and that code would also allow you access to a PDF file of the book you purchased. And that PDF would only work on the computer that it was downloaded too.






JoeGKushner said:


> THis has to be a troll as that's almost exactly what was told to reader (not promised mind you, no hand on heart thing) but then that communication was blacked out and next think you know instead of a few dollars more on the DDI it was more expensive to buy the PDF than to buy from Amazon.com




Indeed - about a year ago when Rouse was on here touting 4e and the plans for how people could get pdf's, I called him out on it and basically told him he was a liar (the thread where he placed me on ignore).  I'm not happy to say "I told you so" when it came to that prediction.



JohnRTroy said:


> I have a feeling WoTC is doing what people keep telling them to do.  "Adapt to new business models".
> 
> They are hoping to move to a DDI where the files are not saved but remain "in the cloud".




It doesn't matter - someone will (out of spite, desire to beat the technical challenge, whatever) figure out a way to download and save the files.  Look at how quickly youtube grabbers morph when youtube changes their code to prevent downloading videos...



Henry said:


> I'm willing to bet that that actual number of illegal downloads has stood for quite a while, and cessation of legal PDFs is not likely to change it - what it will change is the fact that people were getting it within hours as opposed to months. Common sense says, if it can be viewed or heard, it can be copied.
> 
> I'm just curious what kind of replacement is planned for PDF distribution for the older stuff, and if it will ever be implemented, because more likely it will be seen as too little gain for the expense of translating it to a DRM medium that is acceptable to buyers and WotC - heck, the project was pulled after JIm Butler was laid off years ago because it was too cost prohibitive back then to finish the catalog just for scanning to PDF.




The most amazing thing about their decision to yank pdfs is that is doesn't appear that they considered that the rate of piracy will start out very high at the beginning of a product's release and then taper off - just like the sales themselves do.  The 10:1 ratio would drop off rather quickly.  Of course, it doesn't help them that free trumps $20 any day.

As far as the older stuff (or even the newer stuff), I'd be willing to bet that the amount of available pirate copies will increase over the coming weeks.  

Have a problem with PHB2 piracy?  Fine - yank that title, but 10 sales/day out of your back catalog is better than no sales/day.



f33b said:


> The cost of adding that functionality to a pdf pales in comparison to the cost of turning on your press, even if the press is in mainland China. Selling 10 9maybe 20  if your typesetters are based in California) pdfs would recoup that expense.
> 
> We're talking _maybe _three billable hours from a competent programmer. All you have to do is write a script to match words and case/styling. Heck,  you can probably do the development once, and re-use it multiple times over the life of the typesetting system. Of course, adding bookmarks and an index to something that allows for full text searching is, well, kind of redundant.




Probably less time than that.  I work with low-end publishing (MS Word -> PDF).  It takes the clicking of a single button and waiting a few minutes to have a fully-indexed PDF.  I imagine that higher-end publishing using industry-standard publishing software is not much more than that - especially since you can batch-file the distilling to do multiple books (i.e. - you can set the batch file up to do the entire 3.5 catalog and come back in a few hours and it'll be done).  Bookmarks and and index *aren't* redundant because (especially with large pdfs), it is quicker to look in the TOC or index rather than do a search. 

Of course, once the master PDF copy is made, other than individualizing each sale (with ye olde hidden micro-watermark) which takes less than a minute, there is no NRE cost involved - it is all profit.

IIRC, at the beginning, legal 3.x PDFs where inferior to pirated copies.  I don't know if the same was true for 4e pdfs.  That having been said - a poorly scanned pdf is preferable to no pdf, so I'm fairly confident that WotC's entire catalog will become more prevalent as pirated copies.  Especially since now they know to also remove the micro-watermark in addition to the visible one.


----------



## Jasperak (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I utterly agree. If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?




What is the point of journalism then?


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## mxyzplk (Apr 11, 2009)

Piratecat said:


> One other thing. I asked Greg Leeds about his vision for D&D. He liked the question enough that he wanted to take some time on it. I'm hoping to hear back from him in the next week or so. With luck, it'll give us a roadmap of where he sees the game and the hobby industry going.




I guess I'm a little disturbed that the president of WotC doesn't have a vision for D&D ready to go...  Why do I suspect that if you asked the same question about Magic you'd have been treated to a pre-vetted paragraph about "cyber-synergy enabling us to dominate the market space" or something?  "Huh, good question, let me think about that.  We try not to have too much of a vision for D&D, it restricts our ability to make random kneejerk decisions."


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 11, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> What is the point of journalism then?




Journalism is asking tough questions.

Journalism is NOT just being cynical and derisive--save maybe for the opinion column.

Journalism is meant to get to the "objective truth" as much as possible.  That includes stuff that might conflict with your own preconceived notions and ideas.  It is conducting research and finding out the facts.  

Granted, this was kind of a softball interview, and I think people are jaded thanks to PR firms, but I highly doubt they are lying about such things as the piracy ratio.  



> It doesn't matter - someone will (out of spite, desire to beat the technical challenge, whatever) figure out a way to download and save the files. Look at how quickly youtube grabbers morph when youtube changes their code to prevent downloading videos...




Yes, but my point was I believe WoTC will be changing the game to something different from our experiences.  What if, for instance, the handbooks disappear, and become cards--your characters and monsters are a combination of cards, and the rules just tell you how to play--and add things like a specialized battlemat.  "Fluff" content is regulated to on-line only, or maybe on-line dynamic databases for network play.  Based on what I've seen from the 4e ruleset, it's about halfway there--monsters and characters are more "statblock" than ever.

This would be the most effective way to eliminate piracy.  While somebody could scan and torrent the cards, people would have to really have the cards and the on-line database to maximize their effectiveness.  

I see this as the possible future of D&D.  It would be a lot more inconvenient to pirate such a game.  While possible, it's probably not worth the effort for most.

The only flaw is their lack of getting the DDI up and running to maximum efficiency.  But if they pull it off, I think the days of the hardcover rulebooks will end, at least perhaps when 5e comes around.


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## mxyzplk (Apr 11, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> What is the point of journalism then?




I'm confused, did he say something substantive enough to disbelieve?  Is this about the 1:10, as it's the only thing approaching a fact in the interview?  I can certainly believe that they did some kind of measurement which they interpret to be 1:10 on the PHB2.  I also think they used that as an excuse to pull all the older game DLs as they consider it not in their best interest for anyone to be playing ANYTHING except their most-latest release.


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## Mark (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?





Well, to be fair, I think you ask someone a question to see what they say and then decide if you believe them based on what they say and the evident facts.  Certainly, you can hope that someone will give you an honest answer but sometimes an answer is honest and sometimes it is not and sometimes it is no answer at all.  For my own part, the interview is irrelevant.  As a PDF-providing ePublisher, I expect that the decision will have an impact on my sales.  As a customer, the loss of PDF availability will reduce my purchasing.  I did not need the interview to know either of those things.


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## La Bete (Apr 11, 2009)

Thanks to Morrus, Piratecat and any other ENW staff for organising this.

Thanks to Greg Leeds and WotC for participating. Though I will admit I would have preferred a 'meatier' Q&A session, but as the Stones song goes... 

And of course my thanks to ENWorlders for their high level of politeness and civility, which should ensure that this sort of interview is not just a one-off.

---

Couple of interesting points which I took from it:

1) Wasn't really expecting WotC to walk away from pdf completely! Someone was speculating (on the mega-pdf thread) that this function would move to a DDi online-only app, and it looks like they were right. 

2) Nice to hear they are planning to release older products via the same method - which makes sense. If they've got you tied into a DDi sub, I suspect they don't really care which edition you play. I wonder if this means we would see the previously unavailable older ed. stuff.

3) Despite their comments about having novels on the e-reader, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for rulebooks moving to this platform.


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## evilref (Apr 11, 2009)

Because of the degree of edition wars and the ever-increasing amount of rhetorical fallacies found on Enworld I've been reading these forums less and less.

This thread, and the levels of disingenous and fallacious arguments has pretty much put paid to me bothering with the site anymore.

I do think it's a poor business decision to pull the pdfs. I also know that the company would have done so for reasons it considered to be in its best interest. I don't agree with them, but it's their company, they've got every right to make bad business decisions.

The bile, venom, insults and arguments that would fail a prep school debate class that this forum has devolved to are such a long, long way from the principles and standard of discussion found here back when the site first began to grow and develop.


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## Kask (Apr 11, 2009)

Pretty obvious from his reply.  

1: They don't want to sell older product (as evidenced that they don't sell it) they are willing to lose that rev stream as they feel it is eroding the 4.0 sales.

That's it in a nutshell as they aren't going to replace the rev stream, it isn't about lost sales of older material due to piracy.


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## Wormwood (Apr 11, 2009)

oh never mind


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> Um, should we bother having PR firms and White House press secretaries then? Or never question politicians again, please.
> 
> You parse through the lies and read between the lines, and hold their feet to the fire when they are finally caught.
> 
> I respect Mr. Leeds for addressing these issues with his responses to the two interviews, but that doesn't change that fact that he is the CEO and his primary duty is not to tell the truth, but to parse his language in a way that does not hurt the shareholders he works for or bring undue damage to the brand. His addressing this issue directly tells me that this is one of the most important issues that they face right now. In the best of worlds the head of WOTC has to be a CEO first and gamer second. Others like Paizo, Green Ronin, Necromancer Games, or Goodman Games may be gamers first, CEOs second, but you never see that from a Hasbro Subsidiary.




Do you have an independent source of information that contradicts your position? Or is it all just guesstimating or what you feel should be right? Do you merely have an anecdote to tell us? 

Do we have actual sales number? Do we have a peer reviewed study on piracy or sales? Do we have technical details on the processes used to track sales, download numbers or piracy? Do we have contradicting _data_ to anything of what WotC says? 

It's okay to disbelieve something if you have evidence to the contrary, or at least demand further elaboration. But we don't have this kind of information, or if we have, no one ever presented it. 

Either we accept the information source we have and discuss it based on that data, or we ignore it and make it clear that we are speculating. A lot of speculation sounds good on paper or electronic bulletin boards if you don't have any data to check it against. You can formulate a lot of hypothesises, but unless you can check them against data or make predictions based on them, they are just an entertaining past-time and hold no further weight. 

And what's the alternative? 
"We retracted all PDF sales, because we don't want anyone to download any AD&D or D&D 3.x material and instead buy our 4E products. And we also decided to no longer offer any 4E material to cover it up. We rather lose money by not offering PDFs then have anyone in the world not playing 4E. 
Piracy is of no concern to us, that's why we just filed a court case against a few uploaders. We don't really know how the download figures are, that's why we give you a made-up number*. 
4E is doing terribly bad, that's why we are still investing in new supplements and already showing off material for the next years releases."


Did anyone of you participate in the latest marketing surveys (one was DDI, the latest - a few days ago -  was regarding DMG). Either survey definitely focused on looking on expanding what they already got (especially DMG) an what they should target next (especially DDI). There was nothing of the kind "What we did before sucked, you say, so please tell us what we should do instead?" No, they ask what to do next or where to expand upon. 

Their surveys are definitely targeting on strengthening what they have, not figuring out what they did wrong in the past or why we no longer buy their products. 

Of course we could theorize and claim that just shows that they have no clue about how to fix the supposed mess they are in, but Occams Razor suggests that the simplest solution of several possible ones is the preferable one - and the simplest solution is: 
D&D 4 is doing well. WotC wants to know how to build on what 4E does and continue attracting gamers by giving them what they want out of it. 

And the same applied to this interview: 
Piracy was one of the two major issues (but not the only!) why they stopped the PDFs, even if they are aware that this won't stop it all together, they feel it will help them in the future. They don't have yet a clear plan what to do next, except that they are apparently no longer seeing PDFs as the way to distribute digital rulebooks and look at a "safer" route (which will probably means it is not as convenient as PDF, too, unless they surprise me.)
 They are also still considering how to release older, pre 4E content (so they don't fear themselves as competition and are quite willing to make money out of people that don't play the 4th Edition of D&D). 

Oh, and regarding the "leader" position: It seems they see themselves still as very important for the purposes of "The Hobby". Depending on your view, that might be hybris, a sad truth of market power, wishful thinking, a nice ideal or the truth, but that's how Leeds presented it.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I utterly agree. If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?




To see if and how you could expose him (either positevely either negatively). This interview is like a court. A court of PR rather than a court of justice. But it is still a court.


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## roguerouge (Apr 11, 2009)

Unfortunately, we're given no means of corroborating the data he's given us. 10-1 sounds very impressive, but we have no figures that allow us to confirm or refute that conclusion. We're supposed to trust the authority figure. 

Moreover, it leaves several important questions unanswered. Is 10-1 a large ratio for the book publishing industry? For other content industries? Is 10-1 an unusual ratio for a publisher after it discontinues a line? What was the ratio in prior years? Is this figure strictly about 4th edition? How much of it includes earlier editions which are increasingly difficult to find in hard copy form? 

And... WHY DID THE FILE-SHARE RATE SPIKE?! Why now? What was the cause? Is it just the illegal 8 or are there other causes?

Most importantly: Has it lead to lost sales? (According to several studies of music file sharing, illegal downloads have a statistically negligible impact, a slight positive impact for big name brands, or a slight negative impact for lesser-known bands.) He never states that it lead to lost sales, which would be difficult to claim, given the paragraphs on how well the brand is doing.


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## Jasperak (Apr 11, 2009)

mxyzplk said:


> *I'm confused, did he say something substantive enough to disbelieve?*  Is this about the 1:10, as it's the only thing approaching a fact in the interview?  I can certainly believe that they did some kind of measurement which they interpret to be 1:10 on the PHB2.  I also think they used that as an excuse to pull all the older game DLs as they consider it not in their best interest for anyone to be playing ANYTHING except their most-latest release.




Not necessarily but I will address the bolded section. 

My responses in this thread have to do with some that seem to believe that if you are not going to believe someone if you ask them a question, then don't bother asking them the question. I posit that asking those types of questions are exactly what journalism is all about, getting the objective truth. Whether it is revealed directly by the respondent or derived from logic and deduction doesn't matter, only that the questions are asked and the respondent held accountable for his answers.

To be fair, what I do have a problem with is people that would take a CEO's answers and manipulate his responses to fit their agenda, whatever it may be. I think that is what led others in this thread to say if you're not going to bother understanding and only stay with your preconceived notions then don't bother reading.

What drew me in though was the implication that we should not have bothered to do the interview in the first place (bolded in following quote).



			
				Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? *Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception.* In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.




Again to be fair, Mustrum in his last sentence says exactly what I agree with (underlined). This is what i believe others responded to. 

Though he prefaces his comment with why bother asking if you think you will get lies and deception. The question is not about whether the respondent is lying or not. You will never know if he is or not unless you ask the bloody questions in the first place. It is how can we understand what is going on based off of what one of the main players within this issue has to say. I choose to believe that the CEO is forced to answer any questions in a manner that is in the best interests of the company not for "objective truth." If revealing the truth benefits the company great, but in my experience, if you are asking tough questions because of perceived missteps then I hold all responses suspect until proven otherwise. 

In this specific case, stopping the legal purchase of PDFs of OOP products does not seem to be the step one would logically take to stop the pirating of said products. Mr. Leeds implied that they had to do something because the problem seemed to be escalating. Taking away the only legal course of action would logically force people to move towards illegal means. Will it decrease pirating? Risk/reward and all that. Who knows? I don't, but it does seem to be a bonehead move and implies that either the key decision maker doesn't understand the problem or there are as of yet unannounced reasons for the decision. We won't know until we have more information.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Journalism is asking tough questions.
> 
> Journalism is NOT just being cynical and derisive--save maybe for the opinion column.
> 
> ...




You seem to me so obsessed with piracy here, you lose business sense. Do you believe that suach a product would appeal to the fans of D&D and would sell better in the long term than the current format-plan? D&D will end up seeming as blatantly competing with games such as Descent or Warhammer Quest or what have you. Do you honestly believe that Descent makes more profit than the D&D line -strategically at least?


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 11, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> And... WHY DID THE FILE-SHARE RATE SPIKE?! Why now? What was the cause?



I think there are two reasons:

1. 4e is successful. People want to play the game and get the newest goodies. 

2. This is the first time pdf releases have corresponded to paper releases. It's well known that most books sell the most copies their first few months outs, when buzz is strongest. It makes sense that pirate downloads would be strongest around that time to.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Either we accept the information source we have and discuss it based on that data, or we ignore it and make it clear that we are speculating. A lot of speculation sounds good on paper or electronic bulletin boards if you don't have any data to check it against. You can formulate a lot of hypothesises, but unless you can check them against data or make predictions based on them, they are just an entertaining past-time and hold no further weight.




I've noticed a lot of "piracy apologists" tend to refute actual figures of piracy.  For instance, the claims that "you can't prove they would have bought the (item)", yet this flies in the face of decades of economic research into the Elasticity of supply and demand, which basically talk about how goods and services and measuring what people will pay--maximizing profit based on its utility.

If you make a product free, more people will partake it in.  Whether they would have bought it if it wasn't free misses the point that it's the right of the producer to set the price and figure out what price--and to naturally suffer consequences of that.  It's quite logical that more people will partake of a free product than the cost product.  Now, in a free market if that happens (somebody giving something away gratis), that's fair, and competition is what drives down prices--Abobe Photoshop is high priced because of the specialized research, decades of training, and lack of decent competition in the high-end market.  

But piracy is illegal just like insider trading--there are certain things you shouldn't do.  Since piracy's so rampant because of the relative anonymity of the Internet, violations haven't been enforced well.

I rarely see very well reasoned arguments against these basic economic principles, rather appeals that "the world is changing, your a dinosaur", or "you should be happy for the free publicity".  These emotional appeals don't look at the whole picture.

I don't think the companies reporting on these stats are lying.  It's not in their interest to lie.  If piracy wasn't a huge issue affecting the marketplace, they wouldn't bother talking about it.


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## roguerouge (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.






Umbran said:


> I find this to be an excellent point.




"Trust, but verify." 

Basic critical thinking skills require you to sift the evidence that supports the statements made by those who try to sell you on the merits of their opinions. The posters are not assuming that Mr. Leeds is lying. They are evaluating the evidence that he provides for his assertions. 

Evaluating the credibility of a source of information is not the same as believing that they are being lied to.

Edit: Also, Mr. Leeds has his own motivations, which are not the same motivations of his interviewer or his audience. It's completely acceptable to understand that his motivations color his statements and to try to compensate for that fact. It's not a slur on his character. 

Nor is it unreasonable to note that past actions by his company might undermine the credibility of his statements now. The burden of proof is higher now. The fact that people do not automatically believe him may be evidence of an erosion in the trust that their customer base has for this company.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 11, 2009)

> You seem to me so obsessed with piracy here, you lose business sense. Do you believe that suach a product would appeal to the fans of D&D and would sell better in the long term than the current format-plan? D&D will end up seeming as blatantly competing with games such as Descent or Warhammer Quest or what have you. Do you honestly believe that Descent makes more profit than the D&D line -strategically at least?




I don't particularly LIKE the direction D&D is currently going in, I'm just thinking based on these steps.

All I'm doing is looking at the current marketplace.  D&D has changed from 3e to 4e.  The format of 4e is a lot less text-heavy and setup similar to their miniatures line and Magic: The Gathering.  They wanted the DDI to be a big thing.  Piracy is rampant.  But piracy affects more books, moving, and software.  The more traditional board and card games are less likely to be pirated, people will just buy them.  With the right style of DRM, like steam, if it has value enough people will do it.  MMORPGs are "pirate proof" because everything is on the server.

I don't believe WoTC cares as much about the traditional market.  4e was a radical shift and alienated some players--which is why we have the great "edition cold war" nowadays.  WoTC will attempt to maximize their profit, and I believe part of that is the long term strategy of D&D.

And we don't really know figures of profitability for these games unless we get figures.  I think Magic is a lot more profitable than D&D, for instance.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> snip




Return on investment is one thing, profit is another. A business plan based on elasticity or a new format may have a bigger return on investment but a smaller profit for a company like Wotc that specializes in a certain market-a smaller profit from that market. If Wotc wanted to save as much as possible(because it could invest in more profitable avenues) then perhaps they would go for what you are talking about. Is this what is happening now? Do you believe that they believe they have access to a more profitable market? Everything is possible but I find it hard to believe.


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## Jasperak (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Do you have an independent source of information that contradicts your position? Or is it all just guesstimating or what you feel should be right? Do you merely have an anecdote to tell us?




What, when a company makes a perceived misstep and the CEO puts out what amounts to a press release by way of two interviews, I'm  supposed to believe he is telling the truth? 

I don't take Mr. Leeds at face value, but I do respect that he is addressing the community directly.  I also appreciate that WOTC is allowing me d/l TSR and WOTC product that I purchased through RPGNOW. That does count for something in my book. But when a company makes a decision that to me flies in the face of reason color me skeptical. And then it tries to rationalize it in a manner that makes my BS detector go off, that's when others and I start looking deeper. 

The rest of your post does not pertain to why I questioned your earlier comment. I think my previous post (written while you were writing the one I am responding to now) expresses how I perceived your initial post.  By all means correct me if I am wrong. Honest discourse is impossible if one holds to their preconceived notions in the face of conflicting evidence.

PS. Unless otherwise mentioned in a thread or blog, I take everything said as either opinion or speculation.


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## Nagol (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Do you have an independent source of information that contradicts your position? Or is it all just guesstimating or what you feel should be right? Do you merely have an anecdote to tell us?
> 
> Do we have actual sales number? Do we have a peer reviewed study on piracy or sales? Do we have technical details on the processes used to track sales, download numbers or piracy? Do we have contradicting _data_ to anything of what WotC says?




Why yes, as a matter of fact.  http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/downl...orking Papers January 2004/cesifo1_wp1122.pdf

The money quote in the conclusions is "We have analyzed the RIAA’s claim that music downloads are causing a substantial decrease in CD sales. Our cross-section regression confirms their fear: we find that music downloading could have caused a 10% reduction in CD sales worldwide in 2001."

(Here come the ifs in the hypothesis) If pdfs are similar to mp3s in the patterns of acquisition then the 10:1 download ratio actually results in a 1:11 reduction in sales.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

Is there another interview?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> What, when a company makes a perceived misstep and the CEO puts out what amounts to a press release by way of two interviews, I'm  supposed to believe he is telling the truth?
> 
> I don't take Mr. Leeds at face value, but I do respect that he is addressing the community directly.  I also appreciate that WOTC is allowing me d/l TSR and WOTC product that I purchased through RPGNOW. That does count for something in my book. But when a company makes a decision that to me flies in the face of reason color me skeptical. And then it tries to rationalize it in a manner that makes my BS detector go off, that's when others and I start looking deeper.
> 
> ...





> What, when a company makes a perceived misstep and the CEO puts out what amounts to a press release by way of two interviews, I'm supposed to believe he is telling the truth?




Yes, why not? He is the only one here that actually speaks from knowledge on the situation, the rest is just guessing and expressing opinions.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Why yes, as a matter of fact.  http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/downl...orking Papers January 2004/cesifo1_wp1122.pdf
> 
> The money quote in the conclusions is "We have analyzed the RIAA’s claim that music downloads are causing a substantial decrease in CD sales. Our cross-section regression confirms their fear: we find that music downloading could have caused a 10% reduction in CD sales worldwide in 2001."
> 
> (Here come the ifs in the hypothesis) If pdfs are similar to mp3s in the patterns of acquisition then the 10:1 download ratio actually results in a 1:11 reduction in sales.



Does this mean it can't be the reason for WotC decision? As you say, there is an "if" involved, and moreover - WotC might just see it differently, however wrong they are. 



> Is there another interview?



I think there was one on whats-it-called ICv2? or something like that? If my Internet wasn't dragging along so badly at the moment; I'd look up the link for you.. Truth Seeker posted a link on Cirvs Maximvs.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Why yes, as a matter of fact. http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/downl...orking Papers January 2004/cesifo1_wp1122.pdf
> 
> The money quote in the conclusions is "We have analyzed the RIAA’s claim that music downloads are causing a substantial decrease in CD sales. Our cross-section regression confirms their fear: we find that music downloading could have caused a 10% reduction in CD sales worldwide in 2001."
> 
> (Here come the ifs in the hypothesis) If pdfs are similar to mp3s in the patterns of acquisition then the 10:1 download ratio actually results in a 1:11 reduction in sales.




But that 10% is independent of legal mp3s that now make a substantial part of the market. Back in 2001 were there any?

Also the entertainment industry has been exposed to a tremendous inflation of product availability or supply due to the new possibilities of the information age. Is there a study that takes this to account? In the rpg front there are 13000 publishers in RPGNOW and I immagine much more available product to purchase. This definately may have an impact IMO and it would be very interesting a study on this of matter.


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## Zil (Apr 11, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> MMORPGs are "pirate proof" because everything is on the server.




Although this is a bit of tangent from the thread, this isn't strictly true.  It's definitely possible to reverse-engineer your own MMORPG server.  It's already been done for WoW, for example.  However, these private servers are just that - disconnected from the main server(s).


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2009)

I don't know why you wouldn't trust his statements at face value.

They're not extremely substantive statements to begin with, so, you know, for what they are, do you have any contradictory info?

Cuz otherwise this isn't about what he said; it's more about your personal feelings. There's a place for that, but I don't think this is the place.


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## Jasperak (Apr 11, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> "Trust, but verify."




This captures my thoughts well. I cannot automatically nor blindly trust Mr. Leeds; nor am I calling him a liar. But I do appreciate his reaching out to the community, and that does add to his credibility. Since I am still interested in the earlier editions, I hope that in the future I will be able to add to my collection, even if it must be digitally only.

Is it me or do most companies seem to do better the more open and forthright they are with their customers?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> Um, should we bother having PR firms and White House press secretaries then? Or never question politicians again, please.
> 
> You parse through the lies and read between the lines, and hold their feet to the fire when they are finally caught.
> 
> I respect Mr. Leeds for addressing these issues with his responses to the two interviews, but that doesn't change that fact that he is the CEO and his primary duty is not to tell the truth, but to parse his language in a way that does not hurt the shareholders he works for or bring undue damage to the brand. His addressing this issue directly tells me that this is one of the most important issues that they face right now. In the best of worlds the head of WOTC has to be a CEO first and gamer second. Others like Paizo, Green Ronin, Necromancer Games, or Goodman Games may be gamers first, CEOs second, but you never see that from a Hasbro Subsidiary.



There is a difference between pointing out contradictions and comparing claims to actual data and just not accepting an explanation without any contradictions or data to compare to. 

I know it sucks that we do have so little data, but that means we don't have information. Not that we are lied to. 

And usually (just usually) politicians and PR departments try to avoid outright lies, they just avoid giving out negative information and highlighting positive stuff. 

Selective perception is good both for self deception as for marketing. Make sure you don't avoid the selective perception created by marketing to run into the selective perception created by yourself.


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## Mark (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I know it sucks that we do have so little data, but that means we don't have information.





I think people are looking at the interview in the light of WotC's track record and series of PR problems over the last year and a half, plus the evident facts connected to the current situation, and making their assessment based on that data.  I understand your willingness to give WotC the benefit of the doubt but a lot of people are up in arms for what appear to be very fair reasons.  I think if the WotC track record and current evident facts were not as weighty, you would not have to be working so hard to calm those who are angry or quell those who are suspicious.


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## Bigassgeek (Apr 11, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> I don't know why you wouldn't trust his statements at face value.
> 
> They're not extremely substantive statements to begin with, so, you know, for what they are, do you have any contradictory info?
> 
> Cuz otherwise this isn't about what he said; it's more about your personal feelings. There's a place for that, but I don't think this is the place.




Sadly, I think this IS the place for that...


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## Fenes (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not sure what's the point of asking for an interview and than taking the information they actually give and assume it's a lie? Why do you even ask if you don't believe any of what they say? How are you even able to talk meaningful about an interview if you assume it might all be lying and deception. In the end, you will just be reading in the interview what you already believed to know, regardless whether the content comfirms your belief or violates it.




That's not true. As anyone with some background in law enforcement knows, you check any statement for signs of lies, and signs of the truth being spoken. You do not assume it's lies and deception from the start, you do that once you read it, and found too many evasions and (at most) half-truths.

And, sad to say, that interview sounded like a defense lawyer's statement. Not outright lies, but so full of omissions and evasions anyone who is not blind would not take it at face value.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 11, 2009)

Mark said:


> I think people are looking at the interview in the light of WotC's track record and series of PR problems over the last year and a half, plus the evident facts connected to the current situation, and making their assessment based on that data.  I understand your willingness to give WotC the benefit of the doubt but a lot of people are up in arms for what appear to be very fair reasons.  I think if the WotC track record and current evident facts were not as weighty, you would not have to be working so hard to calm those who are angry or quell those who are suspicious.



You mean track record that is typically colored by myths and rumors? I remember the outrage by some fans that 4E was supposedly outright denied until shortly before the new edition, when further investigation always showed that the actual comments never said that. They never did say outright they were planning or 4E, and they said what they would not do if there was ever a 4E... 

Yes, I get it. I guess it's pointless... Thank god that I am not in marketing or public relations...


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## Fenes (Apr 11, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I utterly agree. If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?




Haven't you ever tried to find out the truth by asking questions to several people, and then pieced together what happened? Haven't you ever disproven a statement just by asking questions, until you spotted the lie, or omissions, by the contradictions or evasions there were?


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## Nagol (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Does this mean it can't be the reason for WotC decision? As you say, there is an "if" involved, and moreover - WotC might just see it differently, however wrong they are.
> 
> <snip>




You asked fo a peer-reviewed study that contradicted WotC's position.  I provided one.  

Anything can be the reason for the decision.  Perhaps the assumptions in the study don't fit and WotC acted to the best of their ability.  Perhaps there is a new strategy that ties IP into a subscription model and selling pdfs doesn't fit.  Perhaps an executive had a blinding hangover and just wanted the conversation done and said "Do it and do it now."  Perhaps someone misinterpreted the piracy as theft from the pdf stores and decided to pull all remaining product back.  "Why" is the hardest question to answer because unless you are present, you do not even know what inputs were fed into the black box that gave the answer.

All we can do is ask is if the decision seems rational and appropriate in light of established fact and standard models.

The study suggests a revenue impact form pirating <=10%.  Is this sufficient to shut down the pdf line?  Possibly, for future releases.  Assumnptions around quality of provided pdfs and scanned vs. reasons for pirating would affect that decision.

It is established that the pdfs did sell.  Any model I can imagine suggests piracy of those products will continue.  It is even reasonable to assume that the slashdotting and the wider media interest is likely grow interest in the product.

It is known that WotC will not see any further revenue from those products.

Is removing pdfs from the stores an appropriate choice?  I can come up with scenarios where the answer is yes and others where it is no.  

The yes answer depends on a shift to subscription vs purchase model for IP delivery.  Rationally, you would want the cutover period to be short to limit damage, but other factors may be involved (WotC tends to be over optimistic on their ability to deliver technology).

The no answer requires an over-reaction on the part of WotC either through panic, misunderstanding, or miscommunication between layers.


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## Mark (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> You mean track record that is typically colored by myths and rumors?





Not at all.  Just what has happened, not how it has been spun for good or ill.


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## roguerouge (Apr 11, 2009)

Nagol said:


> Why yes, as a matter of fact.  http://www.ifo.de/pls/guestci/downl...orking Papers January 2004/cesifo1_wp1122.pdf
> 
> The money quote in the conclusions is "We have analyzed the RIAA’s claim that music downloads are causing a substantial decrease in CD sales. Our cross-section regression confirms their fear: we find that music downloading could have caused a 10% reduction in CD sales worldwide in 2001."
> 
> (Here come the ifs in the hypothesis) If pdfs are similar to mp3s in the patterns of acquisition then the 10:1 download ratio actually results in a 1:11 reduction in sales.




Not so fast, my friend.

Summary: A joint study by the Harvard University Business School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill proved that the RIAA’s argument is not as strong as they would like.  Harvard professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee’s results showed that it took 5,000 downloads for the sale of an album to be reduced by one copy.  In addition to this startling discovery came an even bigger one:  when it came to popular artists, record sales actually improved from downloading music – sales increased by one copy for every 150 downloads.

Interview: Music Downloads: Pirates—or Customers? — HBS Working Knowledge
The study: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf


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## Nagol (Apr 11, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> Not so fast, my friend.
> 
> Summary: A joint study by the Harvard University Business School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill proved that the RIAA’s argument is not as strong as they would like.  Harvard professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee’s results showed that it took 5,000 downloads for the sale of an album to be reduced by one copy.  In addition to this startling discovery came an even bigger one:  when it came to popular artists, record sales actually improved from downloading music – sales increased by one copy for every 150 downloads.
> 
> ...




Good!  The study I yanked up showed a small decrease -- much less than the industry was claiming.


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## xechnao (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> You mean track record that is typically colored by myths and rumors? I remember the outrage by some fans that 4E was supposedly outright denied until shortly before the new edition, when further investigation always showed that the actual comments never said that. They never did say outright they were planning or 4E, and they said what they would not do if there was ever a 4E...
> 
> Yes, I get it. I guess it's pointless... Thank god that I am not in marketing or public relations...




Mmm? You are not helping it with this post, especially the last sentence which seems so ironic. You are a veteran of enworld, you cant deny you are aware of what happened with the GSL, DDI etch. I get it that your point was that the fans usually exaggerate but that last sentence condemns this post to what it tries to defend against.


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## roguerouge (Apr 11, 2009)

Yes, and note that the big players benefitted overall from downloading, if at all, while the smaller labels were hurt, if at all. Conclusions must be necessarily tentative from a single study, after all. And the effect is statistically indistinguishable from zero, according to the study.

As far as the 2000-2002 period, you have to remember little things like the internet bubble bursting, the 9/11 effect on the economy, and the fact that the RIAA demographics were trending downwards as there was a bit of a baby bust due to declining birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s.


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## Waylander the Slayer (Apr 11, 2009)

It's interesting how such "decisions" seem to happen right before earnings release/quarter end (not just for WOTC, mind). It is quite likely that Floating around internally within WOTC right now is a 10 page CYA memorandum, which probably triggered this whole fiasco.  

Wonder what other such memorandums might make their way down the pipe line, especially around year end?


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## Blue (Apr 11, 2009)

Dire Bare said:


> PDFs are not the only viable form of digital distribution, although they certainly dominate in the RPG field right now.  It's been a while since I checked it out, but Marvel Comics has (or had?) an online subscription service where you could access hundreds of their titles (old and new) online for like $10/month.  They weren't PDFs you could download, but rather you read them in a viewer on site.  Nothing to download, nothing to pirate!  I'd love to see WotC do something like this!




I hope that they find another alternative to that.  It's the reason I don't have DDI - I don't have access to the internet much of the time when I'm planing an adventure or levelling up a character.  Currently my 4e books live in my car so I can break them out during lunch hour.

I can see PDFs or other digital content I can put on a cheap netbook or even an e-book reader being useful.  Something that requires the internet won't gain as much traction.  And I live in suburban US where wireless internet isn't too hard to come by.  How that is in other countries, US troops abroad, and lots of others would have even less options.

So I can envision WotC going with online-only documents, much like DDI is now.  But I hope it is not the only choice.


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## BOZ (Apr 11, 2009)

Anyone want to add anything to the Wizards of the Coast article, feel free.


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## Yeoman99 (Apr 11, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Do you have an independent source of information that contradicts your position? Or is it all just guesstimating or what you feel should be right? Do you merely have an anecdote to tell us?
> 
> Do we have actual sales number? Do we have a peer reviewed study on piracy or sales? Do we have technical details on the processes used to track sales, download numbers or piracy? Do we have contradicting _data_ to anything of what WotC says?
> 
> ...



Well thank goodness finally for a well analysed opinion based on the key fact that we actually don't have much in the way of evidence to discuss, and speculation is no real substitute. 

I cannot say that I am happy to see the PDFs withdrawn, as I have in the past purchased copies of out of print material and would have wanted the opportunity to purchase many more. That said, I do not automatically assume that the decision was 1) made by blundering idiots with no business sense or 2) a well tailored plot to railroad consumers. 

I simply cannot come to a conclusion based on what was said.....more hard information will doubtless help form my opinion in the long run. I also agree that whilst the interview was not (at least for me) particularly illuminating, it was at least an answer to questions which forum members here were asking. To automatically read it and state it contains lies, without any substantiating facts is quite bizzare imo.

I am interested in this debate, and will be curious to hear what the parties have to say, but I am really only interested in substance, and of that, at this point, there is very little - certainly not enough for me to take an entrenched position.


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## Fenes (Apr 11, 2009)

If you can't see that the pdf withdrawal was either the work of blundering idiots or had other motives than to battle piracy, then I do hope for you that you never get targetted by any conman, you'll lose your shirt.


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## Staffan (Apr 11, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> Not so fast, my friend.
> 
> Summary: A joint study by the Harvard University Business School and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill proved that the RIAA’s argument is not as strong as they would like.  Harvard professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee’s results showed that it took 5,000 downloads for the sale of an album to be reduced by one copy.  In addition to this startling discovery came an even bigger one:  when it came to popular artists, record sales actually improved from downloading music – sales increased by one copy for every 150 downloads.



Another issue for the music industry is that piracy can *help* mid-range artists. The actual artists often have very crappy contracts with their labels, meaning they see very little of the money people spend on records. Most of that money ends up with various middle-men. Instead, the artists make money from _concerts_ (and merchandise). In a sense, then, pirated albums serve as advertisements for the artists' real revenue stream.

Of course, this doesn't make the record companies of the RIAA particularly happy, but they are useless middlemen anyway.


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## Umbran (Apr 11, 2009)

Fenes said:


> If you can't see that the pdf withdrawal was either the work of blundering idiots or had other motives than to battle piracy, then I do hope for you that you never get targetted by any conman, you'll lose your shirt.





Folks,

Suggestions that your fellow posters are dumb, gullible, or otherwise mentally deficient is rude.  Don't do it.  This gent won't be back in this discussion.  Don't make yourself the next...


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## Yeoman99 (Apr 11, 2009)

I made my reply earlier because I have seen a lot of emotive comments, which I did not feel were entirely fair to Greg Leeds.

I am not unemotional about this hobby which has been a passion of mine for nearly 30 years, and am disappointed with the PDF situation, which has allowed me to unearth some lost gems without breaking the bank on e-bay, or taking yet more bookshelf space (which gets ever harder to justify to my wife ). However, I would prefer to understand the rationale and provide considered feedback to WOTC, as I have done on DDI for other things.

I work in business, and have made decisions which my customers have not always greeted warmly. There are times where assumptions are made as to the reasons for the decision which are just plain wrong, which can be frustrating when your actions are second guessed erroneously. On the other hand, sometimes decisions are made which are perhaps poorly thought through, poorly communicated, or part of a wider strategy which it would be patently absurd to share early in execution. Oh, and yes some decisions just turn out to be wrong and with the benefit of hindsight could have been managed better.

With the removal of Dragon and Dungeon to DDI, the GSL and other contentious decisions I have not viewed WOTC as inept. I do not always agree with the outcomes but I think the decisions are generally made based on information which is rarely in the public domain, and often has more sense than is given credit for.

This does not mean that I think all the decisions have been well realised, or that I agree with the strategy, but I am willing to gather as much information as possible to share my views with them in what I hope will be a constructive way. Equally I know that if they get their business strategy seriously wrong then in time they will need to rethink to keep gamers on board. Time will tell whether Greg Leeds and the team have made a good business decision or a stategic error. I for one will sit this out in the short term and provide feedback on what I see.


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## Kzach (Apr 12, 2009)

> The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it.




Awesome!

WotC are like SkyNet! They're from the future, man!

I wonder if they'll send T-888's after people who downloaded...


EDIT: http://lwn.net/Articles/129729/

And yes, the JS can be edited.


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## pauljathome (Apr 12, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> it's the right of the producer to set the price and figure out what price--and to naturally suffer consequences of that..




Personally I believe that one of the significant factors driving the piracy is the absurd price that WOTC is charging for the pdfs. When the pdf costs more than the hardcopy does from amazon one would expect very few people to buy it.

There are lots of people who bought the hardcover and got a pirated pdf as well. At least some of those probably would have bought the pdf if it had been sufficiently cheap (<= $5 or so).

Yeah, I know WOTC couldn't figure out how to match up hardcover purchases and pdfs. There are all sorts of solutions to that problem

So, you're right. WOTC set the price and is suffering the consequences.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 12, 2009)

pauljathome said:


> Personally I believe that one of the significant factors driving the piracy is the absurd price that WOTC is charging for the pdfs. When the pdf costs more than the hardcopy does from amazon one would expect very few people to buy it.
> 
> There are lots of people who bought the hardcover and got a pirated pdf as well. At least some of those probably would have bought the pdf if it had been sufficiently cheap (<= $5 or so).
> 
> ...




Yup, I think that's the kicker also.


Then consider...

Take the troubles they've had with DDI, add to that the fact that they weren't able to find a way to offer pdf's at a nominal fee, and also add in the layoffs (significantly lowering their manpower) - and to me it adds up to a company that doesn't have the resources or proficiency to pull off developing a whole new alternative medium to pdf's, that are also secure enough for their standards.

I just don't think we're ever going to see it come to fruition.


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## Friadoc (Apr 12, 2009)

It'd have been nice to seen a few fastballs thrown in that interview, especially about the 10:1 Ratio theory, as it's a bitter pill to swallow that this is all we've really gotten, thus far, from Wizard's in almost a week. It's a modest puff piece, with shadow PR thrown in for fun, and it didn't really answer anything. 

Heck, at best it implied thoughts that could form into answers if inferred properly.

I've been in IT for well over a decade, worked in shallow ends of it and deep, and while there are means to track how many of what file where downloaded from here and there, it is common knowledge not to trust the file download numbers from various peer to peer, as well as other such methods of piracy, since all you are getting is the number of downloads attempted. I bet the truer ration is closer to 1:1, maybe 2:1, with a lot of folk starting downloads having them end due to timeouts, net issues, or what not and then starting all over again.

Now, I will say, it is a given that an individual could also be downloading for a group and then making a copy of the file for their friends and passing them around via various media, but that's still not the issue at hand.

Nothing WotC has just done will stop piracy, period. In fact, WotC has just done something that might increase the tenacity of pirates to nail their products. I do not agree with piracy, but I do agree with the concept that a person has the right to a digital copy of their hard copy product, even if they do not have the means to make it themselves.

Not theft, folks, but fair use.

Paizo has a clue, as do many other companies, when it comes to New Media and its methods and usage. Obviously, very obviously, WotC, at least at the higher leadership levels, is clueless toward New Media and is stuck in the elder mindset.

Is this an end of the world moment?

No, not really, as it is fairly common that some, not all mind you, but some of the older guard are out of touch when it comes to new methods, means, and technology. It's the nature of the best, look at the old wars of film versus video and look who won.

The choice, when it comes to the future, is to either lead the way, keep up, or fall behind and, oddly enough, WotC seems to be staggering around like a drunk between all three.

They're falling behind, when it comes to PDFs, as Paizo obviously is leading the way in that with their subscription concepts, of which I am a proud user, but they're keeping up, possibly even leading the way, with their much maligned, but sporadically useful, DDI. Of course, if Paizo were to come out with such a tool for Pathfinder, I'm fairly sure I could see the touch being fully passed to them.

Kobold Quarterly also gets it, as they've a magazine that has both print and PDF options, so they're definitely keeping up and about to throw down their kick and fully take the lead.

You're Wizards of the Coast, for goodness sake, not some shut-in who should be screaming at the kids to get off of the lawn. You're suppose to be out there, showing the kids the fun games, new and old, and teaching them to do what you did, think and innovate.

Innovate and be vocal, for the love of the game, and just talk to your customers, not at them. We're not idiots and we can generally pick-up on sales speak, marketing smoke, and other such things when we read them or hear them.

I don't have an issue with WotC pulling their IP, it's their choice, but that doesn't mean I can't call them out for obfuscating the truth, for blowing smoke up my backside, or making what I feel is a tremendous mistake similar to the days when TSR was being a bit clueless and this young, aggressive, and innovative company pull D&D's bacon out of the fire.

Sound familiar?


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## Friadoc (Apr 12, 2009)

GMSkarka said:


> It still makes no sense:
> 
> First:  "We can track it" -- If piracy was that easy to track, there wouldn't be any piracy.   You can estimate, but you're probably wrong.
> 
> ...




See, computer crime has had this, let's call it faith-based initiative, that started with Kevin Mitnick, in which loss numbers are estimated or created even though, in a real sense, no real loss occurred. Of course, the reason for this is so that hefty fines and sentences, based on larger numbers, can be assigned to a case and used against the suspected criminal as a sign of how serious the prosecution is going to be with the case.

In the end, much of these inflated, or whole created from smoke, were tossed out or redone, but thanks to the RIAA and ilk it's only gotten worse in recent years. Hence why the focus has turned mostly, or in some cases solely, toward infringement, as opposed to theft and loss of profit.

While I am totally for punishing criminals for crimes, I am totally against crafting crime to fit the whims of the prosecution and corporations, or even individuals involved, as that is not fair or just.


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## Mark (Apr 12, 2009)

Friadoc said:


> I do not agree with piracy, but I do agree with the concept that a person has the right to a digital copy of their hard copy product, even if they do not have the means to make it themselves.
> 
> Not theft, folks, but fair use.





Careful.  You're mixing things up a bit.  A person probably has a right to an electronic copy of their hardcopy if it is legally acquired either through making it themself or through an authorized distributor.   This is a matter of personal use. Fair use is something else.


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## Morrus (Apr 12, 2009)

mxyzplk said:


> I guess I'm a little disturbed that the president of WotC doesn't have a vision for D&D ready to go...  Why do I suspect that if you asked the same question about Magic you'd have been treated to a pre-vetted paragraph about "cyber-synergy enabling us to dominate the market space" or something?  "Huh, good question, let me think about that.  We try not to have too much of a vision for D&D, it restricts our ability to make random kneejerk decisions."




You're assuming too much, and we didn't give you his position verbatim.

He wanted to leave that one because he felt it deserved an interview all of its own, and required more depth than a single question.  At no point was there any impliaction of Greg not "having an answer"; the implication was completely "I have a lot to say, but let's stick to this topic for now and I'll delve into the latter later".


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## Morrus (Apr 12, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> What is the point of journalism then?




I'm sorry, I don't feel qualified to answer the massive question "what is the point of journalism"?  

Assuming that was an actual question; if it was a rhetorical question, then presumably you already know the answer, so I'd be grateful if you'd enlighten me.


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## GodDelusion (Apr 12, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I'm sorry, I don't feel qualified to answer the massive question "what is the point of journalism"?
> 
> Assuming that was an actual question; if it was a rhetorical question, then presumably you already know the answer, so I'd be grateful if you'd enlighten me.





Seems like a rather smug reply...


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## DonTadow (Apr 12, 2009)

Damage Control can be difficult at time.  The problem isn't the decision, its the patten of a bad decision followed by a response of " my bad we had no idea it would ..."  . It's like a class clown who continues to push the teacher testing their limits.  Then when they hit their limits they attempt to apologize fo the action and patch it with duct tape.  

Here we have prepared statements from the Hasbro Public Relations and Legal staff cut and pasted to the interview.


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## DonTadow (Apr 12, 2009)

Morrus said:


> You're assuming too much, and we didn't give you his position verbatim.
> 
> He wanted to leave that one because he felt it deserved an interview all of its own, and required more depth than a single question.  At no point was there any impliaction of Greg not "having an answer"; the implication was completely "I have a lot to say, but let's stick to this topic for now and I'll delve into the latter later".



More like our pr people haven't given me an answer for  that one. This might as well be a press release with the lack of substance and soul.  In journalism, a good editor can tell if the quote is real o prepared by how natural it sounds.  The answers here are very stiff.  I know Morrus isn't a journalist, but he should have grilled him more. Then again, its hard to believe that this is a legitimate interview, considering WOTC is a major ad contributor for enworld.  Not calling anyone into question, but any interview provided by people who are paid by the interviewee can be toated as little more than a press release.  

Lets remember, Leads has no love for role playing, ccgs or board games.  His previous job has been in international sales.  He's a hired gun by Hasbro to bring WOTC in line with the rest of the toy company.  He probaby hadn't heard of magic the gathering or dungeons and dragons until he got the job.

Leeds is good at marketing crap as interesting.  BAck in 2003, he was in charge of marketing Beyblades. Beyblades were essentially the 100s year old game of tops decorated to look like robots.  He creates fads that come and go.  He also was prominent in marketing during the big pokemon craze.


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## Beginning of the End (Apr 12, 2009)

blalien said:


> Ninety one percent of PHB2 pdfs were acquired through piracy?  If that figure is true then this debate is over.  Wizards was completely justified in shutting down pdf sales.  I do not forgive them, however, for giving less than 24 hours notice or for screwing over people who paid legitimately.




100% of the PDFs for all future WotC books will be acquired through piracy.

This is the part where the theory falls apart: Their books were available in PDF before they started selling PDFs. They will still be available now that they've stopped selling PDFs.

I was at a convention game with a guy three years ago who boasted that he had a complete set of Palladium books on his laptop. I had no reason to doubt him. Palladium has only just announced that they will be making e-books available for sale in the future.

Saying that the solution to "our books are being pirated" is "stop selling e-books" doesn't make any sense. The "solution" has absolutely no chance of solving the problem.

I actually don't think it's possible WotC could be stupid enough to actually believe that it would be a solution. So I have to assume they're lying.


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## xechnao (Apr 12, 2009)

DonTadow said:


> Leeds is good at marketing crap as interesting.  BAck in 2003, he was in charge of marketing Beyblades. Beyblades were essentially the 100s year old game of tops decorated to look like robots.  He creates fads that come and go.  He also was prominent in marketing during the big pokemon craze.




Well, for what it's worth, this current affair got some attention around various internet sites of geekdom.


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## Jasperak (Apr 12, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I'm sorry, I don't feel qualified to answer the massive question "what is the point of journalism"?
> 
> Assuming that was an actual question; if it was a rhetorical question, then presumably you already know the answer, so I'd be grateful if you'd enlighten me.




Out of respect I will kindly wait until you have read all of my posts after the one you quoted before I respond to your question. I think I made my point very clear already.


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## JohnnyQuest (Apr 12, 2009)

I think it's pretty clear that the decision was made in order to make it more difficult to pirate (not to eliminate all piracy) and to bring electronic distribution in house. Makes sense to me. I'm also happy to see that there was a misunderstanding, and legitimate buyers will be given a window to download purchases new and old.


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## Emberion (Apr 12, 2009)

Quote:
"The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I grow a little tired of corporate-speak. Half these people are my age or younger, with less experience, and they talk down to all of us like we are bunch of ignorant children. They can track pirated copies and its 10-1? How could they possibly know that, and have such a definite figure? And if it is a legitimate figure, then show us the evidence. No, likely, its just some number that some dingus somewhere pulled out of a hat to illustrate that "piracy happens at a significant level"...if they had legitimate numbers they would have cited their sources.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2009)

Emberion said:


> I don't know about the rest of you, but I grow a little tired of corporate-speak. Half these people are my age or younger, with less experience, and they talk down to all of us like we are bunch of ignorant children. They can track pirated copies and its 10-1? How could they possibly know that, and have such a definite figure?



First, "I can tell you that we conservatively estimate the ratio of illicit downloads to legally purchased copies was 10:1" is hardly a "definite figure."

Second, anything on the internet can be tracked. Maybe this is jut because I'm a computer geek, but I'm trying to figure out were people get the idea that this kind of thing can't be. Think about it, the internet was designed largely by computer science students who believed in open collaboration for US Government, who would want to keep track of information out there on the internet.


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## DonTadow (Apr 12, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> First, "I can tell you that we conservatively estimate the ratio of illicit downloads to legally purchased copies was 10:1" is hardly a "definite figure."
> 
> Second, anything on the internet can be tracked. Maybe this is jut because I'm a computer geek, but I'm trying to figure out were people get the idea that this kind of thing can't be. Think about it, the internet was designed largely by computer science students who believed in open collaboration for US Government, who would want to keep track of information out there on the internet.



First nothing in the interview is definitive.  He skirts around questions speaking as vaguely as possible to give himself an out in case Hasbro wants to change their minds about something at a later date.  

If you're a computer geek, you'd know that that preposterous number is impossible to calculate.  You'd have to be monitoring hundreds of bit torrents, ircs,  usernets, and hunddredsof pvp file sharing applications.  Even then you'd have to pull download statistics for all these and compare them somehow, something not too many of these sites share with out a court order. Even then you'd only get a conservative number.  Where the internet began and where it is now are two different things. 

Also, I"d be hard pressed in comparing the government to hasbro in terms of resources.

This is so laughable how the hasbro zombies believe this corporate rhetoric. I'm suppose to believe this hired gun from hasbro famous for pushing a spinning tops game has more of a buzz on "file sharing hurting his company "that music, software and movie giants.  Wake me up when Sony makes a bonehead decision like this and stops selling music and games online.

Admin here. Last warning. Insulting people you happen to disagree with - "Hasbro zombies," for instance - is going to get you a free break. No more of that, please. ~ PCat


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## Jack99 (Apr 12, 2009)

Emberion said:


> Quote:
> "The 10:1 ratio that Greg references is for PDFs only – it has nothing to do with the physical books. For every one PDF purchased legally, there were at least 10 downloaded illegally. And yes, we can track it."
> 
> I don't know about the rest of you, but I grow a little tired of corporate-speak. Half these people are my age or younger, with less experience, and they talk down to all of us like we are bunch of ignorant children. They can track pirated copies and its 10-1? How could they possibly know that, and have such a definite figure? And if it is a legitimate figure, then show us the evidence. No, likely, its just some number that some dingus somewhere pulled out of a hat to illustrate that "piracy happens at a significant level"...if they had legitimate numbers they would have cited their sources.




It was stated by a WotC employee that as far as he knew, the 10:1 ratio was based on the numbers gathered from Scribled or whatever that website is called, since they count their downloads.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2009)

DonTadow said:


> Even then you'd only get a conservative number.  Where the internet began and where it is now are two different things.



He said the number was conservative. 

You are right, where the internet bean and where it is now are two different things. The underlying protocols are the same. It still uses the TCP/IP protocol stack. The most common version of TCP/IP is v4, which dates back over 20 years. There's a v6 developed in the 90s to solves some expansion problems. These protocols were developed to track the information you claim is hard to obtain. 



> You'd have to be monitoring hundreds of bit torrents, ircs, usernets, and hunddredsof pvp file sharing applications. Even then you'd have to pull download statistics for all these and compare them somehow, something not too many of these sites share with out a court order.



The key word in the above is "sites" it's erroneous to call anything you listed as a site, implying that those are somehow analogous to websites. 

Bit torrent: Bit torrent is it's own protocol. It's not exactly difficult to monitor. For example, there is "absolutely no anonymity" in that protocol. "Even a novice programmer can obtain the IP addresses of all the peers in BT network without breaking a sweat!"Cite.

IRC: is internet Relay Chat, and my experience is limited with it, so I can't comment on it.

Usernets: I assume you mean Usenet, or newsgroups. A Newsgroup would be difficult to monitor. Of course, the problem with distributing a pdf via a newsgroup is that any (yes, anyone) can send a kill message to delete it. 

Hundreds of pvp file sharing applications: There are fewer P2P networks than there are applications. A network like Gnutella has several diffrent applications that use it. So a company like WotC only has to identify the networks most commonly used to pirate RPG books (or, rather, their RPG books) and monitor there. It doesn't matter what application the user runs, because they all use the same networks.

It's important to remember that computers excel at monitoring large volumes of information. It's also important to remember that while the files users are downloading a large and media rich, the information needed to track such downloads is small and comprised of numbers.



> This is so laughable how the hasbro zombies believe this corporate rhetoric.



Why? 

Hasbro Zombie. I like it. I suppose it describes me. As a kid I loved Transformers and G.I. Joe. I'm looking forward to both movies this summer. I own two versions of Trivial Pursuit, and a great board game I used to play as a child called Careers. Now that I'm thinking about it, Hasbro has given me a lot of enjoyment in my life. Don't tell them I use to play with He-Man as well.

But I don't believe corporate rhetoric just because it comes from a company I like. Of course, I don't disbelieve corporate rhetoric just because I don't like the company. 



> I'm suppose to believe this hired gun from hasbro famous for pushing a spinning tops game has more of a buzz on "file sharing hurting his company "that music, software and movie giants. Wake me up when Sony makes a bonehead decision like this and stops selling music and games online.



Sony did make a bonehead decision a few years ago with respect to music piracy. No, they didn't stop selling it. What happened was when a user bought a CD from Sony, they had to install  some software on their computer to play it. This software also installed, without the user's knowledge or consent, a rootkit. This created a huge security compromise for users' computers that had it. Sony put-up a patch that supposedly fixed the issue, but in reality it simply installed in new and different rootkit.


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## Harr (Apr 12, 2009)

> And yes, we can track it.




No, you can't.

This is probably the most inflaming and insulting thing in the entire communication (and that's kinda saying something)... assuming a level of intelligence for the average ENWorld reader, where they can propose to come in and go "we can"... oooooo, see cause they're this big mysterious intimidating corporation, so we're supposed to instantly believe that they have some super-duper mysterious thingy that lets them magically track pirated downloads!! Oh yes. ooooooo... I mean, the arrogance... the sheer _vanity_ of it... astounding.



> And yes, we can track it.




Sorry, but no, *you can't.* End of story. Sheesh.


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## avin (Apr 12, 2009)

The way I see this is exactly like the masterwork Goliath shown when Wotc canned skirmished: misleading words.

What will come first? Virtual Tabletop or digital content? 

I wish this was Wotc boards and Wow fans responding... that would be fun to read what people really wanna say about this


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 12, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I utterly agree. If you're not going to believe what someone says, then why ask them the question in the first place?




Let's turn that around and ask, if the person in question has no interest in telling the truth, but is actually paid to lie if it will increase the profits of the company, why would you automatically take what they say at face value?

The answer to your question is, of course, that he might tell us something that we didn't already know.  He didn't do that, but there was always the chance he'd slip up and communicate some information.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 12, 2009)

Jasperak said:


> What is the point of journalism then?




Why, to robotically parrot the talking points of people giving press conferences, of course.

Not saying that that is what happened here.  Just an opinion about the current state of journalism.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 12, 2009)

Harr said:


> Sorry, but no, *you can't.* End of story.



What, exactly, do you find so difficult about analyzing network traffic?

The ratio has two components: the number of legal pdf purchases and the number of illegal pdf downloads. WotC knows the number of legal purchases with specificity. So the only number they need to determine is the number of illegal copies. The internet is a big place, so they probably only focus on a few p2p networks and major bit torrents. Still, monitoring traffic isn't hard and I wouldn't be surprised there was off the shelf software that does such things. Once they've done that, they have their number.


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## Emberion (Apr 13, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> What, exactly, do you find so difficult about analyzing network traffic?
> 
> The ratio has two components: the number of legal pdf purchases and the number of illegal pdf downloads. WotC knows the number of legal purchases with specificity. So the only number they need to determine is the number of illegal copies. The internet is a big place, so they probably only focus on a few p2p networks and major bit torrents. Still, monitoring traffic isn't hard and I wouldn't be surprised there was off the shelf software that does such things. Once they've done that, they have their number.




No, it doesn't work that way.  WotC can't track all illegal downloads or even get any reliable numbers (or even stand by a 10 to 1 ratio). Its impossible. Its like saying 1 out of every 10 people watch kittens on the internet. It's an impossible statement. Even if you had access to all that information, such as all the bits and bites, that still does not tell you much. The information gets relayed and processed so many times, that you can't get a statistically significant number. Basically, you can say "the numbers point to a 10 to 1 ratio, with a margin for error equal to 20. Even if say, they tracked one illegal download site, they'd have to account for all the syphons on that site that download and re-download (ad infinitum) the same information for other pirate sites. The actual number of downloads actually download by a person, and not a bot or other prog, is likely so much less...possible insignificant. There is no real way of knowing.


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## Wayside (Apr 13, 2009)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> If you're a computer geek, you'd know that that preposterous number is impossible to calculate.  You'd have to be monitoring hundreds of bit torrents, ircs,  usernets, and hunddredsof pvp file sharing applications.  Even then you'd have to pull download statistics for all these and compare them somehow, something not too many of these sites share with out a court order. Even then you'd only get a conservative number.  Where the internet began and where it is now are two different things.



It's quite possible to calculate. As with opinion polling, you use a statistical model. You do not attempt to count every download individually.

To everyone saying this isn't reliable, something tells me you aren't particularly knowledgeable on the subject. For example:



			
				Emberion said:
			
		

> Even if say, they tracked one illegal download site, they'd have to account for all the syphons on that site that download and re-download (ad infinitum) the same information for other pirate sites.



That's not how torrents work. The tracker and, depending on your client, the DHT manage the actual downloading. Where the torrent came from doesn't matter at all, and a million different sites can download a torrent and add it to their collection without registering a single download.


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## jbear (Apr 13, 2009)

I think WotC has responded as they think best to a problem that they are within their rights to attempt to thwart (or at least slow, annoy or reduce the quality of).

I'm not convinced that people downloading the PDF's illegally are lost customers. I think customers prepared to pay, far prefer to have a shiny new book to open, leaf through and smell.

My interpretation is they have a problem. They are buying time to come up with a satisfactory solution. Stop the PDF's, we'll figure another digital solution to keep our fans happy.

As I look at the progress of 4e, I think Wizards has been listening to players complaints, at least to a certain degree without straying too far from the original vision. The Half Orc was scrapped, The Gnome given a hefty boot to the MM; they're back, because they're listening.

Complaints about the sameness of class creation, a weak and limited multi-class system. They respond with concepts like Dhampyr and the Hybrid Class system to spice character creation and flavour up. Work in progress that I'm sure is generated because they're listening, and trying to get people with complaints onto the same train.

I'm sure the logistics of it are not easy. I'm sure not every decision they make will be the best, or the right one. They still have to run a profitable business, and make good on their investment. We are still talking about people, and people inevitably make errors. What would be more worrying would be a complete lack of resolve to amend, correct, improve, solve and evolve. Personally I don't think this is the case. Hopefully I won't be proved wrong.

Whatever the case, I  don't buy the idea that WotC is some cruel, heartless, soulless beast that doesn't give a d... about the product they're creating, or their loyal fan base, or anyone in the world. I doubt very much they're having the books made in some backwater alley in a sweat shop found in some war torn third world country and using their profits to invest in instruments of mass destruction. But some people make out as if they were monsters, or cold blooded murderers. 

The boss has taken time to at least try and do some damage control by answering peoples questions. That doesn't mean he's in a position to be open, or speak in depth or at length about the decision. Keep in mind they are in a court case over this. And he may not even have those answers. 

What we can hope is that he's being honest. That there is a will to find a suitable solution, and in time the problem will be resolved. Because obviously this will do little to stem the flood of pirated copies of books on-line. 

I personally appreciate the gesture and prefer to think positively until proven otherwise. I have nothing to lose in doing so, and nothing to gain by doing the reverse.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2009)

Emberion said:


> No, it doesn't work that way.  WotC can't track all illegal downloads or even get any reliable numbers (or even stand by a 10 to 1 ratio). Its impossible. Its like saying 1 out of every 10 people watch kittens on the internet. It's an impossible statement. Even if you had access to all that information, such as all the bits and bites, that still does not tell you much. The information gets relayed and processed so many times, that you can't get a statistically significant number. Basically, you can say "the numbers point to a 10 to 1 ratio, with a margin for error equal to 20. Even if say, they tracked one illegal download site, they'd have to account for all the syphons on that site that download and re-download (ad infinitum) the same information for other pirate sites. The actual number of downloads actually download by a person, and not a bot or other prog, is likely so much less...possible insignificant. There is no real way of knowing.



Really?


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## Emberion (Apr 13, 2009)

Interesting.


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## Umbran (Apr 13, 2009)

The number of people being insulting here is NOT ACCEPTABLE.  The next person to claim others are zombies, dumb, or anything else can expect a vacation from the site.  

This issue, as contentious as it may be, DOES NOT JUSTIFY how you are treating each other.  You are all gamers - you share a love for a hobby.  Maybe different editions, maybe you get different things out of it, but there is NOTHING USEFUL that comes out of taking your frustrations out on each other.  

Really, people.  Enough is enough.  The only thing you are accomplishing is the degradation of this site.  Stop messing up the place, already.


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## Staffan (Apr 13, 2009)

jbear said:


> Whatever the case, I  don't buy the idea that WotC is some cruel, heartless, soulless beast that doesn't give a d... about the product they're creating, or their loyal fan base, or anyone in the world.



The people "on the floor" seem to me to be good people, just like back in the day. Mike Mearls, James Wyatt, and all the other designers/developers. I might not always agree with their design choices, but they're clearly people who love the game.

The people in charge of the over-arching business decisions, however? Has Greg Leeds ever rolled a d20? Can you see anyone in current management ever posting something like this or this?


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## Darrin Drader (Apr 13, 2009)

It might be impossible for them to track the exact numbers, but they can do the following:

1. Have someone actively looking for torrent downloads.

2. Have someone torrent the books and leave them seeded.

3. Watch to see how many other seeds are out there and how many leeches there are.

4. Monitor their torrent client to see what other IP addresses are involved, contact their ISPs to see who they belong to and put the legal the smackdown on them (RIAA anyone?).

Or they could just go to the torrent sites, look for the specific book (PHB2) and see how many times the torrent has been downloaded. Many torrent sites do track the number of downloads each file has had. In theory, each download equals one person.

Can it be perfectly tracked? No. Impossible.

Can you monitor readily available data and get some sort of an idea of what the ratio is? Yes, definitely.

The reason that this won't make a difference is that someone will just scan the pages, create a new PDF, and make that available where the original PDF used to be. Or maybe there will be another leak from the printer. I think the only way to crack down on pirating is to get the ISPs to block torrenting, which is far from impossible. Unfortunately a lot of people torrent perfectly legal content including MMO clients and other items that the publishers want distributed in this way.


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## Obryn (Apr 13, 2009)

Beginning of the End said:


> 100% of the PDFs for all future WotC books will be acquired through piracy.



And 0% will be of high-quality, extensively bookmarked, searchable PDFs with low file-sizes built by WotC.

I don't think this is a great decision.  I think it's misguided.  However, if you reduce the quality of a free product, it will become less and less of a suitable replacement for a non-free product.

-O


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## El Mahdi (Apr 13, 2009)

DonTadow said:


> ... Then again, its hard to believe that this is a legitimate interview, considering WOTC is a major ad contributor for enworld. Not calling anyone into question, but any interview provided by people who are paid by the interviewee can be touted as little more than a press release. ...




Not cool, man.

Saying _"it's hard to believe that this is a legitimate interview"_, *is* calling the integrity of Morrus and PirateCat into question.  No matter what one may say afterwards to distance themself from the statement.

Personally, I'm very appreciative of the effort and professionalism they put into this interview.

Greg Leeds not really answering the questions is absolutely no reflection upon Morrus or PirateCat.  And Greg Leeds not really answering the questions is just an answer of a different sort.

I'm glad Morrus didn't come back and comment on this, because he shouldn't be swinging at pitches in the dirt (sorry Morrus, baseball reference - I don't know the rules of Cricket).


Very, not cool.


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## darjr (Apr 13, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> Very, not cool.




Thank you. Lashing out at EnWorld, it's users, or its staff is way out of line.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 13, 2009)

Obryn said:


> And 0% will be of high-quality, extensively bookmarked, searchable PDFs with low file-sizes built by WotC.
> 
> I don't think this is a great decision.  I think it's misguided.  However, if you reduce the quality of a free product, it will become less and less of a suitable replacement for a non-free product.
> 
> -O




No, they might in fact be *better*.  I've seen pirated pdfs that are of incredible quality, and yes, they have bookmarks, they're searchable, and they have low file-sizes.

You underestimate.  Severely.


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## Obryn (Apr 13, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> No, they might in fact be *better*.  I've seen pirated pdfs that are of incredible quality, and yes, they have bookmarks, they're searchable, and they have low file-sizes.
> 
> You underestimate.  Severely.



I don't really think I do, unless they were stolen from the printers.  (And that's both rare and relatively easy to catch).

Most pirate PDFs are, to put it mildly, crap.

But even in a universe where pirated PDFs would be more functional than the perfectly-functional WotC ones, the point stands that it wouldn't be WotC themselves spending time and money on them.

Please note - I still don't at all think this is a good idea.  However, I do think it's a decision a company could easily make without the sky falling.

-O


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## TwinBahamut (Apr 13, 2009)

Staffan said:


> The people in charge of the over-arching business decisions, however? Has Greg Leeds ever rolled a d20? Can you see anyone in current management ever posting something like this or this?



Does it really matter?

Honestly, I don't think a person needs to be a lifetime D&D geek in order to be a great manager for WotC. I mean, for one thing D&D is just a small subset of WotC's business, but much more importantly it simply seems irrelvant. The CEO makes business decisions, not game design decisions. A CEO should be hired for raw ability, not "geek cred". If I had the choice, I would much rather see a competant CEO who keeps D&D profitable than one who may muck up the game with too much personal involvement.

Besides, I may be mistaken, but wasn't Scott Rouse derided when he first took up his current position because he didn't have enough "geek cred"? These days everyone seems to like him (for good reason), but it is not like he had any kind of long-standing involvement in the growth of D&D before he became the face of the D&D brand he is today.


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## OstogVin (Apr 13, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> What, exactly, do you find so difficult about analyzing network traffic?




Nothing, except gaining access to all relevant routers in the world. An ISP can monitor traffic in their network. WoTC can't monitor anywhere else than in their internal network. I'm pretty sure they did not get their numbers from network analysis, they probably just looked at the numbers on the tracker site. Of course, this does not mean that their conservative number is wrong. In fact, if they only used the number from one (popular) site, this would be the lower bound of illegal downloads. Unless the site is inflating the numbers to seem more popular.

TCP/IP was not designed to be easy to track by the way. It was design to be able to be able to get data from one place to another, even if someone destroyed the normal path, which makes it harder to track, because in theory data might suddenly start using a different route. In practice this does not really work anymore, because full redundancy of routes everywhere is expensive, and the now commercial providers can't afford/won't pay for it.


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## Jack99 (Apr 13, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> No, they might in fact be *better*.  I've seen pirated pdfs that are of incredible quality, and yes, they have bookmarks, they're searchable, and they have low file-sizes.
> 
> You underestimate.  Severely.




Funny how those only started to appear (for D&D) until WotC started to make them...


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 13, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> Really?



First, this isn't software you or I or WotC can just install on a computer and start running it. It's intended to be installed by ISPs and only monitors traffic into and out of that ISP. When considering what WotC can and cannot monitor, it's important to keep in mind the fact that they are not the NSA or the FBI. They're just a private company.

Also, this relevant quote from the article you link throws another spanner in the works:


> From a legal standpoint, Schulze says that privacy may be a more significant problem. "Neither the U.S. nor any European country would allow [anyone] to install a device that inspects the traffic of every user just to stop Internet piracy," he says. "In this approach, every user is considered to be suspicious."



Add Canada to the list of countries where this approach would likely face a legal challenge under Canada's Privacy Act of 2005.


The bottom line is there are certainly things WotC can do to track downloads, such as getting the log files from Scribd, watching activity on key torrents. Other methods of file sharing are beyond their technological and legal reach to track.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 13, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Funny how those only started to appear (for D&D) until WotC started to make them...



Heh, vendors responding to competition.

It's an interesting world in which we live.


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## Hairfoot (Apr 13, 2009)

Obryn said:


> And 0% will be of high-quality, extensively bookmarked, searchable PDFs with low file-sizes built by WotC.





Obryn said:


> Most pirate PDFs are, to put it mildly, crap.



With respect, I can't imagine where you formed that idea.  It certainly can't have been by examining pirated PDFs.  More than a few gamers download books _after _they've bought them simply because the illegal editions are searchable and much, much better indexed than the originals.


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## AllisterH (Apr 13, 2009)

Hairfoot said:


> With respect, I can't imagine where you formed that idea.  It certainly can't have been by examining pirated PDFs.  More than a few gamers download books _after _they've bought them simply because the illegal editions are searchable and much, much better indexed than the originals.




I'm not so sure about that....

Most high quality PDFs I've seen DO come from original sources like the Publishers. For many piraters, you do have to go beyond and above. Remember, you have to basically physically destroy the book to properly scan most books and then you have to get the full version of ADOBE to properly index it.

Us ad WOTC et al will see with Arcane Power.

That said, in this pirate discussion I'm wondering if any one has a solution other than "you can't stop pirates and WOTC just needs to get over it"


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## Staffan (Apr 13, 2009)

Darrin Drader said:


> I think the only way to crack down on pirating is to get the ISPs to block torrenting, which is far from impossible. Unfortunately a lot of people torrent perfectly legal content including MMO clients and other items that the publishers want distributed in this way.



That's a path I do *not* want to see society go down (though we are headed in that direction). There are several reasons - one is the one you mention, that there are perfectly legitimate reasons for using Bittorrent. Another is that I do *not* want my ISP to give a damn about what I use my connection for. The messenger should not look at the message.

Or do you also think it's OK for the post office to open and scan all mail in order to make sure they're not being used to transport anything illegal?



TwinBahamut said:


> Does it really matter?
> 
> Honestly, I don't think a person needs to be a lifetime D&D geek in order to be a great manager for WotC. I mean, for one thing D&D is just a small subset of WotC's business, but much more importantly it simply seems irrelvant. The CEO makes business decisions, not game design decisions. A CEO should be hired for raw ability, not "geek cred". If I had the choice, I would much rather see a competant CEO who keeps D&D profitable than one who may muck up the game with too much personal involvement.



I want someone in charge of D&D who cares about the game. Sure, maybe an arch-geek like Adkison isn't necessary, but I want someone there who knows the geek crowd.

D&D is a strange game in that it expects a far greater level of involvement than most. You're supposed to use it as a starting point for your own imagination. Even board games generally limit your involvement to the actual playing of the game - you take Axis & Allies down off the shelf, set it up, play the game until someone wins, and then pack it up again. You don't have one player setting up different scenarios, adding new factions, and the like.


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> ... then you have to get the full version of ADOBE to properly index it.




While I agree onyour point that it's a lot more work to get an indexed pirate PDF up and running, I think getting their hands on a full version of Adobe Acrobat Professional is the least of a pirates worries. 

/M


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## roguerouge (Apr 13, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Funny how those only started to appear (for D&D) until WotC started to make them...




Funny how advances in hardware and software make adding features to scans so much easier in the last few years...


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## Hairfoot (Apr 13, 2009)

You may be right, AllisterH.  I can't claim to be an expert on pirated PDFs.

Staffan/TwinBahamut raise an issue which I think is central: does the D&D community want its game produced by a corporate giant with full marketing departments but a ruthless and impersonal business ethic, or by smaller companies that care about the game and its players, but which lack the resources to promote the game on a modern commercial scale?


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Hairfoot said:


> Staffan/TwinBahamut raise an issue which I think is central: does the D&D community want its game produced by a corporate giant with full marketing departments but a ruthless and impersonal business ethic, or by smaller companies that care about the game and its players, but which lack the resources to promote the game on a modern commercial scale?




Well, the obvious choice is of course the good things from both (a corporate giant with full marketing departments that care about the game and its players) but if I had to choose, I'd go for the corporate giant with the impersonal business ethics.

Why?

Because there are already a lot of smaller companies that offer games (very much D&D in style, among others) and which "care about the game and its players". I think that having at least on giant corporation with the reach of WotC/Hasbro in the mix is interesting and ultimately good for the game.

If nothing else, it gives the smaller players a good and solid fumbling juggernaut to base their marketing on, e.g. the recent spate of "we love PDF so buy from us! We care about you, we're not like the big bad corporation!" initiatives.

Then again, I have a theory of my own, and that is that any company that owns D&D becomes "the evil corporate money-grubbing blight on gamerdom" in many gamers eyes. The biggest fish are always seen as the bad guys.

Note that I don't presume to speak for the community. It's all my opinion, YMMV and so on so forth.

/M


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## Hairfoot (Apr 13, 2009)

Maggan said:


> If nothing else, it gives the smaller players a good and solid fumbling juggernaut to base their marketing on, e.g. the recent spate of "we love PDF so buy from us! We care about you, we're not like the big bad corporation!" initiatives.



I agree.  But what if the fumbling juggernaut uses its influence to squeeze the smaller guys out of the market?  Is that what's happening in relation to Paizo?

Do we need to decide between a bucket of vanilla or a hundred teaspoons of exotic flavours?


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## Oldtimer (Apr 13, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> Really?



That device has nothing to do with montoring the entire Internet. It just watches a LAN (or, to be precise, an Ethernet hub/switch) for .torrent files being transferred. From my quick scan of it, it doesn't seem to react to the actual P2P transfer, just the .torrent file. So if I sent you the .torrent file in a e-mail or an IM, it wouldn't be any wiser.

Hardly any proof that Hasbro can monitor all traffic on the Internet. Do you actually have any clue on how TCP/IP (or BitTorrent) works?


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Hairfoot said:


> I agree.  But what if the fumbling juggernaut uses its influence to squeeze the smaller guys out of the market?  Is that what's happening in relation to Paizo?




I think there are a number of technologies already in place to enable smaller companies to live on, whatever WotC does.

The Internet e.g. is one of the biggest enablers of small print publishing. It allows for customer relations, distribution (PDF and print on demand), easier production, probably lower production costs, a lot of stuff that makes publishing a lot easier.

I don't think WotC can squeeze the smaller guys out of the market. Push them to the margin, maybe, but arguable that has already happened a long time ago.

/M


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## Staffan (Apr 13, 2009)

Maggan said:


> Then again, I have a theory of my own, and that is that any company that owns D&D becomes "the evil corporate money-grubbing blight on gamerdom" in many gamers eyes. The biggest fish are always seen as the bad guys.



You have a bit of a point, but I can't really agree with you. Before Wizards were bought by Hasbro, and for a while after, they had *lots* of goodwill in the gaming community. This was partially due to actually acting like people, partially due to the OGL, and partially the residual effect of "saving D&D". Sure, they still made business-like decisions (e.g. cancelling Alternity), but they had people communicating with the community, explaining why, and went to some effort naming "official" fan sites for keeping the torches burning.

I didn't start seeing significant amounts of criticism leveled at them until 3.5e was released, and it wasn't until 4e was announced that things really hit the fan.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 13, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> No, they might in fact be *better*.  I've seen pirated pdfs that are of incredible quality, and yes, they have bookmarks, they're searchable, and they have low file-sizes.
> 
> You underestimate.  Severely.




Also, these sorts of PDFs were around before WotC started releasing its own, which suggests that they'll make a comeback now that WotC isn't producing them.

Early scans were garbage, but like everything, the quality improves as technology and skill improves.  Somewhere out there are people who can scan, OCR, index, and bookmark a PDF at near-WotC quality.  They're going to do it, and nobody can stop them.  Heck, I'm no PDF expert, but given a decent scan--which you can usually get from a $100 desktop scanner these days--isn't the whole OCR process mostly built into Acrobat?  Just go through and clean up the typos, and then add the bookmarks by hand.  Probably about 10 hours of work if you already know what you're doing.


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Staffan said:


> I didn't start seeing significant amounts of criticism leveled at them until 3.5e was released, and it wasn't until 4e was announced that things really hit the fan.




Well, I remember a lot of talk about the evil of the OGL, the d20STL and WotC wanting to dominate the industry, steal all the good ideas they didn't have any talent themselves to develop and drive every other publisher out of business.

Around 2000 or so, if I remember correctly. These days, people look back on those times and fondly remember how awesome almost everything was. But in hindsight, it is easy to forget the vehement criticism that WotC had to withstand at the launch of 3e and related initiatives.

Sure, they get a lot of flack now as well, but it's difficult for me to weigh the amount against each other. It feels harsher now, but then again, it was pretty darn harsh back in them days as well.

/M


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 13, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> I'm not so sure about that....
> 
> Most high quality PDFs I've seen DO come from original sources like the Publishers. For many piraters, you do have to go beyond and above. Remember, you have to basically physically destroy the book to properly scan most books and then you have to get the full version of ADOBE to properly index it.




If someone is willing to pirate an RPG book, wouldn't they just pirate Acrobat, too?



> That said, in this pirate discussion I'm wondering if any one has a solution other than "you can't stop pirates and WOTC just needs to get over it"



This is the realization that the music industry has come to, and the reason why they now offer DRM-free digital downloads at prices that can compete with "free".


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> isn't the whole OCR process mostly built into Acrobat?  Just go through and clean up the typos, and then add the bookmarks by hand.  Probably about 10 hours of work if you already know what you're doing.




The OCR tech built into Acrobat isn't that advanced. The layout of a roleplaying game, the many non-standard words for gaming terms and monster and whatnot makes doing a correction of an OCR:ed PDF an ardous task, taking much more than 10 hours to clean up.

And, I not really sure Acrobat allows for editing OCR:d text in the PDF itself. As far as I know (I might be wrong) the text must be extracted before being edited, and after that reinserted somehow, although that is way over my skill level, if at all possible.

Basically, OCR is not a magic silver bullet to turn scanned PDF:s into squeeky clean text gaming books, as far as I know.

/M


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 13, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> That device has nothing to do with montoring the entire Internet. It just watches a LAN (or, to be precise, an Ethernet hub/switch) for .torrent files being transferred. From my quick scan of it, it doesn't seem to react to the actual P2P transfer, just the .torrent file. So if I sent you the .torrent file in a e-mail or an IM, it wouldn't be any wiser.
> 
> Hardly any proof that Hasbro can monitor all traffic on the Internet. Do you actually have any clue on how TCP/IP (or BitTorrent) works?




My university network won't let me download .torrent files.  So when I need to get something over bittorrent, I can usually find an alternate link that sends the .torrent file as a .txt file, which I then rename.  The network also doesn't let me send and receive torrent pieces, so I just switch on encryption, and it can't sniff my packets any more.

I also know more or less nothing about how TCP/IP and BitTorrent work, but I certainly know how to use them.  If someone tried to monitor my line for P2P traffic, I'm sure that it would only take 10 minutes of Google before I could conceal my activity.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 13, 2009)

Maggan said:


> The OCR tech built into Acrobat isn't that advanced. The layout of a roleplaying game, the many non-standard words for gaming terms and monster and whatnot makes doing a correction of an OCR:ed PDF an ardous task, taking much more than 10 hours to clean up.
> 
> And, I not really sure Acrobat allows for editing OCR:d text in the PDF itself. As far as I know (I might be wrong) the text must be extracted before being edited, and after that reinserted somehow, although that is way over my skill level, if at all possible.
> 
> ...




The OCR I'm familiar with is in older science articles scanned for archival in online repositories.  Lots of non-standard jargon words in there, and I expect that the people doing the scanning are probably not paid very well--RA salaries, most likely, although I don't know for sure.  So it's not crazy to think that someone with a free weekend or two could crank out a professional-quality scan.  At least, as professional as JStor is.  

The thing is, if I wanted to, I could sit down and type out the PHB 2 in less than a day.  Presto, I have a text document.  If I were going to be clever, I'd do it line by line as it appeared in the book with returns at the end of each line.  No OCR scan required, and I get the text right the first time.  Then, assuming that the PDF software I've pirated is reasonably useful, I would just copy-paste or copy-associate the text line by line.

More than 10 hours of work, for sure.  But if someone is motivated to produce a good pirated PDF, it's not unreasonable.  I can't understand why anyone would want to both scanning in a whole book, clean it up, and assemble it into a PDF in the first place, but maybe I'm just lazy.  Still, people do, and the difference between a terrible scan and a good one is simply the level of motivation of the scanner.

Not to mention that if the original scan was good enough (i.e. high-resolution), but not OCRed or bookmarked, someone else could just add those things and repost it.  We could call it WikiPiracy.  User-edited copyright infringement.


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> The thing is, if I wanted to, I could sit down and type out the PHB 2 in less than a day.




I bow before your superior typing skills. I only average about 10 000 words a day when I get the speed up, so for me it would take considerable longer, and probably be a lot more frustrating.

/M


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## Obryn (Apr 13, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> More than 10 hours of work, for sure.  But if someone is motivated to produce a good pirated PDF, it's not unreasonable.



Except when you're looking at just about anything, it's the first one out there that gets all the attention.  The first one that gets out will be the most-commonly shared.  If you are an unusual pirate who loves to spend hours carefully checking your OCR and formatting, and who gets the book out a week or two late...  Well, you've already lost.



> Not to mention that if the original scan was good enough (i.e. high-resolution), but not OCRed or bookmarked, someone else could just add those things and repost it.  We could call it WikiPiracy.  User-edited copyright infringement.



They could, but why bother when there are new books out there to scan and upload?

I am absolutely not saying that this doesn't happen.  Of course it can happen.  I'm saying the vast majority of pirate PDFs don't hold a candle to WotC's.

-O


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Apr 13, 2009)

As I read more about this I've come to think that WotC isn't taking a stand against Pirates (capital P). These people we are discussing that will do whatever ever it takes to create these materials. I think they are trying instead to deter people in the vein of the "donation box." That cheap mini padlock an organization uses to seal their donation box won't stop a determined thief. It will dissaude an otherwise honest person from stealing donations. They are seeing too casual an attitude towards theft and how the format they were providing made that easier. They were effectively, in their opinion, leaving the box unlocked. Now they want to find a new "padlock" to help keep honest people honest.

I still think their decision was made and executed poorly. I truly hope they can offer something going forward that will somehow give more value than the pirated versions that will inevitably appear online, thus helping them protect against casual piracy and strengthening their role as industry-leader through revenue and goodwill. I also hope to see world peace before I die. I'm not holding my breath on either front.


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## carmachu (Apr 13, 2009)

Typical CEO talking points. I've seen many of them from Games Workshop.

*shrug*

Although it is troubling that he said their not planning on selling PDF's at all. So what exactly are you going to replace it with?  Because if you combine that with strong retail base.....its not looking good.

Without some real hard numbers in regards to piracy, kindle/e-reader sales vs PDF ones....its all just corp speak. I've seen it before.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 13, 2009)

Dumnbunny said:


> First, this isn't software you or I or WotC can just install on a computer and start running it. It's intended to be installed by ISPs and only monitors traffic into and out of that ISP. When considering what WotC can and cannot monitor, it's important to keep in mind the fact that they are not the NSA or the FBI. They're just a private company.



Good point. I posted that link simply to respond to the notion that gaining statistically relevant information about illegal downloads was utterly and totally impossible.

Let me clarify: I don't think it's possible to count (screw the word track, it causes to many problems) every illegal download of the PHB2 or any other D&D book. I do think it's possible to get statistically relevant numbers, however.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 13, 2009)

Maggan said:


> I bow before your superior typing skills. I only average about 10 000 words a day when I get the speed up, so for me it would take considerable longer, and probably be a lot more frustrating.
> 
> /M




There are only a few things I'm good at, but typing is one of them.  It was an estimate anyway.  It might take me 2 days.


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## Daniel D. Fox (Apr 13, 2009)

The entire interview was complete garbage. He stated the obvious, without answering any questions.

Bleh.


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## Wayside (Apr 13, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Hardly any proof that Hasbro can monitor all traffic on the Internet.



Nobody ever claimed they could, but way to shift the goalposts.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 13, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> That said, in this pirate discussion I'm wondering if any one has a solution other than "you can't stop pirates and WOTC just needs to get over it"



Well, let's start with this simple truth: piracy is not a new problem. It is a problem that goes back over two decades if not longer. In that time, companies and industry associations which dwarf WotC (and Hasbro for that matter) in terms of size, warchest and technical prowess have tried and failed to come up with a piracy "solution."

About the only thing that's accomplished by all the DRM, watermarks, lawsuits and removal of official electronic verions is to make stakeholders feel better about piracy. DRM is routinely stripped off. The DRM on Kindle books can be stripped off with a script. One early form of CD DRM could be defeated with a black felt-tip pen. Watermarks can be rendered useless with an anonymous, pre-paid credit-card and a cafe with an anonymous, open wifi network. The RIAA sued over 28,000 people with no noticable effect. And despining a book for easy scanning is SOP with pirates these days.

So, attacking the supply end of piracy is demonstrably futile. What you do is attack the demand end. What you do is the iTunes solution. Offer people what they want (content *and* format) at an attractive price, and they *will* give you their money.


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## Maggan (Apr 13, 2009)

Dumnbunny said:


> What you do is attack the demand end. What you do is the iTunes solution. Offer people what they want (content *and* format) at an attractive price, and they *will* give you their money.




Yes, but there are difficulties on the way.

I think it is important to note that digital music differs from rpg's in two key area: price and commodity status.

A song goes for ... a song, really. It's cheap, it's a low threshold to get someone to spend about a dollar on a song.

RPGs are more expensive.

Songs are a commodity. There's plenty of channels to use if you're looking for music, there's TV, radio, Internet, iTunes, and a host of other solutions. We're blasted with music all the time.

RPGs are a "luxury" item.

These two things add up to ensure that the consumer pattern for RPGs will never match that of RPGs, and therefore, the distribution patterns of the two media will likely not match either.

So even though your statement is true, I'm not so sure that an RPG company can match the iTunes model for digital distribution. I think it more likely that an RPG company can match the WoW model for digital distribution.

/M


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## Siran Dunmorgan (Apr 13, 2009)

Fellow discussants:

With respect to the ability of Wizards of the Coast to track copyright infringement: yes, it can.  Or, more accurately—and much more likely—it can hire a company that specializes in such things to do so.

Companies like BayTSP [1] have actually built the infrastructure necessary to monitor the networks, including BitTorrent, the various instant messaging and other peer-to-peer networks, NNTP and even UUCP-based networks, for content infringing their customers' copyrights.

A customer—Wizards of the Coast, in this case—provides examples of what to look for on the networks, and BayTSP simply adds it to the already massive index of things for which it is looking.  BayTSP then emits periodic reports on the traffic it finds of the sample materials provided by the customer.

Does this method yield records of _all_ of the illegal traffic in Wizards of the Coast's properties?  No.  But it certainly provides a baseline from which to make decisions.  The reports that Wizards of the Coast gets back from the tracking company will differentiate  with high likelihood between copies made on servers primarily for re-transmission and copies made for end use. [2]

The numbers reported by a company like BayTSP will represent minimums: they call out the activity _actually observed_ by the tracking company's systems.  Such reports are likely to have been the source of the "10:1" figure given for the ratio of illegal to legal copies of _Player's Handbook II_: that ratio may in fact be higher if the copyright violators are successful in concealing their activities from the tracking company.



With respect to Wizards of the Coast having decided to withdraw from the PDF-based electronic book market entirely, this seems a superficially poor business decision: it does little or nothing to deter illegal copying, and it alienates existing, previously loyal customers.

On the other hand, I find it unlikely in the extreme that the decision to withdraw from the market was made lightly; I also find it unlikely that those making the decision were afflicted with acute idiocy.  The alternative seems to be that we—those of us not privy to the process by which the decision was made—lack some crucial piece or crucial pieces of information regarding the context in which the decision was made.

We may, of course, speculate freely as to causes and motives: some of what we say may indeed have an impact on future decisions made by Wizards of the Coast.

I look forward both to the continued discussion, and to the future of _Dungeons & Dragons_.

In the hope that I have contributed to understanding and enlightened discourse, I remain respectfully yours,

—Siran Dunmorgan


[1] I have no information to suggest that Wizards of the Coast has actually hired BayTSP: I mention that specific company because I happen to be familiar with its operation and methods.  BayTSP - Piracy Protection For Your Digital Assets

[2] No, it's not absolute, but it's possible to differentiate these with high likelihood from the behavior of that node on the network, the nature of the network to which the IP address resolves, and the number, sizes, and known contents of files made available by that node.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 13, 2009)

Siran Dunmorgan said:


> On the other hand, I find it unlikely in the extreme that the decision to withdraw from the market was made lightly; I also find it unlikely that those making the decision were afflicted with acute idiocy.  The alternative seems to be that we—those of us not privy to the process by which the decision was made—lack some crucial piece or crucial pieces of information regarding the context in which the decision was made.



While I don't believe the WotC executives are afflicted with acute idiocy, I think there are other alternatives than the one you present. I believe the WotC executives saw the piracy of their IP, and afflicted with accute naivete in tech matters reacted in the way we have seen. I feel confident this position, having spent decades of observing various companies and industry associations acting this way.

The feeling of deja vu is almost overwhemling.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 13, 2009)

Maggan said:


> I think it more likely that an RPG company can match the WoW model for digital distribution.



The difficulty there is that what an MMORPG such as WoW sells for $14.95 a month is constantly dynamic content. WotC's content is almost completely static. There may be errata, additional articles, etc, but the content is essentially static.

If Wizards offers their electronic book versions on, say, a web service that you have to log into to use, or perhaps a specialized reader you have to download and install, whatever content they serve will be quickly stripped out, dumped into a PDF, and the dance will continue.


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## mkb152 (Apr 14, 2009)

Sigh...

While I am not happy about not being able to buy older edition PDFs at the moment, I understand where WOTC is coming from on this.  I suppose I'll have to spend more money on eBay for this stuff.  The good news is I had already downloaded or bought a hard copy of most of the GH / Planescape stuff (which is what I most wanted).

That being said, knowing very little information about this, *I* could have drafted a more informative interview and/or press release.  In fact, this is about what I expected.  The 10 to 1 is the only information I or anyone else couldn't have predicted.

I am not a WOTC basher, and I support their products (but I support them less than Paizo's).  But even WOTC fanboys are starting to wake up to the fact that their PR is horrible.  Seriously, it would be funny, but it's too bad to be funny.  They have pretty much made every big mistake in the book in the past 2 years; in fact, they have created a few new ones.  You think that maybe they would have learned something from the 3E character creator debacle, but maybe noone is left from that era.

It's like someone in marketing read Wikinomics and thought "*We NEED to enter the digital age or die*" but didn't do the necessary homework on how to do it right.  And you're telling me that NOW they realize that PDFs are pirated?  Are they stuck in some 1998 time warp?  

I'll believe that their will be newly distributed digital content once my WOTC virtual tabletop game has been going strong for a few years.

Don't get me wrong, I think their products (minus the USELESS character sheets) are pretty good.  But seriously, hire someone to teach you PR, please...


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## merelycompetent (Apr 14, 2009)

Well,

We now have a little bit more information. Most of it is expected, but it does confirm some thoughts others have already posted about.

* There will be no more legal PDF downloads.
* The revocation of PDF availability is part of a larger company strategy.
* Much of the interview is what we (collectively, the gaming community, and IMO) would term "management speak" or "corporate speak". I do not want this taken as a criticism of WotC - quite the opposite. It is the sort of response that a very litigous U.S.A. has forced, IMO. I would be very surprised if any response we see were not sanitized and made legally, and PR (towards the stockholders) clean.

I am hesitant to make predictions based on the information available to me so far. I certainly don't have any insider knowledge. But I can't help but come to some preliminary conclusions, now that I see the pieces beginning for form a picture. I expect we will generally see the following (and yes, if you posted one of these in another thread, and now see it here, I probably read it. I apologize - I'm too tired to search out attributions adequately):

1) 4E book digital versions will become available only through DDI. I expect this will happen within the next 3-6 months, at the earliest. If this comes to pass, the digital versions will probably start out as available only through an active connection (you must have Internet access and be logged in to get it), with possible offline access (and restrictions) available later. (The Steam Theory.)

2) Older editions will not get the digital treatment until basic economics improve - they're too expensive to convert and bring in too little money. Plus, there would have to be a certain level of demand/acceptance of the new format to overcome - and right now the customer reaction is rather loudly upset. Upset customers don't buy older edition products. I would honestly be surprised if we see any of them before 4th quarter.

3) I expect that the overall strategy is this: Make the game easier and simpler, to draw in new customers. Make it more amenable to play with miniatures. Both of those make the game easier to virtualize (convert to a digital tabletop). This is attractive because it allows the market to tap into/expand into other gaming markets - especially MMORPGs - while still retaining the uniqueness of playing with live people and a live DM. This is difficult to implement on a sufficiently profitable scale, IMO, because of the number of big steps to go through. But I think making the gaming table into a virtual table is where the game will go... and I think WotC sees that as a great opportunity to increase the primary customer base, generate recurring income via monthly subscriptions, and attract lapsed gamers - who want to play with their group but can't because Real Life (tm) has forced too much distance - back into spending money.

    So far, WotC's offerings in this arena have been lacking. But from a business technical standpoint, 3E (and 3.5E) was way too complicated a system for virtualization. 4E pushes it the other way, and introduces some really cool ideas as well. If there is no virtual tabletop for 4E, then there will be one for 5E.

I'm too tired to analyze further tonight.

The above theories are vulnerable to a great number of variables:
* Further layoffs at WotC will cause delays as domain knowledge is lost within the company.
* Additional hires will cause moderate delays as domain knowledge is gained/transferred within the company.
* Further general economic hardship can easily reduce the company's income, and force the delay of the expenditures necessary for any of the above. The reverse (economic boom causing the money to be spent sooner for faster results) is also possible.
* The imagination and creativity of the people working at WotC - they can easily come up with a radical idea that none of us have thought of that would make my speculations moot.
* Effectively out-sourcing or contracting the work required to hungry, talented outsiders.
* WotC planning all of this out, very thoroughly and accurately, starting at least at the middle of last year. I think this community tends to forget just how talented and smart the folks at WotC are.
* WotC getting caught completely off-guard by the negative customer (especially DM) reaction and/or current world-wide economic recession. Even geniuses make mistakes 
* Changes in technology - even seemingly small ones - can alter the playing field completely.
* The push to more Internet-play may strangle the essential "juice", the attractiveness of D&D as an RPG, out of the game.

Please note that I'm not trying to bash WotC; ANY edition of the game (I think they're all cool - I just don't like playing parts of them); or sing the glories of either. I'm very disappointed with the decisions that WotC has made so far, and sadly now have no reason to spend my money on their products. This may change in either direction. Nor do I want anyone to use my speculation and theories to attack WotC: The smart people in that company have access to information that we do not, and we probably never will -- barring a unique event, such as the implosion of TSR. That doesn't mean that I won't come back to these forums to sing their genius praises... or curse their short-sightedness in the future.


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## Maggan (Apr 14, 2009)

Dumnbunny said:


> The difficulty there is that what an MMORPG such as WoW sells for $14.95 a month is constantly dynamic content. WotC's content is almost completely static. There may be errata, additional articles, etc, but the content is essentially static.




Good points. So it's not feasible for WotC to simply make their content available as subscription, they need to add a dynamic aspect to it, to keep people interested in the offering on a broader scale.

I think they are already dipping their toe in the water with the rules compendium. More so with that than with the character generator, since that is run locally with periodical updates piped down to the client.

The rules compendium is online and always fresh, which I have found to be really convenient, and one of the best things about the DDI.

/M


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## funkytable (Apr 14, 2009)

*The loss of a new customer*

I am not someone who's played RPGs for years on end, I've been a customer since January. Not joking, I'm that new. I have no loyalty to DND that allows me to turn a blind eye to business decisions from WotC. I have made every purchase from WotC through PDF's. I have no interest in the DND insider or the Hardcover books.

Therefore, I am no longer a customer of WotC.

I don't understand how losing one of your newest customers who was having a blast with your products is good business sense. I'm so ticked I might leave my gaming group. What's the point if in 3 months they will have a ton of materials I don't have? Why didn't you at least continue business as usual until an alternative ebook program was available?

I will not be your customer until you offer digital copies of what you offer in books on a pay-per-book basis. I will never subscribe to a monthly subscription that will disappear when I have finished, and I will never buy books to take up space in my house.

Let me know when you offer digital books again. Until then, you've lost my dollars.

Not a threat, a fact.


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## xechnao (Apr 14, 2009)

funkytable said:


> What's the point if in 3 months they will have a ton of materials I don't have?




Are you in some kind of competition in your group who's gonna have the most books?


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## funkytable (Apr 14, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Are you in some kind of competition in your group who's gonna have the most books?





lol

No, I was looking forward to the Divine Power book so I can give my Paladin some much needed better powers. They've got Arcane power and the physical one, I forget what it's called, and soon they'll have MM2.

So it's annoying that I won't have access to those materials. It's a PBP group too, so it's not like they could just let me look at their copy.


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## Shazman (Apr 14, 2009)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Boycott WotC!!!


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## Shazman (Apr 14, 2009)

Maggan said:


> Well, I remember a lot of talk about the evil of the OGL, the d20STL and WotC wanting to dominate the industry, steal all the good ideas they didn't have any talent themselves to develop and drive every other publisher out of business.
> 
> Around 2000 or so, if I remember correctly. These days, people look back on those times and fondly remember how awesome almost everything was. But in hindsight, it is easy to forget the vehement criticism that WotC had to withstand at the launch of 3e and related initiatives.
> 
> ...




I sure don't remember those sorts of criticisms back in 2000.  Then again, I wasn't on the internet much back then.  I vaguely remember some worries about merging Magic and D&D, but that's about it.  Certainly, nothing like that of today.  They really did a good job of making a better edition of D&D, and they pretty much saved the game.  Of course, their horrible decisions and even worse PR these past few years have used up that goodwill and then some.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 15, 2009)

funkytable said:


> I am not someone who's played RPGs for years on end, I've been a customer since January. Not joking, I'm that new. I have no loyalty to DND that allows me to turn a blind eye to business decisions from WotC. I have made every purchase from WotC through PDF's. I have no interest in the DND insider or the Hardcover books.
> 
> Therefore, I am no longer a customer of WotC.
> 
> ...




Please don't quit your gaming group.

You still have the books you already bought, and in the end, that's really all you need.

I understand your anger at WotC. I feel the same. I understand and mirror your decision to boycott WotC (whether chosen or thrust upon you).

Just please, do not give up the Hobby because of WotC. WotC may be punishing you and the rest of their customers, but please don't punish yourself because of them. 

Don't give up the fun you've had, and the enjoyment of sharing it with a like minded group.

WotC isn't worth it.


edit:

To WotC:

This is a perfect example of the foolishness of your decisions. You have put a new customer, one of the very customers that 4E was designed to draw in, in the position of either no longer playing or pirating.

Brilliant!


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## PaulofCthulhu (Apr 15, 2009)

I was disappointed in the corp. speak answers, though sadly not unexpected.

I had hoped for otherwise, but to me, the interview gave no further answers of substance. For me the removal of the older editions is telling.

I could say more, I see little point. I've given up on this matter and moving on.

I do wish Wizards the best, though.


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## funkytable (Apr 15, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> Please don't quit your gaming group.




I don't think I'll quit until it starts to get bad. I'll at least finish the game I'm in. In truth, The PHB & PHB2 is most of what I need. I was looking forward to the pretty drawings in the Monster Manual though. I've been a comic reader for years.

I really am ceasing to buy their products though, there is no hesitation there.

I really may quit when PHB3 comes out though, of course I'll be a happy gamer again if WotC starts selling some form of ebook that isn't too obnoxious.

Also, if WotC isn't worth it, is there any other popular RPG system that I could easily find people to play with that _has_ stayed in the 21st century? I've heard about D20 and the vast market of genres it produces, but that's it.



El Mahdi said:


> To WotC:
> 
> This is a perfect example of the foolishness of your decisions. You have put a new customer, one of the very customers that 4E was designed to draw in, in the position of either no longer playing or pirating.
> 
> Brilliant!




My point exactly. I've emailed WotC with my grievances. Though I doubt it was passed on to the right department. Maybe I'll post some of this to their online forums.


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## freyar (Apr 15, 2009)

funkytable said:


> Also, if WotC isn't worth it, is there any other popular RPG system that I could easily find people to play with that _has_ stayed in the 21st century? I've heard about D20 and the vast market of genres it produces, but that's it.




If you are interested in d20, you might just be able to find players for that, depending where you live anyway.  And you can check out the core rules on the web for free.  Here and here are two popular html versions of the core rules (plus some!).  If you want something currently under development, there are several options for "current" d20 rules, the most visible probably being the Pathfinder ruleset from Paizo publishing (that's the beta rules, final coming in August), available in PDF or print (beta rules PDF is free).  And that's just the D&D genre.  The General RPG Rules forum here is a good place to look for other games, too.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 15, 2009)

funkytable said:


> Also, if WotC isn't worth it, is there any other popular RPG system that I could easily find people to play with that _has_ stayed in the 21st century? I've heard about D20 and the vast market of genres it produces, but that's it.




Just because WotC isn't worth it, doesn't mean you have to stop playing 4E. I'd still expect some pretty good third party publisher (3pp) support, and there's already some good third party supplements out for 4E: (3pp_4E_products_at_RPGNow, The_Quintessential_Fighter, The_Quintessential_Wizard, Remarkable_Races_Series, Fang,_Fist,_and_Song, Feudal_Characters:_Noble, Advanced_Player's_Guide)

As far as finding games and gaming groups, there are lots of different games that are still played that have accessible material in pdf. There's tons of 3E/3.5E material for download, not to mention multiple online SRD's (System Reference Documents) that have all of the necessary rules (Players Handbook, Monster Manuals, Epic Handbook, Psionics Handbook, Unearthed Arcana alternate rules, etc.). Not to mention all of the D20 derivatives (True20, etc.) The best place to look for what people are playing in PbP games is here: Playing_the_Game.

You can also look for real live games in your area here: Gamers_Seeking_Gamers.


edit: also everything that freyar said above (I actually started on this post before freyar posted but I had to go deal with something for a few hours, before I got back to finishing the post.)




funkytable said:


> My point exactly. I've emailed WotC with my grievances. Though I doubt it was passed on to the right department. Maybe I'll post some of this to their online forums.




It probably wouldn't hurt to post over on the WotC forums, but it's possible you may get a somewhat more hostile response from posters there. The people at WotC that matter do read the threads here at ENWorld. In fact many of them are members here and actually post. Especially because of recent events, there are some of the good guys from WotC here, such as WotC Logan and Scott Rouse, who read these threads and pass pertinent info up the chain. Trust me, you post it here and WotC is just as likely to get it as if it was posted on the WotC boards.



Take care and, Keep on Gaming!



​


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## funkytable (Apr 15, 2009)

If those guys do read this, I'll list a little more of my resons behind this decision:

1. I'm PBP only. Meeting up with a gaming group for 4 hours does not interest me, mostly because I'm a family man. 15-30 minutes of fun a day is wonderful though. Therefore, I have no interest in having a stack of books at my desk when I could have all appropriate files on my computer.

2. My wife and I do not like clutter. DND books are certainly clutter. We are very careful about the books we purchase because it's gotten to be too many latley.

3. I don't like subscription based services. DNDinsider will go away if I stop paying the money. I'd rather spend my money on ebooks I can keep forever.

Again, I do enjoy RPG gaming. I don't want to leave DND, but I am left without choice if you don't sell the product that suits my style. It will either be switch RPG system/publisher or leave RPG gaming when PHB3 comes out.

Please reconsider your decision.


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## Beckett (Apr 15, 2009)

funkytable said:


> 3. I don't like subscription based services. DNDinsider will go away if I stop paying the money. I'd rather spend my money on ebooks I can keep forever.




Buy one month, download the Character Builder, update it and get all the information currently available. With the minimum one month subscription, you'll be able to snag the Arcane Power update in two weeks.

Buy a new subscription every few months to stay current, or after the release of a book that interests you. The CB works even if you're not a subscriber, and doesn't even require an internet connection except for the updates.

You get to keep up with the rest of your group, and I'm pretty sure you'd save money compared to what WotC priced their PDFs at.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 16, 2009)

funkytable said:


> 2. My wife and I do not like clutter. *DND books are certainly clutter.* We are very careful about the books we purchase because it's gotten to be too many latley.




Emphasis mine. This man is no gamer.


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## funkytable (Apr 16, 2009)

Beckett said:


> Buy one month, download the Character Builder, update it and get all the information currently available. With the minimum one month subscription, you'll be able to snag the Arcane Power update in two weeks.
> 
> Buy a new subscription every few months to stay current, or after the release of a book that interests you. The CB works even if you're not a subscriber, and doesn't even require an internet connection except for the updates.
> 
> You get to keep up with the rest of your group, and I'm pretty sure you'd save money compared to what WotC priced their PDFs at.




I give a reeeealy big hmmmm to that. I thought you couldn't access stuff after level 3 once your subscription lapses. If I could do this, I certainly would once Divine Power comes out. Very interested in this method.



ExploderWizard said:


> Emphasis mine. This man is no gamer.




lol. Yeah, I enjoy games and comics, but I don't have as strong a collectors bone in me. I'd be happy if everything that could be stored virtually, would be. I eagerly await the day itunes begins selling Marvel comics entire catalog. It will come.

But does that really put me at odds with the gaming community? There are certain games I will never play (Warhammer 40K) because of the ludicrous storage needs.

Is a healthy lack of desire for tiny plastic fighting men really mean I can't get emersed in a world of gaming?

I'm not picking on this one guy, I am honestly curious because he isn't the first person who has teased me about this. One person even suggested my wife had castrated me. I'm pretty sure he didn't get it last night like I did.


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## mudbunny (Apr 16, 2009)

funkytable said:


> I give a reeeealy big hmmmm to that. I thought you couldn't access stuff after level 3 once your subscription lapses. If I could do this, I certainly would once Divine Power comes out. Very interested in this method.




The way the subscription works is the following:

(Taken from the WOtC forums)



			
				mdonais said:
			
		

> You don't need to be online to use the application, just to update it each month if you want the new monthly content.
> 
> There is an updater, which gives you an update button you can press to download the new version each month. You have to log into your DDI account to update each month.
> 
> ...






			
				WotC_DM said:
			
		

> The limit of 5 installs will be for each monthly update. The number of installs allowed will not be reduced if you later choose to uninstall the application with a monthly update after having installing it, but once the next data update is available, the limit will be reset.
> 
> If you reach this five install limit during a given month, and for some reasons you need extra installs, you will be able to contact our Customer Service department, and make your case about getting more installs for this month. We will closely monitor these requests, and this number of 5 for any given month's update should provide the right balance for everybody.
> 
> Because of the nature of the application, both the code and the data set will be updated every month. The update process will in fact be proceeding to update both the code and the data, without needing a full re-installation.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 16, 2009)

funkytable said:


> ... lol. Yeah, I enjoy games and comics, but I don't have as strong a collectors bone in me. I'd be happy if everything that could be stored virtually, would be. I eagerly await the day itunes begins selling Marvel comics entire catalog. It will come.
> 
> But does that really put me at odds with the gaming community? There are certain games I will never play (Warhammer 40K) because of the ludicrous storage needs.
> 
> ...




Don't sweat them, Man.  Just as there are multitudes of different types, genres, and formats of games, there are just as many different ways to game or to be a gamer.

Do what works for you.  There is no such thing as the wrong way to play (although there will be no shortage of people who will still try to tell you you're doing just that).

As long as you and the people you are playing with are having fun, you're doing it right, and you're just as much of a gamer as anyone else.

Game On, Man!  Game On!


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## El Mahdi (Apr 16, 2009)

Back to the threads subject...

I'd consider the gaming hobby to be a very entrenched and well supported hobby.  A hobby with enough ideas, concepts, and material floating around to at least be self sustaining, without an industry, for the next century, and perhaps in perpetuity.

With that in mind, since the industry itself is not completely necessary, although very beneficial, it's role is technically only one of supporting the hobby.

So, when did WotC's mindset change from one of developing a strategic vision to support the hobby, to one where the hobby needs to conform to WotC's strategic vision?

The latter may be what Mr. Leeds wants, but the reality of the hobby is the former.

He can wish all he wants that the hobby will bend and conform to the wishes of WotC.  I think that's a foolish expectation.


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## Jack Campbell (Apr 17, 2009)

Even after the opening salvo that was the demise of ETools, to be followed by outside licenses (Dragonlance, Ravenloft, etc.), then the killing of two of my favorite print periodicals, digital initiatives and broken promises, the mechanical abandonment of a game that I still recognized after thirty years, and then pulling the rug out from under my miniatures skirmish game, I still want to be respectful of Mr. Leeds and sympathize with the efforts at WoTC.

But this whole .pdf thing has just wore the track in the carpet clean through for me. It is finally all too much for me to reconcile. It is like patronizing the same gas station for years on end and, one day you go in and the nozzles no longer fit your tank. When you ask the attendant he says, "Sorry buddy. Sucks to be you."

So for the first time in 28 years, I am taking a serious and hard look at other game systems that I *can *integrate with what I already have whether that be Pathfinder, Castles & Crusades, or OSRIC.

I want to be excited again. I want to feel like someone is in my corner and cares about my interests as a customer.

Reading Mr. Leeds answers to our genuine concerns reminds me of listening to a refrigerator hum. I do wish it were otherwise.


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## ki11erDM (Apr 17, 2009)

Instead of all this worthless bickering and complaining how about you guys put your brain power together and come up with away to satisfy WoTCs (and every other content provider in the world) one issue with .pdf distribution.  Create a form of DRM that is easy and logical for the end user and reasonably secure for the content provider.  And do all that without pissing off retail stores who distribute the tree based products.

WotC wants to provide digital versions of their books.  (some of) You want to buy them.  Work to find a solution and make 100’s of millions of dollars along the way.  Or you can just sit on message boards and complain about how reality works.  *shrug*


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## Krensky (Apr 17, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Instead of all this worthless bickering and complaining how about you guys put your brain power together and come up with away to satisfy WoTCs (and every other content provider in the world) one issue with .pdf distribution.  Create a form of DRM that is easy and logical for the end user and reasonably secure for the content provider.  And do all that without pissing off retail stores who distribute the tree based products.




They had it. DRM does not work. It never has. It has always been trivial to overcome for those who wanted to, and always been annoying, aggravating, and damaging to the consumer. There is nothing to suggest that this trend will change in the future. I would further suggest that no DRM system will ever be secure enough to stop or even meaningfully slow piracy. The watermarking system allows consumers to do what they want and expect with a file, and allows producers to find out who to sue or cut off if it is illegally shared. Ebooks are a non-issue for retail. retail stores piss and moan over it, but what's killing them are their typical lack of professionalism, poor buisness practices, and online retailers, not pdfs. If Wizards wanted to drive more dead tree sales to game stores, they should stop selling to Amazon or insist that Amazon sell at MSRP. Either that or get into the idiotic model of consignment used by most publishing houses and book stores.

The most successful (afaik) ebook publisher doesn't use DRM at all and has repeatedly said that doing so is a waste of time, money, and hurts your business by showing that you view your customers as potential criminals and spending money on DRM that could be spent getting new content or reprinting back catalog. You can find this company's ebooks on torrent sites and the like, but the torrents tend to be rather sickly because the market for their books considers the prices and freedom the publisher provides good value, so rather then hunting for a torrent or ftp site or whatever they go to the company's store, fork over $6 and download the novel in their choice of formats for whatever reading device they may have.

Piracy primarily happens for two reasons: Economics and idealism. You solve the economics issue by giving the public what they want. Cheap ebooks with little or no DRM that can be accessed in multiple ways. PDF more or less fulfills these requirements (other then price), if only via ubiquity. You can't solve the idealism issue. Some superannuated adolescent will always find some way to pirate material because of his beliefs that "information wants to be free" (which is not what Brand said) and because it makes him feel like he's sticking t to the man or gets him props in his dysfunctional community.

Most pirates fall into the first group. They're downloading pirated material because the cost is too high, the DRM is to restrictive, or some other form of artificial scarcity pushes the legal product out of the market. Most content providers or creators respond by villifying the consumer and demanding legal remedies.

There is actually a second type of person who is an "idealistic" pirate. This is the issue that the RIAA and MPAA and the people they represent have run afoul of at this point. Due to abuse of the market and consumer, people have reclassified them from "creative people who deserve our money" into "crooks". Once an industry or entity moves from the former to the later, you find all sorts of people who no longer consider it wrong to pirate their work. 

Wizards is on the edge of this cliff. Hopefully they won't fall in.


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## Dumnbunny (Apr 17, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> Instead of all this worthless bickering and complaining how about you guys put your brain power together and come up with away to satisfy WoTCs (and every other content provider in the world) one issue with .pdf distribution.  Create a form of DRM that is easy and logical for the end user and reasonably secure for the content provider.  And do all that without pissing off retail stores who distribute the tree based products.
> 
> WotC wants to provide digital versions of their books.  (some of) You want to buy them.  Work to find a solution and make 100’s of millions of dollars along the way.  Or you can just sit on message boards and complain about how reality works.  *shrug*



Well, large companies and industry groups have been trying for the last decade or so to come up with the DRM you describe, and have failed. The odds of a bunch of people on a message board actually figuring this out seems remote, to say the least.

Worse than that, large companies and industry groups have been trying to come up with some sort of copy protection scheme for nearly 30 years if not longer, and they have for the most part failed. More and more IP-based companies and individuals are accepting what seems to be the awful truth, that there is no DRM or other copy-protection scheme that will protect their IP without pissing off their legitimate customers. Hell, many if not most DRM schemes fail to protect their IP *and* piss off legitimate customers.


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## Mirloc (Apr 17, 2009)

Here's the thing. He says out of every 10 copies downloaded, 9 were pirated. I'd like to know where he got his number or are these simply fun numbers pulled straight from his nether regions?

The video games industry, which is made up of some of the most technologically savvy people out there can't figure out what the damages to their industry is from piracy, and he wants us to believe they managed to do the impossible? Track every single instance of one of their product being downloaded from every server in the world? I somehow just can't get drink enough of the Kool-aide to believe in the accuracy of those numbers.

To that end there's even those in virtually all industries that are saying piracy is responsible for increases in sales, not only of new product but sales of older product that simply does not get any press time any more. When was the last time you saw an advert for the 2E books? Yet they were (up until the ban) still sold in PDF form.

As for the "cost" of producing an electronic rather than paper book, that anyone could even use that as a real cost is laughable. As you finish the layout of your book, you finalize what it looks like in the editor of your choice and press "print to PDF" and there's the PDF of the book. Available for sale and distribution now, as opposed to the print book which needs to be sent to the publishers, who create the run, package the books and ship them to retail stores. And if you think there's no costs involved in this process you need to really reconsider the real world. 

Electonic distribution of media is the way to go, but the IP holder needs to enable the purchaser the right to print a copy on their own for those who prefer a real paper book rather than electronic media. 

I realize that WoTC, like any other company producing product like this needs to wrap their heads around a new way of doing busniess is all.


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## Dausuul (Apr 18, 2009)

Mirloc said:


> Here's the thing. He says out of every 10 copies downloaded, 9 were pirated. I'd like to know where he got his number or are these simply fun numbers pulled straight from his nether regions?
> 
> The video games industry, which is made up of some of the most technologically savvy people out there can't figure out what the damages to their industry is from piracy, and he wants us to believe they managed to do the impossible? Track every single instance of one of their product being downloaded from every server in the world? I somehow just can't get drink enough of the Kool-aide to believe in the accuracy of those numbers.




No, the number is quite legit. The problem is, it's not a very meaningful number.

Showing that there are (at least) 10 times as many pirated downloads as legit sales is very easy, since there are pirate sites and networks that let you find out how many downloads there have been of a given file. WotC employees have stated that this is how they got their figures. The ratio might be _higher_ than 10 to 1, in fact it is probably vastly higher, but we can be confident it is not _lower_.

Problem is, that ratio, while it sounds scary, doesn't actually mean anything. Wizards seems to think it implies something about profits and losses, when in fact it does nothing of the kind. To know the actual impact to WotC's bottom line, you have to determine the percentage of those downloads that represent lost sales, versus the percentage that would never have bought the thing in the first place.

And then you have to figure out how much effect cutting off legit .PDF sales will have on piracy, since pirates are perfectly capable of making their own scans and a single scan can supply the entire Internet.

And then you have to figure out, of the downloads that do represent lost sales, how many are lost sales of physical books as opposed to the .PDFs that Wizards is no longer selling anyway?

And then you have to factor in the sales _gained_ as a result of the "free advertising" provided by pirated .PDFs... and so on.

I strongly suspect that whoever is calling the shots at Wizards is waving off these issues as statistical noise. Of _course_ most of the people who downloaded the .PDFs would have bought the book if the download hadn't been available - of _course_ piracy will drop off significantly if we stop providing the .PDFs ready-made - of _course_ it has a substantial impact on sales of physical books - of _course_ the "free advertising" effect is negligible.

The last company that made D&D made strategic decisions on an "of course" basis* rather than market research... Tactical Studies something. Whatever happened to them, anyway?

*I'm not suggesting that this one single decision will deliver Wizards to the fate of its predecessor, but it's not a good sign.


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## El Mahdi (Apr 18, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> No, the number is quite legit. The problem is, it's not a very meaningful number. ...




Not to mention that they also can't tell how many of those were failed downloads and re-downloads, multiple downloads due to losing the file on one's computer (hey, losing a file on ones computer does occasionally happen ), or inadvertent multiple downloads of the same title under different file names.

A company running under the assumption that 1 illegal download = 1 lost sale is self deluded at best (besides, y'all know the saying about assumptions).


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## ki11erDM (Apr 18, 2009)

Krensky said:


> They had it. DRM does not work. It never has.




It is nice to see you have such a limited view on what is possable.


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## Krensky (Apr 20, 2009)

ki11erDM said:


> It is nice to see you have such a limited view on what is possable.




I'm confused... is that supposed to be an argument, an insult, or a thought terminating cliche?


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## tanj (Apr 20, 2009)

Looking at piracy ratios from PC games 10:1 actually sounds about right.

If you think of it in economic terms of elasticity of demand the difference between $X and $0 is probably great enough that 10x the number of people would rather have the item at $0.

I think stardock has the right attitude.  Piracy is a part of having a digital product and trying to prevent piracy rapidly reaches a point of diminishing returns.  It is a shame to see WotC's attitude towards PDFs, but it is understandable.

The Escapist : News : World of Goo Experiences 90 Percent Piracy Rate
Wired dives into App Store piracy
Gamasutra - News - Casual Games and Piracy: The Truth
Crytek CEO Estimates 20 PC Game Pirates for Every One Legitimate Buyer - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads


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## wedgeski (Apr 20, 2009)

Krensky said:


> Most pirates fall into the first group. They're downloading pirated material because the cost is too high, the DRM is to restrictive, or some other form of artificial scarcity pushes the legal product out of the market.



This is an extravagant claim. Do you have evidence to back this up?

My anecdotal experience of the 'pirate' mentality over the years (having known dozens and dozens of people who unashamedly download everything from films to music to, yes, roleplaying books) is that people see no reason to pay for something that they can get so easily for free. When engaged in a discussion about the ethics of doing what they're doing, the most common self-justification is a false sense of entitlement. This is all direct from the horse's mouth. Not once has DRM or scarcity been used as a reason... most of these guys don't even know what DRM means.


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## Krensky (Apr 20, 2009)

wedgeski said:


> This is an extravagant claim. Do you have evidence to back this up?
> 
> My anecdotal experience of the 'pirate' mentality over the years (having known dozens and dozens of people who unashamedly download everything from films to music to, yes, roleplaying books) is that people see no reason to pay for something that they can get so easily for free. When engaged in a discussion about the ethics of doing what they're doing, the most common self-justification is a false sense of entitlement. This is all direct from the horse's mouth. Not once has DRM or scarcity been used as a reason... most of these guys don't even know what DRM means.




For them any cost higher then zero is too high. The entitlement justification, depending on how it's phrased, is either an example of the overgrown adolescent group, the "you can't steel from a crook" group, or both.


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## Branduil (Apr 21, 2009)

So their reason for cutting off .pdfs was the 10:1 ratio?

Well now the ratio is infinite. Good job WotC.


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## wedgeski (Apr 21, 2009)

Krensky said:


> For them any cost higher then zero is too high.



Then I think we're in agreement.


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## TheYeti1775 (Apr 22, 2009)

Darrin Drader said:


> It might be impossible for them to track the exact numbers, but they can do the following:
> 
> 1. Have someone actively looking for torrent downloads.
> 
> ...



If they did do #2 Seeding it themselves, guess what it's no longer a pirate copy but an official copy as they are the owners of the Copyright.  




Lonely Tylenol said:


> Not to mention that if the original scan was good enough (i.e. high-resolution), but not OCRed or bookmarked, someone else could just add those things and repost it.  We could call it WikiPiracy.  User-edited copyright infringement.



WikiPiracy for a win  lol 
But really I do my own bookmarking all the time within PDF's, makes it a bit easier navigating.  Even adding to existing bookmarks of publishers.



Vyvyan Basterd said:


> As I read more about this I've come to think that WotC isn't taking a stand against Pirates (capital P). These people we are discussing that will do whatever ever it takes to create these materials. I think they are trying instead to deter people in the vein of the "donation box." That cheap mini padlock an organization uses to seal their donation box won't stop a determined thief. It will dissaude an otherwise honest person from stealing donations. They are seeing too casual an attitude towards theft and how the format they were providing made that easier. They were effectively, in their opinion, leaving the box unlocked. Now they want to find a new "padlock" to help keep honest people honest.
> 
> I still think their decision was made and executed poorly. I truly hope they can offer something going forward that will somehow give more value than the pirated versions that will inevitably appear online, thus helping them protect against casual piracy and strengthening their role as industry-leader through revenue and goodwill. I also hope to see world peace before I die. I'm not holding my breath on either front.



Yup locks only keep honest people honest.
But this is a case of the barn's empty better lock the doors so nothing gets out.



fanboy2000 said:


> Good point. I posted that link simply to respond to the notion that gaining statistically relevant information about illegal downloads was utterly and totally impossible.
> 
> Let me clarify: I don't think it's possible to count (screw the word track, it causes to many problems) every illegal download of the PHB2 or any other D&D book. I do think it's possible to get statistically relevant numbers, however.



I think its possible to get a good sampling, a full on accurate count nope.
Since they know the number of PDF's sold that is their static number.
If in their sampling they confirmed 10 illegal downloads to each sale, that is where they can justifibly use the 10:1 pdf ratio.  Honestly I expect that number to be on a low end.
Why you ask, simple.
In the thread on "How Long till Arcane Power is Pirated", I looked for it last night.  Found it on several servers without using BitTorrent once.  Most of the servers were just normal everyday ones that people left unsecured.  This took less than 10 minutes of effort.
That doesn't even include the ones that simply copy down to a thumbdrive and pass it around the gaming group for everyone to throw on their laptop.

Weather its a result of just seeing if you can do it, to "nerdrage", to sticking it to the man; the pirating won't stop just because WOTC quits selling official PDF's.  Just like with E-Tools & PCGen datasets, those are easily found as well for the "Official" datasets.

And as far as tracking IP address, have fun with it.  Using my own house as an example, there are 3 unsecured and 2 secured wireless connections within reach from my Basement, not including my own secured one.  
It would be nothing for me to set up connection via neighbor 'A', 'B' or 'C' and BitTorrent all day long to my secondary computer.  Than use a Thumbdrive to take the file from that computer to my own.  Already in that scenario I have a 4:1 ratio (the original bittorrent copy; the secondary computer downloaded copy; thumbdrive copy; & main computer copy).
Folks who download will continue to do so.
Folks who scan will continue to do so.
Folks who bought official copies, will no longer be able to do so.

Personally I like my dead trees, though I do find PDF's a boon when planning stuff out and have them on my Jumpdrive when I'm on the go.

While I understand WOTC's kneejerk reaction to it, can't say I see the reasoning behind it.  It only slows down the pirates a bit, without leaving a legal avenue for those that are willing to pay.

If digital copies get tied to DDI, I'll probably never see a legal copy.  Why's that you ask, because I haven't and don't plan on playing 4E anytime soon.  If they incorporate past versions into the Character Builder, you would probably see myself and quite a few old timers join the DDI ranks.  And by getting us to join the ranks even for the 'one monthers', you might just convince us to try 4E out once or twice convincing us to stay around longer than a month.  Heck throw the bone of a 'Official' article on old versions every now and than.  

But for Mr Leeds, I do have to say that interview was full of corpspeak.  Learn how to talk to your customers, not like they are shareholders but like the customers they are.  Honestly how many here would have been tickled by an answer like this.


> "Yes, part of the reasoning behind pulling the PDF sales was due to piracy issues.  But also due to the fact we have plans in the works about bringing digital sales all in house in effort to combat piracy but maintain our customer base.  We are currently exploring possible other digital media to use, and are looking at a possible release in 'xx' quarter of FYxx.  This is a tenative estimation currently as we are in the early stages of the study."



Half this arguement could be settled with an answer like that.  It tells us nothing of their corporate stragey secrets but lets us know that they are attempting and an estimated timetable with the stimulation it is not finalized.

O well on to other things.


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