Somehow, we’ve gone from “The Customer is always right.” to “The Customer is our enemy.” and it will be a long time, if ever, until things get back to something sane that actually serves customer and vendor alike.

CJ,
Didn’t you get that memo that was passed around the office last week? It was something to the tune of “The customer is always right, as long as they are dumb. Take their money.”

I can forward it to ya if you need it.

Wizards (and Hasbro in general) have continually dropped the ball whenever they try to move into the digital world.

3rd edition D&D was suppose to get a series of digital tools; after a series of delays, the promise was quietly forgotten.

4th edition D&D was suppose to ship with a series of digital tools, including access to an ebook version of every book you bought; current status? Delayed. And no ebook-with-purchase.

And now this? I can’t say I’m surprised. Just… disappointed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an evil warlock’s dungeon to finish planning by Friday.

I have played pen and paper RPGs for many years. Yes, I do like having the books so I can read a bit just before I go to sleep, but when I almost broke a shelf built into the wall because I had tooo many books on it, I realized that I’m going to need PDFs and a nice small linux tablet PC. Books are nice, yes, but they are going the way of cassette tapes and TRS-80s and maybe I’ll just have to find a “smarter than the average” group and go back to playing a real game like Role Master. I mean, it’s not like D&D has ever created a fighter-mage base class(goes from 1-20) that I have agreed with, but the 3.5 prestige classes Swiftblade(found on wizards.com web site) and Abjurant Champion did help out, A LOT to making a good fighter-mage.

They have the worst programmers. MTGO is a pos they have not been able to fix it and make it worth using after years of development.

Have any of you noticed the replies from Paizo and White Wolf? Both are offering discounts and free PDFs. They are putting out press releases advertising their digital offerings, and basically taking advantage of WotC’s mishandling of the situation.

People still play D&D? I thought that died out when Metallica went mainstream.

WOTC I think biggest failing is in thier project managment and Tools, it seems that hasbro in its demands to be active in its market and product has lost sight of the semple fact, Role players do not have to buy thier product to play DnD! Its trying to legestrate the imaginations and the power that most geeks know from get go! Its my game and I well play the way I want too!
to gain control of thier market they need to get people to want to paticapte in thier ideals or they need to learn to paticapte with thier customers to let them direct thier market. bad buisness ideals is not thier problem thier ability to manage thier projects and handle market and technology is the failing of many publishing entities who do not understand that just because you have a editor a writer and an artist, dose not mean you have a team Direction, with out a trained project manager who know that communications is a single goal of the team between marketing development and technology you have failed your project from get go.
the failure of WOTC is not thier product but thier managment of the three elements of the project.
nor the understanding that you can not reinvent your product when it is essentually an Ideal.
you can not copy write an Ideal, just its presentation!

A bunch of replies:

1. While I bought the first three 4.0 books, I’ve torrented all the rest because there’s about $3 worth of useful info within each of their $40 covers. The PDFs are incredibly useful. I’ve gone back an forth between a pure paper and pencil adventure, in which I just print out my adventure and the monster pages I need; and a pure computer adventure when I do everything on my laptop, including rolling dice (thank you, D&D 2.0 disk with dice roller!). Regarding the index, most of the torrents I’ve got come with chapters bookmarked, and with Foxmarks you can add additional ones that are adventure specific, making reference very easy.

2. WOTC is getting those on-line tools ready. A character generator was on display at NY ComicCon, which will make creating NPCs as easy as using that D&D 2.0 disk I noted above. Right now, it’s a bear in part because the DMG doesn’t have pre-rolled examples of characters at various levels like the 3.5 DMG did.

3. The alignments are entirely changed in 4.0. There’s no more chaotic good, for instance, because that’s what you’d use to describe a freedom fighter aka a terrorist. True neutral is now “unaligned.”

It doesn’t make ANY sense to organize a boycott of WotC products. If you don’t like them, don’t buy them. If WotC fails it will only demonstrate to other capable companies…and Hasbro (WotC’s parent company)…that there is no viable business to be made in the core hobby market.

Buying eurogames and RPGs from your local brick-and-mortar isn’t cheap but it’s the right thing to do if you love games and want to support the industry. Vote with your dollars.

I’ve worked in the print gaming industry for more than 10 years…maybe even one of the big companies appearing in this thread (I’m not saying). I can tell you this; the people at Wizards don’t have the sophistication to make products that intentionally rip people off. They’re TRYING to make the best product they can given their budgets and profit expectations. I “suspect” that Hasbro bought WotC hoping for a regular rhythm of Pokemon-like profits. That was an anomaly…and odds are spectacular that it will NOT happen again. Not to WotC anyway.

It’s a bad time to be in consumer goods. WotC, like most companies in other sectors, are desperate not to have to fire any more of their fine employees…and if that means cracking down on pirates (or however they want to characterize it), that’s their prerogative.

As a life-long gamer, I’m as passionate about D&D as anyone. (Dave Arneson, RIP) I don’t blame WotC for trying to act like a big company…that’s what they are. The creative grunts behind D&D are doing their best to bring us what we love with the meager resources they’re supplied.

That’s the way I see it.

While it is true that some people paid for the digital pdf files that were pirated, and did not recieve them, wizards of the coast has legitimate reasons for stopping online files as such. First of all, it wasnt the selling of the files, it was the fact that they were selling these ‘digital files’ on the internet before the release date of the books themselves, costing the wizards money by having competetition with their own product! Think about it logically, not the way you want to, if you were wizards of the coast, could you honestly say that you would be happy that somebody is selling didital copies of your merchandise? Wizards has agrred that digital files are useful, but are searching an alternate way to give the files online without any ability to pirate them.

First off, Truth, those companies selling the online PDF’s were legal resellers, as d7 pointed out. As for the books going on sale before being put into print, how do you think those resellers got the PDF files to sell? They’re Wizards’ PDF’s that they distributed to those resellers for the purpose of selling them. If Wizards didn’t want them to sell the PDF’s before the print dates, they could easily make a stipulation in their contracts with the resellers, or, GASP!, not distribute the PDF’s to the resellers until the print version is out.

The thing I don’t get is why did they force the discontination of the out of print earlier edition PDF’s. Personally, I don’t have the money to shell out getting a copy of the Kara-Tur boxed set, since the cheapest I could find it on e-bay was 60 bucks, and you know what, Wizards wouldn’t have made a dime even if I did buy it, but if they still had the PDF’s available, I could go get an electronic copy for probably $10 at the most, and Wizards WOULD make money off of that.

I don’t think this has anything to do, at least directly, with piracy, otherwise, why would they remove the old editions as well? I think it’s because they aren’t selling 4th edition very well, and they’re trying to force people to switch to the new edition. I’ve looked through 4th edition, and in my opinion it is far too dumbed down for me, and the entire flavor of D&D, even the little bit that survived into 3rd edition, is essentially gone. They’ve gotten rid of classic base races and classes in favor of new classes and races that seem to me like they walked right out of Everquest or WOW. I don’t like MMORPG’s, why would I want to bring that to my table?

Plus, in my 24 years of life, with my rabid addiction to D&D, I’ve spent at least $1000 dollars in gaming books and accessories, and I was just getting comfortable with 3.5, I refuse to switch, and I am pretty much done spending money on this hobby, and the money I do spend from now on isn’t going to Wizards, not because I’m gonna boycott them, but because they don’t make a game I want to play anymore. Honestly, because of their pulling of legitimate PDF’s, it’s only gonna make me turn to “piracy” all the more.

Also, last but not least about PDF’s, most of the books I’ve bought in my lifetime have been lost or destroyed due to my numerous times being homeless, and other things. I’ve spent the money on the books already, Wizards (or TSR before the buy out, and Hasbro after Wizards got bought out themselves) got their money from me, so honestly, at least for the ones that I have bought in the past, I feel I have a right to a PDF copy, much in the same way that you’re legally allowed to have mp3 copies of CD’s that you own. The purpose of electronic copies in that case is backup, so even if you lose or damage the original, you still have a good copy. I feel completely justified in getting “backup” copies of books that I’ve already bought, whether they’re still in my possession or not.

While it may be WotC’s right to pull all of the PDFs, whether 4th or earlier editions, it was rather rude & crude to do it with minimal notice (1-day I believe).

Piracy being the cause of pulling ALL of the PDFs is just an excuse, as books can be (and were in the past) easily copied & distributed. As several here have already mentioned, I believe this a move to shore up the poor reception of the 4th Edition. I bought the first three books (Players, DMs, Monster) & found them…wanting. It reminded me too much of MMORGs (as has been mentioned), the system was “clunky” in it’s explanation , and while the art-work was well done the layout was not (sections and subsections were run together, making it difficult to find things). So, to me, the pulling of 4th Edition PDFs by WotC has no impact…I’ve already switched to Pathfinder for my “D&D” fix. As for the impact to WotC…well, only their sales figures and bottom line will tell if they did the right thing.

Oh…and if I want any other types of RPGs besides D&D, then I have somewhere in the range of $200,000 in game books to choose from (Been gaming since Chain Mail & one 7′x4′ foot book case is just D&D related). And if none of those fit the bill, then I’ve created two or three systems in the past for play with various groups, and I’ll do the same if I have to. So, no Game company, whether WotC or some other RPG Company, “end all, to be all” of gaming.

If you don’t what a company is doing, then don’t buy their products. If nobody is making something you like, then do it yourself (or get with others and make your own game). In short, step outside of the “Corporate created box” and do it yourself. I think you’ll find it’s a whole lot funner that way.

I’ll get off my soap box now.

Nadrakas…

You suck ass

Um, Hasbro, not Mattel.