Quote from: Stainless;572587Whatever the reason(s), something has changed in their thinking. They withdrew them reportedly due to piracy (and possibly because they feared old items were detracting from the sales of new items). Thus, by a process of elimination, they must now feel either;

i) Piracy is no longer an issue (perhaps because they have a subscription model in mind)
ii) They no longer feel old items will significantly stop people buying the latest and greatest releases.
iii) They accept piracy as inevitable and decreasing current release sales will happen, but the revenue stream from reissuing material will sufficiently compensate for this.
iv) They don't know what the fuck they should be doing.

It should be the first three choices put together, but it's probably just #4.

I'll believe it when it happens.

Business decisions are immutable and are forever, like marriages and diamonds.

Well, here's my thinking about WOTC's new electronic copies (possibly not PDF's):

Fuck 'em. Fuck those assholes right in the ear with a rusty chainsaw.

I bought some WOTC PDF's. Had a hard drive crash. WOTC withdrew them, and I couldn't download them again. Assholes.

(And no, for some of these products, there were no good "unofficial" sources. They don't always exist. And once a shit "non-official" product gets into circulation, people just keep reposting that. 17 different torrents, same shitty scan. "Non-authorized" products are not quality products, usually. Usually, they're shit.)

Now WOTC is bringing out another variety of electronic products. Subscription, DRM'd PDF, straight PDF, whatever. And I get to pay — again — for the privilege of buying a 20-year-old out-of-print "Long Tail" product I've already paid for twice (once in hardcopy and once in PDF).

And if I did, what's to keep these idiots from yanking them again? What's to keep them from screwing me over... again?

Fuck 'em. Fuck these assholes right in the ear with a rusty chainsaw.

(Sue me, I'm irritable today. But the above points still hold.)

Seriously, dude?  They're fixing something you didn't like and your problem is "what if they unfix it"?  Seems kind of like vacuous logic to me...

RPGPundit

Cool i can get planescape and dark sun without having to pay the prices ebay sellers charge!

I'm writing this post, knowing full well there is the possibility this site will have a crash and will need to reset to a prior backup that erases this post.

Nevertheless, I am taking the risk and posting anyway.

To me, it's the same thing.  There is risk inherent in just about any action I can think of.  That doesn't mean you don't take any actions, or let any level of risk deter you.

Is there a chance WOTC will change their minds at a later date? Sure.  But, the risk is small, the time frame is large, and it doesn't seem like something that would deter me.  Your mileage may differ.

Quote from: RPGPundit;572754Seriously, dude?  They're fixing something you didn't like and your problem is "what if they unfix it"?  Seems kind of like vacuous logic to me...

RPGPundit

I disagree. He's right. At best, any solution coming from WotC is temporary, "until management and/or strategy change". It has nothing to do with the people or personel at any particular time. It's got to do with the nature of the organization itself.

Quote from: Benoist;572901I disagree. He's right. At best, any solution coming from WotC is temporary, "until management and/or strategy change". It has nothing to do with the people or personel at any particular time. It's got to do with the nature of the organization itself.

If it is PDF and not subscription, it's not a huge deal. Just make back-ups of your files in case your computer crashes or you accidentally delete something.

Annoying not to be able to just re-download at will? Yeah. But hardly insurmountable.

If you buy a printed module/book etc and the dog eats it/spill a beer on it/lose it, they don't give you a free new one. It's yours, you gotta look after it. Same goes for PDF.
 I understand earlier advertising said one time purchase, download forever, but that was a little short sighted all things considered. Live and learn and any PDFs I buy will be backed up in several places. (if they are PDF)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;572717Well, here's my thinking about WOTC's new electronic copies (possibly not PDF's):

Fuck 'em. Fuck those assholes right in the ear with a rusty chainsaw.

I bought some WOTC PDF's. Had a hard drive crash. WOTC withdrew them, and I couldn't download them again. Assholes.
...
Now WOTC is bringing out another variety of electronic products. Subscription, DRM'd PDF, straight PDF, whatever. And I get to pay — again — for the privilege of buying a 20-year-old out-of-print "Long Tail" product I've already paid for twice (once in hardcopy and once in PDF).

And if I did, what's to keep these idiots from yanking them again? What's to keep them from screwing me over... again?

Hate to break it for you, but it is your fault. You could have protected your copy better - on a backup drive, archived to a DVD, printed, anything. You could have bought an original copy and used that. It is not the seller's responsibility to protect the products you buy from them. It is not the seller's responsibility to offer free replacements for products you have lost or damaged. Very few things in the world work that way. If you buy a set of wine glasses and you break them or forget them before a move - that's right, you can go and buy a new set. You might have had a point if your original download was a broken PDF, or if WotC's closure of their PDF business could wipe your collection, but that's not what happened. You, the customer, failed to take appropriate steps to protect your property. Your loss is your business and your responsibility.

Man up, stop blaming others for your own mistakes, and reserve your indignation for genuine cases of corporate misconduct.

Quote from: Lilaxe;572907If you buy a printed module/book etc and the dog eats it/spill a beer on it/lose it, they don't give you a free new one. It's yours, you gotta look after it. Same goes for PDF.

Wrong in every conceivable way.  Books that get ruined are physical products that would cost the company money to replace.  Electronic books are not physical products.  The cost to produce additional copies after the costs of making the first one are zero.  The company's profits will be reduced $0 by sending out a new one if yours is lost.

Additionally, personal computing is moving towards the cloud.  Cloud apps, cloud computing, and certainly cloud storage.  Having data exclusively on your local device is losing ground as a storage paradigm.  Purchase once, download forever is very much within the paradigm of cloud storage.

Most software companies will replace your broken cd for a $5 charge.  Considering that could be a $500-$1000 product, that would be like WOTC charging me a nickel for redownloading a pdf.  I would gladly pay that.

If you care about keeping your documents/data, cloud computing is even more problematic than local electronic copies. The cloud infrastructure is not in your hands, and while usually managed by large, well-capitalised corporations, there are no guarantees they will be around in 15-20 years, let alone 40-50. And RPGs are almost 40 years old now.

My hunch is that at some time in the future, we will be seeing a decay and/or collapse of multiple clouds, leading to massive data loss that will wipe out much of the current decades from long-term cultural memory. I mean, sure my e-mails from 2005 on Gmail are not Paul's epistles, but if you care about ephemera, which RPG stuff mostly belongs to, it is going to be serious. Try finding posts from old message boards or blogs to see what I mean. Actually, try free game materials from defunct blogs.

If you want to keep a supplement, get a downloaded PDF copy. If you want to keep it reliably, back it up on a DVD or a spare drive. If you really care about it, produce a bound physical copy. And if you are really interested in archival, transcribe it on vellum instead of the cheap crap that goes for paper nowadays. Okay, stone tablets are taking things a bit too far. But only a bit.

Quote from: Melan;573119If you care about keeping your documents/data, cloud computing is even more problematic than local electronic copies. The cloud infrastructure is not in your hands, and while usually managed by large, well-capitalised corporations, there are no guarantees they will be around in 15-20 years, let alone 40-50. And RPGs are almost 40 years old now.

My hunch is that at some time in the future, we will be seeing a decay and/or collapse of multiple clouds, leading to massive data loss that will wipe out much of the current decades from long-term cultural memory. I mean, sure my e-mails from 2005 on Gmail are not Paul's epistles, but if you care about ephemera, which RPG stuff mostly belongs to, it is going to be serious within a generation. Try finding posts from old message boards or blogs to see what I mean. Actually, try free game materials from defunct blogs.

If you want to keep a supplement, get a PDF. If you want to keep it reliably, back it up on a DVD or another drive. If you really care about, produce a bound physical copy. And if you are really interested in archival, transcribe it on vellum instead of the cheap crap that goes for paper nowadays. Okay, stone tablets are taking things a bit too far. But only a bit.

'strooth.