Online Publishing, Piracy and Wizards of the Coast

[varjohaltia]

So, WoTC has decreed that nobody can sell its old books as PDFs anymore. That's the only electronic format available. They claim they're worried about piracy.

So, before yesterday, if I wanted an older WoTC book, I could
1) Go to the library. WoTC makes no new money.
2) Buy a used book on Ebay/Amazon/Flea Market. WoTC makes no new money.
3) Download a pirated copy off the internet. WoTC makes no new money.
4) Buy a legitimate PDF. This has the benefit of being legitimate, searchable, and good quality. These accounted for 20% of sales, according to RPGDriveThrough and Paizo. WoTC makes money.

Today, if I want an older WoTC book:
1) Go to the library. WoTC makes no new money.
2) Buy a used book on Ebay/Amazon/Flea Market. WoTC makes no new money.
3) Download a pirated copy off the internet. WoTC makes no new money.

Now, I'm not a business major, but does this make sense? What do all the methods left to readers have in common?

Mind you, a lot of other publishers have the issue of not selling older works -- perhaps they are just being business-stupid, or they don't want to cannibalize their new sales. The difference is that they didn't make these things available, and then randomly pull them off the market after seeing that they sold well.

Comments

[roguer.livejournal.com]

Fantastic; WotC never fails to amaze me. ;)

-Rog

[sakurakurakura.livejournal.com]

until just now, i had no idea they were a subsidiary of hasbro!

[mathaeis.livejournal.com]

Now you know, and knowing is half the - hey, take those videos down that people might confuse for the real thing because we are morons!

[sakurakurakura.livejournal.com]

damn. that bad, huh.

[mathaeis.livejournal.com]

I remember a few years ago I was looking through the Nintendo FAQ on piracy and such. It was pretty insane. Like the questions were set up like this, no exaggeration:

Q: Can I download ROMs of old Nintendo titles?

A: No, Nintendo reserves the rights to all titles, even if they are out of print.

Q: But if they are out of print, can't I download the ROMs since there is no way to get them otherwise?

A: No, they are still the property of Nintendo.

Q: But what if it was a really popular/good game I want to play again?

A: No.

Reminds me of this. Of course, with Nintendo they ended up releasing the Virtual Console for the Wii, so their stance made (some) sense. But with WotC? Sounds pretty dumb to me. Guess it doesn't help that I downloaded pirated PDFs of the 4ed books when they came out, since I decided to finally see what D&D was all about (I am intrigued, and still itching to try a game, to say the least). I guess I better go buy my legit copies quickly, or WotC isn't going to make any money off of me!

[roguer.livejournal.com]

Haha

On the flip side, looks like yet another reason to get a Wii. Nintendo ROMs are fraught with malware and virii. ;(

-Rog

[elgordomagyar.livejournal.com]

Well WOTC has done a bunch of stupid things over the years and this is yet another one. What else is new?

[hyanan.livejournal.com]

Stop pointing out obvious things Toivo! ;)