Anyone Wo Wants To Try Out Exalted

[Epsilon]

The tabletop RPG game, that is.

White Wolf is offering a free
download of he core rulebook, as well as 10% off other products until Apr 12.

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Epsilon

[robkelk]

Presumably, this is because Wizards of the Coast has ordered the various PDF stores to stop selling their products... Lucky for us, though.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Epsilon]

Indeed it is. Wizards has pulled ALL pdfs of their products for sale off the internet.

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Epsilon

[Wiregeek]

idiots
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[robkelk]

Yep. They claim it's because of piracy. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07 ... y_lawsuit/](Register story)

So, let me get this straight: WotC is so worried about people breaking their copyrights that they've now made it impossible to get their digital products without breaking their copyrights, and this is supposed to help matters?

I'm going with the tinfoil brigade here and assuming they want to distribute their PDF products only from a webstore they own themselves, possibly with DRM included. (Hey, the first half of that works for http://e23.sjgames.com]SJGames, and who cares about DRM? )

Meanwhile... Must remember to pull back a copy of the Exalted core rules sometime this weekend.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[robkelk]

Just noticed: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads]this page of legal free WotC downloadables is still up... for now.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

And all it means, really, is that torrenters will be forced to use crappy image scans and OCRs instead of nice clean OEFs...

--Sam

"Your coal-based bruiser is no match for my Santa-clad fury!"

[Epsilon]

Originally Posted by SWieck




Steve Wieck with DriveThruRPG/RPGNow here.


I thought I would respond to a couple items discussed on the thread.




First, there are no "contract negotiations" with Wizards that led to the current situation. We have been doing business with Wizards on downloads
for over six years now and always enjoyed a positive and co-operative license relationship. The thread's hypothesis that the situation might be a result
of a negotiation issue is a reasonable hypothesis but is incorrect.




On Monday I spoke with Wizards' legal department in a call that I thought would discuss the lawsuits Wizards has filed. We had been co-operating with
Wizards to supply information on pirated files for those lawsuits (as allowed under our site privacy policy). Instead I was informed of Wizards' decision
to cease all PDF sales at this time. It was a complete surprise to me.




Wizards gave us legal notice to remove their titles. Due to what I'll characterize as a miscommunication on intent, we complied immediately and removed
all public access to Wizards' products from DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. In turns out this was not a situation that either we or Wizards desired. I am in
discussions with Wizards legal and it looks highly probable that we will be able to offer customers time to come back and re-download prior purchases for
their personal archives. We will email and post information on sites once we have final confirmation on this.




I regret that some customers have inferred that our download counts are any guarantee of availability to re-download titles. We really do not like iTunes' approach of "one download, you
lose it, pay again" so we do our best to offer perpetual downloads of purchased titles. Our agreements with publishers though do not let us guarantee
this - as this situation makes clear. We have learned a lesson here by reading that some customers inferred otherwise, and we will make some changes soon to
clarify this on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.




We are offering full refunds to anyone who purchased a Wizards title from us but never downloaded it. These are extremely rare cases, as most everyone
downloaded the goodies as soon as they were originally purchased.




I am otherwise as confused as anyone else here on the rationale behind Wizards' decision. I know there are some smart people at Wizards like Scott who
get it, so I can only speculate that there are others who are not as informed and who are making the call on this.




As many other folks on this forum have stated, I also believe that piracy for the foreseeable future is unavoidable for books. So long as printed copies and
scanners and torrents exist, rpg books have been and will be pirated. It's sad and fatalistic, but it's true.




Given that rpg books will always be on file-sharing sites, it means that anyone who purchases a legal PDF is doing so because they prefer to make that choice
over pirating the file. Thankfully, the number of rpg fans who make that decision are legion and it lets us send payments every month to hundreds of rpg
publishers and creators. By making this choice to legally support thier hobby, fans are keeping rpgs alive. I say that without one bit of exaggeration or
melodrama. Around seven new rpg titles go live every day at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. The hobby could not be nearly that prolific if not due to fans choosing
to support their hobby.




This makes DRM an extremely poor choice for any publisher. DRM inevitably restricts ease of purchase and ease of use, and anything that tips customer choice
from legal purchase toward pirating is a bad business decision. DRM does nothing to prevent pirated files from being available, since the files will already
be available anyway from scanned copy.




We already learned lessons on DRM the hard way in the past, so I know the issue intimately. For many years now, we have embraced watermarking as the
preferable solution.




The posts by D&D fans across all gaming forums, while angry at times, are ultimately posted out of concern for Wizards and the desire to see Wizards make
the best choices. Whether I ever do business with Wizards again or not, Wizards is a big part of the hobby that I love and for that reason alone, I hope that
they reconsider. Especially given the ongoing fan feedback on this, I am optimistic that they will.




Steve


www.DriveThruRPG.com


RPGNow.com - The leading source for indie RPGs

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Epsilon