I know when I preordered the DC Universe book for DC Comic in Mutants & Masterminds, the big "preorder bonus" was the pdf of it, downloaded right then, so I actually had it over a month early. I also have a friend who got the pdfs for Marvel Heroic stuff that I'm not even sure I ever saw as a book, before that line fell, but he won't share them, out of a fear someone will find out, assuming anyone else is even paying attention; I don't harass him, he did pay money for them, after all. Still, in a world where Napster died because Metallica wasn't making even more money, and any video on YouTube that might reference a song, movie, or whatever might get pulled the next day, while GW waves the banhammer over people making the minis they refuse to fabricate, it's no big surprise that this line doesn't have pdfs. Some people will buy them, certainly, but some of those will make them "available to their friends" (haven't we all had a time at the table when another copy of that book would be useful, or someone in your group asked to borrow the book, for the weekend, so they can plan some stuff?), and then they get out to everyone, "free of charge."

On the Deathwatch forum, we talked about if other 40K stuff is dead, while FFG focuses wholly on Star Wars, and someone mentioned that Rogue Trader, possibly the best game there for actual role-playing, and feeling silly-powerful, actually sold the worst of the lines. If it wasn't a contributor to poor sales, then pdfs running rampant on the Internet would have only made them even worse, especially with the book's regular price tags. I know people who can fill gigabytes of storage with pdfs of D&D 3.0/3.5, Pathfinder, and various other lines of things, none of which they ever bought, and while it's nice to know that they can look up ANYTHING, it pains me to know that it hurt the lines in question, who greedily seized my money, but who needed it to keep making my fix.

It seems that most standard licensing for RPGs considers PDFs to be a form of "Digital Game." It's silly, but it's not just LucasArts/Disney. Cubicle 7 has the rights to The One Ring RPG, but they got in trouble when they sold the core book in digital format. And I don't think it's entirely intentional. There's probably some little clause in the boilerplate contract that makes it so whatever video game company has all digital rights. Except free supplements, which is why FFG, Cubicle 7, and Wizards of the Coast before them were able to publish freebies. With luck, the next time Disney negotiates with EA (or, please, please, PLEASE, ANYONE ELSE!), someone in that particular branch of their legal department will consider the tabletop RPG aspect (good luck), close that little loophole (good luck), and the video game company will realize that's not something they need (good luck), and will happily relinquish that aspect of the rights (good luck). THEN, maybe the next time they're negotiating RPG publishing rights, they will remember to include digital distribution, and not be all in a panic about the piracy aspect. Yeesh. This might take a while, folks.

You can buy the corebook of The One Ring on DriveThruRPG with the other books of the line.

Regarding digital distribution, the piracy issue should be a moot point, IMO. I did some Googling and I was able to find PDF scans of nearly all these products (EotE, AoR, and just about all of the supplements) with almost zero effort, so piracy is happening whether or not there's digital distribution. Putting watermarks on PDFs is like locking your car doors (it keeps honest people honest) and is probably a good idea, but I am not sure other concerns are really valid. Pirates gonna pirate...but honest people are gonna pay for the products they use, especially if they like the products and want the company to continue to produce more products.

I will continue to hold out hope that the license writers will get their heads on straight and redefine PDFs appropriately...

Regarding digital distribution, the piracy issue should be a moot point, IMO. I did some Googling and I was able to find PDF scans of nearly all these products (EotE, AoR, and just about all of the supplements) with almost zero effort, so piracy is happening whether or not there's digital distribution. Putting watermarks on PDFs is like locking your car doors (it keeps honest people honest) and is probably a good idea, but I am not sure other concerns are really valid. Pirates gonna pirate...but honest people are gonna pay for the products they use, especially if they like the products and want the company to continue to produce more products.

I will continue to hold out hope that the license writers will get their heads on straight and redefine PDFs appropriately...

when you allow people to get products legally the piracy tends to go down. I like what evil hat and other rpg companies have been doing. buy at a flgs and you get a digital copy as well.

when you allow people to get products legally the piracy tends to go down. I like what evil hat and other rpg companies have been doing. buy at a flgs and you get a digital copy as well.

I'm just curious: How do the publishers handle that? A redeemable code under a scratch-off so it's obvious when a code has been collected?

when you allow people to get products legally the piracy tends to go down. I like what evil hat and other rpg companies have been doing. buy at a flgs and you get a digital copy as well.

I'm just curious: How do the publishers handle that? A redeemable code under a scratch-off so it's obvious when a code has been collected?

code on the reciept I believe.

They partner with stores and give them cards or codes to give out, or (and this is what I had to go with a handful of Evil Hat products) was e-mail them a picture of my book with the receipt laying on it, and they e-mailed me back PDFs.

It would seem that for whatever reasons, when it came time to re-up the contract, FFG either was unwilliing or unable to pursue getting the rights to sell PDFs.

For all we know, it could be that with Electronic Arts being handed everything that LucasArts had domain over, the electronic rights went with it, and as things stand FFG woudl still need a separate license, this time thru EA, to be able to sell PDFs of their Star Wars games.

It's not that they are unwilling – it's simply that they can't. We used to have this conversation on the WotC forums as well and everyone wanted pdfs as well; even back then. EA holds the license (after acquiring Bioware) to produce Star Wars digital games and PDF's being a digital product fall under that licence agreement for FFG to be able to produce PDF"s they would have to acquire the digital rights to the game which would be EXPENSIVE.

As for downloading the illegally scanned and shared books, especially if you torrent them and seed you are helping sharing them with people who haven't paid for the books and then we are in a whole conversation about what piracy does to sales and whether or not it's a positive for the company selling the product.

Personally I remember someone saying that the whole of the pen and paper games industry was less than 150 million dollars world wide across all companies which in economics is pretty much nothing, that's less than what the next Star Wars digital game will make.

It would seem that for whatever reasons, when it came time to re-up the contract, FFG either was unwilliing or unable to pursue getting the rights to sell PDFs.

For all we know, it could be that with Electronic Arts being handed everything that LucasArts had domain over, the electronic rights went with it, and as things stand FFG woudl still need a separate license, this time thru EA, to be able to sell PDFs of their Star Wars games.

It's not that they are unwilling – it's simply that they can't. We used to have this conversation on the WotC forums as well and everyone wanted pdfs as well; even back then. EA holds the license (after acquiring Bioware) to produce Star Wars digital games and PDF's being a digital product fall under that licence agreement for FFG to be able to produce PDF"s they would have to acquire the digital rights to the game which would be EXPENSIVE.

As for downloading the illegally scanned and shared books, especially if you torrent them and seed you are helping sharing them with people who haven't paid for the books and then we are in a whole conversation about what piracy does to sales and whether or not it's a positive for the company selling the product.

Personally I remember someone saying that the whole of the pen and paper games industry was less than 150 million dollars world wide across all companies which in economics is pretty much nothing, that's less than what the next Star Wars digital game will make.

Which is why making legal PDFs is important. When you don't people tend to use piracy to get what they want...

You can buy the corebook of The One Ring on DriveThruRPG with the other books of the line.

By Jove, you're right! Well, for a time they couldn't do that. Someone over at Cubicle 7 must have gotten a triumph on his persuasion roll.

You can buy the corebook of The One Ring on DriveThruRPG with the other books of the line.

By Jove, you're right! Well, for a time they couldn't do that. Someone over at Cubicle 7 must have gotten a triumph on his persuasion roll.

It took some time, but they sorted it out. You can get the sweet deal of getting both physical and digital copy by pre-ordering TOR books, which I usually do.

I prefer physical copies, especially of core rulebooks and especially of gorgeous ones like FFG's Star Wars line. But due to recently moving from 200qm of our own house to an 80qm flat, shelf space has become a real issue. I had to leave more than ten moving boxes of RPG books behind and my new office still looks cramped. I only used to buy digital copies of books that were not that important to me, but right now I am looking at expanding my digital collection in lieu of the physical one even more. There are pros and cons to both, but the little bibliophile in me sometimes weeps ...

Another advantage of digital books is that you can take your entire library with you wherever you go. I keep all my books on my laptop and take it with me all the time.

With one of these http://www.amazon.com/Noteboard-Ltd-Pocket-Size-Erase-Board-NB35X15/dp/B00EAOJA4Y , some tokens, and dice; you can start a game any ware if there are some people to play. I ride motorcycle all the time, so I carry a backpack with me. I keep everything in my backpack. It is quite convenient.

Franigo, just out of curiosity, what is the meaning of qm as a measurement? Is "square meters" normally abbreviated with a q, or is it something else?

(Over here, we talk about home sizes in "square feet," of course.)

I am going to venture a guess that he means sqm which is an abbreviation if square meters.

Franigo, just out of curiosity, what is the meaning of qm as a measurement? Is "square meters" normally abbreviated with a q, or is it something else?

Ups, I am sorry, that is the wrong measurement for an international forum ... I totally forgot to translate. Dante is correct, it should be m ² ...

I am going to venture a guess that he means sqm which is an abbreviation if square meters.