So with The Frozen Reaches released and Battlefleet Kronus on the way, are we going to see the PDF for Edge of the Abyss? Same with the the Book of Maytr's for Dark Heresy.

Salcor

Seconded.

and even though I doubt it'll be noticed I'm going to again voice my desire for PDFs being released sooner, possibly before the hardcopy's release date. I can figure out some of the reasons this is not done already, but I'm one of those people who would buy a slightly cheaper PDF now, and a dead tree book to use at the game table later.

The chances of them being released before the physical book is slim-to-none, I'd say. Still, having them released slightly earlier would be nice

ignore this response. I mis-read something and didn't need to comment. Me stupid.

I know some companies (Well, one in particular) actually do release the PDF version before the hard copy is available. I don't really know how exactly this ranks on the 'good idea' scale. It might be good, it might be bad. From what I can tell though, you end up with quite a few people that buy the PDF right away because they want the rules/fluff/whatever right now instead of next week when their local game shop gets it, then they buy the dead tree version so they can have easier access to it during game play. So, double sales on some people. Seems like a good idea to me. I'm sure there might be drawbacks, but I can't think of any off hand.

I can think of one pretty big drawback:

1) buy PDF before hard-copy is released

2) go to [name for torrent site here]

3) put the PDF up as a torrent

4) profit... except not for FFG

That's why I think the idea of releasing the PDF about 3-4 weeks after the release of the book is the best idea, as it means that people who want it right now will end up buying the book, or if they don't want it that much, wait for the PDF to be released, and given the speed of people scanning the books and then making them into a torrent, the legit PDF should be up about the same time as, if not sooner than, the pirate one, and many people who would have otherwise gotten the pirate PDF will instead buy the legit one.

MILLANDSON said:

Er...

Do you actually make profit for putting your stuff up on Torrent sites?

HappyDaze said:

No.

It's a very well known meme: LINKY

You skipped a step: ???

Regardless, anyone following your steps gets no profit since they bought the thing in Step 1. If Step 1-3 were "wait for someone else to" then you come out with "profit" otherwise, you gain nothing.

You don't seem to be getting the point of the meme. It's a joke.

I'm sure that FFG is laughing about it...

HappyDaze said:

Nothing gets by Happydaze.

Dream pod 9 often puts out PDFs of their latest books weeks or even a month or two in advance of when the hardcopy is to be released. This nets them early sales, and also serves as a final proof read done freely by us fanboys that can actually result in a product with fewer errors. Though since this is DP9 we're talking about they still have their cliched amount of boo boos.

Now granted they're producing rules for a table tops minis games and thus they're goal is to push the sale of their miniatures and not just books, but I have purchased a PDF then later picked up the dead tree book when it's finally available. Many others do so as well, as sometimes the book cost is cheaper than getting it printed.

Getting the PDF earlier would also give me, the GM, time to peruse it and hopefully spot anything that my players might want, need, or abuse. Which saves time at the table if a question comes up. This also lets me loan out my hardcopy as needed since I can acess my PDF at home, or on the road.

I'm usually the one who gets the new stuff anyways, And I'd rather they bring other things to the group like minis they've worked on, and so on.

For me I would actually prefer to have an option where I can purchase the hardcopy and get an electronic copy for free or for like $5.00 more. I love having to books and I am kind of a completist, but I am in the military and I travel a lot, so being able to put my books on my nook or my laptop is great as well.

Salcor

Comparing the situation to what other companies do doesn't really work, though - in this context, a major factor is the contract between FFG (as the content producer), DriveThru RPG (as the distributor) and GW (as the licence owner) and what that allows.

You're right of course. I'm sure that there's a reason beyond anti piracy that prevents them from putting out PDFs faster, but that's something they can't tell us.

Was just using the best example i could think of at that time. Though I did note that the situations were not the same because of the goal of the product line.