When will the BC pdf be available?

By johnnyper, in Black Crusade

I'm waiting to buy my copy. Why won't FFG just take my money? gran_risa.gif

I don't know, they seemingly don't want mine either. There's absolutely no reason to hold it back anymore. Those who wanted the hardcopy have ordered it already. And those who are happy with a file.... Well, let's say that if you google "Black Crusade PDF" you don't get a release date, but that doesn't mean that you find nothing, so the excuse that releasing a PDF would lead to loads of illegal copies doesn't hold true anymore.... Seems they want to punish those who actually want to pay them money. serio.gif

Why not just get a hard copy?

DJSunhammer said:

Why not just get a hard copy?

I got a mail from FFG saying they were aiming for the end of last week. So I suppose the answer is 'soon'.

DJSunhammer said:

Why not just get a hard copy?

a) I'm not that interested in BC, I mainly want it for Dark Eldar and Necron Stats and to create enemies, the cheaper PDF would be fine for that.

b) I'm currently on a semester abroad and with all the stuff I had to buy here so far (The Complete Works of Shakespeare etc.) I'm lucky if I can lift my suitcase when I go home, not mentioning that it already slightly exceeded the weight limit of the airline when I got here.

Heliotic said:

I got a mail from FFG saying they were aiming for the end of last week. So I suppose the answer is 'soon'.

Good news. happy.gif

Mjoellnir said:

the cheaper PDF would be fine for that.

Of course assuming the PDF is all that much cheaper - many companies sell the PDF for around the same price as the physical book, and FFG, when their PDFs are in a half-price sale or the like, are usually only about £5 cheaper than the physical books (Deathwatch, for instance, is £37 for the PDF, and you can get the book from some places for cheaper).

As for the release date, FFG have to put everything past Games Workshop, so I imagine having to wait for GW to authorise it is one of the things that causes the delays.

Also, I would appreciate, as one of the people who helped work on Black Crusade, that you don't tell people about the possibility of piracy, because just by posting up what to look for in Google has probably caused another few people to take FFG's work for nothing.

MILLANDSON said:

Of course assuming the PDF is all that much cheaper - many companies sell the PDF for around the same price as the physical book, and FFG, when their PDFs are in a half-price sale or the like, are usually only about £5 cheaper than the physical books (Deathwatch, for instance, is £37 for the PDF, and you can get the book from some places for cheaper).

At the moment the Deathwatch PDF is 30 $ on Drivethrurpg, and even if Black Crusade is only 5 GBP cheaper, I can live for at least two days on the difference. gran_risa.gif

MILLANDSON said:

As for the release date, FFG have to put everything past Games Workshop, so I imagine having to wait for GW to authorise it is one of the things that causes the delays.

You mean GW approved the book over 3 months ago, and now they have to approve the PDF which is supposed to be exactly 100% the same again? sorpresa.gif

MILLANDSON said:

Also, I would appreciate, as one of the people who helped work on Black Crusade, that you don't tell people about the possibility of piracy, because just by posting up what to look for in Google has probably caused another few people to take FFG's work for nothing.

Yeah, sorry about that. I thought a few days about it if I should do it, then this thread turned up.... Fact is that "Black Crusade pdf" is the second of the automatic completion suggestions Google makes as soon as you have typed "Black Cru." You can't google for anything Black Crusade related without stumbling over those search terms, and whoever is interested in the PDF-version wouldn't try them out? I don't believe that this was new to that many people in this forum. Treating piracy as if it wouldn't exist is the worst possible way to handle it. The best would be having your product ready at the same time the first scans turn up in a better quality. But enough of that..... -_-

Mjoellnir said:

MILLANDSON said:

As for the release date, FFG have to put everything past Games Workshop, so I imagine having to wait for GW to authorise it is one of the things that causes the delays.

You mean GW approved the book over 3 months ago, and now they have to approve the PDF which is supposed to be exactly 100% the same again? sorpresa.gif

That is the way licensed properties work.

Generally the owner of the license must approve every product/SKU individually.

Not to mention that by giving the independent game stores a month or so of hardback sales before the pdf is released, they can help those retailers out.

ItsUncertainWho said:

That is the way licensed properties work.

Generally the owner of the license must approve every product/SKU individually.

I don't know how big companies do it, but if I have to get something printed the PDF is usually the first thing that is finished. The book was sold around the 4th of August for the first time....

ItsUncertainWho said:

Not to mention that by giving the independent game stores a month or so of hardback sales before the pdf is released, they can help those retailers out.

Sold first around August 4th, officially released to stores September 27th and on Warseer there are people who claim that their LGS doesn't expect it before December 28th..... *doom* -_-

Mjoellnir said:

Sold first around August 4th, officially released to stores September 27th and on Warseer there are people who claim that their LGS doesn't expect it before December 28th..... *doom* -_-

At least two of my FLGS have had multiple copies of BC on the shelf. One had half a dozen last friday according to a friend.

It all depends on who their distributor is.

Also, a PDF for print production is a very different thing than one for consumer use. A lot of print information, formatting, registration, and color guide information must be removed and the whole thing must be reformated into a book form and checked.

Mjoellnir said:

You mean GW approved the book over 3 months ago, and now they have to approve the PDF which is supposed to be exactly 100% the same again? sorpresa.gif

According to a contact working in publishing, its may essentially seem the same book but its actually two different products. Almost just like an audio book is different from a printed book. Just cos GW may approve the Hard Copy for distribution doesn't mean they've cleared the softcopy.

As pointed above, it would be the licensing, or maybe pre-press issues. GW seems to be riding on the popularity of their TT branding of WH40k to tie in to computer/ video games and other material like RPG (from their corporate report). So its just a matter of time and waiting. Thankfully I bought the hardcopy.

The PDF is now available on RPGNow (redundancy!).

THANK YOU!!!!!! I looked at the front page and was growing frustrated.