Hi everyone.

I recently purchased the DH core book and wanted to ask if there's anywhere I can purchase other titles in the product line as PDFs?

Thanks in advance.

Thus far no. In the future, I doubt it. Although there is the Vehicle & Riding Beasts material avalable as a free .PDF

Fair enough.

Thanks for the quick reply

I too would love to buy PDF versions of DH, IH, etc. It is so much easier to search and find the information you need. Especially with how IH is layed out. It is not easy to find things in it and the index doesn't help much. Heck, I'd be willing to pay book cost for PDF versions.

I don't know what the hang up is on PDF's but I think this is one area that FFG and GW are missing out on. FFG hands may be tied by GW and if so that kind of sucks but PDF versions are more than just a book in an electronic format. They are a valuable tool to a GM, if a player can't remember stuff about what he can do...just print out those pages...if there are charts you need just print them out. There are so many uses for PDF's in gaming I surprised that some designers are gun shy with them. I know that there is the fear of if the PDF is available people will just give it to friends and there is a potential of lost revenue but I think its almost the opposite I'm more inclined to buy pdf's than the books because its easier to use in certain circumstances. Oh well end not too well thought out rant.

To be 100% Candid and honest about the only thing that stands between most people 'giving' their mates e-books or electric copies of thier stash is acess to a good scanner, time, and know how. Why don't comapanies make avalable e-copies of their books, besides the obvious ease of internet piracy is the fact that enterprising people (orginisations) could just print and sell their own harc copies of the books much easier and hence yet another cut into the parent companie's profits. Except that it will likely never happen. Hell even 'fan' products like Warpstone won't offer .pdfs of their product so why should or would for profits comapanies? Honestly I'd likely never buy WFRPv2 material, but if my mate just handed me a free e-copy I'd probly take it. This is the case with a majority of people relating to a majority of products from films, music, to books. It makes perfect sense that they aren't offering such 'services'

Wu Ming said:

There are several game companies out there that do sell pdf version of their product - Pinnacle/Great White Games sells PDFs of their products as do several of the companies that sell add on products to the Savage Worlds system. You can go to rpg.net and find many companies selling their RPGs in pdf format. There are even some companies that add a CD with the purchase of a physical copy and have a sleeve inside to hold it.

I buy all my Savage World products via PDF because it is a lot easier to find things and GM using them.

Oh, I am aware of the practise (I've most of the Heavy Gear books avalible from DP9 that were on Drive Thru as well as Hard Copies), only that it is very understandable why companies would not want to do such a thing. I would love searchable, extracable professional grade interactive .pdfs of DH material but I am not wondering why such things are not made avalible direct from FFG or BI or GW. It is sound bussiness. FOr everhandful of legimate people who might buy a product if made avalible in such a format there would be buss loads who would buy them to upload or just download the 'free copy'. There is really no means of securing such ventures that would make them widely apealing to the majority of major companies.

Yet instead you have people, such as myself, not buying the material that they might be vaguely interested in because they don't want another hard copy book that they're not going to use. If it were PDF? Another matter entirely. In fact, all of my purchased PDF are sitting in a folder on my computer and all I do when I want to find out something from any of a number of game systems is open the darned thing up. None of this searching through indices (of which the IH one is particularly bad - I found a copy in a store once), just a quick text search. <sigh>

The thing is, I can see why GW do it. Their protection of their IP is legendary (or should that be notorious), but one has to question the specifics of it. For example, they have a high turnover rate of their wargame business, so releasing that on PDF would be silly. On the other hand, what about the RPG side of things? SJ Games took about a year or so before they released their books to PDF (the main books). Was this them giving up on the physical print, or was it that they had sold "sufficient" quantities, with the core crowd and people who really wanted the new edition to get the book getting it, then opening it up to people who might just buy it on the off chance? The difference between the printed rulebook and the PDF isn't huge, but I still pay it.

Locks are for honest people. Most, if not all, GW material is out there available on Torrents, P2P networks, etc. If a dishonest person wants it, they're going to get it. Watermarking that is sometimes used on DriveThru can be readily stripped away if you're dishonest enough to want to distribute after buying, physical books can be scanned, pre-release copies obtained, yadda-yadda.

I'm an honest person, so locks keep me out. In this case, it keeps me out of using Dark Heresy as a resource material, limited as that might be due to my own preferences. To read a book through I have to buy it (not gonna happen after looking through the Inquisitors Handbook , and because I don't want to buy physical RPG books any more), get a scanned PDF to see if it is something that I am going to like (and then do I buy it, because it's not in a purchasable PDF, or am I forced to delete it because I'm honest), or try and find someone who actually has a copy, waste the cost of the book in gas to see if it's what I like, then come to the same question of whether to buy it because it's a book and not a PDF.

Argh.

I know it's not going to happen but.... Arrrrggggghhhhhh!

Kage

I am in agreement that the majority of measures taken to prevent piracy are only preventing honest people from some form of enjoyment. The numbers don't lie. Companies like Pinnacle Entertainment and Green Ronin are solvent, in part, because of their PDF business practices. I was going to pin this on GW, knowing that they are insane over their IP protection. But after checking, Grimm and Anima are not available on PDF, either. So it's Fantasy Flight's choice.

With all the above said, I don't begrudge them their choice. It's their call. And customers get to vote with their dollars. I just bought DH this weekend. It's a beautiful book. And while my preference is to have a PDF (easier to read at work), I respect their decision. In this case, DH is a cool enough product that I won't avoid the product. This is a special case, though, since there are RPGs I won't buy due to a company's PDF practices.

Ron Blessing said:

Well, there is the idea that it might be a reasonable delay based on the goal to push the physical product to people that want it. There was that lag with Steven Jackson Games so...?

Well, just a comment.

Kage

I am going to be completely honest. While I am sure that there are some people who might not buy a product due to a companies stance on such things most won't. And far greater numbers would resort to piracy if companies like GW 9or those with their licensences) made them readly avalible. WIll the car thief (dishonest person) nick your radio from your car whether its locked or unlocked? Likely yeah, but that doesn't stop a majority of people from locking the bloody door, and the boot, and the whole bit.

I have ilegally obtained copies of all of my RPGs (and to be honest some for games I do not own, or have once owed and lost, given away or sold.) and I mostly use them to plan for games, write articles, new rules ect. or to use as handout fodder or porttraits artwork for RP slideshows character sheest ect. However I always perfer my hard copies of my digitals (unless gaming out the house where the lap top acts as mobile RPG centre) but the point is we all know whether the game is made legally avalible it will still be readily acessible in an electronic format, and that's soely relying on 'dishonest' people doing all of the scanning, formatting and compiling.

What game company would want to make the job easier? I just don't think its at all unreasnable or hard to understand why a company wouldn't want to make them avalible. Its almost like asking why a bakery, newstand or grocer doesn't just leave a bin for you to toss your money ain and allow you to walk out with your merchidise all on your lonesome.

Wu Ming said:

Culturally irrelevant, I'm afraid. I come from England and, as such, I locked the door all the time. Then? I come over to Virginia (United States) and I didn't lock my door, or anything else, for years.

Then? I moved in with my wife. We don't have a single unlocked door.

What does that mean? It means what you want it to mean.

Wu Ming said:

It's easy. No, it's EASY .

It has already been done. Analogies fall flat, evidently so. So where is the "truth" and where is the "policy," and inbetween that all the discussion?

Kage

Sorry for the quote thing. It sucks.

Kage

Your code broke the thread.

But from what I (was able to) read your points on my 'points' are valid. Chock it up to my inabilty to correctly express myself (the great stuffing of Ludite comes to mind.)

Wu Ming said:

Sorry could you explain how it is "sound business"? As you said yourself There are no means of securing pdf's to prevent them from hacked and distributed (illegally) for free.

Personally I prefer having an actual physical book. I enjoy leafing through it to look for something (yes I know, I'm strange ). Besides it doesnt take long for you to work out roughly where the section you want is.

Anyway, given the amount of time it's taken for FFG to release (almost, so close I can taste it) DotDG do we really want to give them more work to do?

Security is kind of a moot point right now, the books are scanned within a week of release anyway.

*edit* Yaaaay, unbroken code.

Which begs the question, why would anyone pay for a PDF?

To feel good about themselves for doing the right thing? If I spent money on a PDF version of something I would feel like a chump more than anything else. Atleast when you buy a book you know someone would not be able to have the exact same thing as you for nothing unless they stole it (not counting gifts of course)

Mind you illegally downloading a PDF copy it technically stealing, it just doesn't have the same stigma attached to it as stealing objects.

Graspar said:

Mostly unbroken...

This thread always shows being 'New' and has Kage2020 listed as the most recent poster despite me being unable to see any post by him since his last 'Code Breaking' one...

???

Lupinorc said:

Actually, it wouldn't take any more time at all. In fact, once you have the copy set to send to the printer, you could actually have the PDF out before the hard copy. It's as easy as dropping the document into Acrobat Pro and you're done. But even the companies that do both hard copy and PDF won't release the PDF before the hard copy otherwise they would lose money on the hard copy. So you publish the hard copy, wait a few weeks or months (depending on your ROI, etc.), then make the PDF available. You actually end up making more money on it because of people like me who will buy both the hard copy and the PDF.

Lupinorc said:

I've paid for all my PDFs, except those given to me freely by the creators. The reason someone buys a PDF is because it meets a need or desire. It's the same reason someone buys anything, really. It's paying for a service or product. I never considered NOT paying for a PDF till I had someone show up at my game with stolen ones. Then I thought about it and decided it was morally reprehensible to steal, and while I still game with the individual in question, I don't really hang out with him, otherwise.

RPG PDFs are priced reasonably. Some might say they are too reasonably priced. I see myself as paying for the writing, development, and art. I'm not paying for the printing; that's why PDFs are cheaper. Printing is the easiest (if not cheapest) part of an RPG. It involves no creativity and little skill in comparison to what gets a product ready to print. And except for the shipping from China, the printing process takes the least actual time, as well. Of course, I understand that most people are ignorant and/or apathetic in regards to the actual work that goes into games. And that's fine, I suppose. We all have priorities.

I actually equate the PDF thing to waiting tables. The best tippers are generally those that have waited tables. They have a knowledge of the work involved and how the pay works.

Redeucer said:

Lets look at just FFG, from what I gather FFG consists of a relatively small amount of people working on a relatively large amount of games. This means that their work time is precious, any time they spend on something is time not spent on something else. Why then would they want to spend time creating a PDF copy, encrypting it and dedicating server space to have it available on your website when...

1) you already have a copy on the market in the form of a book, which seems to be the more popular medium

2)Some naughty person is just going to put an illegal version on the net that is free to download anyway.

If it is as easy as you say it is, and you want it for your own records to make your GM-life easier why not buy yourself a scanner and do it yourself? That way you only have to scan the bits you need like charts and such, you can do multiple copies for your players and you can do it for every hard copy you own. You already mentioned that you would pay book price for a PDF, well a reasonable enough scanner won't cost much more than that.

Lupinorc said:

1. It isn't easy for me because I don't have the copy file that was sent to the print.

2. A scanned copy is scanned as a picture, not as text. Which means it can not be searched. Sure you can use an OCR program to to parse out the text, but it doesn't always retain it's formatting.

3. You will at least break the spine of the book if not pull the pages out in order to do it properly, and now you don't have a useful book.

4. It takes a lot of time to scan a whole book and do it right. Time is money too.

5. It is illeagal.

I would much rather pay for a real PDF copy that will actually do what I need it to do then to spend my time, ruin a book, and still not have a useable file to work with.

Ron Blessing said:

So what your saying is if you buy a book version of a game your only paying for the printing of said book and nothing towards the design process .

I am well aware of the effort and work that goes into writing a game. I am also well aware that some of that effort and work will be around what the product will look like and how the information will fit together as a book. By releasing the RPG as a book the developer can charge more for it allowing greater profits even taking the cost of printing into account, they can also distribute it to a larger amount of people. Not everyone who will want it has the facilities to print a PDF or even a computer let alone a laptop so they can take it with them if gaming elsewhere.

If I were to get a pdf copy of a book with my hard copy I'd be overjoyed. Books are for the game table. When I'm planning (or running a game online) a pdf is a must. A book is unwieldy if you've got one hand on a keyboard, the other on a mouse and a screen a foot or two away from you. I might even be convinced to pay a little extra if it meant a fully bookmarked pdf which was updated whenever errata was released.