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I think so...

I find it immensely useful to have a physical copy of the book on-hand when playing the game and I don't know how many people would bother to print off copies?

I think that .PDFs should be available for when you wish to choose an army... Like right now I am thinking of buying a Chaos army as more of a fun painting exercise... no more than 500-1000 points... And yet I don't know how to construct such a force, surely if GW allowed me to view the Codex, I'd be more likely to provide them with custom?

Tell me what you all think.

Yes and no, The die hards would still buy it, others just print the pages they need.

But.. the PDF's are "available" if you know what I mean (not saying this is a good thing) but so far it doesn't seem to effect sales much. But that is probably because it would be frowned upon at any FLGS.

Now, if you could buy a PDF digitally, then we might have to wonder "Would people chose it over the hard-copy"

I say no, as I told the people at my FLGS when I bought my giant grey rulebook "I tried looking at a screen, but I need a book, I can't stand trying to read a pdf, I need something real"

Q. Would people pay for free things?
A. No.

I would have to buy it. Nothing feels better than staying in bed and reading the codex right beside a light. To switch it for a PDF is Heresy!

no people would and will take the cheaper way out

I woudl always want to have a hard copy for my own army. i woudl download the free PDFs so i coudl understand the rules for other armies.

I prefer the hard copy. A friend of mine obtains PDF's but just to make a list, then he buys the models & the book.

I think GW should offer PDF's as a pay for download.

$5 for OOP codexes (I myself love the fluff / special characters)

$5-10 cheaper than paper for current codexes. It would cut down on production costs but people who don't have a laptop / dont want to pass it around would still buy the books. I wouldn't mind buying a 10-15 dollar Blood angels codex to read through & develope a strategy against

kadun wrote:Q. Would people pay for free things?
A. No.

Tell that to Trent Reznor.... He'd laugh at you.

I think having a PDF (or something similar, such as software that GW keeps updated) available would do a world of good for the consumer, as it would give a lower-cost alternative to a paper book, and once both mediums pay off development costs, the digital copy is virtually free for them to distribute, so the markup on the digital product goes obscenely high, even if you're only charging $5-$10 for the digital copy, you're still turning a tidy profit, possibly at a higher margin than the paperback copy (as paper is expensive...).

The stats imply, quite possibly:
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/04/free-ebooks-correlat.html

IIRC, GW claims to not really make much profit on the Codices, so I think it would be better for everyone if they went straight to PDF.

Edit: For free.

I would never pay $ for something intangible like a .PDF file. This fits right in line with my criticisms surrounding the M:TG online card game.

I like Shas'O's idea of making the OOP codices available for download. For free though, I'm especially not paying for an intangible, outdated piece of literature.

I just want to read the Chaos Codex and make up an army list really... and then decide if I want to buy it...

Totally for preview purposes...

I tried finding the 5E on Scribd... no luck, but I wouldn't torrent the 'dex, I swore to my dad I'd stop torrenting

Actually.... you know what would make for an amazing play on GW's part? A binder and thumb drive system.

Distribute all the codexes on a Read-Only thumb drive, along with a great big GW binder. Let the players eat the materials cost by providing them with all the codexes for $30-$40, and printing off what they need and stashing it in the binder. You've suddenly got a durable, repairable format that can be re-released and/or updated on their own terms.

Give subscription update rights at a yearly fee and suddenly your player base is not only paying once for their codex, but 2 and 3 times over. It also allows for errata releases to update the books whenever they're released by GW.

Dronze wrote:Actually.... you know what would make for an amazing play on GW's part? A binder and thumb drive system.

Distribute all the codexes on a Read-Only thumb drive, along with a great big GW binder. Let the players eat the materials cost by providing them with all the codexes for $30-$40, and printing off what they need and stashing it in the binder. You've suddenly got a durable, repairable format that can be re-released and/or updated on their own terms.

Give subscription update rights at a yearly fee and suddenly your player base is not only paying once for their codex, but 2 and 3 times over. It also allows for errata releases to update the books whenever they're released by GW.

There are other miniatures companies like Ex Illis and IIRC, Privateer Press doing stuff similar to that already. Look at a codex nowadays. How much of it is the actual army list and how much is frivolous? I say they publish all the frivolous stuff through the Black Library like the Liber Chaotica series, and just release the army lists and rules for free (or next to free) as needed.

Lord of Worms wrote:

Dronze wrote:Actually.... you know what would make for an amazing play on GW's part? A binder and thumb drive system.

Distribute all the codexes on a Read-Only thumb drive, along with a great big GW binder. Let the players eat the materials cost by providing them with all the codexes for $30-$40, and printing off what they need and stashing it in the binder. You've suddenly got a durable, repairable format that can be re-released and/or updated on their own terms.

Give subscription update rights at a yearly fee and suddenly your player base is not only paying once for their codex, but 2 and 3 times over. It also allows for errata releases to update the books whenever they're released by GW.

There are other miniatures companies like Ex Illis and IIRC, Privateer Press doing stuff similar to that already. Look at a codex nowadays. How much of it is the actual army list and how much is frivolous? I say they publish all the frivolous stuff through the Black Library like the Liber Chaotica series, and just release the army lists and rules for free (or next to free) as needed.

Honestly, I like the fluff. It keeps the book interesting and gives some amazing ideas for conversions and paint, when it comes down to it.

i don't think I'd push for fluff-free publications, digital or otherwise, because I don't think either portion of the book independantly warrants a dime from me.

A lot of players play because they LIKE the universe and LOVE the fluff. you take that away, and suddenly the game gets really bland, with no real flavor or the "Rule Of Cool" to push players to find above-average uses for units previously though to be sub-par. Suddenly your hard-fightin', hard-fartin', heavy-drinkin' and hydrant-sprayin' space puppies are no different, flavor wise, from the Ultrasmurfs. Without the fluff, the game becomes "NEW D&D! NOW WITH 1000% LESS SEX APPEAL and 75% LESS GAME!!", as opposed to being the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war and the things that lurk beneath your bed are eternally worse than your feeble human mind could ever imagine. I know what game I'd rather play.

Oni: I would never pay $ for something intangible like a .PDF file. This fits right in line with my criticisms surrounding the M:TG online card game.

I used to feel the same way, but for reference material while traveling it's nice to have 50 lbs of books accessible in a 2 lb object.

I would purchase pdfs of the hard copies (and have) of the books that I reference frequently.
Especially if said pdfs are fully term and word search-able with linked contents and indexes.

Belphegor wrote:
I would purchase pdfs of the hard copies (and have) of the books that I reference frequently.
Especially if said pdfs are fully term and word search-able with linked contents and indexes.

This. I can actually see this as a useful tool at a tournament, I have this vision of a TO/Judge walking around with a kindle. If there's a rules issue, he can search the file for it, and find the answer as written in the rules!

It'd be like having a portable YMDC!

@Legoburner: That's an interesting study, but I wonder what was wrong with title 13?

oni wrote:I would never pay $ for something intangible like a .PDF file. This fits right in line with my criticisms surrounding the M:TG online card game.

I like Shas'O's idea of making the OOP codices available for download. For free though, I'm especially not paying for an intangible, outdated piece of literature.

So I guess you don't pay for phone service, or going to see a movie in a theatre, or internet access? Those are all pretty intangible. When you buy the book, you pay for BOTH the intellectual property AND the printing of the book.

Technically speaking, the answer to the title thread question is always no. The question isn't about free downloads and paying for physical books, it is about paying for free pdfs.

Personally, I hate paying cash and wasting paper for what is effectively 5 or 6 pages of game required data.

I would buy the codexes for my own armies, but PDFs of the other armies would be fine. I just want the unit lists and special rules for the most part, so that I know what I'm facing.

Dronze wrote:
Honestly, I like the fluff. It keeps the book interesting and gives some amazing ideas for conversions and paint, when it comes down to it.

i don't think I'd push for fluff-free publications, digital or otherwise, because I don't think either portion of the book independantly warrants a dime from me.

A lot of players play because they LIKE the universe and LOVE the fluff. you take that away, and suddenly the game gets really bland, with no real flavor or the "Rule Of Cool" to push players to find above-average uses for units previously though to be sub-par. Suddenly your hard-fightin', hard-fartin', heavy-drinkin' and hydrant-sprayin' space puppies are no different, flavor wise, from the Ultrasmurfs. Without the fluff, the game becomes "NEW D&D! NOW WITH 1000% LESS SEX APPEAL and 75% LESS GAME!!", as opposed to being the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war and the things that lurk beneath your bed are eternally worse than your feeble human mind could ever imagine. I know what game I'd rather play.

I agree with you. However, if they made fluff art-books for all the armies like Liber Chaotica that would be taken care of. The codices fluff wasn`t very well written in the last little while, which IMO has detracted from the game experience as a whole. OTO, if you take the army lists from epic, there`s a one page discussion of fluff and then it goes straight to the army lists. There`s plenty of sources of fluff and inspiration without needing to bloat what is really only 5-15 pages of numbers. Between Index Astartes (or Xenos), BL novels, artbooks and other WD articles (if they ever get them good again), the codex is actually a pretty minimal source of fluff. The other problem is that the fluff keeps getting arbitrarily changed in order to encourage people to buy or use this unit or that unit. Case in point: Matt Ward having Devastators and Assault Marines be a bunch of noobs, "earning" their way to becoming a standard rifleman. This is clearly a transparent attempt to make people think Tactical Squads are "cooler" or something.

Now, the Fluff art books and novels aren`t dictated (usually) by the whiz-bang! new model or design policy or whatever happens to be going on in the Studio. It does a better job of inspiring people, then a two paragraph blurb about the Iron Warriors in C:CSM for example.

Belphegor wrote:

Oni: I would never pay $ for something intangible like a .PDF file. This fits right in line with my criticisms surrounding the M:TG online card game.

I used to feel the same way, but for reference material while traveling it's nice to have 50 lbs of books accessible in a 2 lb object.

I would purchase pdfs of the hard copies (and have) of the books that I reference frequently.
Especially if said pdfs are fully term and word search-able with linked contents and indexes.

I feel the same way. One of my pals gets on my back about how I prefer to read things in digital format (IE having ebooks on my Nintendo DS) until I point out that I'm toting around a few dozen books (That could be several pounds heavy) in a piece of equipment that weighs about 8 ounces.

I don't think I would ever pay for a pdf of a codex unless it could word-searchable with linked bookmarks and page references, as well as a linked table of contents and reference sheet. Besides, I really do like the look and feel of a codex - it makes me feel like I'm carrying around the mini-bible to my army, something that even the modern age can't duplicate.

Frankly, I wouldn't.

I use both physical books and PDF-files. There is a special feeling in holding your codex and reading it in bed or whatever, but it's infinitely more practical if you can print those few pages you really need and just put them in a binder. You don't have to worry about ruining your book, and you have less pages to flip as well.

GW should really consider switching over to e-books. I'm not completely sure, but it seems that most codices are re-released with a 5 year interval? That's waaay too long between releases. If you could eliminate the problem of having to reprint the codex and instead offer a download, you would end up with a better game and perhaps an increase in sales. I guess people get bored with certain armies when nothing happens to them for a while, or they lose their competitive edge. Or (this is a really crazy idea!) they could just go back to offering errata via their website(s).

Soladrin wrote:Yes and no, The die hards would still buy it, others just print the pages they need.

But.. the PDF's are "available" if you know what I mean (not saying this is a good thing) but so far it doesn't seem to effect sales much. But that is probably because it would be frowned upon at any FLGS.

I own a pdf of every current codex (barring blood angels, but I'm sure that will be rectified soon.) I only buy the codices for armies that I play though. It's always important to have a physical copy to reference during play/for your opponent to read, and I wouldn't accept a printed pdf codex for this because they can be edited. So you can't really replace a good bound copy.

I'd like it if all the Army Lists were available as PDF downloads. I'd personally use them to consider new armies, and develop tactics against opponents. The PDF's shouldn't have the artwork and fluff, however. All the extra stuff like that should remain in the physical books.

If fluff was removed from the codices... well, it would make modelling a whole lot harder...

I like to say that my army is 100% true to fluff but also shows a ton of creativity... There is a lot of variety in my force and that's all there because GW allows me to add some whilst keeping to the fluff, which is my favourite thing about this game.

If GW offered a choice between a FREE pdf file or purchasing the codex, I'd probably go with the download.

Don't get me wrong, though... that money saved WOULD go towards my gaming budget still! LOL

If I could buy a codex pdf for a reduced price, I'd pay up to 50% for it. Higher than that, and I'd just buy the hard copy.

Eric

If GW made an abbreviated pdf available (the rules, maybe a little fluff) for say, $5 to download, it would sell. Most people would buy all of them (I stopped buying all the codexes, because I don't play in many tournies). You'd have to pay to print and bind (or more likely, put in a binder with divider tabs).

If they sold the codex for $20, I'd still buy it for the armies that I like/have.

So, for GW, they'd gain the sales to me of the $5 PDFs. Wouldn't lose a thing.

I wouldn't mind a free PDF codex with nothing but the rules and point values. I don't have to thumb through a bunch of fluff-mixed rules, and they don't have to waste ink printing a bunch of pretty text and pictures. And best of all, it would give me a reason to proxy new armies, and being the hobbyist that I am, buy them at some point...