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1. The main rulebooks should be for purchase.

2. I think Codex/Army books should be free as PDFs. A tabletop game requiring several volumes to play is just silly and frankly a bit spiteful. I for one think it is important to know your opponents rules, as well as your own- players ought to have access to the rules to play the game they bought. I should be clear that its not necessarily an issue of expense from my viewpoint. I don't mind paying for army books, but I also hoard printed matter. I have a few old GW books that... gasp... have all the army lists in one volume.

The current system of releasing a new edition, and not updating many codices for years and years, being lapped by new editions, is terrible business and is cause for a great deal of the anger directed toward GW. I for one can't figure out why people continue to play a ruleset that would do that.

Games Workshop has stated many times that they are primarily a miniatures company, rules makers second.

PDF would be relatively easy to tweak on a regular basis adjusting rules, points values, adding new units as they're released, etc. Heck, even a once-a-year update would help GW balance armies better and make players feel like someone is at least thinking about their faction.

Yes, people like eye candy- and if GW wants White Dwarf to sell again that's what it could do-provide what a PDF does not.

On point 2, I'd say the bare rules (Special abilities, available wargear, statlines, etc.) should be free (or largly reduced in cost, like 50% or something), with the actual fluffy, pictures-included rulebook still being purchased seperate. That way, you can read about all the awesome fluff for your SW/Nids/IG/whatever, but still know if your opponent is misinterpreting the rules for JotWW or some similar codex-only special rule.

Put plainly, it's damn stupid that I'd have to buy a full-price rulebook for an army I'll never pick up and play, simply so I can see what a certain ability or unit does. It's like buying the Lord of the Rings books, but having to pay an additional $15 to find out what happens to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimili.

Ebooks on the other hand have 20% VAT on them.

Ouch

I still think Army Lists would be a good idea - most hobbyists are collectors anyway so would want to buy the books - especially if they're pretty . For those who know the fluff and colour schemes etc (or simply don't care for background) then I can see them being popular. Piracy is inevitable - and most people would rather make a down-payment on high quality material. They could still make some money instead of not making any from the inevitability of piracy (and the many people who would use such dirty, underhand, unethical methods - isn't that right bruv? ). It could be a subscriber's thing - people would pay and it's easy enough to set up with Paypal. They might get people into new armies that way more easily too...

Either that or they could just print army list entries/stat cards with their boxes or as a part of the instructions, all stats are avilable for free anyway with the reference sheets.

proditorcappela wrote:@Paul: If they released a stripped down e-ink (No color, few pictures) version, would the costs still be as high? Becuase that might be the nail in the coffin right there.

Probably higher. The removal of the pictures would meen the book going all the way back to the production editors and type setters to totaly re-jig the format.

What i must admit is those costs are based on a book being made as a print book then re-worked. I would guess that there might be a small saveing if you were to edit a book with e publishing in mind right from the start, but i would guess ( as i said i don't work on that side) that it would be 5% ish.

Having said all of that there is no reason that they could not write a book for electronic and print from the start and bundle them up as a single print and ebook offer for the same price ( the editoral bit is a one off cost and you still sell the one copy to one customer effectivly, and you give sell it as a buy the print get the ebook free to avoid the tax). That is something that i would pay a little more(£1-£2 for).


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warspawned wrote:

Ebooks on the other hand have 20% VAT on them.

Ouch

The publishers association are fighting against it, but i can't see anything changing until ebooks become more widely read. Until then the government will keep saying that it is a waste of time changing the rules for a middle class toy, and that the people with ebook readers can afford it.

My Kindle and IPhone currently have: all the GW FAQs for all systems, all the Mantic rules and army lists, rules from at least two other systems (Hell Dorado and either Malifaux or Infinity) and all the downloads for BFG on it.

PDF army lists would be most appreciated.

There are a variety of reasons I barely play GW these days, this is definitely one of them.

I don't think GW should sell pdf or e-book versions of the rules whether codex, army book, supplement or main rule book.

I think they should give them away for free.

They should update them regularly and make them available for download the way they're doing for the FAQs. The only way they should sell them would be as print-on-demand.

Occasionally when the masses complain about the shoddy state of rules for the core games, GW will come out and say that, well, they're not really a game company, they're a miniatures company. They should follow through on that idea and just give us the rules. We all know the rules only exist in order to sell the models, but in the current business model the rules are a barrier to entry. They know that. That's why they put a small rulebook in the starter sets. The starter sets would never sell to a newbie if he had to buy a $58 book in order to use his $99 set.

I think downloadable rules would make the game better. They could update the rules, incorporating clarifications as needed. The old BA codex, for all its faults, was actually updated for 5th edition. Imagine if they did that for every codex instead of leaving them to languish for a decade before their time to come for a big release.

I know it will never happen because GW are a stodgy company with a fossilized business model. If they could charge you for the air in a GW store they would.

Yeah, this would really be nice. I personally would take free (Or significantly cheaper, 50-75% or whatever) rules and codexes in a heartbeat, even if they were so fluff-free that they read like a technical manual. Fluff is nice, and giving us fluff is nice, but I'd personally prefer the option of fluff in my rules, rather then pay full-price for a great deal of fluff every time.

If I wanted fluff, I'd just get more BL books...

Just cause I'm not familiar with the whole eBook scene. Could the Powers-That-Be offer rules updates (in the form of Rulebook V2.01) that could be redownloaded to your eBook so you'd have the most recent set of rules?

Also don't eBooks have bookmarking features so you could back and forth to particular places you used a bunch?

I think that if most recent rules updates were offered with an electronic purchase of the rules, that would be a huge selling point. GW needs to get with the future.

Yes, subscription based license, $50 a year for access to all books, be it codex, army book, core rules, etc (with out the fluff) via a DRM'd app that will be licensed to expire every year. You get all updates that year for the price of the app $50, and you must renew it. This is a business model that will generate GW constant revenue, and to be honest, $50 a year for 40K and Fantasy rules and army books in ebook format, would be a good deal. I'd buy it.

They can charge $100 if you want all the fluff painting guides, and so forth. Have it licensed to that owner and that app, so it cannot be copied. If you price it at $50 a year you will encourage people to just buy it, and have the app auto-update the books with the FAQs, and perhaps have an option to send user feed back to GW. Sure, some people may still pirate the scanned ebooks, but look at the Kindle, it is not like piracy put it out of business.

They need to make it affordable, and they can cut out a lot of the fluff, and painting and modeling articles and keep those in the books, to differentiate the product. Make it subscription based to gain access to all books for all games. Otherwise, people may buy one or two, but end up pirating the rest. DRM will happen, even though I hate it, but it will happen.

When you make something of value that people want to purchase from you... you can totally assume all the risk by using what ever delivery model you feel is best for your business model.

I love when people want some other business to assume all the risk based upon their personal opinions on how media and business should work... especially when these people are the ones who pirate things.

I am not convinced GW's current model is bad or failing, and I am not convinced it would be fincacially enhanced from a buisness point of view with electronic delivery.

Would it be nicer for entitled selfish gamers who steal everything anyways? yes! But GW's primary goal is not spreading information as fast and as easy as possible... it is to sell copyrighted materials to a very small and focused customer base.

Personally, Wargaming is a very tactile hobby and I want physical books. You also got to realize a severe majority fo the actual target audience is not sitting at a wargaming table with a 500$ tablet device or Iphone... they are kids and teens. I am not convinced that the attitudes of people on Dakka are even close to reflecting the majority of how people use GW products.

As for the people who simply want free rules and Living rule books... You just don't want to pay for things and anything that moves away from you paying money you will support, even if it breaks great financial harm to GW. I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it is motivated by that motivation. If you feel it is the way to go... then make your own rules and release them for free as a LRB on electronic format.

Arschbombe wrote:The starter sets would never sell to a newbie if he had to buy a $58 book in order to use his $99 set.

+ a codex ($25-30?). You're getting close to the cost of the $99 set just with the books.

I like what Corvus Belli are doing with Infinity. All rules, lists (minus fluff and art) and markers are available for free download. You download all the rules and play a game of Infinity using your existing 28 mm models from another company. You like the game and decide to buy an Infinity army (seems to be how a lot of people get into that game).

I know you can't apply that same reasoning to GW since their games and products usually are a big gateway for new players (in other words,you probably don't have a squad of models soldiers to play with as a newbie). As a gateway game though, it would make it easier to start if it required less of an initial investment.

Arschbombe wrote:I think downloadable rules would make the game better. They could update the rules, incorporating clarifications as needed. The old BA codex, for all its faults, was actually updated for 5th edition. Imagine if they did that for every codex instead of leaving them to languish for a decade before their time to come for a big release.

They do release erratas and FAQs every once in a while, but not often enough it seems. I'm not sure the frequency of updates would change much were they to switch over to e-formats. It would still take some time and effort for someone to sit down and write the clarifications (costs money).

nkelsch wrote:As for the people who simply want free rules and Living rule books... You just don't want to pay for things and anything that moves away from you paying money you will support, even if it breaks great financial harm to GW. I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it is motivated by that motivation. If you feel it is the way to go... then make your own rules and release them for free as a LRB on electronic format.

Release our own LRB? I could go and write my own version of the Bible, but I doubt I'd be able to convince many people to follow what I write in there...
Similar problem with GW, when you have a hobby that is saturated by product from a single source. Dakka's proposed rules is filled with codex ideas, but how many of those people actually play with their rules at their flgs or club? I would suspect the number is fairly small if any.

Plus, who says teens and kids want the fluff?

Give them the option of the more expensive rulebook/pdf/stone tablet with the fluff, painting, and rules, and offer a cheaper rulebook/pdf/stone tablet with just the rules. GW has a very high entry barrier in terms of cost, and I believe (imo, which you apprently don't respect...) that reducing the initial cost to enter the hobby would benefit GW in terms of gamers who will then enter the hobby and continue to buy their material.

darkPrince010 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:As for the people who simply want free rules and Living rule books... You just don't want to pay for things and anything that moves away from you paying money you will support, even if it breaks great financial harm to GW. I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it is motivated by that motivation. If you feel it is the way to go... then make your own rules and release them for free as a LRB on electronic format.

Release our own LRB? I could go and write my own version of the Bible, but I doubt I'd be able to convince many people to follow what I write in there...
Similar problem with GW, when you have a hobby that is saturated by product from a single source. Dakka's proposed rules is filled with codex ideas, but how many of those people actually play with their rules at their flgs or club? I would suspect the number is fairly small if any.

Plus, who says teens and kids want the fluff?

Give them the option of the more expensive rulebook/pdf/stone tablet with the fluff, painting, and rules, and offer a cheaper rulebook/pdf/stone tablet with just the rules. GW has a very high entry barrier in terms of cost, and I believe (imo, which you apprently don't respect...) that reducing the initial cost to enter the hobby would benefit GW in terms of gamers who will then enter the hobby and continue to buy their material.

And you can totally throw the business model of *YOUR* company on its ear and assume the risk *YOURSELF*.

It doesn't seem broke right now... I can't see a business case where it would actually increase profits. This seems like a change that gamers want solely based upon the good will and possible income it MIGHT generate in other aspects of the hobby. I see no evidence that cost of entry is actually impacting GW, that GW actually is losing sales for codex costs and no evidence that people prefer rules only and dislike the fluff or format of the codexes. It may be true, but I wouldn't risk my business based upon such assertions without research by actual people who know what they are talking about. I guarantee GW has a lot more qualified people than random dudes on the internet who don't anything and have no business skills whatsoever except of that of being an entitled customer.

Just people stating their personal wants as the hands down 'truth' of how the customerbase thinks and wanting GW to make a massive shift, possibly a damaging one to please people who are admittedly not actual customers of the codexes in the first place.

I see lots of flaws with that line of thought and don't really respect it.

nkelsch wrote:I guarantee GW has a lot more qualified people than random dudes on the internet who don't anything and have no business skills whatsoever except of that of being an entitled customer.

A company of GW's size? No chance. There are a higher number of qualified people posting in either the Dakka or Warseer topics on their latest results than a company of GW's size can afford to employ.

nkelsch wrote:When you make something of value that people want to purchase from you... you can totally assume all the risk by using what ever delivery model you feel is best for your business model.

And some businesses keep up with the changing times. The music industry started fighting piracy by offering digital downloads and it saved them from collapse.

I love when people want some other business to assume all the risk based upon their personal opinions on how media and business should work... especially when these people are the ones who pirate things.

Why do you love this?

I am not convinced GW's current model is bad or failing, and I am not convinced it would be fincacially enhanced from a buisness point of view with electronic delivery.

The current model isn't bad or failing. It doesn't have to be. They might expand their business by offering digital downloads of their game books. It works well for their BL books.

Would it be nicer for entitled selfish gamers who steal everything anyways? yes! But GW's primary goal is not spreading information as fast and as easy as possible... it is to sell copyrighted materials to a very small and focused customer base.

There would be fewer people sharing scanned copies if digital copies were available, if what happened with the music business is any indication. Would it be nicer for entitled, arrogant fanboys who always troll threads like this? No, they would have to vent their nerd rage elsewhere.

Personally, Wargaming is a very tactile hobby and I want physical books. You also got to realize a severe majority fo the actual target audience is not sitting at a wargaming table with a 500$ tablet device or Iphone... they are kids and teens. I am not convinced that the attitudes of people on Dakka are even close to reflecting the majority of how people use GW products.

Don't worry, you can touch and hold your paper books all you want; we'll even give you a little privacy with them if you choose. We aren't suggesting that GW cease selling paper books, but rather that they sell both hard and digital copy, perhaps bundling the two together.

As for the people who simply want free rules and Living rule books... You just don't want to pay for things and anything that moves away from you paying money you will support, even if it breaks great financial harm to GW. I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it is motivated by that motivation. If you feel it is the way to go... then make your own rules and release them for free as a LRB on electronic format.

I'd love to have a living rulebook. Who wouldn't? If GW can't produce well-written rules through their current system, why not address this with monthly updates? You say this will cause great financial harm to GW. How exactly? I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it sounds like it's coming from a whipped fanboy.

nkelsch wrote:I wouldn't risk my business based upon such assertions without research by actual people who know what they are talking about. I guarantee GW has a lot more qualified people than random dudes on the internet who don't anything and have no business skills whatsoever except of that of being an entitled customer.

*snip*

I see lots of flaws with that line of thought and don't really respect it.

I'm sorry, your Phd in Business Marketing you assume to have automatically makes my opinion inferior. I should have known better

Seriously though, GW has been losing sales in the US, UK, and Australia (From their most recent report, showing ~5% sales drops in all but Australia, which is more around 11%), and while this may be a part of the recession, they are still attempting to sell high cost "luxury" items at high costs during a financial downturn.

While their entire company is built around selling said luxury items, it seems fairly logical (To me, at least. Dunno what your Phd says about it though ) that lowering the initial cost of entry (Note I didn't say make everything cheaper. Just make the bare essentials to joining the hobby cheaper) seems like it would allow for more people to enter the hobby, and proceed to purchase other GW products, giving them the revenue they need and want.

Does everyone who plays GW games hate the costs for products? Probably not. Is everyone who considers entering the hobby restricted by prices? Again, probably not. However, GW relies on both an influx of product bought by existing gamers (Served by new codex and model releases) as well as encouraging new gamers to enter the hobby and purchase product. As has been stated before on this and other threads, children rarely have their own revenue stream, and instead rely on parents to purchase high-cost items like this.

This is part of why (imo, which you probably still don't respect ) CCGs like MtG and Pokemon are so popular; Entry into the game is the cost of a single pack of cards. Sure, your deck may not be very good, competitive, or powerful, but the initial investment is small enough to encourage the entry into the game. While GW does operate differently in that they cannot sell their product for that low of a cost, they can learn from their example of using a low-cost entry product to entice new gamers.

$15-20 for a playable GW product (Similar to a MtG boxed set), which is within the $20 impulse purchase range, is nessesary, since the current $30-35 for a box set of models (Even more for AoBR or IoB) is outside of the impulse purchase range of many people. Factor into this nearly $100 in rulebooks to simply play with your $35 models, and perhaps you can understand why some poeple on this thread seem to think cheaper rulebook options (To say the least) would improve GW's gamer base and financial outlook.

augustus5 wrote:I'd love to have a living rulebook. Who wouldn't? If GW can't produce well-written rules through their current system, why not address this with monthly updates? You say this will cause great financial harm to GW. How exactly? I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it sounds like it's coming from a whipped fanboy.

I don't buy it. This is just another 'I hate GW and want free stuff because I gonna pirate it!' thread. Digital media distribution is not as easy and simple as everyone thinks it is... Go google the fight between Amazon and Apple over Kindle iapp in-app delivery. Apple only makes money when you make an IN-APP purchase. Amazon was sending people to a browser to make web-based purchases to their account where Apple made ZERO money. Apple shut Amazon down because of it. Digital media delivery methods are way more complicated than morons on a forum know and if a small company doesn't have the skills or tools to compete in that forum, especially when there is no immediate need to enter that market... why accept the risks? You also have to remember, if the APP stores of the devices are taking upwards of 30% of your digital download profits, you either have to reach more customers or raise prices. GW can't expand as they are not selling media for the sake of media, these publications have a VERY limited use and audience... and this same audience is going to be the first to say "i won't pay more than 1.99$ for this! GW is evil!"

Every online community is the same... they are entitled, stupid and want unreasonable things. They think it is as easy as hitting 'print' on a computer and making a PDF and all of a sudden you have a complete digital distribution business model and somehow the same amount of money will flow in to your bank account from customers... right? isn't that how it works? Post a PDF on your website and you still sell the same amount of everything? I would never expect a buisness to make decisions based upon the common unvetted business advice of an online community... that is madness.

No, it is not how it works. If GW is not equipped to handle digital distribution, and there is not a pressing need, then they shouldn't even gamble. I think they are smart with starting with actual books where people actually intend to read 100% of the words in the copyrighted publication. Once they feel comfortable with how to sell their publications electronically through Black Library, then maybe they will make the shift for rules... but I would say that is even a year or two before they should even attempt it. And they may find their customer base is less technically driven than you guys think it is and find it is not a profitable or even beneficial addition to their business and dump digital downloads all together. Caution is much more reasonable than "free PEE DEE EFFS ON THE ITNERNET FOR CUSTOMERZ WHO DON'T BUY THINGS ANYZWAYZ"

nkelsch wrote:

augustus5 wrote:I'd love to have a living rulebook. Who wouldn't? If GW can't produce well-written rules through their current system, why not address this with monthly updates? You say this will cause great financial harm to GW. How exactly? I don't respect your opinion or business advice when it sounds like it's coming from a whipped fanboy.

I don't buy it. This is just another 'I hate GW and want free stuff because I gonna pirate it!' thread. Digital media distribution is not as easy and simple as everyone thinks it is... Go google the fight between Amazon and Apple over Kindle iapp in-app delivery. Apple only makes money when you make an IN-APP purchase. Amazon was sending people to a browser to make web-based purchases to their account where Apple made ZERO money. Apple shut Amazon down because of it. Digital media delivery methods are way more complicated than morons on a forum know and if a small company doesn't have the skills or tools to compete in that forum, especially when there is no immediate need to enter that market... why accept the risks? You also have to remember, if the APP stores of the devices are taking upwards of 30% of your digital download profits, you either have to reach more customers or raise prices. GW can't expand as they are not selling media for the sake of media, these publications have a VERY limited use and audience... and this same audience is going to be the first to say "i won't pay more than 1.99$ for this! GW is evil!"

Every online community is the same... they are entitled, stupid and want unreasonable things. They think it is as easy as hitting 'print' on a computer and making a PDF and all of a sudden you have a complete digital distribution business model and somehow the same amount of money will flow in to your bank account from customers... right? isn't that how it works? Post a PDF on your website and you still sell the same amount of everything? I would never expect a buisness to make decisions based upon the common unvetted business advice of an online community... that is madness.

No, it is not how it works. If GW is not equipped to handle digital distribution, and there is not a pressing need, then they shouldn't even gamble. I think they are smart with starting with actual books where people actually intend to read 100% of the words in the copyrighted publication. Once they feel comfortable with how to sell their publications electronically through Black Library, then maybe they will make the shift for rules... but I would say that is even a year or two before they should even attempt it. And they may find their customer base is less technically driven than you guys think it is and find it is not a profitable or even beneficial addition to their business and dump digital downloads all together. Caution is much more reasonable than "free PEE DEE EFFS ON THE ITNERNET FOR CUSTOMERZ WHO DON'T BUY THINGS ANYZWAYZ"

You really have a very high opinion of yourself and a very low opinion of the wargaming community as a whole. Were you an only child? Or is that just my entitled, stupid and unreasonable opinion?

Also: http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/25/amazon-brings-kindle-newspapers-and-magazines-to-ios-devices/#more-85067
and: http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/25/google-relents-to-apple-removes-store-link-from-google-books-app/#more-85143

@Nkelsch: Apparently, a certain person doesn't read very carfeully...

Pdfs are not nessesarily going to be cheap to make. Simply not true, unless they simply cut the binding and scan the books (and that's already online...).

However, making said pdf, and offering it as a cheaper option will encourage people to enter the hobby, become interested in it, and buy the fluffy rulebook and expensive models.

Also, before you attempt to hand-wave this arguement or condescend on the ideas (not set-in-stone business practices to be implemented in two days, ideas), please state any and all qualifications younhave to make your judgements, as you seem to assume an air of superiority that, as of yet, you have not demonstrated any reason for us to believe exists. I personally am a college student studying Biology, with a single course in 100-level economics and 21 years of life experience. What about you?

Toodles!

<broadcast mode active: stay on topic, folks, and try to avoid insulting generalizations; discuss the argument, and not the people making it>

MightyGodzilla wrote:Just cause I'm not familiar with the whole eBook scene. Could the Powers-That-Be offer rules updates (in the form of Rulebook V2.01) that could be redownloaded to your eBook so you'd have the most recent set of rules?

Yes. Sellers like Drive Through RPG offer regular (technically limited, but effectively unlimited) access to your files as well. It is a manual process, but that depends on the format selected.

MightyGodzilla wrote:
Also don't eBooks have bookmarking features so you could back and forth to particular places you used a bunch?

Most do. 'eBook' is a blanket term for a bunch of tech and file formats. Most readers (Kindle, nook, iBooks, etc.) support a number of formats that are basically methods of displaying an augmented text stream. What this means is that the reader application handles pagination and such. This is good for reading as it means that a reader can reformat the text stream easily for a smart phone (small display) or tablet (large display) but you lsoe relaible page numbering and similar. Most do support some extra features for special typography and things like tables. A GW-style Codex could be stripped down for this, but it might not be easy.

Other 'eBooks' are in Adobe's PDF format. PDF is more page-focused, which has advantages and disadvantages. Since it's page-formatted a Codex (for example) would effectively look the same. However, it may be hard to read on a smaller device. Android and iOS both have PDF viewers with features to assist with this, but they aren't perfect, and you generally need a lot of scrolling. I've read books on my iPod touch. I don't think I could read a rulebook, but I do use them for reference.

Both of the abofe families of formats offer a ton of potential features. Hotlinked tables of contents, bookmarks, links to web content, etc.

MightyGodzilla wrote:
I think that if most recent rules updates were offered with an electronic purchase of the rules, that would be a huge selling point. GW needs to get with the future.

It's not an easy issue. The bad side is that the printed books become a 'premium' version, but aren't updated and can't be updated economically... Still, the PDF is great for minor updates like typo fixes.


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Crom wrote:Yes, subscription based license, $50 a year for access to all books, be it codex, army book, core rules, etc (with out the fluff) via a DRM'd app that will be licensed to expire every year. You get all updates that year for the price of the app $50, and you must renew it. This is a business model that will generate GW constant revenue, and to be honest, $50 a year for 40K and Fantasy rules and army books in ebook format, would be a good deal. I'd buy it.

They can charge $100 if you want all the fluff painting guides, and so forth. Have it licensed to that owner and that app, so it cannot be copied. If you price it at $50 a year you will encourage people to just buy it, and have the app auto-update the books with the FAQs, and perhaps have an option to send user feed back to GW. Sure, some people may still pirate the scanned ebooks, but look at the Kindle, it is not like piracy put it out of business.

They need to make it affordable, and they can cut out a lot of the fluff, and painting and modeling articles and keep those in the books, to differentiate the product. Make it subscription based to gain access to all books for all games. Otherwise, people may buy one or two, but end up pirating the rest. DRM will happen, even though I hate it, but it will happen.

I would rather GW not do an app as they tend to be short-sighted in such things. Remember their army construction software? An app would likely lag behind computer technology on the best case scenario, which segments their market. The web and PDFs are cross-platform and likely to be supported for quite a while.

Which is not to say your idea doesn't have some merit. Charging a fee for 'premium' access to stuff would be a good compromise. Offer al-a-carte sales for $15/book, or a subscription for $50/year which also includes goodies like back issues of White Dwarf (older issues), occasional discounts on ordering printed versions and maybe some other fun stuff. GW 'wins' if you subscribe and would only pay for three or less army books a year ($45 cost) individual price.

Done right, it would be indispensable for 'serious' players.

However, DRM being cracked is pretty much a certainty. The best 'DRM' schemes tend to be the ones that actually benefit the consumers. Take the Steam gaming system, for example. Sure, it validates my account every time I run a game, but I get a lot of neat stuff in return like the ability to store saves in the cloud, open access to my game library, etc. For another example, look at Drive Through RPG: They watermark as their primary DRM (so every PDF I download has my name and order # on it) but they offer a library of past purchases and updates.

Of course they should.

One only need look at places like DriveThruRPG.com and companies like Catalyst Game Labs to see how this works. Catalyst has entire (highly successful) product lines that are only availalbe as PDF releases, and all of their big releases come out in PDF before they come out in print format.

Hell... I haven't bought a print format BattleTech book in years. Everything I have now is PDF.

There's a guy in our group who doesn't own a single hardcopy version of any of FFG's 40K RPG books. He does own every book in PDF though, bought via DriveThruRPG.


A couple of interesting studies recently showed that those that pirated movies/DVDs/music often ended up buying more of said products than those that didn't. You won't hear much about these reports as they were commissioned by those that wanted to show how piracy affects them badly... except when the results showed the opposite the studies were abandoned.

GW should be releasing PDF's for their Codices. In the world of things like the iPad and other tablets, having electronic books is a very good thing. We've actually used a pair of iPads and a Laptop when playing Dark Heresy/Deathwatch, and it makes things so much quicker.

I would rather GW not do an app as they tend to be short-sighted in such things. Remember their army construction software? An app would likely lag behind computer technology on the best case scenario, which segments their market. The web and PDFs are cross-platform and likely to be supported for quite a while.

Which is not to say your idea doesn't have some merit. Charging a fee for 'premium' access to stuff would be a good compromise. Offer al-a-carte sales for $15/book, or a subscription for $50/year which also includes goodies like back issues of White Dwarf (older issues), occasional discounts on ordering printed versions and maybe some other fun stuff. GW 'wins' if you subscribe and would only pay for three or less army books a year ($45 cost) individual price.

Done right, it would be indispensable for 'serious' players.

However, DRM being cracked is pretty much a certainty. The best 'DRM' schemes tend to be the ones that actually benefit the consumers. Take the Steam gaming system, for example. Sure, it validates my account every time I run a game, but I get a lot of neat stuff in return like the ability to store saves in the cloud, open access to my game library, etc. For another example, look at Drive Through RPG: They watermark as their primary DRM (so every PDF I download has my name and order # on it) but they offer a library of past purchases and updates.

App itself would only be for license authentication, via the subscription. Otherwise all content would come in indexed PDF files. So they are search-able for keywords. No more flipping through the rule book, instead do a key word search. Of course you hire a developer to write a framework in say C++ and then use things like python or what not to add functionality, and it would work in every OS. Windows, OS X, Linux/Unix, Android, and iOS since those are open standards. They could go to a company that already writes publishing apps for amazon, the Mac App store, and so forth and have them tailor one for them. There is no reason they should reinvent the wheel.

This way you can have a subscription license of $50 a year (which is reasonable) and it would encourage people to not pirate it, and they'd be making $50 a year, per a person. The players that only ever play one army because they don't want to buy all the army books to read the rules to see if they 'may' like the army in question won't have to pirate the product. They already paid for it.

Subscription license at a really fair price is where it is at. This way GW has a steady stream of income yearly from this, and there is very little over head. In fact, if they sell it on amazon's and Apple's app stores the over head is even smaller.

The only thing that has me wondering on the prices, is Paizo. They do massive hard covers of greater quality than a GW book (Hard cover, all color, hundreds of pages, tons more art) and they release their pdf's for roughly a quarter the price of the hardcover. Now maybe as Paul said, they were designed that way from the get-go, but it seems that again, someone already has shown the way, and you could take a few notes on how to do it.

They also can do a 256 full color hardcover for under 40 bucks a pop, so it's also probably a question of scale.

Ultimate magic provided for reference: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8k8r

I'd think if you designed the book that way from the start, you could break it out at a three tiered price scheme and still get some good traffic. So Hard cover for those who like to have the book to peruse at their leisure. PDF for those who want electronic and easier portability, and the no frills e-reader version (Which could just be not in color, I've sen plenty of e-books with art) for those who only really want a handy reference on a cheap platform.

proditorcappela wrote:The only thing that has me wondering on the prices, is Paizo. They do massive hard covers of greater quality than a GW book (Hard cover, all color, hundreds of pages, tons more art) and they release their pdf's for roughly a quarter the price of the hardcover. Now maybe as Paul said, they were designed that way from the get-go, but it seems that again, someone already has shown the way, and you could take a few notes on how to do it.

They also can do a 256 full color hardcover for under 40 bucks a pop, so it's also probably a question of scale.

Ultimate magic provided for reference: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8k8r

I'd think if you designed the book that way from the start, you could break it out at a three tiered price scheme and still get some good traffic. So Hard cover for those who like to have the book to peruse at their leisure. PDF for those who want electronic and easier portability, and the no frills e-reader version (Which could just be not in color, I've sen plenty of e-books with art) for those who only really want a handy reference on a cheap platform.

The books are already being designed in publishing software. All they would have to do is output their books into a digital format like PDF. Adobe InDesign already does this. I had to create some technical how to documents at work so I installed InDesign and imported all my text files, dragged pictures on the pages, arranged it all in a coherent manner and exported it to a PDF.

Publishing apps already have these things built in. They can scale images, compress files and so forth. However, to be honest, to differentiate the products, I would suggest that GW only put the core rules, and the army rules in the digital versions and leave a lot of the art and fluff out. That way the printed versions are a different product, and the digital ones can more justifiably be a lot cheaper.

nkelsch wrote:
I don't buy it. This is just another 'I hate GW and want free stuff because I gonna pirate it!' thread. Digital media distribution is not as easy and simple as everyone thinks it is... Go google the fight between Amazon and Apple over Kindle iapp in-app delivery. Apple only makes money when you make an IN-APP purchase. Amazon was sending people to a browser to make web-based purchases to their account where Apple made ZERO money. Apple shut Amazon down because of it. Digital media delivery methods are way more complicated than morons on a forum know and if a small company doesn't have the skills or tools to compete in that forum, especially when there is no immediate need to enter that market... why accept the risks? You also have to remember, if the APP stores of the devices are taking upwards of 30% of your digital download profits, you either have to reach more customers or raise prices. GW can't expand as they are not selling media for the sake of media, these publications have a VERY limited use and audience... and this same audience is going to be the first to say "i won't pay more than 1.99$ for this! GW is evil!"

...thanks for judging me? I assume the whole 'I hate GW and want free stuff because I gonna pirate it!' thing is aimed at me, since I'm the topic starter - even though I very carefully pointed out I don't, infact, like piracy. But hey, here was me thinking of a way that GW might be able to please some of the people and make some money. Silly me. I mean, sure, if I was in the mood for free stuff I could go, right now, to various sites and download all those silly books I bought...wow. Kinda insulted by this one.

I simply wanted to know what people think. Given how shocked GW seem that selling stuff from the Black Library (which, given your comments, I must assume is a terrible idea on there part and isn't making them anything, despite there claims it's working out fairly well) it seems like a logical next step, especially given how much the Army Books cost now. And yes, I like a copy of them all. I've got a copy of them up until the latest Orcs and Goblins book, where I finally stopped because they were getting too pricey for armies I don't play...or in the case of the Grey Knights, I just wanna punch Matt Ward, but never mind. And while I play a lot of armies, most of them I simply buy to read up on, and find out about opponents armies.

A lot of companies I deal with do a lot of PDF stuff - Paizo, the people behind Pathfinder, often bundle a PDF when you buy one of there books. Apparently they're making a hefty sack of cash. They sell this stuff from there own store, too. Now, we know GW can you make a webstore. We also know GW can handle putting PDF's on there. The two shouldn't be too difficult to combine into one thing - which means bar the cost of hosting, getting it into a PDF format such as they did with the free PDF's codexes like the Witch Hunters and Daemonhunters it's pure profit. No printing costs.

nkelsch wrote:
Every online community is the same... they are entitled, stupid and want unreasonable things. They think it is as easy as hitting 'print' on a computer and making a PDF and all of a sudden you have a complete digital distribution business model and somehow the same amount of money will flow in to your bank account from customers... right? isn't that how it works? Post a PDF on your website and you still sell the same amount of everything? I would never expect a buisness to make decisions based upon the common unvetted business advice of an online community... that is madness.

No, it is not how it works. If GW is not equipped to handle digital distribution, and there is not a pressing need, then they shouldn't even gamble. I think they are smart with starting with actual books where people actually intend to read 100% of the words in the copyrighted publication. Once they feel comfortable with how to sell their publications electronically through Black Library, then maybe they will make the shift for rules... but I would say that is even a year or two before they should even attempt it. And they may find their customer base is less technically driven than you guys think it is and find it is not a profitable or even beneficial addition to their business and dump digital downloads all together. Caution is much more reasonable than "free PEE DEE EFFS ON THE ITNERNET FOR CUSTOMERZ WHO DON'T BUY THINGS ANYZWAYZ"

They may not to take this particular risk, but they gamble all the time - every time they release new models, new codexes, new anything. They put the time and money into setting the stuff off, and if it fails? They aren't seeing that money again. Now, I'm not, despite your slightly irritating claim, demanding free stuff. What I'm suggesting is that GW use a format it's already familiar with, as seen several times with there own codexes that they put online (which I seem to recall hearing is the rumour for the Sister's codex too, but never mind) and a webstore they already own to make yet more profit off a product they're going to sell anyway. The risks are minimal - we storage space isn't going to bother GW, since they do host these things on occasion, and they do it for free. As long as it isn't edited from the original codex, the costs of turning it into a PDF, assuming it's not developed as one, are minimal.

So GW takes a small risk, and possibly makes money off it. I'm not saying it's guaranteed. The folks who download the PDF's might get hold of it, and use it - but they'd get hold of a copy of some kind anyway, and use that. At worst, GW has provided them with a slightly better looking copy. Oh no! Some people might, however, fork over a few pounds or dollars to take a peek at another army, maybe if they're thinking about buying a new one and wanna check out the rules. With tiny over heads each one makes a fair whack of profit. GW wins. And people like me, who wanna own all the books but don't wanna fork over that much cash, win as well instead of having the current choice - pay GW a price you don't agree with for a book you won't use much, or torrent it for free.

Really not seeing a downside, myself.

I stopped playing for a long time because my books we either wrecked by a kid that decided to touch without asking, and in the last case/straw my rulebook was stolen...
Would I rather have a copy of the rules I don't care about/can take notes in freely.

Yes Please.
Am I willing to spend $70 again on a new rule book? Nope.

Side note on the gambling angle: Sort of like they did with Dark Eldar? Sure, everyone loves them now, but there was an awful lot of "They're wasting their time on what now?" when the rumors started coming out.

I'd argue that that a failed mini army is a MUCH bigger gamble than digital media, especially for a company whose stated purpose in life is to sell miniatures.

Kanluwen wrote:

However, like I said earlier, I don't see GW going to army books on eBooks or .PDF simply because people want it for convenience. They want their army books to be gorgeous pieces that draw people's eye in, not a huge chunk of words all over the place.

Actually from a old skool pre press prodcution worker, the other possible additional reason for the hard copy codexes/rule book is to make it more difficult to make a good scan of the product in question by the average person. Only the hard core are going to cut the spine's off of the book to digitally scan it to make it a PDF. The rest of us is not going to bother with it. Then you have also to deal with the watermarks, type and quality of paper (and so on) that can also influence a good scan copy.

The Kan wrote:They want their army books to be gorgeous pieces that draw people's eye in, not a huge chunk of words all over the place.

Ok, you're going to have to explain what you mean by this.