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Boo! Storm of Magic! Give us WHFB books!

Either way, fantastic move. I'm in love. Knew this would happen.

And to all the miserly detractors: Relax. Pardon GW for not releasing every single book onto every single platform known to man, jerks.

A first step, and a great one at that.

I have this thing, called a Kindle Fire, and these other things, called PDFs, and I interact with them by reading them.

Only thing available in the US store is the Cave Squig. Looks like no other books are up yet.

It's a nice step in the right direction. Even if I had an iPad I'd probably be happier just to use a hard copy, but it's cool they're providing the option. Definitely one of the few genuine 21st century moves I've seen GW make.

This is a damn fine move, especially if they use the platform to maintain and update the codexs over the years... well done GW!

While this looks like an excellently developed iBooks product, I DO really wish that they would simply make available the PDF of their rulebooks. This could be done as well, rather than instead of, these applications. I am a certified (or certifiable) Mac fanboy, and own an iPad, an iPhone, and a Macbook, but quite often, I don't want all the bells and whistles. I want to read pages of text. I don't consistently need 360° spinarounds, or pop-ups of the rules (not that either of these is bad). I want to look at the pages of the book, and I'd like those pages presented electronically.

Really, when you get the Space Marine codex, you're going to spin around all the models, and look at all the color schemes, and interact with all this stuff, because, face it, it's cool. Over the next few years that you use that Codex (or with this one, over the next what, two months?), how many more times are you gonna go for a spinning view of a Land Speeder? If I need a 360° view, I'll go to GW's web site, honestly.

GW has an opportunity to have some value added to their print products, if they just wise up. While piracy is always an issue (not nearly as big as corporations make it out to be, but I digress), GW could do something clever like offer a PDF version of each codex for free when you buy a print codex. The other thing they could offer, especially if they sold PDF codices through a major vendor like Apple or something, was a 'update service' with a subscription to White Dwarf. If you are a registered purchaser of a digital codex, and an active White Dwarf subscriber, you could be allowed to download new versions of the codex as errata and faq are issued. I'm not talking about buying one edition of Codex Space Marine and getting the next edition for free, but simply always being able to download the most recent, most corrected edition of your own books for free, instead of monitoring and saving Errata documents when issued.

I say a lot of this because I'm a long-term subscriber to National Geographic (long term like 35 years), and now I get the iPad edition free with my print subscription. While the rotational views, and movies, and sounds, are cool, I find them distracting from my actual pleasure in READING National Geographic. In addition, the excess of navigation (swipe vertically to move through the text, swipe horizontally to move from text to image, swipe across some images to interact with them, etc.) to be distracting. Maybe I'm an old codger, and younger people will always feel comfortable navigating in a 'space' like this, but it seems to smack much more of 'showing off' the technology than actually creating more content.

Da Butcha wrote:While this looks like an excellently developed iBooks product, I DO really wish that they would simply make available the PDF of their rulebooks.

Hmm while having a PDF would be cheaper, GW wouldnt have much profit to make. From a business standpoint why would they?

One thing though, a point that benefits the customer is this. We get something at the same price or lower as the print codex, but we get many USEFUL features that work around some of the pains of print books (ie. searchable text, hot key words for rules that you can get the rule by touching it, bookmarking, linkable indexes etc etc). Right now the 360s may seem trivial but this is just the beginning. There are many practical improvements to simple books or pdfs.

What if in the rulebook, there was video that showed how a rule worked in an actual game instead of the crappy illustrations that feebly try to explain it. What if FAQs actually showed gameplay to make it , literally, as clear as possible to understand a rule by showing it in a game. For guides, what if it had a lot of video to show how painting techniques work.

There is some SERIOUS potential with these interactive books and as this new medium develops, the features will only grow and grow. PDFs will always be just... PDFs.

Wow, just downloaded the space marine codex and its great, i mean seriously, it was pricey, but worth it!

kbdrand wrote:Only thing available in the US store is the Cave Squig. Looks like no other books are up yet.

Click on the book and then go to the author page, it has all the WHFB stuff and only the space marine codex, no how to paint ultramarines or the mission...

The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

Take black library, on the first of every month, the torrent sites are full of the new releases in the original ebook format, 1 month before they are released in stores. All these people say that they would buy a pdf for $$, but when GW releases one, they'll download off a torrent site in 30 seconds.

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

And the first week after a book comes out, it'll get scanned and swapped on /tg/. Whats your point?

kenshin620 wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

And the first week after a book comes out, it'll get scanned and swapped on /tg/. Whats your point?

Because if GW releases a PDF, it will be available to use in stores without GW knowing if it was bought or pirated. By not releasing a PDF, they can govern who has bought a codex because you have to have the physical copy.

Hell, if they released codex on pdf's I would not buy a codex again and have everything on my tablet. Without any store owner knowing if it was pirated or bought.

Also a scanned copy is no where near the quality as a professional PDF that is searchable.

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

kbdrand wrote:Only thing available in the US store is the Cave Squig. Looks like no other books are up yet.

It's up. Plus, you can download a free sample to check out how it looks. Gotta say, I like it . I can see how useful this can be for new players, but it's not for me since I already have most of the rules memorized already.

Cyporiean wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

I do not believe that at all. Even if the codex cost $5, most people would spend 1 minute to pirate it for free. You have way to much faith in humanity. Why buy every codex pdf for $$ when you can download every pdf in one download for free?

Liquidice281 wrote:

Because if GW releases a PDF, it will be available to use in stores without GW knowing if it was bought or pirated. By not releasing a PDF, they can govern who has bought a codex because you have to have the physical copy.

Hell, if they released codex on pdf's I would not buy a codex again and have everything on my tablet. Without any store owner knowing if it was pirated or bought.

Also a scanned copy is no where near the quality as a professional PDF that is searchable.

You actually have to have the book with you to play?

Not saying I do this and I'm not saying I endorse piracy but I would think a smart pirate will use PDFs at home to learn the rules and build lists, and if at a store there is a rule dispute they could ask a store manager for the store open copy of the book to show their opponents. Assuming there is a open store copy of course

Cyporiean wrote:
If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

1. Its GW
2. Its an Ebook

If they ever get cheaper, then GW must have gotten some huge chain of command shift

AT wrote:That's a common approach. I've been developing a few mobile/tablet apps at work, and we normally start with iOS. Biggest marketshare, yadda yadda. If things work out, we target the more fragmented platforms later.

Yeah, you don't start out with something like this by trying to make it compatible across all OS. You pick the most common one and go with it, and maybe expand to the others later.

Cyporiean wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

SOME people will. Others will never pay, no matter the price.

It like with music. If i were to be a criminal and pirate all of my music (:/) which im not saying i do , id still fork out for the awesome songs and id definitely pay for the higher wav quality instead of 320kps youtube rips.

All hypothetical obv....

Liquidice281 wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

I do not believe that at all. Even if the codex cost $5, most people would spend 1 minute to pirate it for free. You have way to much faith in humanity. Why buy every codex pdf for $$ when you can download every pdf in one download for free?

I've seen our sales figures, and I am on /tg/ daily. Price can beat Piracy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kenshin620 wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:
If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

1. Its GW
2. Its an Ebook

If they ever get cheaper, then GW must have gotten some huge chain of command shift

Yeah, I'm not saying that GW would ever be smart enough to do that, but it does work.

I will say this now, its a HELL of a lot easier just to buy something.

Saves on searching for the proper quality.

Vitruvian XVII wrote:I will say this now, its a HELL of a lot easier just to buy something.

Saves on searching for the proper quality.

Also, your much less likely to end up with Bunnies and Burrows

Vitruvian XVII wrote:I will say this now, its a HELL of a lot easier just to buy something.

Saves on searching for the proper quality.

Well the point is that if GW releases proper searchable high quality PDFs, any internet competent guy could download in less than 3 minutes by using the googles. The lower quality ones would not even be on the internets anymore if the HQ ones come out

This is true, i guess it entirely depends on the price point.

Id probably pay no more than $15.

Cyporiean wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:

Cyporiean wrote:

Liquidice281 wrote:The problem with releasing PDF's and ebook files is that the first minute it become available, it will be on the internet for everyone to pirate.

If its cheap enough, people will buy rather then pirate.

I do not believe that at all. Even if the codex cost $5, most people would spend 1 minute to pirate it for free. You have way to much faith in humanity. Why buy every codex pdf for $$ when you can download every pdf in one download for free?

I've seen our sales figures, and I am on /tg/ daily. Price can beat Piracy.

Price is not the only thing that beats Piracy, interacting with your customers, giving them extra stuff and basically rewarding them for buying stuff helps as well. A different mindsale helps as well because not every pirated copy = a lost sale.

I think you have the benefit of being small as well, so I think that helps you as well. It is easier to give money to a real person than a faceless corporation.

One of the guys on Dakka sells a book (the punishment of the dice gods one) and I am sure it would be easy enough to scan and trade it. But it looks like he adds a custom drawing to every one you buy. So that is added value and an incentive not to pirate. On-The-Lamb Games seems very interactive and responsive to your customers, and that is an added value as well and makes it more likely for people to spend actual money on the products.

And it seems that companies like Infinity realize that they are a minature model company first (an excuse that GW uses often for their loose rules). So it seems like the main purpose of the rules is to get people to buy their models, and as such they make their books cheap (or free) because even a pirated book still leads to sales of minis.

You don't get people to buy your product by making it imposible to pirate. You get people to buy your product by making them feel like they are getting something of value for their money.

I may have ranted a bit so the tl;dr version is this:

I think you guys are doing a great job realizing that piracy is not just a consumer problem, it is a provider problem and you give people something that they feel is worth their investment and their support.

I think you guys are doing a great job realizing that piracy is not just a consumer problem, it is a provider problem and you give people something that they feel is worth their investment and their support.

Great post. This is why i buy an Ebook version of almost every black library book and then buy the paper copies a month later, because it supports the amazing authors. But when GW has constantly turned it's back to it's customers, it loses any sympathy for the company.

To be honest, I love that GW has spent the time and money to develop the iPad version of books. However, charging $40 for an ebook will not sale well, and I'm confident they will not make enough profit to continue to release the rest of the codexs.

Kicking and screaming they enter the 21st Century. Amazing!

The interactivity on the file looks pretty awesome. I like the way you can scroll shoulder pad designs in the artwork sections, how you can highlight a rule to bring it up, even weapon profiles. The 3D spinny image is also really smooth. Shows real thought going into the design.

His Master's Voice wrote:Still, limiting it to ios systems rules me out.

Well it wouldn't be GW if they didn't do something wrong!!!

MajorTom11 wrote: ... especially if they use the platform to maintain and update the codexs over the years...

Whoa! Whoa Tom! Baby steps, ok?

H.B.M.C. wrote:Kicking and screaming they enter the 21st Century. Amazing!

The interactivity on the file looks pretty awesome.

The interactivity is what's making me consider it if they ever release it for android tablets. The ability to add notes is awesome. I could actually add notes relating to FAQ updates so I don't need to carry the FAQ around as well.

d-usa wrote:

Price is not the only thing that beats Piracy, interacting with your customers, giving them extra stuff and basically rewarding them for buying stuff helps as well. A different mindsale helps as well because not every pirated copy = a lost sale.

This, there is a concerted effort by some parties to vastly exaggerate the econimic cost of piracy by pretending that all downloads equal a lost sale.

If GW were to release .pdfs for each codex/army book etc then the only noticable difference to pirated versions is that they will be better quality and availiable a few days earlier. In fact it would probably reduce piracy levels as a lot of people want electronic codices for ease of storage and use and currently have no legitimate way of obtaining them.

This is a good move by GW, although soured by the high price and limited availability. At least someone at GW appears to have noticed the digital economy at long last.

As per usual with GW, it's give with one hand, take with the other. It's good that they are starting recognise the digital world a bit more and it's good that they also recognise that said digital copies can add a bit more jazz to a text format. However, it's not so good that they think a digital copy should cost anything like as much as a hard copy. £25 for a digital codex is ridiculously expensive IMO.

this is good news for australia.. we will be paying 30 dollars for our codex now to match the GBP! seeing as the ap store is global instead of the rediculous 59 dollars they are in store

Why Apple? God damn it they suck ballz... I dont even know anyone with one... This sucks gives us an android or even PC PDF or something for gods sake!