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And yet I can get all those free should I desire.

Indeeed.

And yet, they remain in business. I mean, are you intentionally not getting it? You're saying since you could pirate their stuff, this can't be a sustainable business plan in the evidence of other companies actually doing so. It's like that guy in Baghdad saying Americans will never enter the city while the tanks can be seen in the background.

Every single TV show that HBO has aired in the last 5 years is readily available on a torrent, right now, and yet HBO still sells DVDs, and makes a profit doing so.

Kids every day walk into Walmart and shoplift, and yet Walmart endures.

Pointing the finger at piracy is frankly less a reason and more an excuse.

 Ouze wrote:
And yet, they remain in business. <snip> Pointing the finger at piracy is frankly less a reason and more an excuse.

That's a strawman argument used to rationalize internet theft. Regardless of what they did in the past, today's GW makes stuff with the intent to sell it. Anything not sold (i.e., distributed freely) is viewed as money lost to the company. You may not like it but taking the route they did (distributing through iTunes) basically ensures that every digital copy of their stuff floating around out there is a legit one and they've received their share of money for it.

Do you honestly think anyone at GW gives a that those companies are still in business after giving away rules? Well, possible they do with FFG. Sometimes I secretly think GW wishes FFG would fail, but that's just me being cynical.

 Breotan wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
And yet, they remain in business.

That's a strawman argument used to rationalize internet theft.

lolwut? No, I posted that i wished they would sell PDF's on their website for a few dollars because - I know this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out - I'd like to buy them, but not an ipad. I buy campaigns from Paizo all the time, and don't see what it can't work for them.

I didn't ask them to "give away rules". I want to buy them, with money, in a format that doesn't require me to spend $500 on a device I don't desire to own. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing.

You repeatedly saying "well, you can pirate them if they did that, so it's a nonviable business plan" is reality-immune.

Here's an equally banal analogy for your position- Games Workshop shouldn't sell paper books, because you can scan them and then they're on the internet for free.

 Ouze wrote:
I buy campaigns from Paizo all the time, and don't see what it can't work for them.

So what? GW doesn't care about who's buying their stuff. They care about getting a cut of everything they produced. They don't get a cut of internet piracy so they don't produce stuff that can be easily pirated.

 Ouze wrote:
I didn't ask them to "give away rules". I want to buy them, with money, in a format that doesn't require me to spend $500 on a device I don't desire to own. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing.

As far as GW is concerned, asking for .PDFs is asking them to give away rules and to them that is asking too much.

 Ouze wrote:
You repeatedly saying "well, you can pirate them if they did that, so it's a nonviable business plan" is reality-immune.

I said no such thing. I said GW won't do that because piracy means that they don't get the money. GW is all about the money in case you haven't noticed.

Here's an equally banal analogy for your position- Games Workshop shouldn't sell paper books, because you can scan them and then they're on the internet for free.

Same strawman as before. You want .PDFs? Go to a company that produces them and steal... er, "buy" their stuff. You want GW? Pony up for an iPad or wait for them to come up with something for the Kindle Fire. Don't hold your breath hoping for a .PDF though. You'll notice that even the old painting articles they used to have on their web site are long gone and apparently never to return.

You know what, you're right. Good points. You win. No way to sell PDF's, those other companies are totally going to go under, and I'm a thief, as you say.

 warboss wrote:

silent25 wrote:

Would have to ask why would you deliberately give a digital product a shelf life of only 6 - 12 months for a system with a shelf life of 4-6 years? The extra shiny bits in an ebook version may be nice, but SOME people will always go for the lower end product if it is free.

Corrected that for you. The people that are willing to wait 1-2 years for an article to go from a White Dwarf to an ebook to a free no-frills relatively inconvienent download as I suggested are not generally people who will actually buy any of the former more convientent items if there will never be a free pdf.

First 1 - 2 years is far different from " 6 months to a year later". Don't change what you said. Plus once it free on the web, it will migrate to places with easier access. Links to the file and separate hosting of files would pop up making the "inconvenience" moot.

Second, there are a number of studies that people will go far out of their way and throw quality to the wind because a piece of crap is free. Will have to get a link, but a friend likes to quote a study where a research group set up a booth a busy mall selling chocolate. They were selling cheap chocolate candies for $0.10 and high quality chocolate for $0.25 which was a bargain. Did this for a week and almost everyone would get the high end chocolate. The following week they charged $0.10 for the high end chocolate, and made the cheap chocolate free. No one bought the high end chocolate and would wait in lines for the free chocolate. People act irrational when things are free.

Again, why waste resources producing a product that has a shelf life shorter than the edition of the game.

Back on topic, to Panic for his review.

silent25 wrote:

 warboss wrote:

silent25 wrote:

Would have to ask why would you deliberately give a digital product a shelf life of only 6 - 12 months for a system with a shelf life of 4-6 years? The extra shiny bits in an ebook version may be nice, but SOME people will always go for the lower end product if it is free.

Corrected that for you. The people that are willing to wait 1-2 years for an article to go from a White Dwarf to an ebook to a free no-frills relatively inconvienent download as I suggested are not generally people who will actually buy any of the former more convientent items if there will never be a free pdf.

First 1 - 2 years is far different from " 6 months to a year later". Don't change what you said. Plus once it free on the web, it will migrate to places with easier access. Links to the file and separate hosting of files would pop up making the "inconvenience" moot.

I'm not changing anything but rather you're failing to grasp what I wrote. The 6 months to a year later was only for the step from ebook/ibook to free PDF, not the whole process. As for convienence, there are people willing to pay for a nice product that offers all the flyers in one file with fancy features like bookmarks and notes as opposed to individual naked text pdfs that must be opened for each unit separately. You may not be one of them but they do exist and other companies base their online business on that model.

 Ouze wrote:
You know what, you're right. Good points. You win. No way to sell PDF's, those other companies are totally going to go under, and I'm a thief, as you say.

I'm not entirely sure he knows what a strawman fallacy is...

I heard they were working on it for android, if so all of this is going to be awesome. Good review and thanks for the low down. Even more faith in what is being released.


Also on that study, it was hard to bypass free stuff for a long time. Then i watched horders, now i don't even grab free samples at the store usually. Findout nothing is truly free. It will cost you space, calories, whatever.

I've no problem with GW selling content like this, it's good to see them at least embracing this new-fangled technology beyond their miniature production - finally

Again it's just a little too exclusive and is (I believe) indicative of the market they are seeking to capture - "If people can afford an iPad they can afford our "

I still believe they could have published this kind of thing in WD. They could have easily published a scenario from one of the releases and said "btw its available now" - that way giving them sales and adding some meaningful gaming content into WD, thus, potentially, creating more sales. They could publish extracts from anything they printed, such as unit releases and codex/army book entries as a way to possibly make more money.

As for PDF's they could mark them like the many products at RPGNow etc do, making them at least a bit harder to pirate. Hell they could probably sell anything from their past book catalogue for a fee. If they saw (or rather cared) how much their orignal books (such as Slaves to Darkness etc) sell for online they'd realise there's money to be made in what they have done previously as well. Many car manufacturer's still produce or cater parts for classic cars, because they recognise the market exists and wish to maintain a strong identity/relationship with their customer's or at least with the brand. GW seems like it couldn't care less about its past, apart from the odd anniversary mini. This is self defeating as they could have made a nice cash injection from releasing a "re-mastered" Rogue Trader book or the like, similarly to what WOTC did with D&D.

From a fantasy/sci-fi, roleplaying wargame hobby aspect this is fine, as every bit of business they have dropped has made way for another company to pick up the pieces. Yet for GW it's simply money lost by a refusal to do the right thing for its customers/former customers

The point is it's not what GW does that's a problem for many hobbyists, or former GW "HHHobby" hobbyists, its more, in many ways, what it doesn't do.

I remember the blood angels one that was released with WD a year or two ago, It was only 3 scenarios with a page of fluff so about 3-5 pages worth of stuff. I can't imagine there is a lot more within this pack in terms of the mission content that could have been fitted onto 6 pages of WD. This leads me to believe there is a load of filler, now don't get me wrong I love fluff probably more than the next guy however, I don't really wanna pay 2/3rds the price of a BL book to get it.

Edit: I get why the painting articles are gone, that's a straight up marketing decision, all the paints referred to in them are unavailable as they slightly changed em all when they renamed the range. This would land hobby noobs in confusion when they tried to recreate them not being familiar with the old colours. They want to sell their new range so they need to name drop them. I expect to see painting articles return when they have a suitable number built up using the new range.

yeah,
I think you could buy these to use for other armies.

Although some missions suit the Space Marines high Toughness and Armour's enhanced survivability.
The Chaos Space Marine And Spacemarine Altars could be used for any other army with minimal effort.
And Dark Angel one refers to ravenwing and deathwing alot so some missions would require players to agree on adjustment to non- Dark Angel units.

I see no reason why we could not play Altar of war Space Marine mission 4 'Here I shall Die'
(the one with the Spacemarines defending a objective in the middle of the table) with guard defending off a Ork Attack.


Regarding Piracy.
Every Codex exist right now as a PDFs, yet we all ( /almost all! ) buy Codexs.
Some people only buy codexs for the armies they play.
Some people buy every codex for the fluff and to 'know thy enemy'...

I honestly believe that they could sell PDFs and the majority of customers would buy not pirate the material.
Regardless you'll never stop theft totally... some people want free codexs and they will want free Altars of war too!
Hell if I wanted I could screen grab every page of these altars of war and make a PDF containing all 3 Altars within 10mins.
So iBooks only isn't that safe.

I never understood online pirates, what do they have had to gain if they are giving stolen IP away for free...
They're just hurting someone else's business, for no financial gain.
At least pirate VHS/DVD pedlars were in it to make a buck.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:
Edit: I get why the painting articles are gone, that's a straight up marketing decision, all the paints referred to in them are unavailable as they slightly changed em all when they renamed the range. This would land hobby noobs in confusion when they tried to recreate them not being familiar with the old colours. They want to sell their new range so they need to name drop them. I expect to see painting articles return when they have a suitable number built up using the new range.

Nope they sell a Paint guide now and have Paint splatter in WD
Both are paid for experiences, GW dont give away much for free these days... Accept!

Panic...

Id like to see an IG one released....with missions like
Wave assault(infantry mission)
Line breaker(tank mission)
Airborne assault(flyer mission)
The emperors might( combined assault)
Rescue dawn(behind enemy lines "rescue" mission)

Of coarse i dont own an ipad.... so.. bollocks...

warboss wrote:
I'm not changing anything but rather you're failing to grasp what I wrote. The 6 months to a year later was only for the step from ebook/ibook to free PDF, not the whole process. As for convienence, there are people willing to pay for a nice product that offers all the flyers in one file with fancy features like bookmarks and notes as opposed to individual naked text pdfs that must be opened for each unit separately. You may not be one of them but they do exist and other companies base their online business on that model.

Well since people are complaining about missing WD the week it comes out, "when that sells out, make a purchasable ebook", would indicate you think the ebook should be available within the month. Probably the reason I'm failing to grasp what you are saying is because you keep changing or modifying the details of what you are saying.

Panic wrote:yeah,
I never understood online pirates, what do they have had to gain if they are giving stolen IP away for free...
They're just hurting someone else's business, for no financial gain.
At least pirate VHS/DVD pedlars were in it to make a buck.r free these days... Accept!

Panic...

Information Anarchists. Was a term I heard nearly a decade ago about people with the belief that all information should be free. Others who do it with the belief that they are "sticking it to the MAN". Idealists and misguided basically.

On Paizo, didn't they go after pirates a while back. I recall they checked to see which identifier number was on the different copies floating around on the pirate sites and then went after the person who had bought those copies originally?

There was an NPR article a while back talking about app designers frustration with Android. Google seems indifferent to manufacturer's concerns about piracy. Was pointed out that web searches for Android apps frequently had the tops links going to pirate sites. That would explain the 90% number. I don't remember them quoting sales percentages in the article.

Splog wrote:
83p per mission? Ouch.

If GW 'shifts the market' by selling these sorts of thing rather than giving them away for free, why not enter that market? Why not self publish missions into the iBook store? Individuals could do it, or a "Dakka Dakka Collected Missions Book" could be made. Presumably you could include a lot of detail without treading on GW's IP toes, or if there was a risk of that you could aim to make them more generic so they could be used across a variety of gaming systems.

I'd do it myself, but I'm up to my eyeballs in projects already.

A group collected battle missions book would be awesome!

My own random mission generator is better and free: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/397204.page

Please, please, PLEASE don't revive threads that are more than one month dormant, particularly in N&R.