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Jean Bey has confirmed that the Advanced Rules for AT-43 will be available as a free download on the AT-43 forum:

en-forum.at-43.com/viewtopic.php

Regards,

AJC

This link will take you directly there. edit: I mean it will take you to his reply, not the rules, which presumeably will not be released until the actual book is released.

http://en-forum.at-43.com/viewtopic.php?t=248

Will be nice to see.

Great news. I love the fact that they wont require you to buy the full rules, so this way no one can complain if they are crappy.

I'm sure some people will still whine.

"It's a small thing, but will the fluff/ background sections be included as well? I'm presuming there will be some fluff/ background in the rule book. Hoping...." -Kendo
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"Unfortunatly not in the dowload version. Just the complete rules for free in HTML, including maps, tables, photos taken directly from the definitive layout of the book. For the background universe, the different races and all the things regarding the fluff, it will be only in the book (hey... I must gain some money to pay the illustrators." -Rackham

Hmm, so if it's a free download, why are they putting out the book at all? It's not going to sell well in stores if you can get the thing for free as a download.

I don't know about that - to each his own.  I'd pick up the book regardless so that I could get all the artwork and fluff.

AJC

Posted By mikhaila on 01/09/2007 8:03 PM
Hmm, so if it's a free download, why are they putting out the book at all? It's not going to sell well in stores if you can get the thing for free as a download.

I strongly disagree.

Mainly, that people who download it will be able to decide if they like it enough to buy it. It is, in effect, advertising. There are three general groups of people. Those who would have bought it anyways because they want to get into AT-43. Those who are undecided and would like to see more. And those who would not buy it regardless.

The first group will buy it because a downloaded document is never substitute for the real thing. Economically speaking, unless you spent good money or stole office supplies to have it printed exactly in the form of a book, it'll never be as well formatted and compact, and the money and time you'd spend getting it printed at a high quality could have just bought you the real deal anyways, which will also have the fiction and such. Practically and aesthetically speaking, your home printout will never look as good, and it is better to have a book you and your friends can look at at the game table than running back and forth to your computer to look things up. So there's no reason that group 1 would stop buying the book just because it's free.

For Group 2, the undecided group, this is essentially advertising. They weren't going to buy the book originally but aren't opposed to the idea if it turns out to be really good. So now they can check it all out online and see if they like it or not. Some of group 2, who weren't going to buy, will now buy, and some will be satisfied with their online copies and will start buying models for the game which is where the real money is anyways. Either way this is sales Rackham wasn't going to get before.

Group 3 wasn't going to buy the book anyways, so if they download it, there's no loss. These aren't lost sales because you would never have sold them it even if it wasn't available free.

For me, and everyone I know personally for that matter, an electronic document is never as good as a real actual book. Reading books at the computer is something you do when you *have* to, not because you want to. It's far easier to take the real thing over to a comfortable recliner and spend some time reading than it is to sit hunched over your keyboard staring into your monitor for hours.

I second the previous statement. Darn straight I'll Download the rules. It means I'll likely get them sooner than the hard copy, so I can start using the richer advanced rules set sooner. However, as all the fluff and background are in the printed book, and i very much want that, I'll grab the hard copy in a heart beat.

And I just like collecting game books. I have them all nicely set up on my book shelf, and enjoy picking thorugh my personal library. This will be a welcome addition to my collection.

Lastly, an e-copy means I can print out the basics I need to take to the LGS, and save my original the wear and tear of living in the back seat of my car.

+1 for Caern, who has a far better grasp of gamers' mentality than GW can ever hope to achieve (if we assume they ever try, which I doubt.)
At least there are smart people in Rackham.

How everything becomes about GW, I will never understand. Bitter much?

Like it or not, you can't get away from GW in miniature gaming. It's the de facto standard for every comparison in this area, like Microsoft for computers or Google for the web. So yes, the trend is likely to continue - until some other company replaces GW.

that and DakkaDakka is primarily a GW fan site. It's grown a lot to include lots of other games, but it's roots are 40K and that's maybe why most people come here.

The AR-Download will be pure rules, all the fluff is missing from it.

Posted By mikhaila on 01/09/2007 8:03 PM
Hmm, so if it's a free download, why are they putting out the book at all? It's not going to sell well in stores if you can get the thing for free as a download.

Based on the quote in Tanker's post, it's like the D20 system.  All the fluff and flavor art are in the real book you buy.  The downloadable rules are complete, but not as sexy, and missing all setting info and all the the cool background.

The way the theory goes is that any revenue you lose from people downloading free rules rather than buying printed ones is more than made up for in extra miniatures sales from people who wouldn't have bought the miniatures without trying the game out for free.

GW have worked this way successfully with the Specialist Games for years. I have no idea why GW don't do it for 40k and Fantasy as well.  After all if you *really* want to get hold of a free set of rules then BitTorrent/Limewire or any number of others will let you do it.  Or at worst you can always photocopy a mate's.  It's not as if not publishing a free set of rules forces anyone to buy them who doesn't want to buy them anyhow!

Most companies (including GW - its why Bryan Ansell's Citadel Miniatures company was able to buy out Ian Livingstone's Games Workshop in the first place, back in the late '80's) realise that they make most money from the models rather than the rules. OK they do make *some* profit off the rules, but the margin on model sales is much, much greater so it is worth compromising on rules sales in order to boost their model sales.

Most of the game shops that operated here insisted on selling the rules and codex's to their customers at their cost.

Afterall, they were going to spend a mint in miniatures so why not give them the rules for cheap? That sort of sales tactics was perfectly logical to players and they did very well because of it.

Yes, GW should follow this model. They do it for GW Japan, why not everywhere else as well?

Its not like the rules are so good that they should demand $20 for a book. To be honest, $5 is too expensive when considering how much you have to pay for the models. Yes, selling at $5 is a loss, ON THE CODEX, but when considering how much your making on the models? Giving away faulty rules that take years for GW to get of of their lazy asses to support is not a large thing to ask.

I am sure considering GW's current financial status, they may very well have to atleast consider this tactic in the future if they are to survive the new wave of companies that are quite literally about to bury them in their own hubris.