***Downloadable Purchasers***
SVGames has discontinued it's Downloadable PDF Services for All TSR/D&D effective April 10th, 2005. All prior purchases will no longer be available after that date, nor will any future purchases. Thank you for letting us offer this service to you.

The SVGames Team

Have they closed up shop, or just stopped dealing in downloads?  Too bad, I hadn't been there in awhile, didn't know or I would have sprung for a few to keep.  Anyone else taken over the business?

Mike B.

Maybe WOTC/Hasbro pulled the plug on the license? At least, I always thought they were licensed...they've been selling them for so many years I figured they had to have a license. Wasn't Bastion Press behind the original scans of the material?

I downloaded some of SVgames pdfs for the first time in the last two months...Greyhawk Folio version, Eldritch Wizardry, Greyhawk, GD&H, and S&S, none of which I had ever seen before. The Folio has some small but cool Erol Otus artwork in it that I hadn't seen before. I wasn't entirely please with the scans - some of the Folio pages were purple-ish and some pages were scanned at different sizes than the other pages, which is irritating when scrolling through them - you have to keep zooming in and out. Some of the others had a bunch of writing in them...but for the price I really can't complain too much about that, especially when you consider some copy had to be destroyed in the scanning process - wouldn't want that to happen to a Mint copy.

CGOULD42 wrote:rpgnow.com has still has the old D&D PDF downloads.

Eternal Hearts - White Wolf | White Wolf Fiction | Dark Fantasy | Vampire: the Masquerade | RPGNow.com

Cheers,
Curt

Maybe nobody else agrees, but to me this is very upsetting. Who's going to want to collect the real thing if someone (even WotC, it really doesn't matter who does it) zips off a PDF.

Then there's the "share the rare original with the younger generation" argument, or whatever. Fine, then, reprint the thing. Or re-typeset the thing with modern fonts, slap "10th printing" first PDF page, and be done with it. Make a "30th anniversary" edition. Market the heck out of it. Don't scan the original and screw actual long-time collectors/players over.

If I had the funds, I'd purchase the rights to the thing and be done with it. (I don't, unless they'll accept a $20 BIN.) Thought I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here. At least it's only a 9th printing, but if they're using that cover, someone needs to do their homework, that's not a 9th printing cover.

killjoy32 wrote:

deimos3428 wrote:If I had the funds, I'd purchase the rights to the thing and be done with it. (I don't, unless they'll accept a $20 BIN.) Thought I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here. At least it's only a 9th printing, but if they're using that cover, someone needs to do their homework, that's not a 9th printing cover.

well this is something i shall never understand with companies nowadays. here they are, sat on a goldmine basically. with a little research and marketing, jeez man you could make a massive sum o money from the older stuff thats already there! you know as well as i that if they re-released the older stuff, you would STILL go and buy it. i would. there are more than plenty of RPG peeps out there that like D&D as well and its basically an opportunity just begging to happen.

Precisely.  If they reprinted Eldritch and put it in the stores, I'd jump at the chance to pick up mint copies, preferably in shrink.  I'd open one for research purposes, and one to read, and I'd horde as many SW copies as I could get my hands on, assuming it was a limited print run.

And you're right...if they made it into a glossy d20 book, I'd run screaming from the store.

with modern technology as it is, it wouldnt cost anywhere near as much to reprint the old stuff, than it was back then.....

Actually, it would.  It wouldn't be a reprint at this point; they have to reformat the whole thing.  Sure, they wouldn't have to pay for the design or the art or anything, but printing is still the largest check you cut in the whole process.

i will just never understand how their mind-sets work. i wonder if they have any idea how many ppl the world over want them to do it?.

Actually, WotC has a better idea than you do.  ;-)  It's easy to ask around the Acaeum how many people say they would buy it, but there's a huge difference between how many people say they'll buy something and how many actually do pony up the cash.  Also, this room is full, but it's a small one.  Sure, maybe 1,000 people that remember the old days would go rush down and snag one of the reprints, but 1,000 copies isn't worth WotC's time.  20,000 guaranteed sales probably wouldn't make them reprint it.  

Also, do you know what would happen to the value of the originals if these old books were reprinted?  Ask Magic players what happens if you haven't seen this effect yourself.  You might be able to make more money by blackmailing collectors with the threat of printing this stuff than you could actually printing it