Wizards of the Coast and DriveThruRPG are working together to make sure every RPG title published by the WoTC is available digitally. As a result they’ve been digitally re-mastering hundreds of classic D&D titles.
All good?
Sure, but there’s at least 600 more titles to go. In order to try and move the project along DriveThru have set out a quality criteria and are paying $50 for any scan that matches it.
Of course, you can’t send any old scan in. You have to match up your scan with this large spreadsheet of needed titles.
I think it’s a good idea but can’t but help think about the dangers contemporary RPG face from being scanned and resold illegally or simply given away. This project is about making sure that books not otherwise available to fans become available, at high quality and hopefully a responsible price.
There’s also a profit here for anyone with the right ebay skills. Books like Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons have sold on eBay this year for just $10. That would be a $40 mark-up on anyone who got a scan accepted. A current auction is at $25 for the same book.
Find out what Geek Native readers say about this in the comments below. You're welcome to add your own.
So… what happened to this? one day – just as you have described – next day – the web page is gone, the spreadsheet is ‘in the owner’s trash’ and not a peep out of Wizards, DM Guild, or DriveThruRPG that I can see.
Once you ask fans to destroy their otherwise-unobtainable classic items so that you can have appropriate-quality products for resale – it would seem polite to post a ‘project closed’ notice or some such rather than disappearing without a trace…?