DnD4 Countdown 10 - Oops, there's a leak in the dam.

Apparently, some retailers, both online and stores, havn't been paying attention to the release date of DnD4. So, a number of happy campers (or gamers... I don't think gamers are much for camping, unless it's outside a gaming store or cinema) have gotten their copies already.

So, for interesting info, there are threads on both rpg.net and enworld.

• I have them - 4e Core set; rpg.net
• 4E - I also have the books (info on upcomming Power sources and more); enworld
• 4E - Just posting to make you all jealous, I HAVE THEM; enworld

On top of that, some posters also claim that stolen pdf print-files can be found on the internet.

Although I can see that both things (leaked books and pirated pdf's) are a bad thing, I'm sorry to say I'm not surprised. To a certain extent, I'd say that WotC have made some choices that increased the incentive for these kind of things.

As some of you may recall, the first publishing plan was to release the PHB in April, the DMG in May and the MM in june. They got some criticism for releasing the books spread out over time. So, WotC respons to this was to move all books to june, the last date in the publishing plan.

So, instead of giving people the opportunity to choose if they wanted to buy them on a 1-by-1 basis or wait until all books are published, they are "forcing" people to wait as long as possible. At the same time they are showing of the books at shows and whatnot. So, we know they have got the books, they just won't sell them. This feels very arbitrary.

If I may point at a parallell process. slightly less than a year ago, Apple released the iPhone. It was bound to one operator, and only to be sold in the US. It took quite some time before it was released in the first european contries. However, by that time, I already had met people here in Sweden (where it's not even released yet) with iPhones and swedish operators. After a while, there was repors about 1 in every 3 iPhones sold worldwide was used outside of the "official" countries, running hacked versions of the OS and connected to local operators.

I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, just that when companies make these kind of arbitrary decisions, there will be a counter-reaction.