# Caveat Emptor With Mana Project Studio tags: #thoughts ![[Elder Mythos (cover).jpg|300]] You know, I think I may have run into the worst publishing policy that I've seen in the tabletop RPG hobby in many years, and I am unfortunately compelled to say it was from Mana Project Studio ([@ManaProjectStd](https://x.com/ManaProjectStd)), the publishers of *Elder Mythos* (the game I was talking about yesterday) and *The Ghost in the Shell RPG.* I mentioned that I picked up the box set for the game, logically enough, given my obsessive need to collect and add to the array of things at my fingertips. But when I started looking at the order after I put it in, I noticed that something we've become very used to was not included: a PDF. We have discovered that including a PDF with the purchase of a hard copy of games over the last couple of decades is a great move. Not everyone needs a PDF, but you're going through all the effort to create a press-ready PDF if you're using print-on-demand anyway. Why in the world wouldn't you make use of that and include it with the purchase of a hard copy so that people can get the product in their hands immediately and be reading it and enjoying it before their physical copy arrives? It requires no shipping cost. It requires no storage costs that your business will notice. It's a no-brainer, right? It's like a nice quality stitch-in ribbon bookmark for your collector's edition books. The sort of thing everyone would expect. So I emailed them because I'm a reasonable person most of the time. Maybe it was an oversight. After all, I just dropped €99 to them in exchange for an RPG which is pretty niche. I would think a PDF was coming. Nope. > Hi Alexander, thank you for contacting us. > > Our policy is to try to make our titles more affordable for everyone.  > > Unfortunately, to enable this, we have to separate physical copies from PDFs, which you can purchase directly from our e-commerce. > > I hope this is understandable. People out there in my readership who are making your own games or planning to sell and distribute them, don't do this. Don't do something that is so clearly and transparently actively incorrect that it hurts the brain to try and think about it. Again, you've already created 99% of the PDF, if not 100% of the PDF, in the process of laying out your book to go to press, especially if you have rather nice and collectible versions of the printing going to press. Someone is already paying the premium on printing and shipping if they order your book in a physical format. It doesn't make it more affordable for everyone to charge for a PDF. It does the opposite. It means that someone who wants a PDF is now going to have to give you more money for something that everybody else in the market includes for free. It doesn't help that finding where to buy that PDF on their page is extremely difficult, especially if you come in from their main page rather than their secondary shop page. Madness. Pure madness. I will point out that if you want any of the PDFs from Mana Project Studio, this would be a good time to [pick them up—from DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/510564/elder-mythos-ttrpg), where the Black Friday sale is underway. You might immediately say, **"Lex, why aren't you calling for a boycott of these people's work if they are so against the consumer?"** Well, the answer is, the product is *good* and *interesting*. If a thing is good, you should have it. But I'm not going to promote buying their box sets or collector's edition prints. [I'm going to point you to the place where you can get what you want for $4 less](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/510564/elder-mythos-ttrpg) and have it printed locally to you, perhaps with a coil binding or other pleasant way to make it more useful to you at the table.[^1] But I am going to consider more carefully who I buy from in the future. I'm certainly not going to give more money for collector's editions, box sets, or physical printouts to companies who want to nickel and dime (or $20 or $30) me like that. Caveat emptor and all that. [^1]: At least during the Black Friday sale currently, but even if it wasn't and you were paying full price for the PDF, I'd still buy it from DriveThruRPG directly out of spite, just so they get their cut.