This has been a nightmare.
When I was at gencon and purchased a copy of the book (dear god not for me, but for someone who I was shipping it back to), I was handed one of these pdf codes. When I asked the poor lady behind the counter when they would be availible she said that it was.
Que me coming back the next day (maybe she had meant that evening after the con closed) with the store page on my phone to ask “hey whats up”? And to get an answer from someone who may have been Mr Hardy himself, (not directly to me as he was a few feet away but making contact and interacting with me as I asked someone else about it) that it would be up later.
I then returned on the next day, having heard that they had sold out of the core book. Being a mod over on the subreddit I wanted to double check in person so i could answer folks directly on the sub. They indeed were out. The nice cgl guy that was there seemed to take offense to my question of “are you guys out of the non crazy priced editions”. To which I wish I had the ability to throw open a book and point at the broken technomancer rpegen I had discovered in a casual 5 minute flip through the book (it has two echos listed as complex forms and no hacking skill) and get an actual answer.
Then, to my shock and horror I find out that a pdf of the book has leaked all over the internet.
And even still, they havnt at least put the pdf up for sale.
Cgl, my dudes, your giving the pdf away for free from gencon. Your pdf has leaked all over the internet. At least have an option for people to buy it from you. People want the book and when they hear (cause they are gonna hear) about the situarion they are either going to give up on buying it, or get it for free. You are missing the best possible window for selling this product.
I will point out that
pathfinder 2 was there as its big release. The srd is up for it. The pdf is up for sale.
The cyberpunk jumpstart kit, was there. The pdf is up for sale. If you bought the box they gave you (in addition) a coupon for an 8$ pdf of the stuff (discounted down from the 15 it is normally), a syrinscape code for a soundtrack, and an extra d10. (And a con badge tag but who cares about those)
If the number I heard thrown around is correct cgl brough 800~850 copies (core reg book) to a 60,000 person convention. They sold out before I got there on saturday.
I was excited about the prospect of having some day 1 errata. Praise dunklezhan to whomever got that done. (I was not given access through errata team to anything beforehand) i was excited to give them some credit.
But this?
Im not angry, just disappointed.