Theories/Opinions on WotC's Plan

[EditorBFG]

Alright, I wanted to theorize a bit and and state the obvious and see if people agree or disagree this is the likely basic sequence of facts and events:

It has been stated the Open Gaming License was created because WotC believed they needed to have adventures but they themselves did not belive printing adventures was profitable.

After their initial slew of adventures, WotC left it up to the 3rd party publishers. Not finding Dragon or Dungeon profitable enough, they licensed them the magazines out.

The pdf market emerged, proving that people will pay for downloadable material.

Creating digital content costs less than printing a magazine.

Not everyone subscribes to magazines; many people only buy them on the shelves. Some of those people don't buy every issue, only the ones that look good on the shelves.

Recently WotC has returned to printing a few adventures, but aside from these the only "official D&D" adventures have been in Dungeon. Dungeon did decent numbers for Paizo, but not enough to justify the cost of printing it to WotC.

If, however, the only way to get "official D&D" adventures is by subscribing to a website (thus ensuring WotC all their profits beforehand and continuously rather than per issue), and if they can reclaim a substantial portion of Dungeon's readership, and a substantial portion of pdf purchasers as well (though obviously many people may be both pdf fans and Dungeon fans), adventure publishing is suddenly profitable again, because web content don't cost much.

Also, people will pay for other kinds of D&D content online, as proven by 3rd-party pdf publishers, who did not publish nearly as many adventures (as opposed to other products) as WotC had predicted/wanted.

Therefore, WotC is getting rid of Dragon and Dungeon.

If we can accept these as the basic facts, I make the following predictions:

1) We will soon see free content at wizards.com decrease to nearly none.

2) In fact, free content may soon only be previews of the digital initiative materials.

3) In addition to subscription, WotC may have some individual pdfs of digital initiative game content available, but only at a very high price relative to how much one would get from just subscribing for, say, a year at a time-- or perhaps no set time, with one only being able to cancel by going through process as difficult as, say, getting rid of AOL.

4) Wizards will soon (if they don't already) see third-party publishers as real competitors taking money out of their pockets, and will market and publish accordingly.

5) While I do not think 4th Edition is imminent-- I believe it will appear summer 2010, maintaining a (rough) 10 year pattern between Editions-- nor am I one of these "sky-is-falling/WotC-is-evil" types, I guarantee you "4E" will not be OGL in any form.

6) 4th Edition, while not OGL, will be just different enough from 3rd to make non-WotC products hard to convert to 4E. This will be designed to eliminate third party competition-- and will likely succeed to a great extent.

7) Whatever version of the RPGA exists for 4th Edition will be subscriber only.

I could speculate a bit more, but the above seems like the stuff people I talk to sort of agree on. So I expect a lot of people to respond with "Well, duh."

But what I want to see is who disagrees or has a different slant.

And whatever the consensus, the larger reason I am compiling these theories is to see who thinks WotC's future plans are a good thing, who thinks they are bad, and how people around here think the RPG community will respond; further, to see how people wish the community would respond.

Because, one way or another, WotC is trying to change the way you and I experience role-playing games-- the question is, for the better or for the worse?

[MoogleEmpMog]

1) I doubt it. Magic's site is the important one; D&D and all its kin are a comparative sideshow, so why expect people to pay for them but not for the one with a much bigger fanbase? Besides, the 'pay only' model is the e-zine model, which usually fails. See ign.com for a good example of how successful sites divide pay and free content.

2) However, I do expect there will be strong connections between the pay and free content; possibly fluff will be free and cruch pay, as one poster here on ENWorld suggested. The idea will be to put up high quality free material that makes you want the pay material more than you thought you did. In that sense, you could call it 'previews' of the pay material.

3) I doubt it. There doesn't seem to be enough of a market for them to really worry about this. It's more likely that the option of getting .pdf 'collections' of material will be part of the paysite.

4) Possibly true. Both Wizards and 3rd party publishers have arguably drifted pretty far from the original intent of the OGL, which was for them to produce adventures, settings, and supplements so Wizards could make the big bucks on core books. Now 3rd parties make core books and Wizards makes supplements; go figure.

5) This is almost certainly true. Since the OGL didn't really do what its creators hoped it would, and those creators aren't part of the company anymore, why would they release a new OGL?

6) You overstate the impact of 'compatible with D&D 3rd party products;' that field is virtually dead nowadays anyway. The big OGL publishers (Green Ronin, Mongoose and Troll Lord) are selling their own systems and aren't compatible even now. I suspect 4e D&D will be very much a refinement of what we're seeing from Star Wars Saga - which is probably different enough to make conversion difficult, admittedly - because SWS seems like it has a better, more playable, more marketable design.

7) Probably true. TSR's RPGA was subscriber only. I'm amazed Wizards decoupled the organization from subscription services to begin with. Certainly if they intend to make greater use of their web initiative in concert with organized play, which would be a huge benefit for them and for organized play gamers, they'll tie it into the broader subscription service.

[MoogleEmpMog]

To answer your questions as well as your points:

I think we have very little idea what Wizards is doing, aside from not renewing a license and putting up a 'web initiative.'

In the best case scenario, Wizards is going to revitalize the hobby by making it an order of magnitude easier to play (via a decent character generator), even moreso online (via virtual tabletop). They combine this with a revamped Dungeon and Dragon that deliver searchable content from every electronic issue at the touch of a button - and that automatically work with both virtual tabletop and chargen.

In the worst case scenario, Wizards is going to put out an e-zine that will basically be Dungeon, Dragon and their existing free stuff rolled into one and electronic. Which could be a better deal, but is neither revolutionary nor hugely exciting.

[Steel_Wind]

1) We will soon see free content at wizards.com decrease to nearly none.

"Soon" is an inherently slippery word - but I expect when they are ready to go - this will be true.

2) In fact, free content may soon only be previews of the digital initiative materials.

May is a pretty slippery word too. Still, I expect this will happen as it is logical.

3) In addition to subscription, WotC may have some individual pdfs of digital initiative game content available, but only at a very high price relative to how much one would get from just subscribing for, say, a year at a time-- or perhaps no set time, with one only being able to cancel by going through process as difficult as, say, getting rid of AOL.

I doubt this. It's a pain in the ass to implement. Yes/No in terms of server authorization is a lot easier.

4) Wizards will soon (if they don't already) see third-party publishers as real competitors taking money out of their pockets, and will market and publish accordingly.

I think this was the case with Paizo while it published Dragon and Dungeon over the past few years. In Dungeon's case, what had been previously a one-off magazine written mainly by fans and want-to-be-pros turned into a venue for the best in the business. Ultimately, that was not ok with WotC. Being upstaged by their licensee was not in their game plan.

I am sure that Paizo would love to be successful enough with Pathfinder that this sense of things would continue to be true. I doubt it, however. (Which is not to say that I hope it won't - I hope it will and I subscribed already.)

I do think it is fair to say that when WotC is in the adventure business, they see everyone else capable of putting out high quality, full color adventures written by heavy hitting industry pros as "competition" - assuming that it sells well.

5) While I do not think 4th Edition is imminent-- I believe it will appear summer 2010, maintaining a (rough) 10 year pattern between Editions-- nor am I one of these "sky-is-falling/WotC-is-evil" types, I guarantee you "4E" will not be OGL in any form.

I agree with this. Which is not to say that there will not be licensees - merely that the license will not be "open".

This will not necessarily be a bad thing. We will return to the heady days of the 80s when there were other RPGs to go play. Which is not to say that there are not already other RPGs to go play - simply that we will see more of them and some will gain in cachet.

I don't think this will have much of an effect on WotC initally. Long term? Well - it might. A lot of gamers came back into the fold with 3rd Ed. A lot of those may end up leaving over 4th ed. We'll see.

I do think that White Wolf's days as #2 are numbered - but I also think that they are in the MMO business now and won't much care.

6) 4th Edition, while not OGL, will be just different enough from 3rd to make non-WotC products hard to convert to 4E. This will be designed to eliminate third party competition-- and will likely succeed to a great extent.

I'm think the real reason will be that Wotc wants to revise, reset and resell their own products. 3rd parties are not the main issue here.

7) Whatever version of the RPGA exists for 4th Edition will be subscriber only.

Agreed.

[Nifft]

IMHO:

OGL is here to stay. Have you seen the volume of stuff produced by "tinkerers" on the WotC boards? Tinkerers are a market. And if you cater to them, they grow your product's value for free. (Note happy penguin to the left.) I'm not sure if they think Product Identity restrictions on non-OGL stuff in the core books is working or not -- are DDM Beholders less valuable if the monster can't appear in 3rd party modules? -- but they better realize that the OGL and timely release of the SRD saved D&D, and continues to add value.

4e will be tested with other games first. Star Wars is the first example. I predict a new d20 Modern before 4e.

Electronic stuff will suck at first because they will be lazy, and use it for beta-testing stuff, essentially "allowing" the paying community to be editors and play-testers. People enjoy that role, so it will be successful, but those who wish it were more like the magazines will complain. I see them selling more hardcover compendium books (which will contain the best of the online stuff, and perhaps half new stuff as well).

More transparency in content creation. Not only is it educational and useful, but "interactive" design milks pages of content out of work the designer would mostly do anyway. It's not like D&D game design is a secret; I see this being a contested part of the pay site, since some people will be annoyed at not having a finished product, while others will be delighted to get a glimpse into an author's head. Also, with the tighter release cycle, I see more "do overs" (like the recent Swiftblade affair). Some will hate that the lazy bums didn't release a finished product; others will praise the swift errata.

Cheers, -- N

[Hussar]

More transparency in content creation. Not only is it educational and useful, but "interactive" design milks pages of content out of work the designer would mostly do anyway. It's not like D&D game design is a secret; I see this being a contested part of the pay site, since some people will be annoyed at not having a finished product, while others will be delighted to get a glimpse into an author's head. Also, with the tighter release cycle, I see more "do overs" (like the recent Swiftblade affair). Some will hate that the lazy bums didn't release a finished product; others will praise the swift errata.

This could result in a very excellent model. Look at the wiki model for disseminating information. Now, imagine a wiki setup, backed by WOTC, where a new mechanic, say spell points, was worked, reworked and finalized by a host of people. All for free. They could then take this information and package it into a book and sell it to those who don't subscribe.

As far as the "free content disappearing", well, I can't see it. It's not like they are going to stop producing print books entirely. So, they are still going to want to push those sales, same as now. Locking previews of the newest book behind a subscription is just poor business sense.

[Reynard]

I posted the following in another thread, but I think it is worth moving here:

I think the thing that bothers me the most is I can't quite undersatnd why WotC would bother to "unlicense" Dragon and Dungeon from Paizo *unless* Dragon and Dungeon were to be in direct competition with what WotC was planning to do. Now, for that to be the case, a couple things would seem to have to be true.

A) The same people that read Dragon and Dungeon would have to be the people WotC was trying to court.

B) The value of Dragon and/or Dungeon would have to be better than or equivalent to the value of whatever it is WotC has planned.

A seems to fly in the face of the common notion, that the people who subscribe to and read Drangon and Dungeon are the same people that would subscribe to an electronic magazine. B suggests that whatever the cost WotC plans to ask, it is going to be more -- at least from a value perspective -- than what Paizo asks.

So, I am going to hazard a guess and suggest that the "online content" thing is only half the story -- largely due to "A". I think, in reality, Dragon and Dungeon probably get sold or licensed as a package deal, and the real issue is that Dunegon outperforms WotC's own adventures for much less. But in order to clear Dungeon from competing with WotC's new adventure push -- and I'll get to the reasons in a second -- they also had to get rid of Dragon. The "online content" isn't, I don't think, the reason Dragon got axed -- it is the damage control. that is, the electronic initiative is going to be more along the lines of databases and record keeping and virtual tabletop. But WotC can't leave people in the lurch, so they are, temporarily at least, going to step up the value and quality of the content already provided on the WotC site as a salve to help lessen the sting of the Dragon loss.

Now, as to the issue with Dungeon and WotC's adventures: the only thing that makes any real sense, to my mind, is that 4E is actually a good ways away -- probably in order to test out the use of the digital initiative and determine exactly how "digital" 4E needs to be to compete. I was talking to the owner of my FLGS today and he said that gaming, even D&D was down by lots, but Dragon and Dungeon were still selling well. We got to talking, and even the D&D minis aren't selling well. Of course, this is anecdotal to one store, but assuming the store isn't unique and the trend, if not the exact numbers, is common in the industry, then it is obvious that WotC would be looking at ways to improve their sales. I think they know that they won't catch lightning in a bottle a second time -- 4E will not reinvigorate the game the way 3E did. therefore, they need to find new ways to market the game, and new people to market it to. To do that, they need to look at technology.

How's all this relate to Dungeon magazine? Well, one thing that "old" D&D had was the shared experience of classic and iconic modules. but it isn't just D&D that has this. it is also MMORPGs, especially WoW. I am not a WoW fan myself, and only played casually for a year or so, but I can tell you that when you hear WoW folks start talking about the raids they've done, you might as well be listening to grognards talking about going into the Keep on the Borderlands. it is amazing, even enlightening, and lamost makes you want to subscribe to WoW just to get a small piece of the same bliss that those pasty guys are geekgasming over. Same with D&D. but with D&D, the experience is much more protracted, and it is a hell of a lot more work. Especially when it comes to adventures, given the complexities and weight of the 3rd edition rules (the same complexity and weight that is a draw for the player base).

Now, bear with me, I think i am finally coming to my point.

If on the one hand you have a solid library of iconic modules -- including encounter designs and stat blocks built specifically for taking the labor out of DMing said adventures -- and on the other hand you have a level of electronic support and immediacy on par with an MMO, or at least a CCG, where those things meet is where D&D successfully traverses into the 21st century.

Imagine, if you will, a group of gamers sitting down at the FLGS in 2009 or 2010 to play Return of the Red Hand of Doom or some such. Now, there's four of them, and they've all played through portions -- i.e. levels -- of the adventure, but never together and never at this FLGS. But that's okay. they hit the WotC website, load up their current PCs and start playing, on a virtual tabletop with a "paid" DM -- whether it is a guy who volunteers for free swag/subscriptions, or an actual employee whose job it is to click the right mouse buttons to "run" the adventure -- getting the best of both -- traditional and electronic -- RPG worlds.

It's a longshot, I know, and there are entirely too many details for me to be "right" about this, but I think something like this, along these lines, might be where WotC's head is at: they need to incorporate technology into the D&D experience in order to compete against MMOs and the like, and unless they do it soon, the industry (not necessarily the hobby, though) is as good as dead.

[jgbrowning]

Whatever it is, I think it's poorly conceived or executed. On the day of the announcement that Dragon and Dungeon are no more customers should have had hard answers to question concerning what the online material is going to be like. Such as, cost, method of delivery, and volume of product.

They dropped that ball big time. Now, even the people defending their decision are just guessing about what's going to happen and hoping that it's better than what's currently offered by Dragon and Dungeon.

WotC should have showed their customers how it was a better decision and provided information to help their customers come to the same conclusion.

joe b.

[jefgorbach]

Its impossible to do anything but guess at this junction, however we can safely draw some conclusions from recent events:

- WOTC willingly gave up Paizo's licensing revenue to prevent the magazines from deflecting users from their pending Electronic Initiative (EI)

- therefore the EI will offer similar content to either/both magazines*

- WOTC believes that content will be of lesser value to the end-users otherwise the magazines would not have been a threat

- the EI is in final Beta-testing and goes live around August/September or they would have picked another month, because even if the annual licensing contract expired then, it would have been in both companies best interests to maintain a month-to-month licensing.

- pricing *might* be similar to the magazine subscriptions considering staffing/writting costs are the same whether the end-product is paper, pdf, or online....while arguments could be be made for passing the saved printing/postage savings along to customers to boost sales, the initial developement/startup costs most likely exceed those savings.

Bottomline: we can expect to pay more for less value.
(hopefully im wrong)

[Nightfall]

Editor,

No I think you're right. This is what they (WotC/Habrso) wants as a profit margin.

[Reynard]

Anyone know what the typical technical development time would be for an online magazine plus a user database?

[Nightfall]

Reynard,

No clue but if they aren't ready by October, I'll be a tad unhappy...

[Eric Anondson]

Originally Posted by EditorBFG

7) Whatever version of the RPGA exists for 4th Edition will be subscriber only.

Possible, but I highly doubt it.

The internationalization of Living Greyhawk made administration of the RPGA a living hell. International credit cards, different currencies, different international rates of online access, and much more. They terminated the subscription fees because it was tremendously difficult based on the resources they had available.

I don't see the RPGA going back to subscriptions ever unless they kill the golden child of Living Greyhawk.

[Nightfall]

*chuckles* Golden child...man and I though the only other fiends on here were Shemmy and Al!

[MoogleEmpMog]

Originally Posted by Reynard

Anyone know what the typical technical development time would be for an online magazine plus a user database?

For an online magazine? I know people, and once would have numbered myself among them (internet standards have left me by the wayside as I got out of the business), who could put together a solid layout in a week and finalize it in two. I'm not sure how much Flash - Wizards uses it already, I'm sure they'll continue to do so - adds to that for experienced Flash developers.

On the other hand, I've also known people who would take six months, charging by the hour, just to get a basic working layout. If Wizards was unfortunate and unwise enough to take them up on their 'services,' then it could be any amount of time.

The gripping hand is, Wizards could have had this in production for any amount of time. The survey was quite a few months ago (a year?) and they may have been laying preliminary plans even before then, just as part of pitching the idea. They may have decided to not renew Paizo's license a year ago or more, and the survey's purpose was to determine whether it would be better to make Dungeon and Dragon online or off once they inevitably took them back in-house.

As for databases, I have no idea. Designing the kind of database we're talking about was out of my depth back in 'the day,' and definitely is now.

[Nightfall]

Moogle,

I'm patient but if it's not up by October, I'll be MIGHTILY unhappy.

[MoogleEmpMog]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Moogle,

I'm patient but if it's not up by October, I'll be MIGHTILY unhappy.

Absolutely agreed. It would be a disastrous failure on Wizards' part not to get it up and running on time. I don't buy it happening, though. They could have kept licensing Dungeon and Dragon to Paizo on a month-to-month basis (they're already giving them an extra month to finish Savage Tide via probably just such an arrangement) if they had any doubt of being able to go live as soon as needed.

My bet is that the web site itself is already done, since there's no reason it shouldn't be. The more advanced functions may not roll out at launch, though, depending on how soon they got started and how good a development team they hired.

[Nightfall]

Moogle,

If I was a betting man, I'd bet against the roll out time you suggest and believe it won't happen until December just so they can start "The Year of the Digitial Dragon and Dungeon."

That's my belief but I could be wrong...and then watch it bug out.

[Alnag]

Originally Posted by Nifft

4e will be tested with other games first. Star Wars is the first example. I predict a new d20 Modern before 4e.

I also believe in existence (and preparation) od d20 Modern revision. But it might be called different. First of all - there are no new books for modern line, but the designers have express their intention to continue the line. This discrepancy might indicate the preparation of d20 Modern 2e.

I don't know how much Saga SW is or is not a test of new mechanics, although I hope for aplications of at least some of them.

[Nightfall]

*prefers if they tested an online version of Dragon and Dungeon before this mess happened*