Should they price DDI the way people actually use it?

[Dungeoneer]

The DDI subscription model is clearly designed with the idea that one person = one subscription. It's basically an open secret that the new character builder was designed to combat people sharing a DDI sub with their entire group. Which is bad bad bad, right?

Well call me crazy, but in my experience people actually play D&D as a group. It's not a solitary activity. Any materials purchased, such as books, help the whole group. DM-centric stuff helps the DM run a better game for the players. Player-focused stuff helps all the players. D&D is a collaborative and cooperative game, not a competitive one.

It's actually pretty rational for people in the same D&D group to want to share a subscription. They already share books, dice, minis... not to mention the gaming world.

So wouldn't it make sense to, I don't know, offer group subscriptions to DDI? Maybe instead of trying to enforce individual pricing on a group activity they should adjust it to reflect reality: many times when they sell a product to a D&D customer, they're selling it to the customer's entire game table.

So suppose (hypothetically) that for $30/month* five people get access to DDI. Add additional people for $5 a head. That's gonna be right in line with most group's pizza budgets.

What's in it for WotC? Well, the truth is that there are players at my game table who are never going to pay for DDI. It's not worth it to them. At most they occasionally need access to the character builder. And even then they may get someone else to help them update their elf ranger.

You're not gonna get Legolas the Elf to pay full price for a sub that he almost never uses. He's rocking a bow ranger. He Twin Strikes every single turn. How much extra content does he need to do this effectively? Not much. The truth is that this guy probably doesn't even own the PHB. He's there because his friends are there.

Meanwhile, the DM is already paying full price for DDI, and possibly resenting being the de-facto subscriber that the players are mooching off of. Why not take this to its logical conclusion: raise the price a little and give the entire table access?

That way WotC is at least getting more than zero dollars from Legolas. And since he's not using DDI much, he's not costing them much anyway. Meanwhile, the DM uses DDI constantly, but she benefits the entire table. And she'll probably appreciate it if her players help pay for that.

To sum up, potential benefits of group pricing:

• Monetize players who show up for games but who aren't deeply invested in the hobby. It's better to make a little money off Legolas the Elf than no money.
• Group pricing makes DDI more convenient for players, since it reflects the way they actually use content: they share it.
• Generate goodwill from the DM who buys all the books and does all the work.

Am I way off base on this?

* This is just an example of a group pricing scheme off the top of my head. The details aren't really important.

 

[Stumblewyk]

I don't disagree with you on the logic of your premise. Do I have players who would probably chip in $5.00 if they knew they didn't have to buy their own subscription...yeah, I do. But over all, I think this kind of model would result in less subscriptions and less money for WotC - In Group A, there are 3 paying DDI subscribers. In Group B, there are 2 (and one of them is considering dropping his subscription). Totaled up, each paying member pays more than any reasonable group pricing model would bring in.

And what about my case where I DM 1 game nearly exclusively and take turns at another table. Do I pay as part of two group subscriptions? How is this fair to me? The current model allows me to use my subscription for both games. And two of my players in Group B join me in Group A. Do they have to pay twice?

It just gets too hairy. And becomes too easy to cheat if you just say if you pay for one group subscription, you can jump from group to group. I easily see a player paying for part of a subscription in Game A, playing in a 2nd game with an entirely different group and not paying for their subscription, and then DM'ing a 3rd game for a group and not having that group pay a single cent for a subscription since he's got access to all the tools he needs, and his players are content to mooch off his account access.

In a perfect world, your model would be great. But lots of people move around in games, lie about how many games they play, and cheat the system every shot they get. =/

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think that people are still going to share the character builder but now the leveling up is going to take place at the table, not at their home

For $30 what are they getting? Access to individual Character Builders.
Not goign to be worth it, expecially if they have not interest in the reast of DDI.

I thing there is scope for say $3/month to access only the Character Builder and Compendium, $6/Month current offering and I think the VTT should be free since it is competing with free alternatives that are pretty mature at the moment.

 

[the Jester]

I'm still not sure how the online model is supposed to stop groups from simply sharing an account and logging in with one email and password.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'm still not sure how the online model is supposed to stop groups from simply sharing an account and logging in with one email and password.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the online character builder will only allow you to save a limited number of characters. I don't know what that exact number is though, but I think it was somewhere in the 5 to 10 range??? If players are sharing a DM's account, I imagine that he would run out of character space pretty quick (between players and the DM's NPC's). If the players in a group were sharing, I think it would be useable but limited. It would probably mean they could only store 1 or 2 characters per person.

Also can multiple people log in at the same time using the same account? I would doubt it, but someone with an account (and who has tried this) would have to educate us. But if you can't have multiple logins on one account, that would mean everyone in a group would need to have an account to run a game on the VTT, or to have multiple people accessing the compendium during a game.

 

[Echohawk]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the online character builder will only allow you to save a limited number of characters. I don't know what that exact number is though, but I think it was somewhere in the 5 to 10 range??? If players are sharing a DM's account, I imagine that he would run out of character space pretty quick (between players and the DM's NPC's). If the players in a group were sharing, I think it would be useable but limited. It would probably mean they could only store 1 or 2 characters per person.

I think the limit is currently 20, but I haven't hit it yet, so I'm not sure. This might be less of an issue now that import/export works, and I seem to recall that "sharing characters with other users" was something planned (or at least acknowledged as functionality wanted).

I think the current one person/one subscription is fine as a general model for access to content. What would helpful as an addition would be an invitation system. I'd be happy to pay extra for a "DM's package" which lets me share my DDI access for a limit period of time each month. So if I'm hosting a game tomorrow, I can send "guest" invites to Alan, Bob, Carol, Dave and Ellen and for, say 24 hours (enough for some pre-game prep and use during a game), their accounts can access the full Character Builder, Compendium and VTT.

 

[TheFindus]

There is more to the CB than advancing your character. You get the full character ruleset, with items, powers and new additions to the game without having to buy the rule books.
The subscription offers more than that as well. You get the magazines. And even though the content is nothing compared to what it was back in 3.x times, the total offer is worth 6 euros a month in my opinion. It makes a good birthday present. And I spent much more on books in 3.x times. I spent 14 euros a month on the magazines alone. 4E saves me a lot of money.

But I think that they should offer different subscription fees for people who only want to use the CB. Another fee for those who will only want to read Dragon magazine. And they should offer a group rebate for the use of the CB.

While those are the wishes of a gamer, I am not sure if that makes sense businesswise. I can wish all I want: if they think it is bad for business, WotC will not do it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I know that if I was WotC, I would not price things in an a la carte method... hoping to squeeze $3 out of one player here for a CB, or $2 from a player there from just the magazines. Instead, I would just make sure all 5 pieces of the DDI suite (CB, AT, Compendium, Magazines, VTT) are good enough, interesting enough and most importantly useful enough to inspire someone to pay the $6 a month for the entire package.

I mean, if the entire thing was $20 a month, then yeah maybe offering much smaller amounts might be worth it. But we're only talking $6 here. And I would in no way want to go through the bookkeeping hassles of charging certain people certain amounts, having to program the system to just turn certain sections of DDI on... figuring out what happens if someone bought one piece in March for a year, a second piece in July for 6 months, a third piece in August which then pushes their total over the suite cost and thus they ask to roll everything into a single suite subscription but I now have to figure out how to reattribute the money already collected and determine how many months of a full suite they now get.

All of that hassle is just not worth the time just to get those few players who only want to pay $3 instead of $6. If I just make the entire suite better, then maybe some of those players will come to realize that 12 months of those $3 is $36... the cost of a book they would have bought anyway. And if I can't find a way to make the entire suite of DDI more useful than the discontinued Magnificent Mansion product (which would have appeared in DDI a month later anyway)... then either I'm not doing something right in my marketing, or some players just don't understand simple math.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I know that if I was WotC, I would not price things in an a la carte method... hoping to squeeze $3 out of one player here for a CB, or $2 from a player there from just the magazines. Instead, I would just make sure all 5 pieces of the DDI suite (CB, AT, Compendium, Magazines, VTT) are good enough, interesting enough and most importantly useful enough to inspire someone to pay the $6 a month for the entire package.

I mean, if the entire thing was $20 a month, then yeah maybe offering much smaller amounts might be worth it. But we're only talking $6 here. And I would in no way want to go through the bookkeeping hassles of charging certain people certain amounts, having to program the system to just turn certain sections of DDI on... figuring out what happens if someone bought one piece in March for a year, a second piece in July for 6 months, a third piece in August which then pushes their total over the suite cost and thus they ask to roll everything into a single suite subscription but I now have to figure out how to reattribute the money already collected and determine how many months of a full suite they now get.

All of that hassle is just not worth the time just to get those few players who only want to pay $3 instead of $6. If I just make the entire suite better, then maybe some of those players will come to realize that 12 months of those $3 is $36... the cost of a book they would have bought anyway. And if I can't find a way to make the entire suite of DDI more useful than the discontinued Magnificent Mansion product (which would have appeared in DDI a month later anyway)... then either I'm not doing something right in my marketing, or some players just don't understand simple math.

I think that if they want to make additional money out of DDI then the best way is optional extras. Prefabbed maps, counters and monsters for Module X for $2 and that sort of thing.