Ampersand: 2011 releases officially gutted

[ArcaneSpringboard]

There's also the aspect of a brand's visibility. D&D *needs* shelf space to remain visible.

That's what the Essentials products are for.

 

[Scribble]

Obviously I can't comment on the actual numbers here because I have no idea. All I can do is look at what WotC's been doing, along with what all other media and entertainment companies have been doing at the same time and then making educated guesses.

And based upon the music, television, VOD, book, and computer industries... people are moving further down the digital river. I really don't see how you could come to any other conclusion. Sure, the speed at which we're drifing down the river can be debated, and the speed at which older formats become obsolete can be also... but the fact we're still moving down it I don't believe can be. Anyone's welcome to try and debate it if they'd like. I welcome the opportunity to talk.

Wasn't really trying to debate one side or the other- only saying be careful about saying something is more profitable because it's cheaper to make.

 

[fanboy2000]

Also the e-readers I have seen just don't perform what an e-book should in the form of advantages for reference materials. The are basically digital micro-fiche machines.

Out of curiosity, what ebook readers have you looked at? I have a kindle. It came with two dictionaries, The Oxford Dictionary of English, and the Oxford American English Dictionary. Plus, I bought Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Thesaurus. And the kindle is great as a reference book.

electronic reference book needs:

-searchability

Every book on a Kindle is fully searchable. On top of that, if I move the cursor to the left of a word, the definition comes-up automatically. I can choose any dictionary I own as the default dictionary.

-full color display of diagrams and illustrations to depict things in the text

This confuses me as many, many, references works are in B&W. In fact, many of them have 0 diagrams. I'm not sure why an eReader should be any different. That said, the kindle has a good resolution and displays images images in line with the text. In fact, Project Gutenberg has kindle books with images.

-useable without connection to the power company in case of power outages

You realize that we're talking about eReaders right? Electronic means that it runs on electricity. Anyways, the e-ink display only uses power when it changes pages. It doesn't use any power while the page is on. In fact, when I turn off my kindle, it displays a random picture until I turn it own again. This is one of the major selling points of the kindle and all e-ink devices. They use far less power than an LCD device. I can go a week without charging my kindle if I keep the wi-fi on. If I turn it off, it can last month.

-full offline ability to use the material in case of network outages

The kindle has about 3gigs of space. Many eReaders have SD expansion slots. When I buy I book from Amazon (or download one from Project Gutenberg) it's on the kindle's flash drive. I don't need to be connected to the network except to 1) download books i bought and 2) use the web browser. In fact I often turn off the wi-fi just to conserve power.

-accessibility features for differently-abled persons

The kindle has built in text-to-speech. I've used int, it's not bad. On top of that, all eReaders let you change the size of the text. The small is really small, and the large is really large. The kindle has 8 different text sizes. Plus you can change the type face from serif to sans serif, the space between lines, and number of words on a line.

These are jsut a few things an electronic reader would need to be better than a book, other than mass storage capability. The ability to delete bought books as has been done is a GIANT turn-off for many, as they could think lots of other problems are being had from device failure, payment error so the "book" was repossessed, and mountains of other things that you just wouldn't know from the thing not working all of a sudden. Granted some could be simple like battery charge depleted.

Ebooks aren't perfect for everything. Remotly deleting content is wrong. Amazon did it a while back (with, of all things, Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984) and got into so much trouble for it Bezos publicly apologized for it. To my knowledge, it hasn't happened since.

Generally speaking, my kindle gives me about the same reading quality as a paperback book does, which is what they were going for. For example, reading A Princess of Mars on my kindle is the same as reading my paperback copy, except that my kindle isn't falling apart.

I think the biggest problem is that many publishers want DRMed files and do dumb things like disable copy and paste, which is a big mistake I think.

 

[shadzar]

I'm not sure the discussion for book vs e-book, and some of the proof presented is necessarily any indication for the issue at hand. We are talking about a game. First and foremost, D&D is a game. It's not a book. And that's quite a difference.

So ideally we should not be looking for or asking for the best way to deliver D&D books, whether they should be paper or digital. We should be asking for the best way to deliver the D&D game. What that is, I don't know, and even if I had made up my mind on what it should be, it would still be debatable.

"Best way to deliver" of course is a relative concept as well, it's impossible to please everyone.

That is the crux of the matter. The D&D game is a collection of rules in books, a problem on person had/has with understanding on Wikipedia because they cannot accept it as a game since it is a "bunch of books".

So the game itself CAN be influenced by its chosen delivery method. If all things were to be made digital that were removed from being printed, that is a direction the game is taking. That would mean the game can change drastically from what it is because the medium used might attract different people, and in that course catering to them would be something the game has to do.

So an audience change, because of print v digital, could be a major reason for the "gutting" of print material.

We all know that WotC wants a strong digital front, so that could be directing decisions about the game itself and how many things are delivered. It also changes the game, or can, to a rental rather than ownership of the material via subscription based, as opposed to purchase based acquisition of material.

Renting things to people you can make more money than selling it to them, even if you are renting it to buy. But in the case of digital and subscription only, there would be no option to buy.

 

[Zaran]

I think this is a bad thing for one reason. WotC now has a horrible reputation when it comes to digital content. Books I had preordered and were supposed to come out next month may bot come out in digital offering until next year sometime. I look at an article from Dragon and there are four new feats or four magic items attached to alot of back story. That is what I waited all month for? I feel like they are putting their game in the hands of the worst run branch of the company.

 

[Odhanan]

WotC has always had an abysmal record for digital offerings. D&D e-tools, anyone?

What really surprises me is that anyone is surprised about these failings, honestly.

 

[Trebor62]

I think WoTC is digital leery with the rampant piracy of there books and subscribers gaming the the PC based character builder with one month subscriptions once or twice a year to update.

As a consquence I think this has contributed to some of the ruff starts and slow progress in their digital effort. In short they need to put more online but there past tries have left them gunshy. Its like voluteering to test parachutes, when the last guy to do it got killed.

And I still have my own problems with the new CB. Worked fine for the first week but after that I can only log in if I have two IE8 running. The first instance IE8 will draw the install SilverLight screen message. I leave that; open IE8 again and then I can log in normally. I have no idea why this works but maybe someone else does.

 

[zoroaster100]

I'm concerned about this WOTC announcement. By itself it is very bad news for D&D for 2011, since I have no interest in board games and accessories and it sounds like very little support for D&D itself this year. But even worse I worry this means WOTC is abandoning D&D altogether, or is already busy at work coming up with some crazy 5th edition instead of supporting 4th edition just when they were finally getting it right.

 

[Trebor62]

I dont think we will ever see a 5e after how 4e split the market with Piazo. I suspect the we will see 4e morph into something like essentials where the old material still works but the newer material has more to offer, and the less popular races and classes wont be supported or further developed. But they will still be there and playable.

 

[Scribble]

Thinking about this a little more... I have a feeling we'll see some new books or products to replace these.

One of the big complaints people seem to have is the quality of the mags- these books seemed like perfect material to be in dragon/dungeon (ie stuff that's designed to enhance other aspects of the game.)

So break them up into the mags make them better, and release something to replace them.