DDI Changes - PH3 Previews! New price

[Sammael]

I'll take this to mean two things:

1. DDI is a phenomenal success
2. Books aren't selling as well as expected

A third thing can be sort of deducted - they need more money NOW, and their need is sufficiently great to force them to ruin the sales of one flagship product (PH3) a year in advance in order to push another flagship product (DDI).

Seriously, how many people will actually buy PH3 if complete parts thereof will be available on DDI (and, consequently, on pirate sites) for a year or so?

 

[WotC_Trevor]

Well, I've been to the FAQ, and I am confused.

I have a yearly subscription, 10/08-10/09.

In some places, it suggests that I can extend my current subscription, while in others, it warns that if I buy another year at the current price, the new subscription will cancel be from 5/08-5/09, and cancel out the remaining 5 months of my current subscription.

Obviously, I'm not going to do that.

Hopefully, a helpful WOTC-ite will drop by and make this all make sense. Unfortunately, the labyrinthine nature of wizards.com is making me want to stay away again.

(I mean: I log in once to look at my DDI content. I log in another time to a different forum area in order to read the FAQ, where my account doesn't seem to have anything to do with either my DDI account I've already logged in to, nor to my RPGA account. And neither of those is paired to each other, either.)

WOTC has some serious work that it needs to do in managing people's subscriptions in a rational, easily understood way. I suggest looking at the Paizo website for an example of a simple, comprehensible subscription management system.

If you choose to use the extend subscription option, it will tack on the extra time to your current subscription.

If you purchase a new subscription, which is a different option, it will overlap with your current subscription and you will be refunded money for the unused time of your previous subscription. This is basically how upgrades work.

You can upgrade and then extend as well. If you want to lock in as much time as possible, the easiest thing to do is upgrade to a year (following the walkthrough here) and then once you've done that, extend you subscription (following the steps in the walkthrough for extending subscriptions)

 

[avin]

I bought PHB2 having it on DDI...

 

[Jack99]

Seriously, how many people will actually buy PH3 if complete parts thereof will be available on DDI (and, consequently, on pirate sites) for a year or so?

No idea, but I know I will. I love having my books.

 

[WotC_Trevor]

So I am wondering, as I click on the "Renew Subscription" link from within My Account, I am presented with the following:



The FAQ points me right back to the same place I was just at within my account...

Seriously, do they even look at their website to understand this is confusing to customers?

If you're following the process to extend your subscription and you get to the point where you're checking out, you'll see the cart message that Festivus pointed out. This message is in error and should be updated shortly. As long as you've followed the process to extend your subscription as it is in the FAQ/Walkthrough, the extra time will be tacked on to your current subscription, even though the cart text contradicts this.

 

[Festivus]

If you're following the process to extend your subscription and you get to the point where you're checking out, you'll see the cart message that Festivus pointed out. This message is in error and should be updated shortly. As long as you've followed the process to extend your subscription as it is in the FAQ/Walkthrough, the extra time will be tacked on to your current subscription, even though the cart text contradicts this.

Thanks Trev. I figured it was some sort of missed assignment or something. I am renewed for another year.

 

[fletch137]

$10/month is still a pretty good value for all the digital content (I suppose), but I'm caught up in the "increasing value and new content" pitch. Have there been comments on seeing some of the other DDI stuff they've been working on that would justify a claim of "increasing value"?

Like any magazine, there will always be articles that I'm not interested in. That's just the nature of these things and nothing I'd complain about. However, one of the article types in Dragon Magazine that does kind of bug me are the preview articles, those pages that are pretty much guaranteed to be useless in a few months. If they're saying being able to play a Githyanki a year early is "increasing value", I'll have to disagree.

Still, the price is still okay with me, so I'm not really complaining about much. I guess I just don't agree with their sales pitch.

 

[WotC_Trevor]

Okay, now that I've addressed the direct questions I wanted to get in here and post a link to the thread I started on the Wizards forums earlier today. Here it is.

Now I only linked my original post - the threads gotten pretty numerous and there's no reason you guys should have to jump in there and wade around to find your answers. I've tried to update that first post with information that focuses the most popular questions/concerns we've been recieving.

I'm probably not going to be around all night to help people, so I wanted to point people at that post in case it helps.

 

[relmskye]

I'll take this to mean two things:

1. DDI is a phenomenal success
2. Books aren't selling as well as expected

A third thing can be sort of deducted - they need more money NOW, and their need is sufficiently great to force them to ruin the sales of one flagship product (PH3) a year in advance in order to push another flagship product (DDI).

Conjecture, that.
Why the immediate assumption that any marketing decision WotC make is founded on desperation?

It seems far more reasonable to assume that they realize jacking up the DDi subscription cost would likely put off a fair number of subscribers. So they sweeten the deal, and they allow people to extend their subscriptions before the price-hike takes effect. People that wouldn't have paid the new price still pay SOMETHING, and aren't simply lost sales. It's merely good business sense.

I doubt 102 pages of preview content is going to lose them very many PH3 sales. They're not giving out the full product. It's more like a teaser; A crack sample, if you like.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Just got that e-mail, too. I'm kind of stoked. It's a heck of a perk, and $10/month is still within the acceptable range for me. The idea of making DDI like unto a god is, perhaps, beginning, and I, for one, welcome the digital overlords.

I think those who speculate that this will eat into book sales haven't quite realized that format is at least as important as content.