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Gamehackery: What Does the Subscription Boom Mean to Gamers?
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 7651125" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>It's probably worth noting that the core of Paizo's business is not the rules but rather the Adventure Path product... and specifically <em>subscriptions to</em> the Adventure Path product. It makes absolute sense for them to put the rules online for free, because that reduces the entry requirements for using the thing that they actually want to sell you.</p><p></p><p>But if every Paizo subscriber cancelled their subscription and instead bought each monthly volume via the online store, that would probably kill Paizo stone dead, even if they bought <em>exactly the same products</em>. Because a subscription means an (almost) guaranteed sale, and with enough of those they can be sure they'll sell enough copies to pay for the print run. But an ad-hoc buying pattern, even with the same overall sales, is a much riskier proposition.</p><p></p><p>WotC's business model appears to be built around two things: sales of Core Rulebooks (specifically PHB1) and subscriptions to DDI, with the former becoming less important with time and the latter moreso. Under that model, it doesn't make sense to make the rules freely available online - doing so would directly reduce book sales, and would also make it possible for people to create tools every bit as good as those in DDI, reducing subscriptions. Now, if WotC could find a way to reverse the appeal of DDI, so people are primarily interested in the e-mags and get the Compendium and tools as an added extra, then that reverses the calculation. But assuming they can't, and that most people subscribe for the tools and get the magazines as an added bonus, the rules have to stay paywalled.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 7651125, member: 22424"] It's probably worth noting that the core of Paizo's business is not the rules but rather the Adventure Path product... and specifically [i]subscriptions to[/i] the Adventure Path product. It makes absolute sense for them to put the rules online for free, because that reduces the entry requirements for using the thing that they actually want to sell you. But if every Paizo subscriber cancelled their subscription and instead bought each monthly volume via the online store, that would probably kill Paizo stone dead, even if they bought [i]exactly the same products[/i]. Because a subscription means an (almost) guaranteed sale, and with enough of those they can be sure they'll sell enough copies to pay for the print run. But an ad-hoc buying pattern, even with the same overall sales, is a much riskier proposition. WotC's business model appears to be built around two things: sales of Core Rulebooks (specifically PHB1) and subscriptions to DDI, with the former becoming less important with time and the latter moreso. Under that model, it doesn't make sense to make the rules freely available online - doing so would directly reduce book sales, and would also make it possible for people to create tools every bit as good as those in DDI, reducing subscriptions. Now, if WotC could find a way to reverse the appeal of DDI, so people are primarily interested in the e-mags and get the Compendium and tools as an added extra, then that reverses the calculation. But assuming they can't, and that most people subscribe for the tools and get the magazines as an added bonus, the rules have to stay paywalled. [/QUOTE]
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