Interview with Scott Rouse, Chris Perkins & Bill Slavicsek

[PoeticJustice]

Just curious: Did you have a subscription to Dragon and/or Dungeon? If yes, and the online subscription were the same price, or maybe even less, would you still walk? Why would you be willing to pay for the mags, but not for online content (DRM issues aside for the moment, since they are unresolved - assume you can download and keep everything).

I was not, nor ever have been a subscriber. I preferred to buy from my FLGS.

I would walk for the following reasons.

1. There's a lot of awesome web material already available for free the usually surpasses or meets Dragon Magazine. Asking fans to pay when equivalent material is already being produced by fans is absurd.

2. I don't buy Dragon for the game product. I buy Dragon for a) toilet reading, b) visiting One Eyed Jacques, my FLGS, 3) giving newbs (I train at least 5 a year) something interesting to read and borrow. Online content doesn't meet any of these needs so I will not purchase it.

3. I don't think I could enjoy pdfs in the same way I enjoy reading a magazine. Web articles are fine, but they are not a format I enjoy consuming enough to pay money.

4. Disgust. Canceling a periodical to offer fans more content is not the same as launching a pay website. Magic gets 3 or 4 new articles a day, updated like clockwork, on a good looking site, for free. I like D&D, and I think my hobby deserves the exact same treatment. If wizards doesn't share that view, then they better make it up to me or next year I'm just going to buy $7000 worth of pizza and soda instead of the 70+ books and 100+ boxes of minis I purchased with VCU money.

 

[Sigma]

Point taken. To heart. We're sorta in a no-win situation right now. We do have a plan...we just aren't at liberty to reveal the details yet. That's an unacceptable answer, I'm totally aware, but we just can't talk details in, er..., detail just yet.

Well, thanks for taking the time to post here. Even if you can't give answers, having a presence on the various online communities goes a long way to keeping us engaged. The complete silence after the annoucement was painful, particularly given the rather sterile press release. I guess I had hoped that the interview would fill in enough gaps to make up for that silence, but breaking the silence by actually starting a dialogue with us is also a good start.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I know that polls, questionaires and other market research was mentioned as the basis for the online initiative. Is it possible to provide a bit more detail on what this research was (I am not asking for results which would be confidential and valuable to WoTC, but rather the research conducted - Polls on WoTC website, reply forms attached to products etc.)

 

[Veander]

At least there's going to be print compilations alongside the online content.

If you re-read that, you'll find we have Morrus to thank for that. He literally gave them the idea and they said, yeah... ah... it was in our plans.

 

[Sigma]

Except for, y'know, the survey they did six months ago. I don't know if they've done anything else other than that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was other (sneakier) stuff I just didn't notice or see.
Asking for input is usually an indication that they're going to listen to input.

If they ask for input, you'll think they don't know what they're doing. If they don't ask for input, they risk not giving you exactly what consumers want. So, they have to be mind-readers. Bring in the Telepaths!

If you're going to quote me, take the quote in context. What I said was:

It made it sound like you don't have a plan, you're just now getting around to soliciting our input (without any indication that you will actually listen to said input), and, most importantly, completely failed to make any case that your new DI offers value that the magazines somehow lacked.

I did not say they did not get input, I said their interview made it sound as though they did not get input.

Take your snarkiness regarding telepaths elsewhere. Again, if you read my post, you would see that I have been and generally am a WotC supporter. Their interview failed to instill the confidence in which I normally vest in them. That was my point.

 

[Veander]

I agree. It's one of the big flaws with the magazine format: portability.

Cheers!

We could argue the same about the plethora of books. So maybe their next move will be to stop having books and move to a complete online initiative. Well, they said they aren't doing that, but the logic follows.

 

[Delgar]

One question that popped into my head that I hadn't seen was the following.

-Given that DI will be implemented with the 3.5 rule set,
-and given that within the next couple of years we are likely to see 4E ...

can you give us any assurances that 3.5 DI content will be maintained and that there will be a separate 4E DI?

Don't you think it would be just easier for them to just start the DI with 4E rather than have to convert over later.

Food for thought...

 

[CaptainChaos]

The WotC folks keep asserting that they full expected the backlash. I got to say, I find that hard to believe. If so, surely they would have had a better response ready to go when the news broke. As it is there's been a week of scrambling and a lot of "trust us, we have a plan" protestations. If I were in charge of WotC, I'd get some new PR people.

 

[Rokes]

The serial number is a great idea except for one fact. Do you recall how many shoplifted the Thief's Handbook. It was almost a badge of honor for some. It would be to easy for another to browse the book and write the serial number down. Also that serial numbering each book would drive the cost up of the already expensive books.

They could include it in a small sealed envelope w/in the book. The original 3E PHB had a CD with it. Adding something like that to a book is really not that expensive.

But regardless (as the "how's" don't need to be fleshed out), there needs to be a way to uniquely identify if a person has purchased a print copy of a book so that I can get a free (or discounted) electronic version.

The DI needs to satisfy the following:

1) The player who only likes print books and wants some free online content.
2) The player who prefers print books, but wants additional online support.
3) The player who prefers print books, but wants equal amounts of digital content w/o paying through the nose. (ex. Buy print book at retail. Then get digital copy free or heavily discounted.)
4) The person who prefers digital content, but if they decide to purchase the printed content, can do so w/ a discount. (ex. I "buy" an electronic copy of the PHB 4.0, and then decide I really like it and want the print version. I shouldn't have to pay full price if the electronic copy was already full price, vs. person 3 who buys the book at full price, but gets a discounted electronic copy.)
5) The person who only wants digital content. They want it all, now, easily sortable, easily accessible no matter where they are gaming. (The hypertext idea is probably the best for this sort of person).

 

[grrtigger]

The WotC folks keep asserting that they full expected the backlash. I got to say, I find that hard to believe. If so, surely they would have had a better response ready to go when the news broke. As it is there's been a week of scrambling and a lot of "trust us, we have a plan" protestations. If I were in charge of WotC, I'd get some new PR people.

I thought that was really strange too. I'd almost rather the reality was "we didn't expect this" instead of "we expected to just wait it out" - which is how it sounds now, to me.

ps, it's also kinda funny that (edit: someone with a user name of) CaptainChaos is making a point supporting planning things out in advance