No Macs? Holy crap did WotC do the math wrong!

[w_earle_wheeler]

Here's a funny little story...

I had been prepared to ignore the DI outright, and the virtual tabletop as well. I always prefer to play with local groups. The social aspect is part of the appeal of the game.

Well, I met some people at Dragon*Con who I wanted to start running games for. They live far away. I thought about the virtual tabletop, and I was about to mention it to them as an option...

... when I suddenly remembered that one of them uses a Mac.

So, that's the story about how I almost decided to jump on board with the DI, and then jumped back off.

 

[Hussar]

Here's a funny little story...

I had been prepared to ignore the DI outright, and the virtual tabletop as well. I always prefer to play with local groups. The social aspect is part of the appeal of the game.

Well, I met some people at Dragon*Con who I wanted to start running games for. They live far away. I thought about the virtual tabletop, and I was about to mention it to them as an option...

... when I suddenly remembered that one of them uses a Mac.

So, that's the story about how I almost decided to jump on board with the DI, and then jumped back off.

While all these anecdotes are enlightening and all, I'm wondering if you then brought up any of the dozen or so programs that you COULD use to play with all of these people?

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

While all these anecdotes are enlightening and all, I'm wondering if you then brought up any of the dozen or so programs that you COULD use to play with all of these people?

The point is that we won't be using the DI/VTT, not that we won't be using a different product that has cross-platform capability.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Would you like to pop over to my poll thread, and indicate the proportion of windows (VTT capable) machines there are in your gaming group?

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3804221

Thanks

 

[Hussar]

The problem, as I stated Plane Sailing, isn't that Charles Ryan's wrong. He's not. Existing groups will have problems with this and probably in fairly significant numbers.

It's just that existing groups don't matter.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The problem, as I stated Plane Sailing, isn't that Charles Ryan's wrong. He's not. Existing groups will have problems with this and probably in fairly significant numbers.

It's just that existing groups don't matter.

Oh, I'm not proposing any kind of 'answer' in the poll, it is just that the question arising made me curious about the kind of distribution in the small sample that we have here on ENworld.

I'm also thinking about whether the VTT is expected to be only a model where *all* people log on via computers, or (and this would be interesting), whether a group might have a monitor up on the table displaying what they see etc and one or two people are playing remotely while the rest of the group are playing locally.

- If it were practical, this would be a much more common situation for our gaming group for instance.

I'm not sure why you assert that existing groups don't matter though... I can't imagine a business not making some attempt to include the existing installed base.

Cheers

 

[Hussar]

Oh, I'm not proposing any kind of 'answer' in the poll, it is just that the question arising made me curious about the kind of distribution in the small sample that we have here on ENworld.

I'm also thinking about whether the VTT is expected to be only a model where *all* people log on via computers, or (and this would be interesting), whether a group might have a monitor up on the table displaying what they see etc and one or two people are playing remotely while the rest of the group are playing locally.

- If it were practical, this would be a much more common situation for our gaming group for instance.

I'm not sure why you assert that existing groups don't matter though... I can't imagine a business not making some attempt to include the existing installed base.

Cheers

Existing groups don't matter that much for the precise reason that they already exist. If that makes sense. Existing groups already have a means of playing together - be it face to face or another VTT. Sure, that might change for this or that group, but, that's hardly the demographic I'd be aiming for.

In other words, existing groups don't need the DI VTT for the simple fact that to exist they must already have some means with which to play.

Now, using the VTT with a projector or a computer with two screens would be an excellent way for tabletop gamers to use the VTT. But, that negates Charles Ryan's complaint about one mac user in a group since, well, unless the entire group is Mac users, then they can simply use someone's PC for the project.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Existing groups don't matter that much for the precise reason that they already exist. If that makes sense. Existing groups already have a means of playing together - be it face to face or another VTT. Sure, that might change for this or that group, but, that's hardly the demographic I'd be aiming for.

I could imagine trying to get existing VTT users to use my sparkly new VTT rather than the old one they were using though

 

[CharlesRyan]

Existing groups don't matter that much for the precise reason that they already exist. [. . .] Existing groups already have a means of playing together.

Hussar, I think you're right in saying that WotC has a great potential pool of new consumers, and that the VTT will encourage many lapsed or semi-lapsed consumers to come back into the fold by offering them a new way to find gaming groups.

But consider a few points:

• First, they can only engage players in the VTT if they are already subscribers to DDI. How many people who are not currently playing will pony up for DDI simply on the hopes of assembling a group online? Some, for sure, but not so many that this demographic represents DDI's future in the short-to-mid term.
• Secondly, I offer this counterpoint: I already belong to at least two existing groups that can't get together due to distances and/or lifestyle. Because one or more of the members of these groups use Macs, we will not be able to get together via DDI, either. I posit that these two gaming groups do matter, in that they represent a dozen potential subscribers to DDI and a dozen players who may drift away from D&D without an ability to reconstitute their groups. I doubt that most of these players (even the PC users, who at least have the option) are keen to start shopping for a new group from scratch, but I know that they're keen to play with their friends.
• Thirdly, the issue I addressed in the point above has been explicitely cited by WotC as one of the advantages of DDI.

You are correct: Gamers forming new groups will be an important part of DDI's success, especially in the long term as this new paradigm becomes commonly understood and accepted.

But I still hold that WotC is leaving a lot of money on the table--and a lot of their key consumers out in the cold--by miscalculating the magnitude of groups affected by the PC-only decision.

 

[HatWearingFool]

The DailyPrincetonian reports on a growing trend amongst at least some universities.

The Princeton University newspaper reports that Princeton's Mac marketshare has been rising dramatically, with 40 percent of students and faculty currently using a Mac as their personal computer. This number is up from only 10% of Mac users on campus only 4 years ago. And this number could still be growing. This year, the University's Student Computer Initiative reportedly sold more Macs than PC's, with 60 percent of students choosing a Mac, up from 45 percent just last year. Students were offered a choice of Dell, IBM and Apple computers.

This follows a recent report that looked at a similar trend at many other colleges. According to a separate Pioneer Press survey, Dartmouth is up to 55% freshman with Macs (up from 30% in 2005), University of Virginia with 20% of freshman with Macs (up from 17% in 2006), and Cornell with 21% dorm network users with a Mac (up from 5% between 2000-2002).

PioneerPress attributes the uptick in sales to the popularity of the iPod, security of Mac OS X, design and ease of use.

These numbers are much higher than the general population, in which Mac marketshare numbers have been hovering around 5-6%. (All of these figures may not be directly comparable, as marketshare numbers typically represent new sales in a particular time-period rather than the installed base. Regardless, the numbers are still significantly higher than would be expected.)

From here : macrumors

So like I said earlier in this thread I really think WOTC is missing the boat with what should be one of their target audiences (post secondary students).

Also a personal ancedote. I'm currently using bootcamp to run Fantasy Grounds on my mac. I've been unable to get it to run through virtualization. I really underestimated how annoying it would be to us bootcamp. I mean bootcamp works great but while I'm using it I can't do very much since my entire computer experience is centered on OS X. So basically I have to stop downloads, music playing, instant messaging, dvd creation, software backup, and other stuff while I'm playing. It wasn't bad at first but it keeps getting more annoying as time goes on. I'm seriously considering trying to convince my group to move to a cross-platform VTT.