Monte Cook's new Dungeonaday.com?

[catsclaw227]

I'm excited for this, but I'm wondering how cost-effective this'll be over the long run.

$7/month comes out to $84/year, which doesn't sound so bad, given that Monte will be posting new material each weekday, but how much is that over the course of a year?

If we assume that Monte writes one page of new material each weekday for a year, that's 260 pages of material (52 weeks x 5 weekdays per week). Now, that's basically two 128-page sourcebooks. The average price of a sourcebook that size (last I checked) is $29.99...so we're paying about the cost of three sourcebooks, but only getting about two.

That's not a very good deal, all things considered. Of course, if Monte gives us more than one page per weekday, or the basic cost of sourcebooks goes up (if it hasn't already) then this becomes a much better bang for our buck.

This is a good analysis. I want to subscribe as well, but I would prefer to do it for a year in advance.... at a discounted rate. I don't like the idea of having a $7 tick each month that I need to account for.

Also, the price is fixed, not discountable like a sourcebook. The new 4e Eberron campaign guide comes in at 288 pages and I can get it at Amazon for $26.37 with a preorder. That's 28 pages more (per Alzrius' analysis) for less than a third of the price.

 

[Cergorach]

I think your comparing Apples with Oranges, Dungeonaday isn't a campaign sourcebook, it's an adventure, a mega dungeon to be precise. Keep on the Shadow Fell was $30 for 96 pages and three poster maps. You can probably get it at Amazon for a lot less, but on the other hand you can get it for 'free' as well... Something is worth as much as you value it.

I see that I can get DDI for less then $60 a year, for ~120 pages of content a month. I seriously doubt that Monte can compete with that (more then six pages a week day is a lot of content to write). The problem with that is that it's (primarily) 4E content, monte supplies 3.5E content, so a whole different target audience.

You can subscribe to pathfinder for $14 a month for 96 pages of goodness, but you'll get a printed product with that. It is one of the few high quality adventure publications left.

In the end it comes down to the matter if $7 a month is worth it to you, not compared to other products (that aren't really comparable in the first place). Monte isn't some unknown writer, he's delivered quality products with his Malhavoc Press label, so I doubt that this project will lack quality.

 

[carmachu]

If we assume that Monte writes one page of new material each weekday for a year, that's 260 pages of material (52 weeks x 5 weekdays per week). Now, that's basically two 128-page sourcebooks. The average price of a sourcebook that size (last I checked) is $29.99...so we're paying about the cost of three sourcebooks, but only getting about two.

That's not a very good deal, all things considered. Of course, if Monte gives us more than one page per weekday, or the basic cost of sourcebooks goes up (if it hasn't already) then this becomes a much better bang for our buck.

Flawed assumptions there. Your assuming each new material is only goingto be one page. What happens if the average is 3 pages? 5 pages a day? Or a variety of pages?

If its 3 pages a day....thats now what, 6 source books a year? Much better worth.

 

[Alzrius]

Flawed assumptions there. Your assuming each new material is only goingto be one page. What happens if the average is 3 pages? 5 pages a day? Or a variety of pages?

If its 3 pages a day....thats now what, 6 source books a year? Much better worth.

My assumption isn't flawed; I took all of that into account in the last paragraph of my post. If he does (on average) more pages per day, just adjust the math as appropriate.

 

[catsclaw227]

Keep on the Shadow Fell was $30 for 96 pages and three poster maps. You can probably get it at Amazon for a lot less, but on the other hand you can get it for 'free' as well...

Yep. $19.77 on Amazon. Note that the subsequent adventures are $24.95 retail and only $16.47 on Amazon.

And there's a big difference between buying it on Amazon for a discount and getting it "free" by other illegal means.

Something is worth as much as you value it.

Not really true. I value my baby's first car seat. It was of major importance to our family and was more useful than more expensive items. But I won't be able to sell it for more than $40 no matter how much I value it. It's only worth $40, as a product I can sell.

That's the key point. We aren't talking about personal value of something. We're talking about street value of a product for sale.

 

[DaveMage]

Kenzer & Co., Wolfgang Baur and Goodman Games have all provided 4e compatible products for sale witoous using the GSL.

How can you compare producing compatible products and reproducing copyrighted material?

Because IANAL, and I don't know where the line is.

David Kenzer is a lawyer, WotC advertises in Kobold Quarterly, and Goodman has signed the GSL, so each has a good reason for doing what they have done with regard to 4e.

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it may not be worth it to do so. (Or it might - but I can see why it wouldn't be.)

 

[PeelSeel2]

Spending $7.00 a month for adventure ideas, encounters, etc. is nothing. It is a good at that price. I pay ALOT more than that for WOTC print adventures, my goodmangames subscription, and about as much for DDI.

To me, hell why not? If it straps me (), I may have to have seven less sodas that month. My waist says I can handle that.

 

[catsclaw227]

Don't get me wrong, I think Monte's work is awesome and I was a big fan of the Malhavoc products. I think I have almost everything, and a lot in print and PDF.

I am sure he has some kind of editorial calendar he is working from and is already way ahead of himself for his first month or so of posts, so it's possible that we'll get quite a bit of content. I just hope it's more than a few paragraphs a day, that's all.

Also, I hope Monte offers up a yearly subscription at a discount. I'd go for that, kinda like what WOTC did for DDI.

And since Ed from SkeletonKey is doing the maps, I would be totally in for it.

 

[Woas]

If I still was interested in D&D I'd probably sign up. But I've lost all interest in the game so unfortunately it doesn't help me.

Still, the prospect is interesting. I wish I could make (potential) money writing adventures on the side...

 

[Cergorach]

Yep. $19.77 on Amazon. Note that the subsequent adventures are $24.95 retail and only $16.47 on Amazon.

And there's a big difference between buying it on Amazon for a discount and getting it "free" by other illegal means.


Not really true. I value my baby's first car seat. It was of major importance to our family and was more useful than more expensive items. But I won't be able to sell it for more than $40 no matter how much I value it. It's only worth $40, as a product I can sell.

That's the key point. We aren't talking about personal value of something. We're talking about street value of a product for sale.

I'm not talking about personal value vs. product value. I'm talking about cars ;-) You can buy a new car for $10.000 or $100.000, both are cars, both run on gas, and both can achieve the maximum speed your allowed to drive. I'm talking about buying a Volvo vs. buying a Porche.

I'm not saying that 4E or other publishers products are a Volvo, but they don't serve a (large) part of the RPG community. All the amazon and DDI examples above use 4E rules or are campaign settings, etc. Dungeonaday aims (primarily) at the 3.5E community (and system communities very closely related to that system).

Not only that, but all the D&D stuff is very high profile, chances are that if you have a few fanatic players in your game that they have everything D&D. Thus making sure you have something ready that isn't on a shelve somewhere at one of your players houses has it's own kind of value.

Your also comparing purely digital publications with printed publications, so outside of DM day your paying $21 a pdf for that $30 book.

Some people are also comparing Dungeonaday to DDI, not only has DDI Dungeon and Dragon, it has tools. Well, there are a lot of free tools available for making characters for 3.5E (PC Gen for example), online references of the rules (d20srd.org), etc. They have been available for years and are still free. So personally I think this is a non-issue...

If you think it's to expensive, it's not for you.

As for folks that are saying: "Oh, but Monte must get at least a 1000 subscribers at $7 a month, he's getting rich". Not only Monte is getting that money, he also has a good editor that doesn't really work for free, he needs to pay his cartographer and illustrators. He also needs to pay for the website and someone that keeps it up. Suddenly that $7000 doesn't seem that much when a couple of people are going to be paid by it...