DDI - 8000 subscribers and counting - When will it stop?

[amysrevenge]

The count of the members of the DDI group is, as mentoned above, people who have subscribed to DDI and have also activated a WotC community account. I have also, in chats with CM, been told that the number of members in the group is a small fraction of the total number of subscribers.

Word.

Anecdotally, I know about 30 people with DDI subs, of whom about 3 have ever logged in to the Wizards forums.

 

[Dannager]

I don't think it's terribly unreasonable to assume (probably conservatively) that active Wizards forum-goers make up 20% of all D&D Insider subscribers. This assumption would give us a total subscriber base of 40,000. Assuming all of them took the yearly plan (at $6 per month), that's $240,000 every month; nearly $3 million per year. That's enough to pay the salaries of more than 50 full-time employees. Yes, there are other costs associated with the product, but they're probably nowhere near what it costs to have a line of books printed.

If the actual numbers look anywhere near what's projected above, D&D Insider alone practically pays for D&D's development. I can't imagine how they wouldn't be ecstatic about those results.

 

[Jack99]

It's certainly interesting if the 8k (8120 at the time of writing) is only a fraction of the real number of subscribers is indeed true.

That would, as Dannager points out, be a lot of money. On the other hand, it would be interesting to know how the DDI has affected purchases. For those I know, it hasn't. We still buy the same amount of books (and more) than we used to in the last two editions. But we also know from these boards that others are skipping the crunch books completely, relying on DDI for that info.

 

[gribble]

The count of the members of the DDI group is, as mentoned above, people who have subscribed to DDI and have also activated a WotC community account.

Seems to me the relevant statistic then is the size of the DDI group compared to the size of the WotC Community. I.e.: ~8000 out of ~174000, or under 5%... that still seems sort of poor to me.

I have also, in chats with CM, been told that the number of members in the group is a small fraction of the total number of subscribers.

That on the other hand may explain the small number. Were some DDI subscribers not automatically signed up the group?

 

[gribble]

But we also know from these boards that others are skipping the crunch books completely, relying on DDI for that info.

I certainly am, and I know that most of my gaming group are as well. Not that most of them were the sort to buy the books anyway, except for the PHB and possibly the power source book for their current character.

Though a couple of them don't even own 4e PHBs (and certainly not PHB2s, even though they're currently playing classes from PHB2) and haven't bought any power source books.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) But 8,000 paying customers is $50-70K/month, right? Not too shabby....

Maybe if you were running a very small 711 or maybe even a key-cutting shop, not a (admittedly small and largely irrelevant) division of Hasbro....

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Seems to me the relevant statistic then is the size of the DDI group compared to the size of the WotC Community. I.e.: ~8000 out of ~174000, or under 5%... that still seems sort of poor to me.


That on the other hand may explain the small number. Were some DDI subscribers not automatically signed up the group?

I imagine that more than 50% of the WotC community play nothing but M:tG exclusively. WotC also encompasses the Avalon Hill forums.

 

[Perram]

I certainly am, and I know that most of my gaming group are as well. Not that most of them were the sort to buy the books anyway, except for the PHB and possibly the power source book for their current character.

Though a couple of them don't even own 4e PHBs (and certainly not PHB2s, even though they're currently playing classes from PHB2) and haven't bought any power source books.

One of the problems that may be contributing to this is that a lot of the crunch books have needed a lot of errata, so the DDI sources are BETTER sources for this information than even the PRINT BOOKs.

I keep buying the books, however, (or was, as I'm not really a 4e player at the moment) as I didn't want my access to that information to be reliant on the uncertain future of DDI.

Glad to hear it has been a success, though. It is an ambitious project, regardless of all criticism.

 

[gribble]

I imagine that more than 50% of the WotC community play nothing but M:tG exclusively. WotC also encompasses the Avalon Hill forums.

That is a good point, and one (with my D&D blinkers on) that I hadn't considered...

So looking at the official "product" groups, I can't see one for Avalon Hill or the Star Wars RPG (or any other WotC "products" for that matter). There appear to be 2 product related ones - D&D at just under 700 members and MTG at under 400 - I'm assuming no-one was automatically signed up for them. Looking at the various other regional and fan created groups, it seems like the ratio of just under 2:1 for D&D:MTG seems to be reasonably accurate.

So if we assume that 700/1100 = ~63% of the board members are interested in D&D, then that still means the DDI subscriber base is 8000/(63% x 174000) or just over 7%. A slightly better number, but still not huge...

Although I think WotC execs would be content (if not overly excited) with 10% of the possible market being signed on to DDI, and if we assume that there are are number of subscribers (~2000-3000) not reflected in the DDI group then they're probably close to that mark.

One of the problems that may be contributing to this is that a lot of the crunch books have needed a lot of errata, so the DDI sources are BETTER sources for this information than even the PRINT BOOKs.

That's certainly part of the attraction. In my games, the character builder is usually considered a more correct source than the printed books exactly because it incorporates errata. However I don't think it's the full picture. I think other contributing factors are:

• 4e (especially when played with power cards, which are generated by the character builder as default) lends itself to being played without referencing books at the table.
• Most 4e books are crunch heavy and don't lend themselves to being casually read away from the table.

Those two factors, combined with the ease of incorporating errata make purchasing 4e books a lot less attractive than prior edition books, if you're a DDI subscriber (or willing/able to use a demo/pirated version of the CB).

 

[The_Fan]

Looks like i was wrong. I am a part of the DDI group. I really need to poke around the new site more.