Subscription levels dropping

[nedjer]

I'm not a subscriber, but I can echo some of the thoughts already expressed, to explain why I'm not, and possibly help shed some light on what others might be feeling as well.

* I just don't subscribe to online services. Especially message boards.
* The quality of posting on Enworld has declined dramatically in the past few years. Blame that on edition wars if you want, but the overall tone of the site and so many of the threads here now are bitter, spiteful, and combative, no matter what the topic.
* I don't play 4E. The support and focus on 4E isn't something I'm going to pay money for. I understand its the current "official" edition, but its not my game of choice.
* Enworld has been very pro-WOTC, which is fine, and perfectly reasonable, but sometimes it veers into the territory of DRINK THE KOOL-AID! Or, sometimes seems very heavy-handed in disallowing any criticisms of WoTC, even legitimate ones.
* I know Enworld offers a lot to the community, and it has been an excellent resource in the past for the overall gaming community, a truly top-notch site. However, I just don't feel comfortable forking over a monthly payment to a site that's changed so much, so a guy can make a living off of what is essentially just a fan-site.

I'll pick up on that one, as it's tricky for the owner/ Mods to answer some of those:

* fair enough but it's maybe a bit rich to have a dig at them if you're not willing to chip in
* the E wars are over. There's not a single E war thread on the front page today and there's little of it in general. As for bitter, spiteful and combative . . . posts get a bit robust at times but there almost always a Mod around to make the likes of me shut up
* I don't play D&D at all right now, but there are many topics which can feed into or inform any RPG player/ GM regardless of system.
* I've made a stack of 'observations' about where WotC are going/ possibly going wrong and haven't had to pull any daggers out of my back. There is a loyalty to the D&D brand, which sometimes seems curiously at odds with what poster's want from their games. However, at no stage has or does the forum 'market' WotC to visitors.
* you've already said you won't pay, are you having 2nd thoughts? Either way, if someone makes a good job of running a 'fan' site and puts loads of effort into helping people enjoy a game - why shouldn't they earn an income? Seems a lot more useful and constructive than running a porn site or a gambling den.

So, please get yourself back in here and make yopur mind up about subscriptions on the basis of the 'here and now'

 

[El Mahdi]

...* Enworld has been very pro-WOTC, which is fine, and perfectly reasonable, but sometimes it veers into the territory of DRINK THE KOOL-AID! Or, sometimes seems very heavy-handed in disallowing any criticisms of WoTC, even legitimate ones...

Nah, just not seeing it.

I have been very openly critical of WotC and expressed my opinions quite strongly in a lot of posts and threads, and I have never been reprimanded for anything I've said about them...not once, heavy-handed or otherwise.

I've also never seen anything of ENWorld itself (specifically policies, moderation, etc.) that's either pro- or anti-WotC.

And although not scientific, most polls here seem to show a pretty even split between pro-4E members and fans of earlier editions/other games.

Perhaps for those who feel they've experienced this heavy-handedness, it was less about what they were saying, and more about how they were saying it?

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As concerns the OP, it does sound like PayPal is a contributing factor. It hasn't been a problem for me, but it definitely appears to be so for quite a few people.

As for me, I'll never give up my subscription. But, there are some recent changes to the site that have lowered my enjoyment of it somewhat. Most of them are things that have been talked about in Meta. Like the buttons disappearing from the top. (We were told it was temporary while some things were fixed or experimented with, but now it seems to have somehow become permanent - at least I haven't seen any communications about them coming back). I know that I don't like having to go to my User Control Panel in order to do a search, especially as I always need to spend a few minutes searching for it when I want to use it now. (It used to be an easy little button right at the top of the page. - correction: I see the search button is there, but some of the others aren't - I don't like having to go to the dropdown to find a forum) There are also display problems for some (having to scroll all the way to the left, etc.), that may also be contributing. Maybe some feel they don't want to pay for a site that is no longer quite as easy to use.

Also, maybe bringing back sales of older edition pdf's...oh wait, that's that other online RPG subscription service...sorry.

I do have to say though, I really dig some of the new features...like statuses, the XP system (and being able to give increased XP amounts as a subscriber), and of course the downloads. There's been a lot of nice work done on the site, but the site does still feel a little "under construction" yet (example: me and a few others having "Community Supporter" displayed twice...). Maybe that's discouraging some from getting or keeping a subscription.

 

[TheYeti1775]

I think I am in the same boat as Ari. I have been enduring an 8% pay cut at work, and we had just bought our house a year before... so almost everything that was luxury went out of the budget. Thankfully I get most of my D&D books for free, but that involves a lot of extra work on my part at the FLGS to drum up business for them.

Pay wise, I would prefer a lump sum subscription like you can get with DDI, with discounts for longer term subscriptions. e.g. $3 a month, or $30 for a year, or $45 for two years, etc... whatever it is but monthly is almost never an option I go for. I bought DDI when it was cheap for as many years as they would let me, and I usually do the same with paper magazines that I really like.

I believe at the time of switch to a subscriptions service, Morrus said he couldn't depend on the annual model as a source of income.


But as far as a customer drop off.
You have noticed it in the last 3 months.
Have there been major announcements in the last 3 months?

How many of them were annual subscirbers whose subscriptions ran out and didn't move on to the new model of subscribing?

Could it be pricing?
The only online websites I subscribe to our related to my Jeep hobby. They cost me about 40 bucks a year for two different sites. EnWorld pricing is what $36/yr (right?).

In that $40/yr I get discounts from various vendors. Some are as simple as a free shipping to as good as 20% off with one vendor. Those are huge incentives for me when a part could weigh in easily at a few hundred pounds or the 20% could pay my fee for both sites and than some.
That and the techinical advice I can get on those sites saves me untold hundreds of mechanic dollars.

You have to keep that in mind and with your audience.
We are a picky crowd when it comes catering to our wants/needs/desires. The What Could WotC thread should prove that easily.

What do I get for my $36 here?
Sig Space? I don't change my sig that often to worry about it. Heck on most sites unless I have a fairly cool quote in it, it simple has "Yeti".
War of the Burning Sky 4e and 3.5e versions. I could buy it seperately.
What else?
The ability to search? Google has handled that fine for me for years.
Cool Community Supporter Title/Avatar. Not really a big deal to me. I could care less if folks knew I supported or not.
Ability to give more Exp? Again not a big deal though I do love giving it when appropriate, more fustrated with the "Can't Give Again Till Ya Spread It Around" portion of that.

I'm sure there are other benefits to subscribing, the problem is if I as a long term user of EnWorld doesn't know them off the top of my head, do you expect newer folks to know?

Than you have to compare it to your nearest competitor in this realm.
And that is actual WotC itself.
Think about it, both of you have grand user bases, both have subscription services.
Now yours is a third of the price.
But with theirs, you are getting the various Builders + all errata included into it. Your getting Dragon/Dungeon (how much were they when in print? 36/yr?)
And heck if they ever get the VTT up and running, you will be contending with that as well.

If I could only pick one, I would most likely go with the DDI WotC has even though I like EnWorld a heck of a lot more. Reason being its providing me with tools and stuff I will use regularly.

Your business model is good. It's just you have moved from the very things that brought people like me into the fold in the first place.
What first brought me to EnWorld was trying to find other gamers when I moved cities (Atlanta to DC). Other things I used heavily here were the Marketplace to find older games I was missing or minis I wanted because I didn't like randoms.
My last two gaming groups I found at Pen & Paper vice here.
My last 4 or 5 purchases of 2nd hand gaming material came from Ebay or Craigslist.

An earlier poster mentioned the locked thread still being on page one. He is right though, just a few years ago that would have been buried about 5 pages back by now.
Your activity levels are down when people just glance at the page. I pop on once or twice a day during the work week and just glance at the main headlines if I'm not seeing a variety or something interesting than I'm moving on to the NEXT WEBSITE.

The main problem is without offering something originial and useful EnWorld will continue to see a decline in subscribers till you get to the static number that will always support EnWorld just because it's Enworld. You will have small surges here and there where new people come into play, but they will fall by the wayside as well.

With the economy the way it is nowadays, you will be hard pressed to push forward. I think you need to look at your past and what made the site great.
WotC interaction
Paizo interaction
3rd Party Vendor/Publisher/Author interaction
One of the best places to find a game
One of the best places to search (outside of ebay) for 2nd hand gaming materials.
Site Activity

But I do applaud you for asking the quesiton, not every business owner is willing to hear the frank feedback of his clientele.

 

[Hjorimir]

Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve often thought about subscribing, but in the end I don’t feel that I’m D&D centric enough to justify it.

My gut tells me (and it’s a pretty massive gut), that there is something of a RPG renaissance going on right now outside of D&D and its derivatives. Shadowrun seems to be clawing its way out of the grave, FATE is on the rise, ORE, BASH!, Eclipse Phase, and so on.

If you look at rpg.net, you’ll see the forums are extremely active. People are very engaged. My worry for ENWorld, which I have loved over the years, is that it is seen as only a D&D site. It is something of an “all of your eggs in one basket” problem you’re facing.

I also think that the edition wars hurt the site more than you may realize. There was just too much system hate going on here. I read RPG message boards because I love the hobby and I want to see new ideas and share my own, not because I want to argue about which is the best edition.

 

[TheYeti1775]

Thanks for the input, guys.

Just to reiterate - while other information is certainly valuable, what I'm really digging for here is the reasons for cancellation of an existing subscription (a fairly specific question, I admit). I'm pretty happy with the rate of sign-ups; it's just the recent spate of actual cancellations which has caught my eye.

Another question to ask about that, which will make you research is how many of those cards simply expired?
End of Quarter was June, that and most credit cards if you look at them expire June to November as those most cc companies tend to have thier fiscal year end than.

Also most resident moves happen in May-July timeframes due to colleges and schools letting out. That changes the billing address thereby preventing a monthly transaction from going through as the address hasn't been updated.

Have you compared the cancellation list to the last activity of the person?

You could also try sending an email/note to each cancellation to garner their exact feedback.

 

[ValhallaGH]

For some reason I'd ended up with two subscriptions. One just had to go.

 

[Deset Gled]

A question about a related topic: how has revenue been from the sidebar ads? I don't subscribe, but I do allow ENWorlds ads to be an exception to my filter, and I click on them every once in a while.

 

[Umbran]

I also think that the edition wars hurt the site more than you may realize.

Have no fear of that. If there is one thing Morrus does understand, it is how much that antagonism hurt the community and the site.

 

[Morrus]

An earlier poster mentioned the locked thread still being on page one. He is right though, just a few years ago that would have been buried about 5 pages back by now.

This is an optical illusion; traffic is doing fine (and, in fact, has been increasing over the last three months).

What you're seeing is the reorganization of the forums - more traffic is in other forums rather than General RPG Discussion. Many of those forums didn't even exist a couple of years ago.

But traffic's fine, and increasing. It's just organized a little differently, which I guess can be odd to someone used to mainly looking at General RPG Discussion.

 

[gamerprinter]

Subscriptions aren't a good business model

After doing some research, watching EnWorld's version, I had been considering offering a subscription based publication platform for my creations - I've come to the conclusion that while a subscription based publication platform has some merits, many other reasons make it not so good.

As mentioned, when every month you can opt out of a subscription, each considers the perceived value over the past months and asks oneself is it worth it to continue? Subscriptions that require quarterly, semi-annual or annual subscriptions, while not as enticing as monthly ones to get involved, keeping subscriptions are too easily lost when I get the choice each month to continue or opt out. If you forget to opt out when you wanted to, you feel kind of screwed by the subscription system - that other marketing platforms don't have. Too easily gained, too easily lost, that I think is the main problem with a monthly subscription system.

I'm looking to pursue a different business model, definitely not subscription based. More like a free site with publications for sale, along with free bonus material for purchasers - but basically the free site model is best, I think.

GP