D&D in 2011: From Books to Digital

[Nemesis Destiny]

It would be madness for WotC to try to take D&D fully digital, or anything close to it. There are allegedly 1+ million people who play D&D (of some version) regularly. There are, what, 20,000 DDI subscribers?

The number is much higher than this. They have 45k subscribers in the DDI group on WotCs boards alone, and those are the ones who actually completed and filled out their profiles. I didn't. Lots of other folks I know with subs didn't. The actual number might be into 6 digits.

You don't ensure the future of D&D by cutting off 98% of your existing player base. Even if they're not buying anything now, they might in the future.

And it really doesn't seem likely that DDI will pick up many more customers, certainly without a massive improvement in the offering.

I think they're probably working on that. It seems more and more likely that the books that got canned are going to appear on DDI instead of a store shelf.

They do need to improve the Vecna CB though, and work on getting material in there faster, but I think most of their development resources are probably being funnelled into the VTT at the moment.

* note that this is not a fanboy post. I am not excusing the way things have been going. I think they can do better, and I would like to see it.

 

[delericho]

The number is much higher than this. They have 45k subscribers in the DDI group on WotCs boards alone, and those are the ones who actually completed and filled out their profiles. I didn't. Lots of other folks I know with subs didn't. The actual number might be into 6 digits.

I would be extremely surprised if they're at 100,000 active subscriptions. But even if they are, that's still ~10% of the player base. If going digital-only means cutting off 90% of the market, they're surely not going to do it.

I think they're probably working on that. It seems more and more likely that the books that got canned are going to appear on DDI instead of a store shelf.

We'll see. Frankly, I'm doubtful that the bulk of that material will ever appear. My guess is they'll release whatever bits of it are already done (or close enough), but that the bulk of the cancelled books were, well, cancelled.

 

[shadzar]

PlastiCrypt :: Prepainted Miniatures Site

If you look around that site, you can also find (often better) pictures of the same miniatures in their pre-painted DDM versions.

Hmm, so this is where "DDM spoilers.com" went. Thanks.

And I don't want the pre-paints, I am capable of painting myself if I need to, but others might find that useful. However there are better repaints than prepaints all over the place, and some simple if people wanted to try themselves.

Now looking at some of them with decent images, I have to ask is it still that same plastic used for the prepaints so that it would take the paint, or is it rigid. Still poly-vinyl, or is it polystyrene?

Looks like some are warped like the originals with the hollowed out bases, meaning repainting, well painting them to begin with, will be jsut as tedious to prep them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would be extremely surprised if they're at 100,000 active subscriptions. But even if they are, that's still ~10% of the player base. If going digital-only means cutting off 90% of the market, they're surely not going to do it.


We'll see. Frankly, I'm doubtful that the bulk of that material will ever appear. My guess is they'll release whatever bits of it are already done (or close enough), but that the bulk of the cancelled books were, well, cancelled.

Here's the thing though, there's no down side for the other 90% (or whatever it really is). They have the same books as ever. If it was going to be profitable to put out these books, they'd have done it. If the stuff can go into DDI then it goes into DDI and it is all for the good. If there was no DDI it would just be gone.

Nobody is suggesting that WotC has any intention of shafting people that don't want DDI. They've put out a whole updated release of the rules in RC just for those people. They haven't been forgotten. Neither are we suggesting or WotC has even hinted that they won't continue to release any book that makes sense for them to release in print.

Basically if DDI didn't exist and WotC was really getting their butt whipped D&D would be dead. That would be good for precisely nobody. If it lives on the back of the most zealous fans that get DDI at least it LIVES. Personally I don't think things are anywhere near that grim, but what could be better for D&D than another profit center that pumps several million $ a year into the game?

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

WotC decides to focus on D&D the MMO or D&D the video game series, where the "real money is."

If only that were true. But D&D failed miserably as an MMO; amongst WoW players the D&D brand is a negative; not a positive. They associate it, obviously, with D&D Online, which is a joke to them. D&D has no hope as a MMO, and other video games have been mediocre sellers at best, Baldur's Gate being one of only a handful of exceptions.

The D&D brand doesn't have nearly the selling power that gamers think it has.

 

[Hussar]

Chainsaw Mage - a couple of things.

Not being as big as WOW is not a failure. There are a plethora of MMO's out there in the 100k user range that have been trucking along quite nicely, including, apparently, DDO. An MMO that's still running after five (?) years is hardly a failure.

There have been rather a lot of very successful D&D branded CRPG's that have done well, just none recently. The 80's and 90's were full of games like the old SSI D&D games, Pool of Radiance, etc. Neverwinter Nights was pretty successful by most accounts.

It's just that we haven't had a D&D branded CRPG in, what, four, five years? None that come to mind anyway. This is possibly the longest dry period without D&D CRPG's that I can think of. And, from what I've seen around, that has more to do with licensing issues with Atari than any success level of the games being produced.

 

[Riley]

Hmm, so this is where "DDM spoilers.com" went. Thanks.

And I don't want the pre-paints, I am capable of painting myself if I need to, but others might find that useful. However there are better repaints than prepaints all over the place, and some simple if people wanted to try themselves.

Now looking at some of them with decent images, I have to ask is it still that same plastic used for the prepaints so that it would take the paint, or is it rigid. Still poly-vinyl, or is it polystyrene?

Looks like some are warped like the originals with the hollowed out bases, meaning repainting, well painting them to begin with, will be jsut as tedious to prep them.

They seem to be pretty similar plastic to the old ones. I did a quick and dirty paint job on a couple Blazing Skeletons with Citadel paints and no prep work, and I had no issues. And they looked great, given the minimal effort involved.

Your mileage may, of course, vary.

 

[shadzar]

They seem to be pretty similar plastic to the old ones. I did a quick and dirty paint job on a couple Blazing Skeletons with Citadel paints and no prep work, and I had no issues. And they looked great, given the minimal effort involved.

Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Well they finally listened about selling unpainted minis, and we have gone WAY off-topic, but thanks for the info on them.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Um, you're complaining that a company might change it's plans when market conditions change?!?!?! That's called a company that's more likely to stay in business.

No. I'm pointing out that anything WoTC says has to be taken with huge grains of salt because internally they don't know what they're going to be doing 2-3 months down the road and next months' compiled Dragon magazine becomes next months' random collection of articles, for one example.

For better or worse, market condition effect the company on many levels and trust, for me at least, is one of the casualties given over to 'friendly fire'.