A Technical Look at D&D Insider Applications

[Scott_Rouse]

Fusangite's point is that the large print houses and distributors refuse to allow a publisher to distribute PDF's at any price point below the printed version. WotC isn't the only publisher who's hit a roadblock with this policy - White Wolf is affected as well.

I am quite sure this has been said before in other posts/threads. If you just want to buy the PDF that will be available for full MSRP. I am not sure how many will take advantage of this as the book/e-book is such a better value.

 

[Kraydak]

Because the user will have to enter name, address, verifiable email, and a payment method into the e-commerce/account system to activate the book we will have very good records of tracking each code. We have been doing this with Magic online for years

I guess I'll try a last time. Of course you can track the activation of the code. However, in instances of illegitimate code use, being able to do so is meaningless if you can't also track legitimate ownership of the book. Which raises the question of why are you bothering.

....

Show me an example of any other major book publishers that is making this big of a leap of faith with their customers by providing e-books with every physical book they sell.

Baen books offers CDs with back libraries in some of their hardcovers. (and a free online library too! if anyone here hasn't tried it, do so!)

 

[Michael Morris]

I guess I'll try a last time. Of course you can track the activation of the code. However, in instances of illegitimate code use, being able to do so is meaningless if you can't also track legitimate ownership of the book. Which raises the question of why are you bothering.

My guess is to appease the aforementioned distributors and print houses. Wizards has a spider's web worth of contracts and obligations with it's IP many if not most of which I would venture that Scott isn't at liberty to discuss. For example, if the online tools become too robust Atari may be offended since they paid for the video game rights to D&D. The print distributors don't want PDF's to be available for less than the printed copy because they feel threatened by that (there mindset towards the digital age is not unlike the RIAA in many ways.

Baen books offers CDs with back libraries in some of their hardcovers. (and a free online library too! if anyone here hasn't tried it, do so!)

Good for them, and I guarantee that until they discontinue that practice they will never be able to secure a contract with a printer and distributor able to put their books out onto the market on a volumne anywhere approaching what the print runs for D&D are and will continue to be.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I guess I'll try a last time. Of course you can track the activation of the code. However, in instances of illegitimate code use, being able to do so is meaningless if you can't also track legitimate ownership of the book. Which raises the question of why are you bothering.

So what would you propose we do? Have any ideas on a solution?

Baen books offers CDs with back libraries in some of their hardcovers. (and a free online library too! if anyone here hasn't tried it, do so!)

Interesting. I will look a what they are doing.

 

[Kraydak]

So what would you propose we do? Have any ideas on a solution?

10ish$/month subscription fee. Access to entire your library (and rest of DI content). Works out to about a book/3months (+bonus material). No worries over ownership, no bad publicity of burnt customers whining to the rest of their group. Most people vastly prefer physical books, and will buy copies of the ones they want. Those who wouldn't, could get pirated copies anyways. You get the additional advantage of lots of people sampling books they wouldn't otherwise have purchased.

But above all, easy. Really, really easy.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Interesting. I will look a what they are doing.

Yeah, Baen books has really done some amazing stuff with those CDs. Plus, the content of those CDs can be freely distributed, or at least the ones I have contain such a notice. The only thing you can't do is sell them. The number - and quality - of the books they've made available is hard to beat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

10ish$/month subscription fee. Access to entire your library (and rest of DI content).

Do you mean "included with the price of your D&D Insider account" so that the online library of every WotC D&D book ever released is there, for virtually free, to anyone with a computer?

Or do you mean "for an extra $10/month," doubling the cost of a D&D Insider account, and cutting into everyone's "game expsense account"?

You could maybe get away with an "online library" that costs a monthly fee to access, that just carries the books. But realistically, they'd have to price this at about the same price as buying the books each moth would be -- about $40/month. And that's pricing people right out of the books, which are their core business.

WotC's business model isn't based on an expensive subscription for online content (yet). It's based on selling books out of bookstores. I don't think it's really that surprising that they're not offering every book for cheaper online than they are offering in the store.

Though perhaps it is backwards. Perhaps in 5-10 years, WotC will be selling library access at a $20/month fee, and charging $10 for a print-on-demand service? But that's kind of an extreme overhaul of how their business model works....

 

[Hussar]

Just a note about the Baen books. Something to not forget here is most of the books they are offering are NOT new. Occasionally they are, but, the vast majority are from the 90's. There is a significant difference.

Thanks Scott for your answers. And Morrus as well. I was unaware that distributors would not allow sales for less than book price. That explains a huge amount as to why WOTC pdf's are so expensive.

Why is this the first I've heard of this? I've seen people bitching about the price of WOTC pdf's for ages, yet this is the first time I've seen this explaination. Sigh. I need to read more.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

10ish$/month subscription fee. Access to entire your library (and rest of DI content). Works out to about a book/3months (+bonus material). No worries over ownership, no bad publicity of burnt customers whining to the rest of their group. Most people vastly prefer physical books, and will buy copies of the ones they want. Those who wouldn't, could get pirated copies anyways. You get the additional advantage of lots of people sampling books they wouldn't otherwise have purchased.

But above all, easy. Really, really easy.

Not so easy if you are trying to run a business who's primary function is to sells books that have an average MSRP of $25.

Using your plan let's say hypothetically that WOTC sells 1 physical book a month with an MSRP of $30. That is $360 a year in annual releases that you hope consumers will buy. The plan you propose offers consumers those same books electronically at 1/3 their cost (plus added game play tools and two magazines) for $120 a year. Not a good business model if you ask me.

 

[Nifft]

Interesting. I will look a what they are doing.

Baen previously offered "random packs" of e-books for a monthly price. (I put "random packs" in quotes because they weren't random, I just only knew about 1/4 of the authors, so it felt random.) You'd buy a digital set of 4 books at a time for a fairly low price. The books were mostly new, and the format was not encumbered -- HTML and PDFs.

You should definitely see what their experience was.

Cheers, -- N