Ampersand: 2011 releases officially gutted

[Dice4Hire]

While I sympathize with all of you who are clinging to the idea of actual print material... we as a culture are moving on from it. Magazines are going away and being replaced with websites and blogs... books are being replaced with their digital versions on Kindles and Nooks. The need, desire and requirement for printed books is over. And if it saves time and money for D&D to follow that river towards the completely digital sea... then that's the way it's going to go.

All digital? That will be fun for the 30% of the world that has good internet access. Sucks for the other 70%. Try to remember that.

Granted, WOTC sells mostly to that 30%, but even still, a completely digital experience is still a long ways away.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And let me say that I'm not totally convinced of using digital tools only for gaming; not only do I prefer physical dungeon tiles and minis to computer screen with fuzzy tokens, but I'm also aware that sometimes your internet connection and software can be unreliable, too (e.g. we tried MapTools in one of the groups I game with, and it totally crashed in the middle of the session; not even our IT experts could save the day, and thus we gamed without a battlemap or minis/tokens).

Well, I wasn't talking the actual game itself being digital... I merely meant the manner to which you have access to the rules to play the game would be digital.(Of course, the VTT will allow people to play digitally if they so chose, but the rules themselves are still capable and geared towards the tabletop). And in that case... I still believe the number of people who can/will bring a smartphone, tablet or e-reader to their game table instead of a backpack full of books will only increase over time. The backpack will still hold the dice, tiles, minis, tokens and character sheets... but most rulebooks will be left home.

And as far as the whole book versus e-reader thing... yes, libraries and the books within them still outnumber their digital counterparts. But I would venture that those numbers are and will continue to swing in the other direction as we continue on over the next few years. It's the same reason why physical CDs and DVDs are dropping like flies... downloading on demand is easier, cheaper, and faster. And the book industry is following along right behind them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

All digital? That will be fun for the 30% of the world that has good internet access. Sucks for the other 70%. Try to remember that.

Granted, WOTC sells mostly to that 30%, but even still, a completely digital experience is still a long ways away.

That 30% is increasing every year. And like you say... if you sell 90% of your product to those 30%... you know which way the wind blows.

But I'm sure WotC will keep a token amount of product on the shelves for people to purchase for at least a little while... if I'm not mistaken, WotC has said that their intention was to keep the two Heroes books, DM Kit and Monster Vault on the shelves ad infinitum. So those folks outside of that 30% who can only access the game via ordering them and having them shipped will still have a base game to play with.

But if you think they're ever going to mass produce something like Arcane Power 2 in hardcover print format ever again, I'd say you were being way too optimistic. I just don't see it happening. The odds of the bottom falling out of the digital database access format is just too long to bet on in my opnion.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

I don't see e-readers as an obsolete piece of technology, anymore than a calculator is obsolete. Sure tablets and pc's can do more, with the right apps, but sometimes you want something that does one thing, and one thing well. Basic e-readers like the Kindle and regular Nook offer the storage capability of a pc (libraries of books stored locally) with a weight and battery life that a pc just cannot touch.

Tablets may be that bridge between the two (I myself can't wait for the Android 3.0 tablets), but for some things you just want that ready to go, simple device.

that 's the route my wife took. She saw my nookcolor, and loved it, but purchased the regular nook, as did my daughter, BECAUSE neither needed all the extra functionality.

The Halfling, off topic I know, but how do you liek reading pdfs on that Nook Color? Specifically how hard is it to read an issue of Dungeon or Dragon? I am considering a nook color, and D&D will play a bigger part in that decision than maybe it should...

Have you looked in to rooting that Nook? Since it is Android, it may already do what you want.

 

[JoeGKushner]

What does that even mean? I am a 100% sure that D&D ‘sales numbers’ will drop, because it won’t be traditionally publishing 2 to 3 books ever month ever again. They are moving to an online format that will make the idea of ‘sales numbers’ immaterial. They will only keep Essentials in the stores along with ‘fluffy’ books like campaign settings.
Everything else is moving online.

To be honest, it may not matter. BUT, as the OSR group has a booth at Gen Con, and Paizo continues to sell their core books at $9.99 PDF and in hard copy, and support the OGL, people, NEW gamers, tend to come in through print products.

WoTC taking their products off the shelves for months at a time while the competition is sharpening its axses? Especially competition that already has an easy in to lasped players n that they're publishing the actual system these lapsed players generally want to play.

And that's something WoTC has been trying to capture with the whole Essentials line and its numerous flashbacks to the older material.

 

[JoeGKushner]

WoTC also said that they were going to reprint the Player's Handbook with errata.



Using WotC words as a method to enact persuassion, especially with their recent track record, is akin to reverse psychology.

That 30% is increasing every year. And like you say... if you sell 90% of your product to those 30%... you know which way the wind blows.

But I'm sure WotC will keep a token amount of product on the shelves for people to purchase for at least a little while... if I'm not mistaken, WotC has said that their intention was to keep the two Heroes books, DM Kit and Monster Vault on the shelves ad infinitum. So those folks outside of that 30% who can only access the game via ordering them and having them shipped will still have a base game to play with.

But if you think they're ever going to mass produce something like Arcane Power 2 in hardcover print format ever again, I'd say you were being way too optimistic. I just don't see it happening. The odds of the bottom falling out of the digital database access format is just too long to bet on in my opnion.

 

[Zaukrie]

I have a Nook color. It is not a great pdf reader, I'd prefer a table the size of the iPad for that. But, I did read an entire issue on the Nook, no problem.

I would 100% either wait for the Xoom, or test the Nook.

For reading, I think the Nook is a better size (books and stuff). For other things, I'm thinking I want that Xoom or iPad2.

I have not yet broken the Nook, I'm confident B&N will be releasing an update in the next month or so that will allow me to use it more as a tablet than I can now.

It is a very nice piece of hardware (have not tried the audio yet).

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

I really don't know how to judge this new information. Two different scenarios come to mind:

Dark Clouds Gather
The turnover of D&D is dwindling. . . .

Sunny Side up!
We finally see the next step in the direction of digital, service-based D&D; they way RPGs will be published in the next decades. . . .

I find your "Sunny Side Up" scenario just as depressing as your "Dark Clouds Gather" scenario.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

For me personally... my response to the fact these books are cancelled is 'good riddance'.

I don't want a completely separate source of game rule information like books... a source that is in no way connected to the main trunk of D&D information, which is their rules database (until they get around to adding the info a month or so after it's been put on the shelves). In fact... it'd be nice to think that perhaps in a perfect world... a crunch article fully vetted by R&D would get posted onto the website and simultaneously get added to the Rule Compendium, CB, MT and VTT (whichever ones apply). THAT would be the best case scenario all around.

Man, I can't help but remember with fondness those days that the "main trunk of D&D information" were three books. They were called the "Player's Handbook", the "Dungeon Master's Guide," and the "Monster Manual".

Those were good times.

 

[lutecius]

And if it saves time and money for D&D to follow that river towards the completely digital sea... then that's the way it's going to go.

yeah, with their paranoia about piracy that actually made them pull the pdf versions of printed books (even those that were already online) and their track record with digital initiatives, I see that going very well.

somehow, I doubt many subscribers will buy the version of the "digital sea" they're heading to (more and more dependency on active subscription, fewer off-line services and buggier functionalities for the same price...)