An idea from the Eric Noah News Thread

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I use my laptop every game session. It sits to the right of me with an SRD open with one tab for every section I tend to refference a lot, and a couple of my more frequently used PDFs open in additional tabs. (I use firefox.)

Yeah, but I assume you have the SRD saved on your laptop -- or are you connected to SRD.org while playing? The model described here would require everyone at the table to have a laptop with internet access in order to reference rules, which I don't see happening. Admittedly that's an extreme case, and having online access to more rules than are in the SRD would make preparation easier for DMs.

Online-only gamers are another market entirely, of course.

And to look at it a different way ... imagine paying $120 a year to access the PHB, and if you stop paying the fee, your PHB goes away!

 

[painandgreed]

We go over the Flash thing all the time on photography forums. Just putting it into Flash is decent protection, but there is basically no way to prevent them from making copies if they can see it on the screen.

I like the virtual gaming table idea however. If they could come up with something like D&D online (idea-wise, not nessisarily graphics or UI-wise) that had actual DMs running their own dungeons for either pickup groups or regular players, that would be interesting.

 

[Scribble]

Yeah, but I assume you have the SRD saved on your laptop -- or are you connected to SRD.org while playing? The model described here would require everyone at the table to have a laptop with internet access in order to reference rules, which I don't see happening. Admittedly that's an extreme case, and having online access to more rules than are in the SRD would make preparation easier for DMs.

Both. I have it on my laptop, but normally use the wireless connection to just grab it online.

And to look at it a different way ... imagine paying $120 a year to access the PHB, and if you stop paying the fee, your PHB goes away!

I agree I don't know if I dig this option entirely, but he did say that physical books wouldn't go away. The subscription would be simply to give you access to the library online...

I kind of like Wizards making it's books available as PDF as a better option personaly.

 

[Hussar]

Giving this a bit of thought.

Perhaps something similar to the Valve model. You buy the basic program which gives you a chargen, adventure designer, gaming platform and the core three. With that program you also get access to the online library which you can then use.

Imagine being able to tap into that resource for playtesting?

 

[Glyfair]

Giving this a bit of thought.

Perhaps something similar to the Valve model. You buy the basic program which gives you a chargen, adventure designer, gaming platform and the core three. With that program you also get access to the online library which you can then use.

Imagine being able to tap into that resource for playtesting?

The real question is whether the subscription fee would be sufficient to support the project and upkeep. I'm not sure there would be enough interest to support those costs. Also, they'll have to take into account any lost sales of those products from people who choose to subscribe rather than buying the product.

 

[Hussar]

On the flipside Glyfair, I think that there would be a number of books sold because of the exposure online. Books that people start to use online, they may want to have offline, which could translate into more sales.

And, if they don't sell a book, at the very least they're still getting 5 bucks a month from someone who may only buy one or two books a year anyway. There are an awful lot more gamers out there who are not collectors and who only buy the core plus a couple. This hooks into that much larger number of people.

 

[Glyfair]

On the flipside Glyfair, I think that there would be a number of books sold because of the exposure online. Books that people start to use online, they may want to have offline, which could translate into more sales.

Honestly, I think the smallest overlap would be the group that finds the online library very useful, and those that prefer books in print.

Now, if it was a download and printable, that might be one thing. However, then piracy factors in.

Right now, I think the price would have to be much higher to even be considered. At $5 per month, you are losing out if the person buys 2 less books a year. That's without factoring in the costs of hiring people to do the web project.

 

[Hussar]

But, you are quite possibly gaining on the large majority of gamers that only buys two books a year at most, and one of those is non-WOTC. I think there is a very large segment of the gaming population that buys very few books. A group might own many books collectively, but, any single gamer there might only own two or three.

I dunno. You're probably right. I'm just hoping that the next edition will be far more technology friendly than the current one is.

 

[DaveTheMagicWeasel]

While I do like the idea of an online database of the books, I'm not sure it would work. There would be a market for it - but that market will mainly be DMs who use a laptop during game sessions. Thats not going to get enough subscriptions for it to be worthwhile.

On the flipside Glyfair, I think that there would be a number of books sold because of the exposure online. Books that people start to use online, they may want to have offline, which could translate into more sales.

I don't think that exposure would be of any greater value than those people who download the pdfs over p2p and then decide to buy a book they like. And wotc, while they may not like the downloading in general, get that exposure without having to pay to maintain a website of their own.

 

[Scribble]

Bringing this topic back up to the top because I noticed something similar in the news today...

Microsoft is apparently releasing the program it uses to create games for the xbox 360 to anyone who pays a $99.00 yearly subscription in the hopes that it will create more fan interest, by making fan made games available...

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it does seem similar...

But hey, maybe that's just microsofts pay edition of the SRD...