An interesting conundrum with the DI...thoughts?

[Imaro]

Okay so WotC pulled Dragon and Dungeon, and have stated that their upcoming DI will have replacement content for both magazines. Now I've also read where Monte Cook has stated that many at WotC thought the mags were to good a deal...especially when it came to adventures and they we're in fact cutting into WotC's profits. Regardless of whether his statement is true or false, it does at least inspire a little thought.

WotC publishes adventures...for $20 or more a pop.
WotC creates DI that also offers adventures(for what one would hope is a better deal than Dungeon).

Here's my point. Are WotC going to stop publishing adventures, because if not doesn't a conflict of interest arise? Wouldn't they do better offering the "best" adventures as purchasable products? Wider audience, greater profit, etc. Rather than putting them up on the DI? So if they get a really good adventure submitted for DI that they feel would make more money in print why would they put it on the DI?

Paizo didn't have this conflict, they didn't have a monopoly on "official" adventures and weren't, in essence, trying to compete with themselves. Just wondering if anyone else has thoughts about this.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Doubt it.

WoTC publishes a few adventuers under $20 too.

In addition, WoTC probably wants some of that cash from doing the compilations. Perhaps they saw Shackled City do well and were like, "Hell, we can do that."

Or perhaps adventuers will be mainly in the form of encounters or some other unseen yet format.

Way too early to tell.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Way too early to tell.

QFT.

Speculation can be fun and all that, but I think we need to wait this one out and see what unfolds.

Dave

 

[Mark CMG]

Now I've also read where Monte Cook has stated that many at WotC thought the mags were to good a deal...especially when it came to adventures and they we're in fact cutting into WotC's profits.

Link?

 

[CharlesRyan]

Now I've also read where Monte Cook has stated that many at WotC thought the mags were to good a deal...especially when it came to adventures and they we're in fact cutting into WotC's profits.

This is a fallacy.

In all my years inside the walls at WotC, the ONLY opinion I heard about the great deal Dungeon Magazine offered as a source of adventures was "Why the heck don't more people buy it?"

Dungeon was (still is, for another few months) a really great deal. The only frustration WotC felt about that was that relatively few gamers bothered to take advantage of it.

Thinking about it that way sheds some light on the DI and the magazine cancellation: WotC wasn't looking to "shut down" the "competition," but rather to find a way to bring the magazines' merits to a larger audience.

 

[Shadeydm]

So how exactly does you desire to reach wider audience mandate eliminating the magazine would you not reach a wider audience via two mediums instead of one?

 

[Hussar]

So how exactly does you desire to reach wider audience mandate eliminating the magazine would you not reach a wider audience via two mediums instead of one?

Because if they allowed Paizo to continue, then they would be directly competing with their own licensed product. A no-win situation.

If they started publishing themselves, they would be directly competing with themselves. Not a terribly brilliant business move.

Look at it this way. If you can move 10000 products in one channel and 100000 products in another, which one are you going to use? Would it make sense to double your expenses by maintaining such a small venue? You couldn't dual publish - put the same adventure in both the magazine and the DI, because people would complain. You'd need to put out twice as many adventures per month, with all the work that entails, just to reach a relatively small number of people.

Not that the above is necessarily true. It could be that the DI will flop and no one will read it. That's possible. But, they are banking that more people will avail themselves on the available adventures on the DI rather than Dungeon.

I would be very, very curious to see how many downloads the free adventures get from the WOTC site.

 

[delericho]

It strikes me that the DI may publish more short adventures, suitable for one or two sessions, leaving the medium-sized adventures ("The Sinister Spire") and longer adventures ("Expedition to Castle Ravenloft") for print products. That way, they're covering all the niches, but not in the same ways, and avoiding competing with themselves.

I base this on the idea that an adventure like "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" probably comprises a significant chunk of, if not nearly the entirety of, a full campaign. As such, the average group only needs (or can use) one or two a year. By contrast, shorter adventures are perhaps at their best when you need something to drop into an ongoing campaign, perhaps at short notice. Since you need to fit them into the campaign, rather than building the campaign around them, you need a far greater variety of adventures. Medium-sized adventures fall somewhere in between; I'm not quite sure how they place in the overall strategy.

I may, of course, be utterly wrong. But if I were constructing the overall 'adventure strategy' for Wizards, that's probably how I would look at it.

 

[Monte At Home]

This is a fallacy.

In all my years inside the walls at WotC, the ONLY opinion I heard about the great deal Dungeon Magazine offered as a source of adventures was "Why the heck don't more people buy it?"

Someone directly involved in the issue basically quit over it, so I'd say it was a pretty real issue. There have been influential people inside the company gunning for Dungeon since the beginning of 3E, if not before. I know because they told me so.

That said, I don't necessarily know or even really believe that that's the real story behind the Digital Initiative.


Edit: I don't know why my friend Charles is harshing on me, but there's no reason for me to be harsh back.

 

[JustKim]

Here's my point. Are WotC going to stop publishing adventures, because if not doesn't a conflict of interest arise?

Comparing it to the "conflict of interest" that arises with everything else they publish, no.

But in the case of adventures, I think it's pretty likely. The current $20 price is outrageous, the new formula WotC wanted to impress everyone with is getting older and showing its limitations, and adventures are reputedly just not that profitable.

I think WotC will stop publishing adventures again. Whether the DI actually has anything to do with it, well..