Blog posts on DDI should be free

[Hussar]

No quite the contrary I support them by reading the work.

How does that work exactly? How much to they get for you picking up the magazine and reading it without paying? Are they specifically providing this content to you free of charge?

Hey, I don't really care one way or another. Fill your boots either way. But don't complain that you cannot access pay content for free just because you somehow feel entitled to read anything someone produces without paying for it and then expect a rousing pat on the back vindicating your feelings.

 

[evileeyore]

Sometimes I read the entire issue of Dragon while I was hanging around the store. In Barnes and Noble now I very often just bring magazines into the coffee shop and read them there, without purchasing them.

Leech.

People have been reading magazines for decades without paying for them. When you visit B&N or a large borders watch what people are doing at the magazine racks. They are reading them. Terrible people each and every one.

"Every one does it" is not a good excuse for leeching from a publisher. Leech.

 

[Mournblade94]

How does that work exactly? How much to they get for you picking up the magazine and reading it without paying? Are they specifically providing this content to you free of charge?

If it is not sealed, it is free of charge.

Hey, I don't really care one way or another. Fill your boots either way. But don't complain that you cannot access pay content for free just because you somehow feel entitled to read anything someone produces without paying for it and then expect a rousing pat on the back vindicating your feelings.

NO feeling of entitlement. The point of my post was not to read the crunch of DDI. It was if there were editorials specific to convincing players of the merits of 4e, then they are preaching to a choir. Don't know where the pat on the back part came either. You must be reading something far more into the text than was intended.

Leech.

definition: (assuming you are not referring to the worm: a person who clings to another for personal gain, esp. without giving anything in return, and usually with the implication or effect of exhausting the other's resources; parasite.

The personal gain is reading the article I guess? Exhausting resources? The magazine is still there. No resource exhausted.

Perhaps you are familiar with the bookselling business, but generally bookstores allow people to freely read magazines because they know people will walk away with one of them, which is better than none of them.

If I photocopy an article of a magazine to present to my class, am I also a leech because I am not requiring everyone to buy the magazine? I suppose so.

Yes I am a leech on the system. Laughable.

"Every one does it" is not a good excuse for leeching from a publisher. Leech.

There is nothing wrong with reading magazines on a bookstore rack.

How about when it is a book store managers decision to let people read the magazines in the coffee shop because it keeps people there longer and they may buy more.

Or the managers realize that when someone flips through a magazine and occasionally reads an article, they are more likely to buy it?

Or how about the book store itself. No one should read books in the bookstore? If it was a detriment on the business, no one WOULD be reading books in the bookstore. The bookstores allow it because they realize it generates business.

Are you telling me you never opened a book in a bookstore? Possible but unlikely.

Magazines just have to make sure they have enough content worthwhile for me to buy it. If they do not I read the article for which I am interested. My money will just go to the better issue. There is capitalism and competition for you.

Should we extend this to music stores allowing samples to be heard? Should we extend it to video stores playing a film in its entirety? Do you watch commercials during TV shows? After all it is the advertisers that make network television possible.

 

[Umbran]

Leech.

So sayeth The Rules:

"Keep it civil: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions."

Please, ladies and gents, let us not stoop to name-calling. And, if someone does so stoop, let us not dignify their behavior with responses, hm? Thank you.

 

[Dire Bare]

There is nothing wrong with reading magazines on a bookstore rack.

I'm amazed at the criticism you're receiving for flipping through a magazine at a bookstore. It's so, innocuous, the vitriol thrown your way just kinda stuns me.

I flip through magazines all the time to determine whether I'm going to purchase them or not. I do think it's kinda cheesy to sit down and read entire articles, or worse yet, the entire magazine . . . . but "cheesy" is about as far as I'd go.

Besides, if B&N and other bookstores had a huge problem with folks sitting down and reading books and magazines right there in the store without first paying for them . . . . why all the comfy chairs spread all around the store?

More on topic, obviously that's harder to do with an electronic format. Some online magazines have the entire print issue up for anyone to read without actually purchasing anything. Other magazines barely even put up article titles so you can get an idea of what's in the current issue. Most are inbetween.

Online Dragon and Dungeon, or more appropriately DDI (it's really one big magazine, IMO), do provide quite a bit to the nonsubscriber. They provide some free articles, they provide article "teasers" to give you an idea of what each article is about, and they give you a very clear idea what is inside each issue, including the month ahead!

I have no problem at all with what they have decided to keep behind the paywall. While I'm sure we can all differ in our opinions of which articles WotC would be "smart" to offer for free . . . they really do a good job with the online format, IMO. Not that there can't be improvements, but I'm a satisfied subscriber.

 

[Mistwell]

I understand browsing a magazine at the bookstore before deciding on whether you wish to purchase it.

I do not understand sitting down and reading the entire thing instead of purchasing it.

For the later, I would recommend you go to your local library. Good libraries get a wide range of magazines, and it's intended you read them there. That's to appropriate place to read an entire magazine without paying for it - not the bookstore.

 

[Mournblade94]

Yes that was pretty much my suggestion. I have not really explored DDI now because it seems like anything I would be interested in is behind the paywall. SO then they are indeed making parts of it free, which ultimately is all I was suggesting anyway. I must have been clicking all the wrong links. Most of it is brought to my attention by other people.

I understand browsing a magazine at the bookstore before deciding on whether you wish to purchase it.

I do not understand sitting down and reading the entire thing instead of purchasing it.

For the later, I would recommend you go to your local library. Good libraries get a wide range of magazines, and it's intended you read them there. That's to appropriate place to read an entire magazine without paying for it - not the bookstore.

For the record I probably never read a whole magazine in a bookstore. More likely what I do is read an entire article. If the magazine still has many more good articles I usually buy it, read it, and it litters my floor until my wife tells me to throw it away which I will not do incase I need to reference the article at a later date which I never do.

 

[Scribble]

As long as said read/unpurchased magazine isn't:

Read by someone in the can at the bookstore, and then put back on the shelf for me to buy...

or

Grubbed up with someone's grubby chocolate/diet coke/coffee/sweat/etc covered fingers in the cafe, then put back on the shelf for me to buy later...

I don't care how much of it they read in the store.


But if I get home an suddenly realize my new magazine smells like farts, and page 32 has a big chocolate fingerprint... I'ma be pissed.

 

[Crothian]

I understand browsing a magazine at the bookstore before deciding on whether you wish to purchase it.

I do not understand sitting down and reading the entire thing instead of purchasing it.

I would agree with this expect that many book stores I go to have large couches and comfy chairs and provide spaces for people to sit down and read in their store. I've seen people read full novels in stores and put the book back on the shelf and the people working their don't seem to mind.

 

[James Jacobs]

One bit of magazine biz lore: Once a customer picks up a magazine, they're much (maybe 50% or 75%) more likely to buy the magazine than if they didn't pick it up and look through it. From a magazine publisher's viewpoint, having the magazines for sale on racks in stores is INTENDED to get customers picking them up and looking through them, in the theory that once the look in there and like what they see, they'll buy it or (even better) subscribe. The VAST majority of a magazine's income comes from advertisements and then subscriptions anyway. Bookstore racks are really just publicity for magazines; that's why covers are so important—they're basically only grabbing the idle passers by and tempting them to look inside. Once you're a subscriber or buying the magazine, the cover's already done its job.

I can see the wisdom of allowing part of an online magazine be "free to view" as a result. If the entire contents are only visible once you buy it... how do you know you want it?