D&D Insider - how many subscriptions? (and speculation on profitability)

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the problem is people underestimate the amount of time and effort that goes into creating an application like CB. It just ain't that easy, and it isn't all that cheap either. I do this stuff all day every day and just as an off-the-cuff estimate you're talking 3-5 hundred k to make a good solid complex web app or .NET app with no problem at all. Now, we can be pretty sure they have say 50k subscribers and thus something in the $3 million a year gross revenue. So maybe they can afford to put full steam ahead on 2 or possible 3 apps at a time if they just churn all the margin back into the product, which they may well be doing. The thing is no matter how much you spend on application development it only goes so fast. If they're going full speed on bringing CB up to snuff and full speed on the VTT then MAYBE they also have the added bandwidth to be working on MB at the same time, and maybe not. If takes 6-9 months to get one of these apps up in rough shape and another 3-6 months to really polish it then we can expect CB will be about finished in say another 3 months, and the VTT maybe in another 6 months, and MB might be 9-12 months out still. Of course for every app you finish you lose a bit of steam because you now have to support it as well, which means you can only ever at most end up with so many apps total. They may also be working on just general DDI stuff too if say they want to enhance the way that works and more closely integrate the community with DDI (for say things like sharing monsters and characters and being able to have campaign wikis and whatnot that dovetail into all that, or my pet theory of self publishing and whatnot). I think we'll see a LOT of evolution over the next 2 years, but it is not going to be a lightning fast process.

 

[darjr]

I suspect a lot of the problem is unfamiliarity with software design. WotC has a lot of experience as a book publisher, a fair amount in other forms of physical publishing (magic card, board games), but virtually none in the electronic area. Sure they could hire a contractor to do it, but that went horribly the first time.

Just to quickly note that I think the new VTT has been outsourced. That is an external group is working on it. I don't have a link handy, but I'll try and dig it up.

 

[Shemeska]

A quick thought before I run home...

But what is the chance that WotC/Hasbro is waiting to make sure that the subscriber count for DDI is somewhat constant/predictable before they start throwing more $$$ at the project(s)?

Pretty high IMO.

I'm not sure that they've had the money to throw at the project for a while now, which is why it has frequently been speculated upon as being run on a skeleton crew / scarce resources, etc. Unless something changed in the interim, after the Gleemax and original DDI debacle, Hasbro wasn't giving external funding: it had to be provided internally to WotC as I understand it. So any investments on improvements have to essentially be self-producing.

If the money isn't there to fund those improvements and quality of product is a complaint we keep hearing, it makes me question if either DDI subs are not at a level to provide them with the needed funding for improvements, or if they're being siphoned to prop up the bottom line of other portions of D&D. I don't know, and unless someone wants to break NDA, we probably won't know.

That said, I no longer know anyone working internally with DDI, so this is my speculation here for the last half.

 

[Shemeska]

Just to quickly note that I think the new VTT has been outsourced. That is an external group is working on it. I don't have a link handy, but I'll try and dig it up.

Gametableonline.com is that group I believe. WotC has worked with them previously for some smaller stuff associated with Gleemax.