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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Croesus" data-source="post: 5697048" data-attributes="member: 35019">I don’t see any difference here between online and offline versions – the publisher still has to convince enough people to make the switch, whether to new books or to an online subscription. Once people have switched, however, I think things do change substantially.Here online vs. offline has distinct differences. With online rules and tools, bringing in new players is both easier and more difficult. Easier in that many of us are comfortable having a computer walk us through character creation and, if the online tools handle much of the crunch during play, we won’t have to read through hundreds (thousands?) of pages of rules. The computer can handle much of that, with only the most hardcore players digging into the details. This has the potential to make it much easier to bring in a new player and get them gaming quickly.More difficult, depending on the pricing model – right now, I can loan my PHB to a new player so he can pick out feats or whatever. Buying an extra copy of the PHB for the group to share is a minimal one-time expense. Will I be able to do something similar with online tools, or will each player be forced to subscribe, with all the costs that entails? Having a recurring cost will make it noticeably more difficult to bring in new players.Much less of an issue with online, as print costs are removed or minimized. Development of new material for the existing edition would eventually be cut to nothing, but so long as this does not cause a mass exodus of existing customers before the new edition is released, that’s not a problem. The key is how long do you continue to support the old edition once the new one is released? Which brings us to...You’re specifically asking about how often a completely new edition should be released, but I see additional issues with a primarily online model. How often should existing material be changed? When changed, should the old material be kept available, or simply replaced, gone forever? And most importantly, when a new edition is released, how long should the publisher support the old edition before cutting it off? Too soon, and existing customers will be furious. Too long, and the publisher risks fracturing its customer base and impeding the growth of the new edition. Microsoft is a perfect example of the latter problem. Every time a new version of Windows is released, a significant fraction of its customers decline to change. Some refuse to change at all, most simply want time to assess the new software, work out incompatibilities, and ensure a relatively smooth transition. (Tangent: most users are not Microsoft customers. We are consumers, who use their software. But for most of us, someone else makes the buying decision, whether a corporate purchasing department, IT, or the OEM, such as Dell. As such, Microsoft pays a lot more attention to those folks than they do to users. I would expect such a distinction to not apply to RPG’s, but as I’ll explain below, there will still be conflicts between what we want and what the publisher provides.)Now Microsoft wants everyone to switch as soon as possible, in part for the boost to revenue from such purchases, in part so that they can stop supporting the old versions. Such support costs them money they’d rather keep or spend on other things. Similarly, an RPG publisher will want to stop supporting the old edition as quickly as possible. Even if they no longer produce new material, maintaining the online material and tools will have significant costs to the publisher. If, as the publisher expects, the customer base supporting the old edition declines significantly, at some point maintaining the old edition will cost more than it makes in subscriber fees. Meanwhile, the publisher is paying to support the new edition and frankly wants as many customers as possible to migrate so the new edition becomes profitable quickly. Just as with Microsoft, this creates a conflict between what some customers will want and what the publisher is able or willing to provide. With an offline model, such as we’ve seen for the past 30+ years, that’s not much of an issue to RPG customers. The publisher may no longer produce the older books, but we still have what we’ve already purchased. Nothing stops us from continuing to use these books, plus any offline tools we’ve created or shared, e.g., HeroForge. An online model, however, places much, perhaps all, the control in the publisher’s hands. And what’s good for the publisher may not be good for any specific gaming group.This, for me, is the crux of the problem. The more technology we build into our games, the less control we, as players, have over our games. Technology has significant benefits that I want, but also significant constraints I do not, e.g., my group might choose to only use rules and options that are supported by the publisher’s tools. Of most concern is the potential that instead of buying and owning an RPG, I’ll just be leasing it, ala a MMORPG. And if I’m leasing, the publisher can stop offering the game anytime it wants.</blockquote>

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