Dragon 427 posted and Upcoming Hiatus

[jodyjohnson]

Given WotC's track record with alienating business decisions, I wouldn't doubt that DDI will be history right after Next is released, giving 4E fans as much reason to despise WotC as 3.5 fans did with the release of 4E.

WotC Alienating Business decisions:

1. Creating Magic the Gathering and stealing my casual players
2. Selling out to Hasbro
3. Being a part of Hasbro
4. Releasing 3.0, alienating 2nd edition players
5. The OGL creates a glut of 3rd party product, alienating Store Owners.
6. Releasing 3.5, alienating 3rd edition players
7. Does not renew licensing agreement for Dragon and Dungeon with Paizo (extends agreement to allow finishing of the Savage Tide AP)
8. Move Dragon & Dungeon back in-house as digital only
9. No OGL for 4e, alienating 3rd party publishers
10. Releasing 4e, alienating 3.5 players
11. Pulling PDFs
12. Pulling the offline Character Builder
13. Releasing Essentials, alienating 4e players
14. Starting the Encounters program, alienating players without participating Local Gaming Stores
15. Announcing development on D&D Next, alienating 4e and Essentials players
16. Licensing a Gen Con exclusive Adventure - Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, alienating non-Gen Con attenders
17. Changing Encounters to a for-sale product, alienating Encounters DMs
18. Failing to announce definite plans for DDI beyond the launch of Next (in 2014 or 2015)
19. Announcing a hiatus (gap) in the Online magazines 4 months in advance
20. Releasing the final open Playtest packet as an incomplete game

I probably missed some. I'm surprised I'm still a customer.

 

[Alzrius]

Moderate. WotC did publish several 4E convention mini-delves into a single book (Dungeon Delves, I think it was called), and there's Dragon Compendium I from the 3E days, so they're not against compiling material for sale.

They weren't against the Dragon Compendium in that they allowed it to happen, but the impetus for that book's creation - as well as the actual task of creating it - was all Paizo.

 

[DaveMage]

Well, really, they can't.

I predict they'll kill DDI 4E support in order to push people to next. I suspect if they can get 30%* of the players to move, it pays for itself. If that's the direction, they'll wait until the last minute to announce, because if they announce now, I suspect a larger percentage of players will not only drop DDI, but they also won't switch to next.

*number pulled from my posterior

Maybe, but that's operating out of fear. If they are to that point, then they are likely doomed anyway (so they might as well level with their customers).

On the other hand, I wonder if the revenue generation of the brand being so low by comparative standards hurts these kind of things. Maybe it sucks for the D&D team to be working in the continual shadow of the ridiculously successful MTG.

 

[dd.stevenson]

They weren't against the Dragon Compendium in that they allowed it to happen, but the impetus for that book's creation - as well as the actual task of creating it - was all Paizo.

I mean, I could make a pretty respectable (if tendentious) argument that the impetus for 5E is mostly Paizo. So I'm going to urge that that isn't necessarily a disqualifier, here.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) On the other hand, I wonder if the revenue generation of the brand being so low by comparative standards hurts these kind of things. Maybe it sucks for the D&D team to be working in the continual shadow of the ridiculously successful MTG.

I would assume that this is a huge issue for the D&D team. They really don't rate internally. I mean, TTRPG D&D produces less than USD50M in revenue so its profits are probably in the order of USD500K to USD2.5M which makes it a small business.

I mean, I could make a pretty respectable (if tendentious) argument that the impetus for 5E is mostly Paizo. So I'm going to urge that that isn't necessarily a disqualifier, here.

Yeah, there's probably a reasonable argument to be made there. And if Paizo has grabbed the 3.xE market, perhaps it does make sense to try and grab the AD&D1E and 2E market which is why I keep thinking that NEXT is really PREVIOUS and we've gone back to 1999 and seeing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3E being designed. And it will be the extra modules, a la 2E's Skills & Powers, that will be targeted at the market Paizo has.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One would hope they're thinking along those lines, but with months to go until Next is released, you'd think they'd be trying to milk some more value out of 4e players with ongoing adventures in Dungeon.

Speaking personally as a continued DDI subscriber (with no intention of letting my subscription lapse)... I subscribe for three reasons, and three reasons only... the online Character Builder, the online Monster Builder, and the online Compendium.

I (like probably many other DDI subscribers) am in the middle of a 4E campaign. Right now, the online tools to help run that campaign mean much more to me than any new information I might get via the magazines. I have almost 5 years worth of Dungeon Magazine adventures at my disposal right now (and based upon the article archive for 'adventures', that's about 130+ to choose from). At this point in my 4E career I really don't need any more Dragon & Dungeon information. My campaign is chugging along and anything I might need to use to build on it I probably can find in the vast 5 year archives rather than somehow getting lucky with a new article popping up. Thus, the hiatus doesn't bother me a bit and doesn't affect the TRUE value of still being a subscriber.

I'm sure there are some others for whom the magazines were the actual draw to DDI (and not the three online tools)... but I would suspect they are in the vast minority. So long as the tools are still available and I still am running a 4E game that uses them... my subscription is worthwhile.

 

[Echohawk]

I'm sure there are some others for whom the magazines were the actual draw to DDI (and not the three online tools)... but I would suspect they are in the vast majority. So long as the tools are still available and I still am running a 4E game that uses them... my subscription is worthwhile.

Presumably, WotC can measure the number of downloads of each magazine PDF and the number of times each DDI subscriber logs in into the Character and Monster Builders. I'm not sure if they can easily track use of the Compendium with their current access model, but they must have a good idea of the importance of the tools vs the mags when it comes to DDI subscription income. That probably had an influence on the hiatus decision too.

 

[Ryujin]

4e is the first edition, since 1e, that I haven't bought all of the hardcovers for. I've relied heavily on the online resources and made use of many of the Dungeon adventures. Then they stopped compiling the Dragon and Dungeon pieces into a single download, which is how I used them. That's when I stopped bothering with them and I haven't gone back, since they started compiling them again. Now they're gone and my current 4e campaign was already on hiatus. As a result I disabled the auto-renew and won't be resubscribing. It was a near thing the last round, as it was.

 

[Echohawk]

4e is the first edition, since 1e, that I haven't bought all of the hardcovers for.

For editions before 3rd, that wasn't really saying much. AD&D 1st and 2nd edition only had thirteen hardcovers each, not including new covers and reprints. D&D 3.x jumped up to about 100 hardcovers, and I think 4e had 44, depending slightly on where you stop counting. That means 3.X edition had one and a third times the number of hardcovers of all other editions combined!

 

[Ryujin]

I don't include the various 'guides' as hardcovers (I only ever saw them as softcovers).