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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4757022" data-attributes="member: 40961">What I'm curious about, and will probably never know, is the degree to which DDI subscriptions trade off with book sales. I know that I'm certainly not going to buy any books of pure character material if I can get that material in the character builder. I'm not going to buy monsters if I can get those monsters in the compendium. This means that the $60 I gave them this year trades off with money I otherwise would have given them. Where this gets interesting for me is this: the pricing on the DDI has to take into account not only the cost of producing it but also the cost of trading off sales of the same information through other channels (ie, hardcover books). This means that for someone like me who trades off 100% (if its on the DDI, I will not buy it, ever), they might be losing money on my DDI subscription (depends how many books I would have purchased, however many, that's how much traded off). But for someone who purchases books even though their information is on the DDI, that person is an extra revenue boost. The price point for the DDI takes both of those into account, essentially meaning that people who buy a DDI subscription and also buy books are essentially subsidizing my access to D&D material by pushing the price point downwards. I have no idea what the actual sales data looks like, and probably never will. But I do think its interesting. Editted to add: there are other tendencies which affect this as well, such as a willingness to spend a certain amount of money per month on entertainment- I bet that the month I subscribed to the DDI, I spent less on other entertainment items.  But since then, I probably spend about the same per month, possibly meaning that I spend more on D&D accessories like adventures or dungeon tiles than I would if I were buying books.  Of course, some of that extra expenditure goes to companies other than Wotc.</blockquote>

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