It's not a coincidence that the new microsoft office (Office 365) and the recently announced Adobe Creative Suite (including Photoshop) are being offered as subscriptions (rather than products).
Everything is coming up subscriptions. You can subscribe to coffee, to tea, to cloud data services and to toilet paper.
No, seriously. You can subscribe to toilet paper.
So, it's no fluke that DDI was a subscription service. Don't expect that to change. From a pure business point of view, the subscription model is the most important development in the gaming industry in the past ten years.
View attachment 57483
Smoothing Out the Boom and Bust
The big advantage of a subscription program is that it creates dependable revenue streams for the company. It may not be more than they would get selling products, but it's a lot easier to plan for and manage.
They may lose some subscribers, or gain some, each month, but even those changes will follow on fairly predictable trajectories.
It also means you have an ongoing relationship with that customer -- making it easier to continue to offer them additional products.
A Subscription is a Relationship
A purchase can be fairly anonymous. A fistful of lawnmower money may buy a players handbook, but it doesn't forge a connection between the purchaser and the company that produce the book.
A subscription, though.... that's a relationship. It builds a connection between company and customer that the company can use to offer additional products and services.
It's also a data mine that just won't quit. The company has your name, your address; they can build a history of your purchases and study what you're interested in. In the case of DDI, they're able to track what classes are being created, what rules are accessed in the DDI most often, and can get a pretty good idea of how many active games are going by studying the number of characters that are incrementally leveled up in a given month.
What Will We Subscribe For?
Assuming that we don't expect Charmin and Mountain Dew deliveries from our favorite game companies, what sort of things are gamers willing to pay an ongoing subscription for?
To date, the DDI has proven that we're willing to pay for digital tools. Character Builders, Online databases of game rules and data, etc.
Over at Paizo, though, is a towering demonstration of the power of good content to drive subscriptions. Paizo, by the way, will let you subscribe to just about anything they're producing -- including their monthly card decks (mostly item cards, with play support cards like chase decks and critical hit decks mixed in).
And that's not all. We've seen dungeon-a-day and adventure-a-week. New magazines are appearing. Subscribe to Obsidian Portal or one of the other campaign managers to track your game.
Fiddling with Knobs and Dials
So, the real alchemy that the brains behind the businesses we support is trying to strike the right balance of price and service for their subscription models.
For example, there's a limit to what we might be willing to pay to Wizards for DDI. From their point of view, any single individual's price point is not particularly interesting. They need to take a guess at what the numbers of their subscribers will be at each price point.
So, at the moment the price is $9.99. They've hit upon that price because they believe that more than half of the people who would pay $4.99 would also play $9.99, but less than half of those that would pay $9.99 are willing to pay 14.99.
Of course, they set that price during the 4e heyday, and now they're in the last trimester (we hope) of birthing their new version. But outside of the tabletop world, ideas about subscription services have changed. The Freemium/Free-to-Play model is becoming more and more expected across industries where a product's market position isn't so strong that there's no need for it.
"I want to Buy it, not Rent it"
Sure you do. And I don't blame you. But you're fighting a losing battle.
In typical subscription programs -- along the magazine model -- you get your content in the mail each month and it's yours to keep. But when we start looking at RPG Tools as a Service -- like DDI or Fantasy Grounds -- when your subscription ends you no longer have access to that data.
A subscription for a service offers so many benefits to the company (steady revenue, durable connections to customers, and awesome data) that it's critical for a company to propel you over those concerns. Maybe it's better price, or better services, or both. You can expect that companies with the necessary support structure to handle a subscription program of some sort to move in that direction.
What's more, as more and more products and services are available by subscription, fewer customers will balk at this sort of scheme. We will become used to subscribing to Microsoft Office, to Photoshop. It won't be unusual to have a subscription to underpants.
Other Models
Here are a couple of other example subscription services that make interesting models for potential RPG/Gaming services:
You've Got Mail
So, you tell me -- what's important for you in a service you'll subscribe to? Are you more interested in tools or content? What subscriptions do you maintain at the moment (besides your EN World subscription, right?)
Everything is coming up subscriptions. You can subscribe to coffee, to tea, to cloud data services and to toilet paper.
No, seriously. You can subscribe to toilet paper.
So, it's no fluke that DDI was a subscription service. Don't expect that to change. From a pure business point of view, the subscription model is the most important development in the gaming industry in the past ten years.
View attachment 57483
Smoothing Out the Boom and Bust
The big advantage of a subscription program is that it creates dependable revenue streams for the company. It may not be more than they would get selling products, but it's a lot easier to plan for and manage.
They may lose some subscribers, or gain some, each month, but even those changes will follow on fairly predictable trajectories.
It also means you have an ongoing relationship with that customer -- making it easier to continue to offer them additional products.
A Subscription is a Relationship
A purchase can be fairly anonymous. A fistful of lawnmower money may buy a players handbook, but it doesn't forge a connection between the purchaser and the company that produce the book.
A subscription, though.... that's a relationship. It builds a connection between company and customer that the company can use to offer additional products and services.
It's also a data mine that just won't quit. The company has your name, your address; they can build a history of your purchases and study what you're interested in. In the case of DDI, they're able to track what classes are being created, what rules are accessed in the DDI most often, and can get a pretty good idea of how many active games are going by studying the number of characters that are incrementally leveled up in a given month.
What Will We Subscribe For?
Assuming that we don't expect Charmin and Mountain Dew deliveries from our favorite game companies, what sort of things are gamers willing to pay an ongoing subscription for?
To date, the DDI has proven that we're willing to pay for digital tools. Character Builders, Online databases of game rules and data, etc.
Over at Paizo, though, is a towering demonstration of the power of good content to drive subscriptions. Paizo, by the way, will let you subscribe to just about anything they're producing -- including their monthly card decks (mostly item cards, with play support cards like chase decks and critical hit decks mixed in).
And that's not all. We've seen dungeon-a-day and adventure-a-week. New magazines are appearing. Subscribe to Obsidian Portal or one of the other campaign managers to track your game.
Fiddling with Knobs and Dials
So, the real alchemy that the brains behind the businesses we support is trying to strike the right balance of price and service for their subscription models.
For example, there's a limit to what we might be willing to pay to Wizards for DDI. From their point of view, any single individual's price point is not particularly interesting. They need to take a guess at what the numbers of their subscribers will be at each price point.
So, at the moment the price is $9.99. They've hit upon that price because they believe that more than half of the people who would pay $4.99 would also play $9.99, but less than half of those that would pay $9.99 are willing to pay 14.99.
Of course, they set that price during the 4e heyday, and now they're in the last trimester (we hope) of birthing their new version. But outside of the tabletop world, ideas about subscription services have changed. The Freemium/Free-to-Play model is becoming more and more expected across industries where a product's market position isn't so strong that there's no need for it.
"I want to Buy it, not Rent it"
Sure you do. And I don't blame you. But you're fighting a losing battle.
In typical subscription programs -- along the magazine model -- you get your content in the mail each month and it's yours to keep. But when we start looking at RPG Tools as a Service -- like DDI or Fantasy Grounds -- when your subscription ends you no longer have access to that data.
A subscription for a service offers so many benefits to the company (steady revenue, durable connections to customers, and awesome data) that it's critical for a company to propel you over those concerns. Maybe it's better price, or better services, or both. You can expect that companies with the necessary support structure to handle a subscription program of some sort to move in that direction.
What's more, as more and more products and services are available by subscription, fewer customers will balk at this sort of scheme. We will become used to subscribing to Microsoft Office, to Photoshop. It won't be unusual to have a subscription to underpants.
Other Models
Here are a couple of other example subscription services that make interesting models for potential RPG/Gaming services:
- Bespoke Post - Once a month subscribers are offered a "Box of Awesome". Past boxes have included wine decanter kits, a himalayan salt block, and high-end shaving kits. Subscribers can opt out of a monthly box if you're not interested.
- Freemium Services - like Dropbox or Evernote. Or Free-to-play games. (next week's column will look at micro transactions, so stay tuned)
- Quarterly - A wide variety of quarterly subscritions to themed boxes of odds and ends curated by interesting folks like Veronika Belmont (Tekzilla, The Sword and Laser)
You've Got Mail
So, you tell me -- what's important for you in a service you'll subscribe to? Are you more interested in tools or content? What subscriptions do you maintain at the moment (besides your EN World subscription, right?)
