Gamehackery: What Does the Subscription Boom Mean to Gamers?

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.

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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?)

 

[Morrus]

Adventure paths make for common subscription products (EN World has three); they really are a great way of handling it. There's a couple of models - pay it all up-front and then get the content periodically (the standard magazine model); or pay a small recurring subscription to continue receiving content (which is how DDI does it). The important thing, IMO, is to ensure the customer gets to keep anything acquired that way - no "renting" of products, or access only available through a specific manner.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Very simply, subscriptions are good for the seller and bad for the buyer. In the context of gaming anyway; my cable subscription makes sense because I know I'm going to watch TV every month and I know there will be something to watch. Heck, I know I'll need toilet paper, too.

With a gaming subscription, though, I don't know when I'll be able to play, and there's no assurances that any particular company will put out something that's worth paying for at any particular time. And the great thing for the company is that if they get you to subscribe during a period of high gaming or to get discounts on some good content, there's a strong chance that the customer will be patient and continue to pay a nominal fee even under less ideal circumstances.

I absolutely will not pay a subscription fee for any rpg products. I'll actively combat any attempt to monetize rpgs through that route. When it comes to gaming, I evaluate a specific product, and only if I am fairly impressed will I put forth a small amount of money for the ability to permanently own it.

 

[delericho]

I am fairly stunned that we haven't seen a collapse in DDI subscriptions in the last six months. I keep expecting it to happen, but those numbers just keep going up.

I agree (and have said in the past) that subscriptions are the way of the future. Indeed, it looks like Kickstarter may be the method of choice for funding a one-off product (or limited-size product line, with things like GM's screens as stretch goals), while the subscription becomes the model of choice for ongoing lines, such as D&D and Pathfinder.

And I don't have a problem with that, not in the slightest. After all, the alternative would probably be the cancellation of the product lines entirely, and nobody benefits from that. The one thing I do very much hope to avoid, though, is any required subscription. Indeed, even the 4e Character Builder skirts the line a bit close, IMO; it's sufficiently good that I wouldn't play 4e without access to it. So, yeah, make the subscription something it's nice to have, and I'll be delighted; make it something required, and I'll stick with what I've got.

As for what I'd be willing to subscribe to... things to make prepping and running my game easier. A top-quality Monster Builder would be ideal (especially if I can modify it with my custom house rules). Campaign management software would be good, too - something to track the passage of days, to lay out NPC plots and schemes, to create handouts quickly (with a bank of built in art; otherwise, I can just use Word), to create item cards (or spell cards, or...). Oh, and an electronic character sheet, complete with buff/debuff management handling, would be excellent - several of my players have moved to using an iPad for SRD lookups, so moving to an electronic character sheet is the next logical step.

There's a big but to all this, though... I play 3e, and the more I hear about 5e, the less likely it sounds like I'll make the switch. So, WotC, how are you going to square that circle?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Very simply, subscriptions are good for the seller and bad for the buyer.

This sort of blanket assertion really gets me frustrated. I'm not saying that subscriptions are never bad for the buyer; I just don't think that they must be.

I played 4e for years. The digital services provided by DDI are very valuable to me -- even though DDI doesn't have everything that I would like it to have, it's still very good.

• The character builder is an incredibly valuable resource. As a player, it makes it much easier to make characters. As a DM, it means that I don't need to double check my player's math every week to make sure they aren't making mistakes.
• The Compendium is incredibly handy, and being able to quickly look up any reference -- including those from books that have just hit the street -- is new, and worth my money.

Those two alone -- nevermind access to the adventures, art, and other character options that come as the content part of the subscription -- for me DDI was a VERY valuable subscription. The content alone might not have been worth paying for, but when you add the tools, I'm in.

My subscription to En World gives me tools that I use pretty heavily -- search, etc -- but in the case of En World, it's much more important to me that the subscription supports the community, keeps the lights on, etc. Again, that has a lot of value for me, and I don't think it's bad for me as the customer.

A content subscription -- like the adventure paths that Paizo and En World offer -- I also see value in those for the consumer.

I absolutely agree that there are some cases where the subscription is a terrible idea. And some programs designed to hoodwink and abuse the customer. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who got into big trouble as a young teenager with a Science Fiction Book Club membership. I mean, they were demonic.

But insisting that subscriptions are always bad for the customer is just too broad a brush. I think there are excellent examples -- in the gaming industry -- where subscription services are good for both customer and business.

-rg

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Holy crap, the Science Fiction Book Club still exists! Someone start sharpening stakes, we need to put those vampires down NOW!

 

[Ahnehnois]

This sort of blanket assertion really gets me frustrated. I'm not saying that subscriptions are never bad for the buyer; I just don't think that they must be.

I was talking about game content subscriptions only; you may still disagree with that assertion and find it overbroad, but I think it's generally (if not in every conceivable circumstance) true.

I played 4e for years. The digital services provided by DDI are very valuable to me -- even though DDI doesn't have everything that I would like it to have, it's still very good.

I don't doubt that it's useful. However, I would not pay a fee to use it. The market standard is to have the rules available online in a user-friendly format for free. There are also a number of good free character builders and other resources for various systems out there. Charging for things that should be free is not cool.

My subscription to En World gives me tools that I use pretty heavily -- search, etc -- but in the case of En World, it's much more important to me that the subscription supports the community, keeps the lights on, etc. Again, that has a lot of value for me, and I don't think it's bad for me as the customer.

This is very different from an rpg subscription, though. With an ENW site subscription, you know what you're getting in terms of services, and you can use it any time you use message boards, as opposed to when you can get a group of people together for several hours to game. A much lower barrier of entry. So if you use ENW a lot, it's probably a good investment. For me, it's on the list of things that I might conceivably spend money on if I had more money (whereas I wouldn't pay for DDI or a Paizo subscription even if I was rich). But it's also very important to note that ENW is free; the subscription is a premium addon. If an rpg released a free SRD and had some campaign managing software or character building tools as an addon for high volume users, that would be a reasonable model in my mind. The subscription isn't to the rpg itself, and isn't intended for the general consumer.

A content subscription -- like the adventure paths that Paizo and En World offer -- I also see value in those for the consumer.

I really don't. It seems to me that Paizo subscriptions are a perfect example of a company taking advantage of customer loyalty and making a ton of money while putting out products of mixed quality and utility (keeping in mind that I actually like Pathfinder). But I'm cool with Paizo because they're not requiring you to subscribe in order to play the game. You can use the PFSRD for free or buy books individually; the subscription is an addon for people who really want it, and generally these are people who know what they're paying for and aren't being taken advantage of. I would not recommend anyone "buy in" in that way, but they're not closing the door on me as a customer as much as with the DDI model (which I suppose is also an addon, but there's no SRD, no free-to-play).

I absolutely agree that there are some cases where the subscription is a terrible idea. And some programs designed to hoodwink and abuse the customer.

To me, there are some great products being put out in the rpg industry. But the big players are not doing well. WotC has crashed, and Paizo is treading water (this is my critical opinion of product quality, not my guess as to their profit margins). I used to buy rpg products regularly, but my purchasing has waned for a variety of reasons. I think those companies should be putting out better materials for less, period. Much better for a lot less. In that context, the idea of trying to get me to pay for a subscription is lunacy.

But insisting that subscriptions are always bad for the customer is just too broad a brush. I think there are excellent examples -- in the gaming industry -- where subscription services are good for both customer and business.

I have a hard time seeing that. Getting groups of people together and finding large time slots for rpg playing is hard. A subscription could conceivably make sense only if it gets used regularly, and I don't see any reason this would ever be the case for the average rpg player. Sure, some people make a regular weekly game for decades, but most of us have other obligations.

Furthermore, the nature of the gaming hobby is that the usefulness of adding new content diminishes over time. Once you have a working ruleset, you generally don't want to relearn things constantly. Incremental revisions are okay (and more of them would be a positive development for the industry, IMO), but minor revisions to the basic system aren't enough to sustain a subscription business, and major revisions can't be done frequently enough to justify subscription. Expansions to new rules subsystems create rules bloat and feed into smaller and smaller niches. Content production outpaces demand as players and DMs learn how to improvise and homebrew. Experienced players either lock in to one game, acquire all the content they need, and drop out of the marketplace, or they expand to new systems (which wouldn't fall under the same subscription). Playing an rpg isn't about acquiring content, it's about learning skills. That's the contradiction of rpgs-the deeper you are into one and the better you know it, the less you need to spend money on it.

This is different from, say, underwear and toilet paper. Using these things does not reduce your need for more of them later. Also, they don't last as long as dice.

The macro level reality here is that I don't think anyone's really cracked rpgs as a business. And given the nature of how they work, I don't see any reason why rpgs would ever be any more profitable than they are now. So I resist attempts to monetize them in new ways because I like having a hobby that doesn't waste my money.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

The market standard is to have the rules available online in a user-friendly format for free. There are also a number of good free character builders and other resources for various systems out there. Charging for things that should be free is not cool.

I'm not sure I agree that there's a "market standard" like this. Certainly there are free character generators for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. I'm especially fond of PCGen because I'm a huge fan of open source projects. But is the same true for every game system?

And even if there are -- why is it "not cool" to charge for something you've created?

If you've created something -- whether it's a character builder, an adventure, or a new game -- don't you have every right to charge for it? If the utility and quality are good enough, shouldn't a provider have the right to try to charge for it?

DDI provides a character builder and the compendium for 4e; but it's still entirely possible to buy the books and not subscribe. Plenty of people are subscribing, though -- why is that not cool?

It's one thing to say "I wouldn't buy that." It's quite another to say "That shouldn't be a paid product." It's the equivalent of saying "I don't like fish, so fish shouldn't be sold."

It seems to me that Paizo subscriptions are a perfect example of a company taking advantage of customer loyalty and making a ton of money while putting out products of mixed quality and utility (keeping in mind that I actually like Pathfinder). But I'm cool with Paizo because they're not requiring you to subscribe in order to play the game. You can use the PFSRD for free or buy books individually; the subscription is an addon for people who really want it, and generally these are people who know what they're paying for and aren't being taken advantage of. I would not recommend anyone "buy in" in that way, but they're not closing the door on me as a customer as much as with the DDI model (which I suppose is also an addon, but there's no SRD, no free-to-play).

Is there someone who does require that you subscribe to play their game at this point? It's still entirely possible to buy the D&D books, download a character sheet and make your characters by hand. Lone Wolf Studios produces the Hero Builder which has a 4e data set -- for a one time fee you could make 4e characters without a subscription in a nice, digital way. I'm not sure that there is an example at this point of a game that requires a subscription to play.

In the future? That might be the case. Certainly the companies like the idea. I'd bet that they try to edge us closer. Bottom line, though, in the gaming industry like any other, your dollars are your votes. If you don't want to spend money, you opinion doesn't make much impact on the companies producing products.

I have a hard time seeing that. Getting groups of people together and finding large time slots for rpg playing is hard. A subscription could conceivably make sense only if it gets used regularly, and I don't see any reason this would ever be the case for the average rpg player. Sure, some people make a regular weekly game for decades, but most of us have other obligations.

I'm one of those who has had a group together for regular gaming for many years. Believe it or not, I manage to do that without shirking my other obligations. Am I the minority?

Furthermore, the nature of the gaming hobby is that the usefulness of adding new content diminishes over time. Once you have a working ruleset, you generally don't want to relearn things constantly. Incremental revisions are okay (and more of them would be a positive development for the industry, IMO), but minor revisions to the basic system aren't enough to sustain a subscription business, and major revisions can't be done frequently enough to justify subscription. Expansions to new rules subsystems create rules bloat and feed into smaller and smaller niches. Content production outpaces demand as players and DMs learn how to improvise and homebrew. Experienced players either lock in to one game, acquire all the content they need, and drop out of the marketplace, or they expand to new systems (which wouldn't fall under the same subscription). Playing an rpg isn't about acquiring content, it's about learning skills. That's the contradiction of rpgs-the deeper you are into one and the better you know it, the less you need to spend money on it.

I would absolutely have no trouble with anything you're saying here if you were only talking for yourself -- or maybe the subset of gamers that you belong to. If you'd said "Once I have a working ruleset" that's awesome, I get it.

I, personally, enjoy the evolution of the game system, and I'm often mixing in new elements and features, even when the game isn't changing. My players enjoy experimenting with new classes and options. This isn't saying that your position is wrong -- just that it's not the only point of view.

The macro level reality here is that I don't think anyone's really cracked rpgs as a business. And given the nature of how they work, I don't see any reason why rpgs would ever be any more profitable than they are now. So I resist attempts to monetize them in new ways because I like having a hobby that doesn't waste my money.

I wish I had access to better data -- to be able to either agree or disagree with you with some sense of certainty. I think it's a tricky, complex business, with a shrinking customer base. But there's still plenty of opportunity for small companies to live and thrive in the long tail.

My suspicion is that Hasbro's need for a revenue stream of a certain size -- and therefore a fan base of a certain size -- creates a need for a level of success that is difficult to achieve given the current models. Paizo seems to have done quite well for themselves, being able to carve out a customer base for themselves based on fan loyalty -- but they are a much smaller company and need a lot less to be successful than Hasbro/Wizards needs.

Other, much smaller companies -- maybe Pelgrane, Pinnacle, etc -- they can succeed with even smaller customer bases.

So, when you say "no one has cracked it" -- I think success looks different from a lot of different points of view. But I think that their idea of success (making a comfortable living for the right number of employees) and yours (creating a game that I enjoy that doesn't cost me too much) are so different that it's going to be hard to find a balance point.

-rg

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not sure I agree that there's a "market standard" like this. Certainly there are free character generators for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. I'm especially fond of PCGen because I'm a huge fan of open source projects. But is the same true for every game system?

No, but I think it's fair to say that Paizo is setting the standard for the rpg market right now.

And even if there are -- why is it "not cool" to charge for something you've created?

If something cooler (or as cool, or even close to as cool) is available for free, then charging for it is not cool. If the cost to the consumer is unreasonably high compared to the cost to the producer, that's also not cool. If the cost to the consumer is monthly, but the cost to the producer is one-time (with, possibly, minimal upkeep), that's not cool.

DDI provides a character builder and the compendium for 4e; but it's still entirely possible to buy the books and not subscribe. Plenty of people are subscribing, though -- why is that not cool?

Mainly because there's no SRD for people who don't want to pay anything to start. Again, open gaming is the gold standard. Regardless of what a company's rights are, why should we settle for less? Wouldn't you rather that the same content you pay for would be available for free? And isn't that a realistic expectation, given what Paizo is doing, and what WotC did while it was using the OGL? And how much does it really cost to produce rpg content?

It's one thing to say "I wouldn't buy that." It's quite another to say "That shouldn't be a paid product." It's the equivalent of saying "I don't like fish, so fish shouldn't be sold."

Logically, I agree with your argument. The reason I'm so demanding of WotC is because I consider D&D to be the most popular and culturally significant rpg, and thus them to a significant extent the caretakers of the hobby. (Also, I believe fish shouldn't be sold because of the harm that fishing causes, regardless of whether I eat them or not, but that's a tangent). But yes, the companies can do what they want. But I won't pay a subscription fee. That's what I'm trying to say.

Is there someone who does require that you subscribe to play their game at this point?

No. This thread is about future directions, and we're talking about intermediate steps in that direction. DDI is not charging to play the game, but it is charging for things that are similar to what was previously free, and thus is such a step. It is worth noting that in other arenas, the battle between different business models for gaming, subscriptions among them, is quite pitched, and consumers are getting taken advantage of in some cases.

If you don't want to spend money, you opinion doesn't make much impact on the companies producing products.

You're right about that. I've made efforts to "vote with my money", by supporting low-cost, open content products, but unfortunately I don't have as much money to spend as I did a few years ago (or hopefully will in the near future), regardless of what the marketplace is doing. C'est la vie.

I'm one of those who has had a group together for regular gaming for many years. Believe it or not, I manage to do that without shirking my other obligations. Am I the minority?

I believe so. Not that that's a bad thing; I envy that. It would be great to have a gaming group meet on a regular basis over a long period of time. But I think that realistically, there are a lot of intermittent, transient, part-time, and lapsed players out there. My own perspective is that I've had some consistency in players over the years, but it's getting tough to make regular sessions, and I don't see it getting easier, and we don't even have kids.

I, personally, enjoy the evolution of the game system, and I'm often mixing in new elements and features, even when the game isn't changing. My players enjoy experimenting with new classes and options. This isn't saying that your position is wrong -- just that it's not the only point of view.

I'm always tinkering with new rules myself, but I find it unlikely that, even in a diverse range of perspectives, many people will have a constant high demand for gaming products over a long period of time. Some demand for some, very little for others.

I wish I had access to better data -- to be able to either agree or disagree with you with some sense of certainty. I think it's a tricky, complex business, with a shrinking customer base. But there's still plenty of opportunity for small companies to live and thrive in the long tail.

That's true. I don't know about big companies though.

So, when you say "no one has cracked it" -- I think success looks different from a lot of different points of view. But I think that their idea of success (making a comfortable living for the right number of employees) and yours (creating a game that I enjoy that doesn't cost me too much) are so different that it's going to be hard to find a balance point.

Having observed an erosion in the quality of the gaming market (from my perspective, perhaps not WotC's). I think it's really important to be an active consumer. I understand that inflation happens, but when I see the quality of products for my game of choice going down and new costs appearing, I think it's important to fight back. As is our broader reality in the modern world, when our interests as individuals are opposed to those of institutions, we have to dig in and fight, or those institutions will walk all over us.

 

[Morrus]

No, but I think it's fair to say that Paizo is setting the standard for the rpg market right now.

The market leader doesn't set the standard. The market leader sets the high water mark. If others were able to do what the market leader does, they'd be the market leader. Expecting the entire industry to match the market leader is not a reasonable expectation, IMO. So I can't agree that Paizo is setting the standard for the RPG market.

Anyhow, that's by-the-by. There is no standard, at least in the context you're discussing one. While you clearly have personal expectations, those are not in any way a standard.