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Gamehackery: What Does the Subscription Boom Mean to Gamers?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 7650754" data-attributes="member: 17106"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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). </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 7650754, member: 17106"] 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 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. 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. 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). 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. 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. [/QUOTE]
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