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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Solvarn" data-source="post: 5374764" data-attributes="member: 59666">ResponseSuccessful businesses understand that one of the best ways you can gain market share is by creating a new market. The virtual tabletop and electronic content is the future of D&D. People will continue to play between paper and pen and online play. With creative marketing and solid support in place, you would see online players participate in RPGA events, but the electronic offering should and will drive the business forward. Offline electronic content won’t happen. Over the next few years you will begin to see many companies moving forward with cloud computing initiatives and a la carte transactions to access software. The advanced graphic artist uses Adobe Photoshop much differently than my wife does to crop photos; different people can purchase different access to the same program if the functions are decoupled, for different prices. This does nothing but add value for the customer, so they don’t pay for features they don’t need. People customizing the way they want their entertainment is a natural extension of what will happen in the software world. WotC has a vested interest in protecting their intellectual property and copyright; without it they have a miniatures line and some dungeon tiles. Before I get flamed to death, as time goes on, people that don't use the internet will be in the minority as far as stakeholders are concerned. They already are, but the realities of rural America are that many households do not have access to reliable high speed internet service. It would be a major failure if WotC made concessions as a company that risked the integrity of their intellectual property to satisfy a statistical minority of stakeholders. It is a poor business decision and seriously risks the success of the brand. This would affect everything from product quality and availability to the future of the brand in general. What WotC CAN do however is ensure that print material is cheap to obtain, made of good quality material, and available for purchase. The reduced cost printing methods that they are using now fits this mold. If you pre-order on Amazon you can get an Essentials books for something like $13.00 pre-release.  I understand the need is out there for an offline product that incorporates the data. I can’t see that the risk vs. reward of doing this offline pays off or makes sense. This type of software offering would have to be generic enough that it didn’t infringe upon WotC’s intellectual property, and I don’t know that the need would justify the development cost entailed. I also don’t know how something like this wouldn’t just be copied around. The best way to get something like this going is for a community collaboration of some sort, with open source code. If you don't have an internet connection, perhaps the electronic offering isn't for you and you should just buy the books. If you are a tabletop player that only uses a small fraction of the tools to convenience you, then the price point between the books and the electronic materials you do use should be comparable to someone that is using the virtual tabletop and taking advantage of electronic features, like miniatures, etc. There are tools that could be used by a DM then ported offline, think initiative trackers, etc but the majority of the data content should only be accessible server side. Think about how a terminal accesses a mainframe (i.e. weak computer with basic function accesses big computer with lots of power) and you begin to get the idea. As far as the economics and price point, I'm a business analyst not an economist. They would need to consult professionals to develop a viable economic model. Any shortcuts they take here, from not doing proper analysis (not understanding the scope, clear project goals, etc.) will just increase the likelihood the project fails. I think this is why projects have failed for the company in the past. What you do with your dollar at the end of the day is up to you.</blockquote>

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