Interview with Scott Rouse, Chris Perkins & Bill Slavicsek

[Jdvn1]

My thoughts (I'm still reading the thread. Great stuff! And I'm happy to see Scott post here--I certainly didn't expect that. We'll get his post count up in no time... ):

Our understanding at present is that the online content is set to replace the magazines. What factors were involved in the decision to replace one with the other, rather than to allow the two media - the online platform and the magazines - to co-exist?

Chris: Our online content plans will replace the printed magazines. That aside, we are still very much in the business of producing printed products.

Bill: I also want to take a moment to quell some related rumors. D&D is not going away. In no way do our plans call for the end of face-to-face tabletop gaming. We are not making an MMORPG. We will continue to produce printed, for-sale, published products.

I don't think they really answered the question here. The question isn't about the books and printed content in general, it's about the magazines. Why kill off the magazines? Why can't we have both? If they can't answer the question, I'd have appreciated if they said so.

Scott: While WotC staff may not be as responsive on the boards as we were in the past, everyone on the product development and business teams reads the boards regularly, and we often discuss the postings and suggestions in various team meetings.

Chris: That said, we’re working to make WotC R&D and Brand team members more accessible and visible online, and this interview is a beginning step toward that long-term goal. We’re excited by this opportunity and look forward to participating more fully in the future.

This is very good to hear, IMO.

What can an online platform offer to the customer that a magazine cannot?

Chris: We have a lot of ideas that we’re happy with, but let me turn the question around. What would you hope for? What would make this exciting and useful for you? Another question for the community: How much of the magazine content were you able to use in your campaign? How much work did you have to do to accomplish that? If this new incarnation of the magazines could encompass anything you could want, what would that be?

Isn't this exactly the type of information Paizo would have collected? They'd be good people to ask...

Would it be fair to say that the new platform will contain enough content to replace both DRAGON and DUNGEON magazines?

Bill: Yes, and more. The constraints of the printed page go away when we transfer this particular kind of content to an online platform.

And more? Either that'd take a bunch of writers and editors, or very little of the content will be balanced, I think. I wonder which.

EDIT: Someone pointed out the writing staff is already pretty big. And it is, but if WotC plans on releasing books with the same vigor as before as well as frequent online material, they may yet need more (or ask for a lot of submissions).

Chris: We expect some of the columns and features to continue, some to evolve, and new features to appear as well.

Gah! You can't tell us this and then not tell us whether or not our most favorite columns are going to die! I'm really anxious about Core Beliefs.

The big question: when can we expect to see the new online content?

Bill: Soon. As stated, Paizo keeps publishing until issue #150 and #359. We don’t want to get in the way of that. Keep an eye on our website for more details.

This is nice to know. September/October should be interesting.

Chris: We don’t foresee any lack of “previewability.” There will be ways to preview content and we will be testing a couple preview different options. It would be great to hear how customers would like to preview content. We have not come up with a solution for “portability” of content after your subscription has ended but we are discussing ideas with in our development team. We do not have a DRM solution yet but have a range of options available to us.

The best idea I can think of is a client (it may be an online client, maybe almost like a quasi-email thing) that updates itself with information.

Essentially, you make an account. For free, you can go to a "Previews" tab/folder and see all the content marked as previews. You may also have access to tables of contents. From there, you can choose specific features for, say $1 each, which gives you access to all current and archived documents in a feature. Say, you pay $1 for a month of Class Acts. For that price, you get all the Class Acts from that year and all archives. When the month runs out, your account just stops updating your Class Acts tab/folder. You can still access the information you had, but you can't get new information until you pay another $1. And, for 25 cents, you can get an individual article.

Then, say, there are 15 different features/tabs/folders available, and each works that way. You can pay $1 for any one feature or $10 for everything in a month.

For online tools (such as a dice roller or character generator, etc), those may be a bundle for $1/month, free with signing up, or free with any periodic (monthly or longer) purchase such that when the time period ends so does access to the tools.

EDIT: There may also be a distinction between submitted material and WotC material--maybe a price different or a separate bundle or something.

It has been said, both by fans and by those in the industry (including some ex-WotC staffers) that the magazines were an invaluable marketing tool during the run-up to 3E. Given that 4E is going to come sometime, how does this affect WotC plans to successfully market the new edition - or, for that matter, any other large product launches on the horizon.

This question, and its answer implicitly ignore the effect on third-party companies. That is, my follow-up question would be, "Dragon and Dungeon magazines were important not just to Paizo and fans, but to the RPG industry as a whole as a means to advertise smaller companies and their products. Does WotC have any plans to allow or provide advertising for other companies?" I see this as a highly important question. Again, I don't know if WotC can answer it, if they can't, I'd appreciate an acknowledgment of such. This question also doesn't answer someone else's question of, "What about prisoners, who don't have internet access?"

Regardless, I appreciate the time of the WotC employees involved and of Morrus. This interview did answer some of my questions.

 

[Truth Seeker]

I am sorry, I have been in the public service for 20+ years...I have seen events can shake people to the core and when it comes unexpectedly(myself included).

'Not surprised'? And who 'we'?

Morrus-First of all, were you surprised by the amount of emotion pouring out from fans in the last few days? What was the expected reaction from the online community?

Scott: No, we weren’t surprised by the reaction. We understand the emotions rippling through the community. In fact, there are a lot of people here at WotC that share those same emotions. Many of the people working on Bill’s team started their careers on the magazines, and it’s tough for some of them to accept the news. For those working on the online versions there is also a high level of excitement. We know that fans will have mixed reactions to this new format, but we hope that people will get excited as we begin to fully share the details of our plans.

 

[Truth Seeker]

At that point...that becomes useless to me.

Digital Rights Management. It basically is a form of copy protection that prevents you taking downloaded materials (songs from iTunes, PDFs from DriveThruRPG back in the day) and handing them out to all your buddies. (And, at the same time, preventing you from moving them between devices you own and might want to use them on.)

 

[Jdvn1]

I'd still like to know how the Digital Initiative is going to affect gamers w/o internet access.

My guess is that they'll have to rely on the compilation books that were mentioned.

 

[Agamon]

I gotta say, if this is true:

What is the likelihood of seeing new online material being compiled in hardcopy format - perhaps an annual magazine, book or compendium?

Bill: Sounds like a great idea! In fact, it’s been part of our plans all along.

...then my anger at WotC for what has happened is pretty much fizzled away. A print collection of the best stuff? Sounds pretty cool to me.

 

[Lanefan]

First, I'll add my voice to the chorus of thanks to Russ/Morrus for his work, and Scott-Chris-Bill for the answers.

Second, the answers given were, to me anyway, a good start...we now know there'll be hard-copy compilations, for example...but with one glaring exception: the answer given to "why can't the DI and print magazines exist side by side?" had nothing to do with the question. Russ, guys: want to try that one again?

Third, what would I like to see (and be willing to pay for, provided that once I'd paid for it it was mine to keep) in the DI:
- support for older editions as well as 3e and-or 4e when it comes...make adventures etc. easily convertible, for example;
- conversion information to allow material from any D+D edition to relatively easily be converted into any other edition (or ::dreaming here:: a conversion program???);
- tables for everything, that include everything but are sortable...for example, a table of magic items that includes every "official" item ever created but that can be asked to give any subset of items e.g. all weapons, or all items under 3,000 g.p., or all items official to Forgotten Realms; some such tables could be magic items, spells, feats, prestige classes, etc. - *this* is the "heavy lifting" that the DI could do best;
- adventure ideas, plots, and hooks (I'd prefer adventure *modules* still be hard-printed, preferably in the 1e format of the hard-card outside with the inside-cover map and the separate booklet);
- a random dungeon generator.

Fourth, what I'd ignore if it appeared in the DI:
- online gaming of any kind;
- character generation program (even if I were running 3e I'd houserule too much for this anyway);
- anything that wasn't mine to keep once paid for;
- anything that required payment by paypal.

A suggestion, too: if feasible, you might want to run low-bandwidth and high-bandwidth versions of the DI site; not everyone has high-speed access...

Lane-"one small voice in the chorus"-fan

 

[jujutsunerd]

As for me, if there's any DRM beyond watermarking I'm not buying into it. I don't appreciate being treated as a potential thief rather than a customer.

Also, when I buy something I *buy* it, I don't license it. So, I want content to be downloadable so I can use it after I've ended my subscription. (Excepting online services, obviously. Though, the *results* of those services (such as filled-in character sheets or whatever) should be downloadable.

As for the actual content, I was pretty happy with Dungeon and Dragon, so if it was in the mags, I want it online.

On the services side, I *might* be interested in tools to help me as a DM. I don't know what services I want, but I'm sure there are some I'd like.

Character creation is covered by pcgen for me, so I'm not interested in online tools for that unless they are:
a) easily expandable with my own custom classes/feats/etc
b) have pretty much unlimited storage
c) unbelievably much better than any of the current offerings

*edit* Forgot one thing. What I actually want the most out of DI is actual physical printed copies of Dungeon and Dragon delivered to me every month, or, possibly, available for purchase at every decent newsstand, comic shop, bookstore and game store...

/Jonas

 

[BadMojo]

At that point...that becomes useless to me.

Yeah. Not happy about the possibility of annoying DRM. The sad fact of DRM for any media is that the people who want to copy and distribute it illegally are going to be able to do so quite easily. It could easily turn in to a hassle for honest users of the content and a complete joke as far as deterring piracy. It seems like people are cracking DRM within hours of it being released.

I'm also not crazy about the idea of "renting" content unless the price is *very* low.

I know the information that can be released is limited, but it's really silly to say "we've been planning this for a year" and then turn around and answer "We don't know" to a series of really basic questions about the product. I would have felt better if they said "there are quite a few things we're working on, but we're not ready to share the details yet".

At any rate, It's nice to see some kind of acknowledgment of the concerns of a very large online community dedicated to WotC's products.

 

[Alnag]

What would make me subsrcibe (if I'd have credit card, which I have not... so no subscription here).

- Robin Laws. Make him write the column as there used to be in the Dragon at the beginning of 3e. Or some stuff like in DMG II. That is the true gem of gamemastering advices. Other stuff is important, but nothing which I would desperately need and wasn't able to create myself.

 

[Obergnom]

- anything that required payment by paypal.

Why? Is there anything especially bad about that payment method? I do not own a credit card (Not as common in Germany/my personal environment as in the US, as far as I know) and paypal provided me with a good method to pay for "credit card only" stuff like rpgnow pdfs...