Is print -> digital feasible?

[Ranger REG]

Al Gore invented porn?

Why is that so strange to you and not to me?

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Umm.

Yea. Adult Material seems to be doing really well.

In fact I read that Playboy has been struggling with Declining Sales while their Website is Churing out the Profits.

But aside from the Adult Industry (with a lot of barriers to entry to Brick & Mortar and Shelf Space Exist) I can't think of any good examples of Retreating from Print completly into Digital as working (yet).

Plus, WotC Track record on Digital stuff is ummm...

Craptastic?

The Dragon Archive had an unusable interface (Thank god they were all in PDF Format).

E-Tools, Well I've heard a few ideas what the E stood for.

Part of me really hopes this works out. That they are about to embark on a carefully thought out, well researched, well designed new frontier; leading the curve for the entire Magazine Industry.

Past experience tells me they are just rounding the curve on a straight road.

Maybe the DI will be good enough to make it the first on-line subscription service I'll use.

Probablly not.

I really wish all involved good luck.

If this flops (including Paizo's new gig) there's going to be quite a few good people without a Paycheck.

I'm just Chaotic-Pessimist at heart

PS Too late at night for spellcheck

 

[Nifft]

Can anybody think of case history where shifting something from a physical medium to a digital medium has gone well?

Dear Mr. Gled,

I read your letter to the editor last month, and felt compelled to respond.

The online media will never take the place of a letters column; publishers will never grant readers the ability to respond to each other in such a civilized intercourse, and the though of allowing readers to respond directly to each other without editorial censure? Ridiculous. My blood boils at the very idea.

I look forward to reading your reply in June's issue!

Sincerely, -- Mr. N

 

[JVisgaitis]

Yeah, rpgnow.com

 

[ThirdWizard]

Dear Mr. Gled,

I read your letter to the editor last month, and felt compelled to respond.

The online media will never take the place of a letters column; publishers will never grant readers the ability to respond to each other in such a civilized intercourse, and the though of allowing readers to respond directly to each other without editorial censure? Ridiculous. My blood boils at the very idea.

I look forward to reading your reply in June's issue!

Sincerely, -- Mr. N

Your post reminded me of when the local small town newspaper decided to add one of those sections where people fill out a form on a web page and they publish things people put in. It was full of angry trolls and flames, worthy of any internet forum.

 

[Deset Gled]

Dear Mr. Gled,

I read your letter to the editor last month, and felt compelled to respond.

The online media will never take the place of a letters column; publishers will never grant readers the ability to respond to each other in such a civilized intercourse, and the though of allowing readers to respond directly to each other without editorial censure? Ridiculous. My blood boils at the very idea.

I look forward to reading your reply in June's issue!

Sincerely, -- Mr. N

Mr. Nifft,

Thank you for your thoughts. I can certainly agree with you that there is a place for both the print and digital media. However, information provided by our fellow readers leads me to believe that the audiences for these media are isolated; the person who reads a newspaper every day is less likely visit CNN.com, and the person who likes to post on a music message board is less likely to read Rolling Stone. This would explain why a forced shift from one form of media to the other often does not bode well for any party involved. Of course, there well always be a small crossover audience that some companies may be able to convince to migrate, but these cases are the exception, not the rule.

Best regards,
Deset Gled

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

No, no, no. You can count the webcomic artists who make their living from it on one hand and have fingers left over. Trust me on this one.

-The Gneech

Just off the top of my head: Pete Abrams (Sluggy Freelance), Gabe and Tycho (can't recall their real names offhand) (Penny Arcade), Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary) (also supports, IIRC, a wife and four children), Fred Gallagher (MegaTokyo), Scott Kurtz (PVP) and, I think, Phil and Kaja Foglio (Girl Genius), Kristofer Straub (Starslip Crisis) and David Willis (Shortpacked!). The last is the one I'm least sure of.

Even with just the confirmed ones, that's six, and I'm fairly sure there are others I don't have listed there.

I know Rich Burlew still writes gaming material, but I'd be quite curious how much of his income comes from Order of the Stick, between the print collections of OotS, the board game, etc.

 

[pawsplay]

I can't remember the last time I looked up a movie showtime in Ye Olde Newsepaper.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I hear that Magic Online is doing pretty well for itself. It pretty much took the concept of CCGs and transitioned it to an online model. For those people who don't know. In MO, you have to buy virtual boosters that can only be used online. They are still random and they cost just a bit less (or the same price, I can't remember) as real, physical cards. A lot of people complained that they didn't want to pay real money for cards that were entirely virtual and that they didn't OWN at the end when they decided to stop paying for their membership. They decided to ship out to you an entire set of real cards if you were able to get the entire set completed with virtual cards. Then, they removed the virtual cards from your account.

I suspect a large amount of the decision to go forward with the DI was based on the success of Magic Online.

It seems to be the exact same model, pretty much. You pay an online fee for access to a bunch of articles that you can only view online. People complain that they can only view the articles online and that they don't own anything if they discontinue their accounts. WOTC agrees to release compilations of online content in stores to make up for it.

And as far as I know there is a fairly large crossover between people who play Magic in real life and people who play Magic Online.

 

[Nifft]

Your post reminded me of when the local small town newspaper decided to add one of those sections where people fill out a form on a web page and they publish things people put in. It was full of angry trolls and flames, worthy of any internet forum.

Low barrier to entry + potential for attention = invitation to troll, flame and spam. It's just that on the internet, distribution costs are low enough to justify dissemination of such low quality discourse.

Is the effective level of discourse on the internet lower than in print? I'd argue that it's not, it's just a different problem.

the audiences for these media are isolated; the person who reads a newspaper every day is less likely visit CNN.com, and the person who likes to post on a music message board is less likely to read Rolling Stone

Okay, a serious point we can discuss.

First, the anecdotal evidence: I read The Economist, listen to 1010WINS, and visit news.bbc.co.uk and cnn.com regularly. I don't watch TV or read a daily paper; when I want edited stuff, I'm willing to wait for what I consider the best; when I want up to date stuff, I'm willing to tolerate the web. Also, I like the editorial bias in the Economist: it's blatant, and thus easy to filter out. (I consider their blatant bias a form of honesty that's quite rare in the news media.)

But enough about me. I think that the recent traffic here (and elsewhere) disproves your point on a statistical basis: people who read Dragon sure as hell do visit message boards. And they start threads.

Back to talking about me: easy access to information on the internet has raised the bar. No longer will I pay for mere information; now I require publications to add value somehow. If others are like me, this means death for a lot of inferior for-pay news sources.

Back to Dragon Mag: when I bought it recently, I saw pages of ads and "preview" announcements. They were a waste of space -- the information that was in the ads and previews was already available on-line, and I'd already seen most of it. That's a space where previously the magazine could serve both its masters -- readers were interested in some (or most) of the ads, and the advertisers could reach new audiences.

So, from what I can see, a lot of the value of that particular magazine had already migrated on-line. The inter-player discussion? Online. The ads, previews and 3rd edition rumors? Online. The job postings, the trading classifieds, the "LFG" messages? Online.

Moving the few remaining things online seems obvious, no?

Cheers, -- N