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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Smeelbo" data-source="post: 5133962" data-attributes="member: 81898">According to the PowerPoint slides used to discuss D&D Essentials internally at WotC, they estimate there are about 1.5 million current 4E players. At least one in five of those possesses at least one book, or more likely three or more. The gross profit for WotC on a typical 4E hardcover is probably in the neighborhood of a few dollars. Not sure how much their development costs are, but at $10/month for DDI, probably they gross about $7 profit, or the equivalent of selling two hardcovers. Could be more, as much of the development costs are probably underwritten by book sales. 30,000 DDI subscribers at $7 profit per month yields about $200K per month, or about $2.5M profit per year. That's equivalent to the profit of selling just about 700K hardcovers a year. If among 1.5M 4E players, 300K of those buy six books a year, they generate about $10 million in gross profit per year. Based on the buying habits I observe, that is, in a group of five players, one player, usually the Dungeon Master, buys almost all the books that are bought, and most everyone relies on someone else's copy of most every book, then the books generate more income than DDI, but require more up front investment. For return on investment, DDI is a much better deal for them. It only lacks sufficient volume: 30K is not nearly enough customers. Indeed, extrapolating from Reknown Rewards, that is, 5 Reknown for creating a character using DDI, versus 3 Reknown for using Player Handbook 3, suggests they are looking to grow the subscription model. Indeed, the main purpose of this fall's D&D Essentials may actually be not to sell more books, but rather, more DDI Subscriptions. Hmmm.... Smeelbo</blockquote>

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