Liz Schuh on Dragon/Dungeon moving to the web

[Raven Crowking]

QFT. And I, for one, don't blame them. I guess people here have forgotten that Russ had to go way, way out of his way to get a response from the WotC folks at all, that vile litte threats were sent to them by denizens of the 'net, and that, quite rightly, they don't want to be savaged in a public forum.

Just to be a completist, I got in after lunch and had another email waiting:

Well after the fourth or fifth e-mail over the past couple of days from people taking me to task for thinking they're Luddites, I thought it was probably necessary for me to point out that the comment was tongue in cheek. We publish a magazine here at ICv2 and much of our business is based on covering products that are published as books or magazines, so we are definitely not in the "print is dead" camp. Thanks for letting the folks at EN World know that there's a new addition to the article.
Regards,
Milton

This was in response to an email from me:

Thanks.

I really do appreciate your fast response! You’re probably aware of the brouhaha that the mention of “Luddites” in the interview caused. I’m posting on EN World as Raven Crowking, and will be happy to point this out there.

Daniel

I don't think that people have forgotten that Russ had to go way out of his way to get a response, either. I think that is part of the reason that reactions are....as they are. That said, there isn't a whole lot in the interview to give us a real idea as to what WotC's next move is going to be. Nor is there any real answer to the question of the hour: Why does WotC think that the DI precludes print magazines.

There is an easy way to please us re: information; give us the information we request.

(That doesn't mean, of course, that the answers will please us. )

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Was it tongue in cheek? Or is that just a cover up? It makes me think of two kids fighting after supper:

Kid 1: Man, your mother's cooking sucks!

Kid2: It does not! Take that back or you can't play with my legos anymore!

Kid1: I was only kidding, I love your mothers cooking! *gulps down another helping of possum and plum pie*

 

[TwinBahamut]

I've been a subscriber for almost 20 years - never missed an issue (TSR crash days notwithstanding). YMMV, but once you get the magazine you never lose it.

I wish that was the case... In my experience, magazines are easy to lose, and can get easily damaged. I own more than 120 issues of a certain magazine, and I have been losing them since I only had a few dozen, many were badly damaged, and after several moves between some states, I can't even tell you where you could find any more then the last dozen or so.

And the real problem is that it would be mind-numbingly difficult to replace these lost back-issues, or even to fill in the gaps where I never received issues due to problems with subscription and mailing. That kind of thing is a lot easier with digital content.

 

[Jim Hague]

I don't think that people have forgotten that Russ had to go way out of his way to get a response, either. I think that is part of the reason that reactions are....as they are. That said, there isn't a whole lot in the interview to give us a real idea as to what WotC's next move is going to be. Nor is there any real answer to the question of the hour: Why does WotC think that the DI precludes print magazines.

There is an easy way to please us re: information; give us the information we request.

(That doesn't mean, of course, that the answers will please us. )

Thing is, that's already been answered by other posters - they're consolidating their IP and think that digital is the way to go. Print magazines are expensive to produce, subject to the vagaries of a broken tiered distribution system, and can hardly keep up with the demand for good content. Paizo did an incredible job producing both magazines, but even at its peak, the readership wasn't what it once was.

A digital content delivery system (if done right, stress the if) can provide high-quality content at a fraction of the cost and time, and despite the mudslinging otherwise, the 'net is a reliable delivery system not subject to the whims of distributors. Nor do potential readers have to go to specialty shops to acquire it; they can sit down at any computer and do so. I'd guess that's the thinking, and it's fairly sharp. Now, whether it can be pulled off successfully is another matter entirely.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thing is, that's already been answered by other posters - they're consolidating their IP and think that digital is the way to go. Print magazines are expensive to produce, subject to the vagaries of a broken tiered distribution system, and can hardly keep up with the demand for good content. Paizo did an incredible job producing both magazines, but even at its peak, the readership wasn't what it once was.

That thinking is only applicable if WotC is paying for the print products itself, as opposed to getting paid by a 3rd party who wants to produce them. It is irrelevant to determining why WotC wouldn't want Paizo to continue to pay to produce them while WotC also made money from the DI.

If the mags make $1, and the DI makes $100, $1 + $ 100 = $101, which is still more than $1.

If the mags somehow reduce what the DI makes, so that $1 + $98 = $99, then WotC has a motive to remove the mags.

However, since the mags also promote WotC content & new releases, as well as good will, the value to WotC in not renewing a money-making venture must exceed these benefits if it is a good business decision.

What those benefits are is, as yet, unknown. "Print magazines are expensive to produce, subject to the vagaries of a broken tiered distribution system, and can hardly keep up with the demand for good content" is, however, certainly not the reason.


RC

 

[Vigilance]

I don't think that people have forgotten that Russ had to go way out of his way to get a response, either. I think that is part of the reason that reactions are....as they are. That said, there isn't a whole lot in the interview to give us a real idea as to what WotC's next move is going to be. Nor is there any real answer to the question of the hour: Why does WotC think that the DI precludes print magazines.

There is an easy way to please us re: information; give us the information we request.

(That doesn't mean, of course, that the answers will please us. )

WotC's been pretty clear about printing SOMETHING with Dungeon/Dragon-esque content, probably a yearly softcover or hardcover "best of".

They've also been pretty clear that they're making a good faith effort to communicate with us, even if it's just to say "we're NDA'd nine weeks from Sunday and can't say a lot".

That's honesty. That's an answer. Believe it or not, saying "I can't comment on that" is an answer.

The fact that everything they DO SAY is subjected to Zapruder Film-like analysis followed by "not enough facts! stop holding back!" probably makes them sorry they ever started answering questions in the first place.

Chuck

 

[Raven Crowking]

The fact that everything they DO SAY is subjected to Zapruder Film-like analysis followed by "not enough facts! stop holding back!" probably makes them sorry they ever started answering questions in the first place.

Are you suggesting that WotC doesn't know why they didn't renew Dragon & Dungeon, or that they don't know why they believe they can't have both the mags and their DI? Because that is, for many, the question of the hour.

Saying that they'll be producing something in print, and that they don't know what they'll be producing for the DI, may be fine and honest, but it doesn't answer the question. It isn't the information we requested.

If they didn't expect that there would be a desire to have that question answered, they didn't understand at least a part of their market. If they didn't know what their DI was going to be before announcing that the mags were going, they should have waited. Doing otherwise is simply not good business sense, IMHO. Apparently, in the humble opinions of a few others as well.

YMMV, and obviously does.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Was it tongue in cheek? Or is that just a cover up? It makes me think of two kids fighting after supper:

Maybe, but I accept Milton's statement as factual.


RC

 

[Jim Hague]

That thinking is only applicable if WotC is paying for the print products itself, as opposed to getting paid by a 3rd party who wants to produce them. It is irrelevant to determining why WotC wouldn't want Paizo to continue to pay to produce them while WotC also made money from the DI.

If the mags make $1, and the DI makes $100, $1 + $ 100 = $101, which is still more than $1.

Which shows that you need to read up on how corporate accounting works - namely profit margins. It's not enough to make x+ $1, plain and simple. A company I worked for once cut 300 jobs because they missed their expected margins by less than 1%. It stinks, but welcome to corporate economics.

If the mags somehow reduce what the DI makes, so that $1 + $98 = $99, then WotC has a motive to remove the mags.

See other posts about competing products. Fact is, the magazines weren't, despite the excellent content, serving what WotC saw as its needs. Again, sucks, but that's how it works in the business world.

However, since the mags also promote WotC content & new releases, as well as good will, the value to WotC in not renewing a money-making venture must exceed these benefits if it is a good business decision.

What those benefits are is, as yet, unknown. "Print magazines are expensive to produce, subject to the vagaries of a broken tiered distribution system, and can hardly keep up with the demand for good content" is, however, certainly not the reason.


RC

Magazines are expensive to produce, especially in relation with digital media. The tiered distribution system sucks; ask any content producer around here, or look at things like RPGNow and YourGamesNow and IPR. The argument that these magazines produced huge amounts of 'good will' is a load of dung - they were excellent magazines, but they did very little to bring new people into the hobby. Nor was that their intent. If what you were saying happened to be true, we'd have seen a lot more people brought in from the mainstream. As it was, the magazines served a niche within a niche hobby, and did it well. That's all. Ascribing more is simply nostalgia.

 

[Jim Hague]

Are you suggesting that WotC doesn't know why they didn't renew Dragon & Dungeon, or that they don't know why they believe they can't have both the mags and their DI? Because that is, for many, the question of the hour.

Saying that they'll be producing something in print, and that they don't know what they'll be producing for the DI, may be fine and honest, but it doesn't answer the question. It isn't the information we requested.

If they didn't expect that there would be a desire to have that question answered, they didn't understand at least a part of their market. If they didn't know what their DI was going to be before announcing that the mags were going, they should have waited. Doing otherwise is simply not good business sense, IMHO. Apparently, in the humble opinions of a few others as well.

YMMV, and obviously does.


RC

Here's something else for you to chew on, RK - you can request it all you like, until you're blue in the face, but WotC is under precisely zero obligation to you to provide it. What they're doing makes business sense, despite those 'humble opinions' to the contrary. Whether the market will sustain it remains to be seen.