Liz Schuh on Dragon/Dungeon moving to the web

[Raven Crowking]

Ah, no. Barring high-end equipment, which most users don't have access to, scanning print usually produces an inferior product. Nor is what you scan searchable, indexable or as compact as original digital format files. Sorry.

Sorry, I am assuming I guess the ability to use Adobe Acrobat Writer (which includes paper capture, an OCR program of some value in terms of making a document searchable, as well as the ability to bookmark and index). So far as I know, the Writer is available for less than the laptop or computer you need for that hard disk you mentioned in your previous post to freebfrost.

It seems odd that the "Use your blackberry/laptop/etc." crowd allows those as reasonable expenses, they don't assume that reasonable scanner and software costs should be allowed to pro-paper people.

If you have a home computer, also getting a decent scanner and Adobe Acrobat Writer is cheaper than also getting a good laptop and a blackberry.

 

[Ghendar]

That is true. But if you chose to look at the entire market of paper magazines, it is also true that many paper magazines fold each month. And for a long time, Dungeon and Dragon have been two of the few long-term surviving magazines in our field of interest. None of the print d20 magazines have survived, for example. So the market seems to have voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model for RPG material.

So if we want to compare Dragon and Dungeon to other magazine, I think it would be fair to look at those that failed as well, and not only those that are still alive.

/M

Yes, many magazines do indeed fail. But don't we have to look at why those other mags failed? What were the reasons? I'm not sure I understand your point of comparing Dragon and Dungeon to other gaming mags because Dragon and Dungeon are/were in a place of their own. They are/were at the top of the heap. To compare Dragon to some third party D20 magazine seems pointless.
You say that "the market seems to have voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model for RPG material." I don't see it that way. I see Dragon and Dungeon continuing in print form because they are Dragon and Dungeon. They have the weight of official D&D content behind them. They have the history and readership that most, if any, RPG related magazines cannot claim. Maybe White Dwarf can but are there any others? I honestly don't know.

 

[SteveC]

I've got three dozen boxes of comics, similarly stored, and those are a beast to move and maintain. I can put a hard drive with every image and word intact into a backpack, plug it in, and I'm good to go. Of course, if those paper files are damaged, you have no recourse to recover them, other than purchasing a new copy, unlike data.

Please stop building strawmen about the fictitious 'superiority' of paper. You have to perform maintenance on paper just as you do on files - proper storage, environment and organization.
Of course, if perhaps you'd do a bit of research on library science, you might start to realize how difficult maintaining paper archives is. Just a suggestion.

Sometimes I just don't understand if someone is being serious about something, so I apologize in advance if you're really not serious about this. If you are, the only thing I can say is "man WHAT?"

I have my old Dragon magazines from the early 80's (back to issue 9) all bagged up and stored away. I take a look at one of them every once and a while, and they're in perfectly fine condition. There are thousands of people like me. Go take a look at the auction from Gen Con if you don't believe me.

Are you honestly telling me that you expect the digital content that WotC is making available to still be around 25 years from now? Seriously?

At the same time, try and find some old TRS-80 computer games from the same time period. You can do it (what can I say, I loves me my old nostalgic games) but they are few and far between. Now try and find your old D&D houserules from the same era that you typed into Wordstar. Again, there are people who still have those things, but they're few and far between. Where I work, I recently was involved with unarchiving some data from a VAX system that was used in the early 90s. Let me tell you that the cost of the optical disk reader and data recovery was almost $10000.

So I know that you're excited about the new Digital Initiative (heck, I HOPE they do a good job with it too) but this idea that there is somehow some advantage for the consumer in keeping this content viable is just silly. Sure, it's expensive to store a paper product for a hundred years, but I seriously doubt that our electronic gaming data will live beyond 10 years to any large degree.

 

[billd91]

Please stop building strawmen about the fictitious 'superiority' of paper. You have to perform maintenance on paper just as you do on files - proper storage, environment and organization.
Of course, if perhaps you'd do a bit of research on library science, you might start to realize how difficult maintaining paper archives is. Just a suggestion.

Having some familiarity with library science, I can tell you that maintenance of paper storage, except for the space, is a hell of a lot easier than maintenance of electronic storage.

 

[Maggan]

I see Dragon and Dungeon continuing in print form because they are Dragon and Dungeon. They have the weight of official D&D content behind them.

Yep. I believe that the mags are as successful as they are NOT mainly because they are on paper, but because they presented official material.

And so it will be with the DI.

/M

 

[Maggan]

Yes, many magazines do indeed fail. But don't we have to look at why those other mags failed? What were the reasons?

Yes. And we also have to look at why the successful are successful, and what alternatives there are, and so on so forth. Just pointing at the rack saying "hundreds of mags indicates WotC is wrong" is not really useful as an observation.

I'm not sure I understand your point of comparing Dragon and Dungeon to other gaming mags because Dragon and Dungeon are/were in a place of their own. They are/were at the top of the heap. To compare Dragon to some third party D20 magazine seems pointless.

If we want to compare Dragon and Dungeon to every other magazine out there, then why not also look at those closest to it in terms of content? If we are to use the existence of other magazines to try to figure out something about Dragon and Dungeon, I think it also follows that we look at other gaming magazines that are successful and not.

You say that "the market seems to have voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model for RPG material." I don't see it that way.

You might very well be correct. But again, if we want to bring in numbers into the discussion, the number of D&D players not buying Dragon and Dungeon are significantly higher than the ones that do buy (I'm a regular buyer BTW), and almost no other RPG magazine has managed to stay alive.

There is a lot of noise on the internet about people wanting paper magazines, but when they are offered them, they just don't buy them. The general vote is against paper rpg magazines, as the many, many, many failed efforts is evidence of.

It is once again a question of us as a community (not us as individuals) saying one thing ("we want paper rpg magazines") and then doing something else (ie, not buying the ones that are offered).

Sure, Dragon and Dungeon are different. But that is also why I think it is problematic to point at a rack of general magazines saying "these guys believe in print, so WotC should too". We as a collective have shown the industry again and again that we don't want paper rpg magazines.

That's the rub. We have voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model for RPG material. And we as consumers have been very clear about that.

/M

 

[billd91]

That's the rub. We have voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model for RPG material. And we as consumers have been very clear about that.

I disagree. I don't think it's clear we've voted against paper magazines as a general delivery model, rather, a significant portion of the potential audience has not voted for particular magazines as the content they want and are willing to buy. Saying that Dragon's and Dungeon's relatively small circulation throughout the gaming world indicates that gamers would prefer internet resources is making a very strong inference on very sketchy data.

I'd be more inclined to say that the consumers are more inclined to get information for free, how ever they can get it. The traditional model on the WotC site has been free resources.

In any event, even if there's a significant portion of the market more willing to pay for an online resource, that doesn't preclude there being a stable market for a print magazine as well. Hopefully Paizo will be able to prove that with their serial Pathfinder books just as they've proven it with the successes they've had with Dragon and Dungeon.

Though I'm not exactly a free market ideologue, the point of the free market isn't that the majority wins, it's zero-sum, all or nothing. Rather, demands, no matter how small or rare, can be met. The specific economics of doing so may be challenging for any one supplier, but there is still a market segment that can be successfully catered to. The small proportion of gamers who subscribe to Dungeon and Dragon does not mean there isnt a viable paper magazine market, even if the internet one is potentially (or even really) larger.

 

[Maggan]

Saying that Dragon's and Dungeon's relatively small circulation throughout the gaming world indicates that gamers would prefer internet resources is making a very strong inference on very sketchy data.

Absolutely. So it's a good thing I didn't say that, because I think you're right about that.

I'd be more inclined to say that the consumers are more inclined to get information for free, how ever they can get it.

I have written adventures that are offered for free on the Internet. I've had critics lambast me for not offering them in print. So I believe that paper is more popular than print, even for free material.

In any event, even if there's a significant portion of the market more willing to pay for an online resource, that doesn't preclude there being a stable market for a print magazine as well.

For a print magazine offering D&D material, is my only caveat. No other RPG magazine has survived.

Hopefully Paizo will be able to prove that with their serial Pathfinder books just as they've proven it with the successes they've had with Dragon and Dungeon.

My take is that Paizo will have very rough time ahead, if people get the impression that they are offering a magazine. Because we gamers as a group have shown that the only magazines that survive are the ones with official D&D material.

Paizo might be the ones to break this pattern, but they're up for a hell of a fight.

Though I'm not exactly a free market ideologue, the point of the free market isn't that the majority wins, it's zero-sum, all or nothing. Rather, demands, no matter how small or rare, can be met. The specific economics of doing so may be challenging for any one supplier, but there is still a market segment that can be successfully catered to. The small proportion of gamers who subscribe to Dungeon and Dragon does not mean there isnt a viable paper magazine market, even if the internet one is potentially (or even really) larger.

Absolutely correct. And WotC have chosen not to cater to that segment of gamers, probably because it was too small to keep around at the same time as the DI (if there had been 100 000 subscribers, I don't think WotC even would have licensed the mags out), and maybe ironically enough, too big to just let Paizo keep on doing their thing.

/M

 

[hexgrid]

At the same time, try and find some old TRS-80 computer games from the same time period. You can do it (what can I say, I loves me my old nostalgic games) but they are few and far between.

Actually, you could be up and running TRS-80 software in a matter of minutes, if you really wanted to. (http://www.trs-80.com/) For old Dragon content, no such option exists unless you happen to have an archive in your basement.

So I know that you're excited about the new Digital Initiative (heck, I HOPE they do a good job with it too) but this idea that there is somehow some advantage for the consumer in keeping this content viable is just silly. Sure, it's expensive to store a paper product for a hundred years, but I seriously doubt that our electronic gaming data will live beyond 10 years to any large degree.

No, it's silly to insist that one format is somehow universally better than the other. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

 

[Storm Raven]

No, it's silly to insist that one format is somehow universally better than the other. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

One is better for what I want. Insofar as Dungeon and Dragon are useful to me, and online content offers me none of the elements that I want. I don't think I am alone in this. I also think that the predictions for the success of the DI are vastly overblown, and WotC will bitterly regret eliminating the print version of their magazines.