Merric's view: Thoughts on the Digital Initiative.

[der_kluge]

One of the things WoTC will be able to do with an online model is to give the ability to modify a module in real time to suit the DM's needs. Like direkobold.com can do. Don't want it scaled for 5th level characters? No problem - up the CR to 9 and the module scales automatically. Don't like the Greyhawk gods, when you want to run it in Forgotten Realms instead? No problem, replace the text pertaining to Greyhawk gods with the FR gods. Done? Good, now print out the final version and run it tonight for your 9th level FR party.

 

[WizarDru]

Perhaps he is not irrelevant. I wonder how much of Wizards sales come from hardcore customers that brought most or all of their books and how much come from occasional purchasers. I know many people that buy a couple of Wizards books per year and I think they might be the majority of their customers. The great deal behind the DI is trying to attract all D&D players, hardcore or occasional, as they will cash every month from a sizeable portion of their customers.

But he didn't describe himself as a several purchase a year customer. He said he's bought on of the magazines in three years, and the last WotC book he bought was 2 years ago. He also has no interest in an online magazine, having stated he wouldn't follow the first gaming magazine that went online several years ago, The Pyramid, regardless of quality. That's a NON-customer, IMHO.

I agree that the majority of customers buy a book or product once-in-a-while; my players and I certainly adhere to that model. One guy buys anything Eberron, another just modules and another only player books that interest him. Most of others dropped Dragon and I'm the only one who subscribed to Dragon regularly (other players having dropped it).

Only WotC knows how many subscribers they need to retain and at what cost to make a profit.

 

[Harlekin]

Why then kill Dragon? Why not have both?
Ah, the real question!

There are a few reasons I can think of.

At the top of the list comes the competition problem: The DI and Dragon/Dungeon magazines compete against each other. By its very nature, DI is less expensive to produce (no shipping costs or dead trees to worry about). Well, I think the 'net is less expensive than dead trees... could be wrong there. But I assume it is. So, DI already has an advantage over the magazines in that respect.

Dragon & Dungeon magazines have had a problem being profitable. I'm sure they're doing pretty well, but given Paizo is also working as an online retailer these days, it's hard to know how well they're doing. So, the DI starts up, and the magazines remain. After a while, the folks at Paizo notice something: some people subscribe to the DI instead of the magazines, and it really hurts them. A 25% drop in circulation would probably be catastrophic. 50%? Ouch. Is that figure likely? I have no idea - but I'm sure Wizards have done the sums. They do a lot more market research than they're usually given credit for.

There comes a point when the magazines will no longer be viable, due to the competition posed by the DI. At that point, Paizo is losing money, still having to pay license fees, and getting unhappier and unhappier. This isn't good. Rather than put Paizo in that position, better to eliminate the magazines and just run with the DI.

Cheers!

Good points. I wanted to add one more argument for killing of the dragon:

The DI wanted to use the Brand Names. Calling their online magazine "Dragon" or "Dungeon" was probably impossible as long as Paizo had the license to that name. And given that these brand names have been around for a long time and have some value, it would be foolish not to use them for an ambitious project like the DI. In a way, this decision is validated by the outcry it caused here and elsewhere, as this outcry showed the attachment many gamers have to the two brands.

 

[Enforcer]

One of my biggest concerns, and a basic deal breaker is keeping the information that I paid for. In the interview WotC kind of danced around this issue, but for me the fact that I still have magazines from a year ago that I own and can reference anytime I want trumps most of the advantages of the DI as so far announced. Yeah it's great not having to find space for all those mags, but if the alternative is "keep paying" even if later quality drops, to keep the stuff I paid for and want...Nope, I'll pass.

I don't need a character generator, already got one and it was free, downloadable and Mac compatible.

Assuming you have a Mac (which seems likely given your second paragraph there), why can't you just Print to PDF any content you want to keep if they adopt an all-or-nothing subscription model? That's what I intend on doing if that's the model WotC chooses. I know Print to PDF is a feature in Tiger, but can't remember if it's supported in previous versions of OS X. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, any time you print (including from a web page, and it works on Firefox as well as Safari) you can click the PDF button in the Print dialog screen and save whatever it is as a PDF. It's a wonderful tool.

Sorry Windows people, the only way I know of to print web content to a PDF is with a full version of Acrobat (which is what I do all the time on my work PC). There may be other third-party software that does it, but as far as I know you can't do it "out of the box."

 

[WampusCat43]

How often will it be updated?
On an ongoing basis. I would mostly expect it to be updated on a weekly or daily basis, although possibly irregularly. Daily would make the most sense, at it breaks it into chunks the web staff and editors can deal with. Finish one project, move on to the next.

Raise your hand if you think they should go talk to some porn sites about this one.

One of the things WoTC will be able to do with an online model is to give the ability to modify a module in real time to suit the DM's needs. Like direkobold.com can do. Don't want it scaled for 5th level characters? No problem - up the CR to 9 and the module scales automatically. Don't like the Greyhawk gods, when you want to run it in Forgotten Realms instead? No problem, replace the text pertaining to Greyhawk gods with the FR gods. Done? Good, now print out the final version and run it tonight for your 9th level FR party.

THIS, would give me a warm feeling indeed.

 

[MerricB]

Good points. I wanted to add one more argument for killing of the dragon:

The DI wanted to use the Brand Names. Calling their online magazine "Dragon" or "Dungeon" was probably impossible as long as Paizo had the license to that name. And given that these brand names have been around for a long time and have some value, it would be foolish not to use them for an ambitious project like the DI. In a way, this decision is validated by the outcry it caused here and elsewhere, as this outcry showed the attachment many gamers have to the two brands.

Ah - very good point. Thank you muchly for making it. It hadn't occurred to me.

Cheers!

 

[Khairn]

You are missing out here.

For only $20 you get access to the entire back archives - and their article count is now up to 6400.

No matter what, that's excellent value for your money.

Jurgen, when did WotC confirm that we would have unlimited access to the entire back archive? Not calling you out, just wondering as I haven't seen that post.

As a note: it is inconceivable that you won't be able to print out the adventures offered through the DI.

I agree that this is hopeful thinking and does appear to be a "must have" feature for the DI. But whether it will end up being 1 adventure per week, 1 adventure per month or unlimited (not likely IMHO) download capabilities is still to be determined. I believe that part of the reason why they've been unwilling to share such basic format & content options with us is that they are still working on the security features to prevent (or control) the transferability of their DI content. PDF's are a wonderful format, but as long as I can download all or part of the DI and then send it to anyone I want to, I dont believe WotC will offer it.

Controlling the transferability of the content is the cornerstone of the DI business model.

What that control will be is the million $ question, IMO.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Jurgen, when did WotC confirm that we would have unlimited access to the entire back archive? Not calling you out, just wondering as I haven't seen that post.

He was actually pointing you to Pyramid, whose online catalog includes unlimited back issues.

I believe that part of the reason why they've been unwilling to share such basic format & content options with us is that they are still working on the security features to prevent (or control) the transferability of their DI content. PDF's are a wonderful format, but as long as I can download all or part of the DI and then send it to anyone I want to, I dont believe WotC will offer it.

Without the ability to print the products or put them on a non-online device (aka a gaming laptop) they aren't useful. Now I could cheat and use something like www.cutepdf.com to ghostscript up a PDF but it's a work around for a bad system. Which is not to say DI will have a bad system but that anything that doesn't work in the way the user needs it to work is a bad system.


Personally I think WotC killed the Paizo license with the intent to have the mags dead for many month so that when WotC used their official launch con, Winter Fantasy, to announce the DI that there would be an immediate demand. In 8-9 months, when Winter Fantasy rolls around, do you think everyone will still be so bitter or do you think they'll be jonesing for their fix?

I'd also suspect that the DI's bait will be preview snippets of 4e, much as D&D snared a lot of readership before 3e was released. "Subscribe to the DI and get the behind the scenes look at 4e concepts! Interviews with the designers! Archetype character artwork! Upskirt shots of a Marileth! Hot die-on-die action!" (I assume Eric's granma would know what a Marileth is to get the joke.)

The DI will be littered with "pre-release" software (aka beta software) that they use to fine-tune the end product but with the extra bonus advantage of getting paid for it. Oh, I imagine it will be a deal ("Subscribe for a year now and we'll charge you for only ten months and give you access to the pre-release material!!!!" but it still amounts to the masses subsidizing the DI process. Monte did a similar thing, albeit in an upfront manner, with the Ptolus preorders. "Buy it before it's done and I'll guarantee I actually do it!" Ptolus was a heck of a risk to Monte (800 page!! Holy crap!) but the DI really isn't to WotC.

So...meh.

 

[MerricB]

PDF's are a wonderful format, but as long as I can download all or part of the DI and then send it to anyone I want to, I dont believe WotC will offer it.

They do watermarked pdfs already - with their rulebooks!

Cheers!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

They do watermarked pdfs already - with their rulebooks!

Watermarks I actually kind of like

I don't like those silly encrypted PDFs that check to see that they're not on more than six computers. Issues with the tissue paper encryption aside, it's very easy for me to use multiple computers in the course of a year and six in one or two years is very probable.