RLBURNSIDE
First Post
Self-maximization
IS why people share. And Wotc or any other company that delivers online goods, unless we're talking about huge data rates and bandwidth costs, means that those of us who would buy an insider account to print out our sheets with the latest errata or power cards or feats are maximizing our use of the system by sharing an account. It costs pennies in extra bandwidth for a new sub, or conversely saves only pennies in terms of real cost. It's like the DVD printing business. It's like having a mint. Just print more money. Their costs don't go up substantially in server costs if the number of subscribers doubled over night.
A company making a physical product, say, making 2x as many jeans, needs to ship them, package them, quality control them. This is done (or rather NOT, in Wotc's case) at the publisher's end, once. For online-only material, costs don't double, only profits, when the userbase multiplies. This is the digital era, and the rules for maximizing your return are more complex than traditional "physical" models.
Back when there were 5 CB downloads a month max, it would make sense to have two Insider accounts per group, at least. Now, that incentive is taken away because there is no added value for having different logins. Sure, you get 20 more characters per account, but most users won't need more than 1, and even if everyone paid for their own accounts at my table to print out their own sheet, they would still keep them on the DM's account because he has our "masters" and likes to keep control over them. Which makes sense.
What added value is there in paying 20 bucks a month just to reprint your character, when it isn't the version you can actually use in-game? Our official sheets all live in one place, and don't get touched otherwise.
We don't even level that fast, and we play every week. Also, until something's in the builder we usually don't use it. Because whatever's on your sheet is what goes. If there's a house rule or a DM overrule to something, that's an exception. But the only way to retrain to that new feat is by having a character builder that accounts for it. It's just too much annoyance / hassle to play this game with 6 players for the DM to make sure all their bonuses on each of their power cards add up. That's the job of the tool. The tool doesn't function any better by paying for it twice, which is the real problem. They are trying to fleece people out of common-sense buying power.
I buy two pairs of pants, I need to do laundry half as often. What's the benefit for our group to have more than 2 insider logins? None. Don't assume that cost is even a factor necessarily. People I know don't need another account for logging in, handling customer issues, credit card charges, annoying things like not getting updates when you're expecting them, not being able to cancel your account easily, having it "assumed" that you will auto-renew. Hey, guess what, shoving subscriptions down people's throats makes people angry and not want to give you their credit card numbers.
Don't call people cheap because they're not suckers. It is common sense to share accounts, when the game is played as a group we share the costs of the books, the minis, the pizza, and yes, our damn character printing software, which we use for about 5 minutes each every two months. I use it more, because I'm a freak, but that's my own business. The others at my game table I doubt use it as much, even those who have their own accounts. They certainly don't know the latest / greatest combos and scour the forums for any new way to tweak their character.
Either you're hardcore or you're casual or somewhere in between, but usually only the DM and the hardcore players really need an account, and that's reflected in the stats. If there are 41k subs, there must be around 1/4 million people who've used the builder here and there to print out a +1 on their sheets once in a while. No matter how cheap / good a deal DP Insider is, those casual gamers will probably never sub to a dnd company for access to mostly DM materials and a character building software they can already access. Not all DMs allow people to just print out their own sheet at home and bring it game day. They vet the sheets, and like to keep track of what retrains you make, etc. It is this model of a Dnd group account synergy that those of you calling us "cheap" will never understand.
There is NO way 7 or 8 people will pay for an account at one table. Just not going to happen. So, they can get over it. Also no way to enforce 1 person / account. It's be surprised if this new online model doesn't actually reduce the number of subs for this very reason.
IS why people share. And Wotc or any other company that delivers online goods, unless we're talking about huge data rates and bandwidth costs, means that those of us who would buy an insider account to print out our sheets with the latest errata or power cards or feats are maximizing our use of the system by sharing an account. It costs pennies in extra bandwidth for a new sub, or conversely saves only pennies in terms of real cost. It's like the DVD printing business. It's like having a mint. Just print more money. Their costs don't go up substantially in server costs if the number of subscribers doubled over night.
A company making a physical product, say, making 2x as many jeans, needs to ship them, package them, quality control them. This is done (or rather NOT, in Wotc's case) at the publisher's end, once. For online-only material, costs don't double, only profits, when the userbase multiplies. This is the digital era, and the rules for maximizing your return are more complex than traditional "physical" models.
Back when there were 5 CB downloads a month max, it would make sense to have two Insider accounts per group, at least. Now, that incentive is taken away because there is no added value for having different logins. Sure, you get 20 more characters per account, but most users won't need more than 1, and even if everyone paid for their own accounts at my table to print out their own sheet, they would still keep them on the DM's account because he has our "masters" and likes to keep control over them. Which makes sense.
What added value is there in paying 20 bucks a month just to reprint your character, when it isn't the version you can actually use in-game? Our official sheets all live in one place, and don't get touched otherwise.
We don't even level that fast, and we play every week. Also, until something's in the builder we usually don't use it. Because whatever's on your sheet is what goes. If there's a house rule or a DM overrule to something, that's an exception. But the only way to retrain to that new feat is by having a character builder that accounts for it. It's just too much annoyance / hassle to play this game with 6 players for the DM to make sure all their bonuses on each of their power cards add up. That's the job of the tool. The tool doesn't function any better by paying for it twice, which is the real problem. They are trying to fleece people out of common-sense buying power.
I buy two pairs of pants, I need to do laundry half as often. What's the benefit for our group to have more than 2 insider logins? None. Don't assume that cost is even a factor necessarily. People I know don't need another account for logging in, handling customer issues, credit card charges, annoying things like not getting updates when you're expecting them, not being able to cancel your account easily, having it "assumed" that you will auto-renew. Hey, guess what, shoving subscriptions down people's throats makes people angry and not want to give you their credit card numbers.
Don't call people cheap because they're not suckers. It is common sense to share accounts, when the game is played as a group we share the costs of the books, the minis, the pizza, and yes, our damn character printing software, which we use for about 5 minutes each every two months. I use it more, because I'm a freak, but that's my own business. The others at my game table I doubt use it as much, even those who have their own accounts. They certainly don't know the latest / greatest combos and scour the forums for any new way to tweak their character.
Either you're hardcore or you're casual or somewhere in between, but usually only the DM and the hardcore players really need an account, and that's reflected in the stats. If there are 41k subs, there must be around 1/4 million people who've used the builder here and there to print out a +1 on their sheets once in a while. No matter how cheap / good a deal DP Insider is, those casual gamers will probably never sub to a dnd company for access to mostly DM materials and a character building software they can already access. Not all DMs allow people to just print out their own sheet at home and bring it game day. They vet the sheets, and like to keep track of what retrains you make, etc. It is this model of a Dnd group account synergy that those of you calling us "cheap" will never understand.
There is NO way 7 or 8 people will pay for an account at one table. Just not going to happen. So, they can get over it. Also no way to enforce 1 person / account. It's be surprised if this new online model doesn't actually reduce the number of subs for this very reason.
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) in 1 or 2 hardcopies a year...
