New WOTC Survey

[catsclaw227]

I said I had a DDI account, was already playing D&D and lived in North America and didn't get any further. I imagine they are looking to improve payment alternatives.

Paypal has worked for me for a long time. And one can use Paypal and never open an "account" and instead use it as a gateway for use of a CC. This will prevent you from having to enter your CC into a bunch of different storefronts (both major and minor) and potentially have your CC# in databases everywhere.

Paypal has had it's issues for sure, but no more than any major credit card. They're problems have been hyped quite a bit, though.

Heck, I use it to buy things that I know will come out of my normal checking/debit account and it acutally gives me a day or two of "float".

 

[Nikosandros]

In the survey I was asked about the iTunes store and Amazon's payment. It seems likely to me that they might be looking into changing the way they handle the payments for DDI.

Also, but this is a bit far fetched, they might be considering using Amazon or some similar venue for releasing electronic versions of their product. I don't yet own an e-reader, so I don't know about copy protection. How is it implemented by Amazon et al? If it's a relatively strong mechanism it might appeal to WotC as a safer alternative to PDF.

 

[Teemu]

I think they're targeting non-US customers with the survey. Probably because credit cards are not nearly as ubiquitous in the rest of the world as they are in the US (NA?). Everyone in America can pay with a credit card since they (crazily enough) practically need one, whereas in Finland, for example (where I live), you can't get a credit card unless you have a stable source of income. Personally, I have one, but it's a necessary evil and I wouldn't have gotten it if it weren't so useful (or necessary) for Internet purchases.

 

[Shazman]

They have some history of freezing peoples' accounts and simply hanging on to their money, with little or no recourse. Happened to Morrus once, in fact.

This is the first I've heard of anything like that. I can understand why some people wouldn't use paypal then, particularly if it happened to them. I don't use paypal very often, but I've never had any problems with it. Of course, I really don't keep anything in the account. I just use as a gateway to my debit card.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I didn't mean to touch off a debate. There may be all kinds of reasons (good, bad or indifferent) as to why a particular individual wants to use/does not want to use Paypal and prefers to use a credit card.

I get that. No problem. I am not you; you are not me. Got it.

But I wasn't talking about what a consumer should do; I was talking about what a business should do.

When you don't take Paypal, you remove a significant pool of customers from your e-store market. You can stick fingers in your ears and chant "La-la-la, No I'm not" real loud.

But yes, you are. Even if you sing the "la-la-la" chant even louder still.

So with WotC and Paizo (or any other game merchant) - they remove from their market potential customers by not taking Paypal. That's not smart, imo.

As for the "some people on Earth don't have a Visa Debit card?" question. You don't find those cards in Canada; they simply are not available there. Yes. Really.

I trust the Paypal issue and need for same is now clarified (and yes, I'm in Canada).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Keeping in mind that this is all still very rampant speculation...

I'm sorry they don't ask: Are you interested in purchase of DnD books in PDF? :-(

Probably not an option for WotC for one reason or another right now. "Piracy" was what they trotted out when they cancelled the PDF sales, and though a lot of people don't buy that argument at face value, the fact remains that they stopped doing it for some reason, and they aren't likely to start again soon.

I don't yet own an e-reader, so I don't know about copy protection. How is it implemented by Amazon et al? If it's a relatively strong mechanism it might appeal to WotC as a safer alternative to PDF.

If the reason was, indeed, piracy, then an iTunes/Amazon thing might at least dangle the promise of "electronic, but no piracy!" in front of them.

Basically, they work through proprietary formats, EULAs, "licensed content" (rather than purchased content), DMCA locking properties, product siloing, and disabled functionality. The files you download can be legally, and passively, used only on the given player/product that they sell it to, and only in specific ways that, presumably, the content owner can specify (though there's a few stories of Amazon, for ex, mandating their own stuff even against publishers who wanted to free it up).

It's something of a false promise, of course. Piracy frequently remains a "better product," and the legal bars and gates surrounding a Kindle or iPad file aren't going to stop that (and whatever software bars and gates may exist can be assumed to be broken).

But publishers are buying the promise, more or less, sometimes even believing that they don't have much of an alternative, what with the dying big box stores freaking everyone out.

And, of course, if the reason ISN'T actually piracy, that won't change anything, and then they were just looking at ways to expand the DDI's reach to people who don't use credit cards. Which, I'd say, is a good plan.

Heck, I'd probably even say going with the e-reader format is a decent business decision for D&D (even though I think e-publishing is generally a lost cause, it makes some sense for visual-heavy reference/library material like D&D), if they do it. It's just something that torques me off, personally. Because I get a bit tetchy when I can't read my books on whatever I want to read them on.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I wouldn't mind buying my D&D insider at amazon rather than the way it is done now.

I'd be more willing to buy both DDI nd this site's subscription through something lie the convenience store payments I make in Japan. It would be far easier, but it is not gonna happen.

Actually, I would be far more likely to pay for this site if it were a yearly lump payment. The 3/month, plus the seperate fee for either

1: Using my Japanese card to pay in dollars
2: getting money from here to my American bank account

Adds up quite seriously.

The odds of getting DDI are still miniscule, but it would be one less hurdle.

 

[darjr]

I just went and checked, I paid for DDI via paypal.

I'm in the USA, subscribe to DDI and I got a whole rash of questions like the ones mentioned so far.