Ok, now i'm REALLY CONFUSED. AKA, do any of you think you know what WotC is doing?

[Belen]

WotC is following the trend in print publishing (across the board) that the print medium is on the way out and Online publishing/content is the way for businesses to "make a profit."

Print, in general, is a "losing money" proposition these days. Almost universally, for any industry. I hate it. But that seems to be the trend.

People simply don't want to pay for hard copy when they can just "click" for whatever they want...and making online content "paid subscriptions" is significantly cheaper for the customer as well as the company.

It is really not that simple. Print remains a very viable resource depending on industry. Scientific/medical publishing, for example, continues to maintain print because online advertising brings in a fraction of the print versions.

If you add that to the fact that digital archiving is abysmal, then you end up with a situation where print must be continued to maintain an actual record of the material.

Print will continue to be used widely for the foreseeable future. It will not continue its monopoly on written content.

A better prediction will be that print becomes part of a suite of tools deployed by content providers. Publishers will move to service the online community, yet use print for archival and collector purposes with print-on-demand services rising to meet the demand for cheap printed products.

The major printers are already moving in this direction.

 

[falcarrion]

Wotc is just preparing for 2012. When the time comes they just flip a switch and shut everything down. Then dive beneath their desks and pray.

 

[steeldragons]

It is really not that simple. Print remains a very viable resource depending on industry. Scientific/medical publishing, for example, continues to maintain print because online advertising brings in a fraction of the print versions.

If you add that to the fact that digital archiving is abysmal, then you end up with a situation where print must be continued to maintain an actual record of the material.

Print will continue to be used widely for the foreseeable future. It will not continue its monopoly on written content.

A better prediction will be that print becomes part of a suite of tools deployed by content providers. Publishers will move to service the online community, yet use print for archival and collector purposes with print-on-demand services rising to meet the demand for cheap printed products.

The major printers are already moving in this direction.

Apologies for speaking too broadly.

I wasn't taking into account Scientific/Medicinal publishing. I was thinking on (and my experience is in) the "leisure/lifestyle" types of publications...of which, WotC/fantasy/gaming publications is only a single genre. Educational texts would also be included in the "not diminishing" list...though I would bet they are publishing smaller runs/on demand rather than putting out the 1,000s of issues runs of the past.

Edit: "...TENS of thousands..."

But yes, many many publishers are going the route of printing (less) and offering/supplementing with online content.

Again, as I said, not what I would like. I would much rather have a document in my hands to review and go back to than having to look something up repeatedly online or download and have to review/search on a computer.

But, again, that's just me. Others (and I'd venture to say a growing "majority") are more prone to look/want online references first...if not solely...."Being green", "paperless environment" and all of that being the societal (if not world wide) trend that it is.

--SD

 

[Belen]

Apologies for speaking too broadly.

I wasn't taking into account Scientific/Medicinal publishing. I was thinking on (and my experience is in) the "leisure/lifestyle" types of publications...of which, WotC/fantasy/gaming publications is only a single genre. Educational texts would also be included in the "not diminishing" list...though I would bet they are publishing smaller runs/on demand rather than putting out the 1,000s of issues runs of the past.

But yes, many many publishers are going the route of printing (less) and offering/supplementing with online content.

Again, as I said, not what I would like. I would much rather have a document in my hands to review and go back to than having to look something up repeatedly online or download and have to review/search on a computer.

But, again, that's just me. Others (and I'd venture to say a growing "majority") are more prone to look/want online references first...if not solely...."Being green", "paperless environment" and all of that being the societal (if not world wide) trend that it is.

--SD

No. You're right about leisure media although I dread the real lack of archiving initiative. So much content is going to be lost and we have already seen that WOTC will change/errata online content. Without a print record, then you're at the mercy of ever shifting content.

Of course, all the power needed to maintain and use online media really defeats the reasoning behind a paperless environment.

Still, publishing is going through some exciting changes and I am constantly amazed at the number of changes to the model I have experienced during my tenure in the industry.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My understanding is that this is really overstated by the industry.....There was a brief article about the same in Scientific American last December. The main gist is that, despite claims for years, print isn't dead. Electronic media is hampered by several factors, including that there is no standardization of reader format, problems in being able to pass your copy along to a friend, resale, and other issues that don't arise with print media. Time lag in "page" turning also disrupts the flow of reading.

Electronic type is getting better, but it still isn't as friendly as the printed page for your eyes. Because the screen is backlit, the pupil has to adjust when looking at the page or glancing up (a problem that does not occur with print media), increasing eye strain.

You will be able to read a book purchased today five years from now; that is not necessarily true for an ebook. Even less true the farther in time you go....20 years....50 years....200 years.

Good luck reading without an outlet/batteries.

I have several friends with electronic books who love them. And that is cool. But print is not dead yet, and I imagine that print will outlast me.


RC

 

[Umbran]

If you add that to the fact that digital archiving is abysmal, then you end up with a situation where print must be continued to maintain an actual record of the material.

Some folks will wonder at that statement, so I want to back you up - digital archiving is not just slapping something on an external hard drive, CD, or DVD and putting it on a safe shelf somewhere, and doing digital archiving properly is not at all easy.

Real archiving is what you do when you want material to be around and accessible 50 or 100 years from now. On that time scale, every digital storage method known to man is expected to suffer from bit rot. File formats, operating systems, and the physical media used for storage all change. All of these must be dealt with for real archiving to take place - it often isn't done outside of academic publication and Universities.

 

[Belen]

Some folks will wonder at that statement, so I want to back you up - digital archiving is not just slapping something on an external hard drive, CD, or DVD and putting it on a safe shelf somewhere, and doing digital archiving properly is not at all easy.

Real archiving is what you do when you want material to be around and accessible 50 or 100 years from now. On that time scale, every digital storage method known to man is expected to suffer from bit rot. File formats, operating systems, and the physical media used for storage all change. All of these must be dealt with for real archiving to take place - it often isn't done outside of academic publication and Universities.

...and quality varies even in the academic community. I am a publisher and my wife, Alenda, is an academic digital librarian and even her community struggles with a coherent vision. Technology changes too fast and the people driving the change are not interested in backwards compatibility.

This is why I think that the errata changes I hear about so often with D&D are an issue.

On topic: I am not sure what WOTC plans. I have not seen any real, coherent vision from them since 3e. They seem to be struggling to find a model that works, yet doing it publicly and causing way too many headaches for the customer base. The not knowing causes a strain on your base and develops into lack of confidence. That is certainly not good for the brand.

 

[shadzar]

Up until this point I was following and mostly agreeing with your post. But you've lost me here - what have you got in mind (assuming it's not just a generic spray at 4e)?

Being in the Board Games section of that post, it seems the board games rulebooks are as bad as build-it-yourself furniture with the instructions written in Cantonese. They could use checking to make sure the reader will understand everything, and that everything in them is correct.

 

[ExploderWizard]

One of the things I *regularly* see and pass up to WotC in my reports is the calls by DDI subscribers to "let us playtest the stuff before you release it. Make being a D&D Insider mean something!"

The Monk playtest (last year I think) and the Assassin playtest this year resulted in WotC getting, if I read the tea-leaves properly) scads and scads of feedback testing. And isn't that something that "everyone" says WotC needs to do?

If this is true, and I want to emphasize that I have not heard *any* rumblings on future plans, it would be an interesting change to DDI that would, IMO, bump up its value immensely, and make it very, very attractive to a much wider audience.

I never said that subscribers would be against this but it feels wrong to me charging a monthly fee for playtesting and then getting the same people to pay additional money for the book. Perhaps if maintaing a sub for X amount of time earned a coupon for a copy of the book when it was printed then it wouldn't be so terrible.

 

[jimmifett]

I look at it with a set of financial glasses. Everything is hurting since the economy tanked. I think wotc/hasbro saw this coming and decided changes needed to be made to weather the economy. Lets look at essentials. They wanted to entice back players from other editions that initially balked at 4e, but more importantly, lower the entry cost into the hobby. New blood and all.

DDI i'm sure has been a sore spot since a bunch of thier promises fell through and players could purchase a single month every now and again to get all of the updates. The makes for a very poor content subscription model. While i keep hearing negative things about the new CB (and as a programmer think they were nuts to go with silverlight and sending images to be printed instead of xsl:fo generated pdfs), it makes sense financially. You don't need a tool to build your characters, but if you to use this one, pay the monthly fee. I personally don't feel the current cost is justified (after having been a subscriber for 2 yrs) until the VTT is ready. The dungeon and dragon mags are nice, but they alone don't currently make up for what I feel my money should be getting me.

Not compiling dungeon and dragon, not a big deal, I can do that myself. But it is a hassle I could avoid and I would expect that to be part of my subscription cost, esp if i'm not getting a VTT. But they do have a point, if articles are being downloaded more individualy than compilations, why spend the resources involved in compiling.

Minis: Lets face it, when the economy tanked, these were the first to be scaled back. First the quality went in the dumpster to save on costs. Then the cost to R&D stats for new minis into the DDM game got DDM killed. Low quality and small mini per box yield turned off already low sales from customer trying to pinch pennies. Minis aren't Wotc's core business, paper based products are.

And since their core business is paper based products, lets see what HAS been working for them in a down economy: MtG.

I don't know the first thing about this game, other than it's an expensive hobby if you go long term, older cards get retired, forcing you to buy new cards, and turnout for FNM is freaking HUGE.

So, packs of paper cards seems to be working.

Essentials seems to have worked, with cheaper books and tokens; Boxed sets can get you into more stores such as TRU, Walmart and Target; and optional card packs for Gamma World and now Fortune Cards for DnD seem like they are apply cheap to produce/potentially high return products to supplement the bottom line.

Some may not like the card approach, but as stated in other posts, it's good business for stores. Once customers have the books they want, what else are they coming to your gaming store for? Space in which to play. Thats generally not very profitable if they aren't continuing to buy product. Sure, you may sell some snacks and drinks, but you'd rather be moving product. Dice are a great impulse buy until you have more dice than you need. Minis have tanked in quality and quantity, so you don't want to buy them (and thus they get killed), RPG books are expensive, and unless you have a good store like the one I frequent that has near amazon pricing, you are likely to hit up amazon to save 10 bucks.

So what does a store like? $3-4 impulse items like... Paper Cards!

Magic, Pokemon, Yugioh, Versus, WoW. They all have a large value/ space ratio. If you have a box of say, 24 packs of booster cards, that takes up maybe a square foot by 3-4 inches tall for a closed box? valued at $4 a pack or so? thats $96 in a compact space that you can sell in small bites.
Stack two or 3 sealed boxed underneath the open one, nearly $300 in the space of a 12 inch cube that you know your customer will keep coming back for more.

Versus books that cost $25-35 a pop, take up much more space, and once a customer has 1 copy, they don't need another. A gamer with $10 in thier pocket will think about passing up lunch for 2-3 more packs of cards. They have immediate gratification. Same gamer will have to save up and generally plan a purchase of a book. During that time, they could change their mind or spend the money on something else, further delaying thier purchase.

If it takes paper cards to subsidize books, so be it. I plan on getting some of them any way. It all comes down to money. Wotc, during good times, ventured into tangent products, during lean times, they have to trim poor performing products to stay alive.