To put some perspective on the numbers.
To have team of 10 programmers working for me, I have to pay about 3000 to 5000 dollars a day (if the programmers were okay working for low wages).
To have a team of 10 writers working for me, writing game material, I would get away with maybe 1500 dollars a day, IF they cranked out top notch 100% usable right now material, otherwise I could drop their pay since they get paid per word written.
So coding is at least two to three times as expensive, just off the top of my head. Really, that seems to little, so I would guess that coding is about 10 times as expensive to buy than game design writing.
/M
On a per employee basis, I would agree. Programmers are more expensive than game designers. No matter what though, you have to pay your game designers, otherwise you don't have a game.
The question is, what is cheaper, those programmers or printing your material on dead tree? How many books do you think are in a normal run? 1,000? 10,000? At ten dollars a book, you are quickly hitting numbers where it is much cheaper to have someone modify an already existing program to add the small amount of material that you've created.
My argument wasn't that programmers weren't as expensive as game designers, it was more of the realm that creating and maintaining DDI isn't that expensive. I of course don't have numbers, but I would say that it is cheaper than dead tree and likely to get you more buyers. Of course nothing is as cheap as doing a "print to PDF" and throwing it up on RPGNow
As someone who both writes code and fiction, I'd say that if I could make half the money with fiction (heck, 25%) as with coding, I'd be writing full time. Code monkeys actually expect to get paid, and can get paid in many companies so there are market forces at work.
Correct. Writers get paid crap. But no matter how you distribute your product, you will still need those writers to create you a product. The cost comparison shouldn't be between the poorly paid writers and programmers, but between the two distribution models that are used.
I've seen the same sort of behavior from 4e fanatics (or fanatics of other systems). I don't think PF has any sort of lock on this.
Nor did I say they did. It is only in my opinion and from my stand point, there seems to be a larger or more vocal group of them. This could be because I haven't personally met 4E fans who were huge proponents or fanboys of the system. I'm sure there are those 4E crusaders out there, I just have been lucky enough to avoid them thus far.
The costs don't end once the app is written. Someone needs to maintain the code as the platforms they run on receive updates. Someone needs to make sure the app still works and if not, someone needs to update the DDI code to make sure it does. This is nearly a monthly need as security patches are rolled out.
Beyond just the continual maintenance of code there is the maintenance of the infrastructure it runs on - server hardware, operating systems, network, bandwidth, backups, the media to do those backups and the talent to manage all of that layer. Now that could be outsourced to a major data center, but it is still a monthly expense that adds up as the services scale up.
DDI is not a "program it once and forget about it" application.
Can't argue with anything you said. Any program will have maintenance costs, especially online ones. While it is a monthy expense, I doubt it is as large as anyone imagines. Look at the multitude of MMOs out there. Many of them also tend to have a 10$ month free, and many of them still make money hand over fist. Not all will be as successful as WoW, but I think that the maintenance costs will not be a major issue. Not for a system that likely only has 100,000 users and is mainly sending text back and forth.
Plus, the cost of those coders is on top of the money you're already paying for your writers. And they're probably more expensive than any of the people they may have replaced within the organization as you've shifted away from printed books.
Just as there would be costs on top of your writers for any distribution model. My argument, and probably one I didn't state well, is that this is likely a lot cheaper than the normal dead tree distribution model. Especially if you can get reoccurring payments for exactly the same content.
Look at the release schedule for most of WOTC's products. They tend to release a new book every 2 months. Assuming that most people have a continuous subscription, or that those who only do X months a year are replaced by the same number of people, you're going to tend to get 20$ per DDI per new product.
I think there are some giant leaps of logic being made here. The vast number of posts and talk I see is of people pointing future Pathfinder players to the Paizo SRD or d20pfsrd to get their feet wet. An excellent way to see the rules without spending anything. Or I also see the $10 PDF recommended frequently before the full rule book. There a numerous low cost ways to intro one to Pathfinder without pushing them straight to the hardcover core rulebook.
I know in our group we switched to Pathfinder about 9 months ago. As GM I didn't push anyone to any of the hardcover books. I pointed them to the d20pfsrd, the $10 PDF. Now I think all of them have gone and bought the core rulebook and several have purchased the APG and Ultimate Magic and the Inner Sea Campaign guide - but not due to any pushing from me as GM.
While there may be some people out there doing that I think it is a leap to say this accounts for the majority of sales. Paizo puts out a quality product and people are willing to pay for and are attracted to quality product.
I will agree that there are cheaper ways of getting into PF than what I mentioned. Mostly that is due to my inexperience with PF, as I'm waiting for the starter set to come out before tossing my group at the system. It has just seemed to me that if you want to play Pathfinder, you also want to buy the books (after getting your feet wet). While for 4E, there is very little incentive for most players to buy the books themselves.