You see ideas in and of themselves aren't what leads the way into the future, it's implementation that does... Hey but then again, just like with 3.5, Paizo might step in and actually make the DDI model work, then I agree it probably would be the way of the future.
I can certainly understand criticisms of WotC. I have my own. But what on
earth leads anyone to believe that
the DDI model does not work? Or that Paizo might be needed to "step in and actually make it work"?
I see no evidence that this is the case. I have seen many estimated DDI subscription figures based on various things (the most common being related to the number of members of a WotC social group only accessible by DDI members, and which has an
astonishingly high member count).
The DDI model, by all appearances so far, seems to work. It seems to work better than the "print loads of books and hope people buy them" model. It might not be our own individual preference, but I see no room for implication that it's not
working.
Paizo's book sales have nothing to do with this. What we're looking at is WotC's attempt to shift the marketplace. Whether they'll be ultimately successful or not is another discussion, but trotting out Paizo's book sales vs. WotC's is as silly at this point as comparing Paizo's book sales vs. Blizzard's WoW book sales. Hey -
Pathfinder is bigger than
World of Warcraft! [Hint - it isn't, but Paizo does probably sell more books].
WotC is attempting to shift the market to an online subscription model. A model that has lower costs, and thus higher profitability. Hell, many CRPGs have gone free-to-play and relied on in-game micropayments. Are we going to say that Zynga (the producers of
Farmville) are unsuccessful because they haven't sold any DVDs of their game? It's currently valued at
$1.5 billion.
We don't really know WotC's subscription numbers. We can guess. We can use evidence such as that above. But we don't know. But there is a lot of evidence that DDI is succeeding and none that I'm aware of that it is not. And comparing books sales to a company that's moved to online subscriptions as its primary revenue base is just silly.
WotC's book sales are low because WotC has stopped selling books. WotC is closer (in nature, not size) to Blizzard than Paizo.
This
has to be obvious. It has NOTHING to do with edition popularity. It's about sales venue, and WotC's sales venue is not in the fading FLGS scene. It's in tens of thousands of credit cards buying incremental rules additions each on on DDI and using their Character Builder and other tools.
How is it possible that this isn't obvious? How can people - with a straight face - use
book sales in
FLGSs as a basis of a game's popularity in the 21st century? Really?
We sold a crap load of WotBs adventures in various venues. The big one was the EN World subscription. I guarantee it sold more copies than most of the things you see in your FLGS. Your FLGS owner, however, knows nothing of it. Our ZEITGEIST
Player's Guide just got
9000 downloads in a week. Survey FLGS's and find one that's even
heard of it. The market is moving. It has been for a decade, and over the next decade it will do so more. Asking booksellers about a game's popularity is pointless in this age.