[PR] DireKobold.com Update

[EOL]

As the launch date gets closer I've had to forgo the very enjoyable, but somewhat time-consuming hobby of posting on the message boards, but I thought I'd poke my head out to a give an update along with some recently decided upon features.

We looking at starting to publish one adventure a week starting in December. Subscriptions have been set at three dollars a month or twenty-five dollars a year. But the big news is what we're going to be offering for free at DireKobold.com:

1- All of our adventures will include, if not feature some cool new bit of OGC. Be it a new PrC, spell, monster or something else. All of this new OGC will be immediately available for free as part of the DireKobold.com OGC repository.

2- One major NPC from each adventure will be made available, complete with stat-blocks, a detailed history and play notes. Ready to stick in wherever you need a quick pre-made villain or hero.

3- Finally and perhaps most significantly all adventures over a year old will be made available in their entirety as free downloads on DireKobold.com.

Complete details can be found here: http://direkobold.com/subscribe.htm

As the launch date draws near we're confident that DireKobold.com will be the greatest D20 adventure repository anywhere.

One last thing, our schedule is filling up fast but we do have a couple of slots still available for both established authors and those trying to break into the third edition/D20 market. Browse to: http://direkobold.com/submissions.htm
or e-mail: submissions@direkobold.com with any questions.

Thanks for all the people who have already inquired, and we look forward to being a member of the D20 publishing community.

 

[Khur]

Hmmm...

Will those free downloads be general public or subscribers only?

 

[EOL]

Re: Hmmm...

Will those free downloads be general public or subscribers only?

Everybody will have access to the free downloads. Certainly they are designed as marketing to encourage people to subscribe, but non-subscribers who have no desire to have access to the latest adventures will still have access to the older adventures without paying a cent.

 

[Khur]

Perhaps a bad idea....

To introduce myself, I'm a graphic designer, illustrator, and writer living in Bellevue, WA. Most of my experience is in ad work and promotions. I don't really have anything to gain by telling you what I'm going to, so maybe that will lend a little credence to it.

From a marketing standpoint, offering the adventures to the general public for free will hurt your site (and subscription rates), not help it. The reasoning is simple. If I can get a year's worth of adventures on Dire Kobold for free (after waiting the year of course), why would I need to subscribe? That's the same as Dungeon Magazine giving away back issues. They don't, because it'd be like cutting their own throat.

I humbly (as someone you don't know) recommend reserving the archives for your paying customers. Maybe give away a few freebies to the general public now and then as a promotion, but not the whole wagonload. Make it kind of like, "This is what's inside if you subscribe today!" In fact, you may want to start giving away a good adventure every quarter or so as such a promotion. Perhaps even reserving part of the freebie as bonus material for subscribing, like color printable map images, or battle mat sized images for tactical combat with miniatures.

Another thing is, and you may not care, but if you give away solid adventures, complete with good cartography, and etc., you'll be hurting the print industry as well. Modules don't sell that well as it is, but with a resource out there that gives everyone access to fifty or more free adventures a year they'll bottom out real quick. Internet freebies already hurt that aspect of the industry.

Just some things for you to consider.

Cheers!

 

[ced1106]

Re: Perhaps a bad idea....

From a marketing standpoint, offering the adventures to the general public for free will hurt your site (and subscription rates), not help it. The reasoning is simple. If I can get a year's worth of adventures on Dire Kobold for free (after waiting the year of course), why would I need to subscribe?

On top of this, probably the last thing Kobold want to do is hamper its first year in business...!

Another thing is, and you may not care, but if you give away solid adventures, complete with good cartography, and etc., you'll be hurting the print industry as well. Modules don't sell that well as it is, but with a resource out there that gives everyone access to fifty or more free adventures a year they'll bottom out real quick. Internet freebies already hurt that aspect of the industry.

Well, I don't think anything Kobold does is going to affect the way it is now. Personally, I think the module market is oversaturated with shoddy product.

One random thought is, to stand out, tailor-make the adventures to your subscribers. Have the subscribers suggest NPCs and plot lines, or gaming accessories (eg. tavern floor plans) then you develop them. You could even do something like having a two-tier subscription program, one for regular subscribers, and one for those who want you to do work for them.

Good luck,


Cedric.

 

[EOL]

Re: Perhaps a bad idea....

From a marketing standpoint, offering the adventures to the general public for free will hurt your site (and subscription rates), not help it. The reasoning is simple. If I can get a year's worth of adventures on Dire Kobold for free (after waiting the year of course), why would I need to subscribe? That's the same as Dungeon Magazine giving away back issues. They don't, because it'd be like cutting their own throat.

I appreciate the feedback. In a years time when we start "giving away" the old adventures we plan on having more revenue streams than just the "new" adventures, and the plan is to use the free adventures to pull people into those other revenue streams, but this isn't the biggest reason. The biggest reason is we want to be a good member of the D20 community. Look around at all the people donating their time to the community. We think that being a good "corporate citizen" requires giving back to the people who made you successful.

I humbly (as someone you don't know) recommend reserving the archives for your paying customers. Maybe give away a few freebies to the general public now and then as a promotion, but not the whole wagonload. Make it kind of like, "This is what's inside if you subscribe today!" In fact, you may want to start giving away a good adventure every quarter or so as such a promotion. Perhaps even reserving part of the freebie as bonus material for subscribing, like color printable map images, or battle mat sized images for tactical combat with miniatures.

This is a good point perhaps giving away all adventures over a year old may be overkill, but once again we'll have to see. The point I'm really interested in making is that we intend to provide significant resources even to those people who don't want to give us any money because we've received significant help from all sorts of people in the community without giving them any money.

Another thing is, and you may not care, but if you give away solid adventures, complete with good cartography, and etc., you'll be hurting the print industry as well. Modules don't sell that well as it is, but with a resource out there that gives everyone access to fifty or more free adventures a year they'll bottom out real quick. Internet freebies already hurt that aspect of the industry.

Once again we'll have to see. I do however think that unlike most products, adventures work very well as PDF's. Most RPG products are used multiple times over a long period and therefore work better in print. Adventures, on the other hand, are marked up and used once. This is not to say that we are setting out to hurt the print industry on the contrary as I said above we want to be good "corporate citizens." That includes playing nice with other D20 publishers not just the community of players.