Sage Advice: How much does the D&D Insider subscription cost?

[Dice4Hire]

As I see people waste $40 a month on cell phones with features they never use (roll-over minutes exist to make people feel better about paying $40 for 800 minutes when they only use 200 a month), or $12 a month on movies they only see once (or even on a meal at some restaurant), I don't see $15 a month as a high price for 2 magazines, a virtual gaming table, a small set of e-miniatures/tokens, character creation utilities, campaign utilities, and a large community of fellow gamers.

I see 15 a month as one full color hardback gaming book every 1.5 to 2 months. In a year that is five to six books I will not own.

To me that is the math.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I mean, monthly fees like that for what amounts to a online gaming table that i can get for free from 3rd party apps is pretty steep. They should sweeten the deal by making it as good as possible...

This is another thing that is killing my interest in the subscription. Only 4-5 months to go and we have seen zip, nada and zilch of this revolutionary new gaming table.

 

[JoelF]

My big problem is that everything still seems to be bundled. I can't just subscribe to the digital gaming table, or the character generator, or both. I have to get them, the virtual miniature creator, and digital Dungeon and digital Dragon maagazine. I'm pretty sure I don't want the mags, but I might be very interested in the character builder. I'm not paying $10 a month even for 80% of stuff I don't want - but I'd happily pay $2-3 a month for the one piece I did want.

 

[haus48]

WotC is trying to change D&D into a steady monthly expenditure rather than an occasional book expenditure. It makes a lot of sense from a company's point of view. You have say 100,000 people playing a month and only 10,000 people buying a book each month, you can usually make more by getting a little money off the first group than a lot of money off second group. Also the first group feeds the 2nd group, a more accessible pool of players for people to find, the more they are willing to invest in their hobby. Bundling just helps to sell the idea to the most amount of people possible. 10-15 dollars a month is likely the true free market cost for this.

Also Magic Online crashes and is just as buggy as the Digital initiative so far, and it still accounts for about 50% of magic's profit each year. I am not sure if D&D is as addictive as magic so they may be not be able to get away with it, but I can see why the powers that be at WotC be would be willing to try.

 

[Oldtimer]

Also Magic Online crashes and is just as buggy as the Digital initiative so far, and it still accounts for about 50% of magic's profit each year. I am not sure if D&D is as addictive as magic so they may be not be able to get away with it, but I can see why the powers that be at WotC be would be willing to try.

Their web monkey just shut off forum replication so that the gleemax forums are usable (but slow) again. Only 20+ hours to fix it.

The "Internal Server Error" when I try to read the archive of Dragon magazine articles is still around, though. Maybe they'll fix that on Monday...

 

[carmachu]

It's funny how significant the difference between $10 and $15 seems. I definitely can't see paying $15 a month and I can't see my whole group paying $15 each either.

Its the difference between, roughly $100-$150, and something thats going to easily shoot over $200 for just online.

And thats just one person. mulitple by number of players...that be the difference in a group of $700-$800 and well over $1000....

 

[carmachu]

As I see people waste $40 a month on cell phones with features they never use (roll-over minutes exist to make people feel better about paying $40 for 800 minutes when they only use 200 a month), or $12 a month on movies they only see once (or even on a meal at some restaurant), I don't see $15 a month as a high price for 2 magazines, a virtual gaming table, a small set of e-miniatures/tokens, character creation utilities, campaign utilities, and a large community of fellow gamers.

Its whats called percieved value.

For you...$15 a month, ist great. To me, not worth it. I, personally, havent seen any value from the magazines yet. You perhaps have.

Same with the movies, and features on phones. Its no different.

In the end, time will tell.

 

[Imaro]

SIDE NOTE: You know what I'd be interested in knowing...What happens to the virtual minis you bought if you're subscription lapses. Let's say you are unable to pay for one month due to unforseen circumstances...if you resubscribe later will you still have them, or will they all be gone? Will it matter how long your subscription lapses?

As I see people waste $40 a month on cell phones with features they never use (roll-over minutes exist to make people feel better about paying $40 for 800 minutes when they only use 200 a month), or $12 a month on movies they only see once (or even on a meal at some restaurant), I don't see $15 a month as a high price for 2 magazines, a virtual gaming table, a small set of e-miniatures/tokens, character creation utilities, campaign utilities, and a large community of fellow gamers.

See this is funny to me because this logic seems to say...I don't understand why people won't waste money on this particular thing, since they seem (in your oppinion) to waste it on other things. It really boils down to personal oppinion, not logic. I mean I know plenty of people who think buying virtual anything is a waste and would laugh at someone buying virtual pieces of plastic to play with (especially when real ones exist).

For me personally the DDI appeals less and less with each day. WotC claims that the DDI is not suppose to be an integral part of the game. One of the main problems with 3.5 was the lack of electronic support and tools for people running games. The problem is I don't feel they've addressed it well (at least from a copnsumer perspective) with the DDI.

Why aren't they producing tools for the DM's who run tabletop games...I'm sorry, tools I don't have to be on the internet, logged on to DDI to use? Instead of creating software I can purchase (and own) for my personal use, I have to have a subscription, be somewhere with internet access and hope the server is up and not too busy for me to use it. I don't think this is what most people wanted when they asked for electronic support from WotC. Instead I believe a need that was never addressed for 3.5 (that of good electronic GM support) was spun so that it could create a steady source of revenue...this would be great except for the fact that in choosing this methodology WotC has created particular problems and disadvantages inherent to it being structured in this way.

I mean I honestly get irritated when WoW is down for maintenance and I want to play. It would be even worse if my players have gathered and I can't access their character sheets or I need to prep for my campaign tomorrow and the server won't be up until tomorrow night.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

As I see people waste $40 a month on cell phones with features they never use (roll-over minutes exist to make people feel better about paying $40 for 800 minutes when they only use 200 a month)

And they work a little too well at that; even though it's explicitly spelled out in the contract that if you change your rate plan your rollover minutes get capped at one month's worth of use on your new rate plan to keep people from pulling stupid rate plan stunts, we - I work for AT&T's wireless division - get callers EVERY DAY complaining that they lost rollover minutes when they changed their rate plan. Like we said in your contract, and like the friendly phone rep told you when you called in and changed your damned rate plan.

 

[tomBitonti]

WotC is trying to change D&D into a steady monthly expenditure rather than an occasional book expenditure. It makes a lot of sense from a company's point of view. You have say 100,000 people playing a month and only 10,000 people buying a book each month, you can usually make more by getting a little money off the first group than a lot of money off second group. Also the first group feeds the 2nd group, a more accessible pool of players for people to find, the more they are willing to invest in their hobby. Bundling just helps to sell the idea to the most amount of people possible. 10-15 dollars a month is likely the true free market cost for this.

I agree that WotC is trying to change to a subscription model. I am waiting to see if they will get that to work.