Thoughts on charging for game table "miniatures"

[captaincursor]

However an RPG is very different from a collectible card game... as others have posted, in Magic, getting all the cool cards that you need to build your deck is part of the game.

Exactly. Getting the cards is 80% of the game in magic. In D&D not having any gnoll miniatures in real life is just an annoyance. You use those hobgoblin minis and tell people to use their imagination. But that is on a real life tabletop, things change significantly when you put it all on the screen. People expect to have a representation and are less willing to use their imaginations. Coupled with the fact that the player's PCs will all be miniatures that look EXACTLY how they want their characters to look, having tokens representing the dragon that you spent so long in the dungeon to fight will just be an epic fail.

I doubt anyone would be willing to spend hundreds of dollars to complete their MM1 set of minis for the virtual table top. In most any MMO out on the market the full set of virtual "minis" is available with my subscription price, hundreds of creatures. And not just that, aside from being modeled and painted they are animated as well, AND they have AI and will fight you all on their own. Now if every single MMO out there, from WoW to Ragnorok, can do this for the subscription price of $15 a month. Then surely DDI can deliver an appropriate amount of value, lesser service (static miniatures without animations or AI) for their lesser price.

Because I don't see them suceeding with tokens. Not acceptable.

 

[captaincursor]

ALSO... For many of us, using the virtual game table is probably going to be done in addition to playing IRL. So we'd have to go out and get TWO different sets?

Make the DDI virtual minis cheap and accessible. They won't cut into the real minis business since the people playing online either weren't playing before, or are playing a parallel game IRL. Treat it as a gateway drug. Let it get people hooked into playing more IRL. Make the game quick and cheap to set up and focus on retaining subscribers.

 

[carmachu]

Hey, I hope I'm wrong too! But if they charge the exact same amount of money for a virtual Magic card as a real one? Think about that for a second. That is literally selling you an image dump of the file they used to print the cards they were going to print anyway. And you pay like $8 for a "pack" of these randomized image dumps.

Virtual minis will require actual computer modeling to create. There's no way (imo) that they will be anything like the kind of prices people are hoping (all the monsters in a MM for $5-10, a set of a dozen orcs for $2, etc). I just can't imagine it. But I'd be happy to be incorrect.

Everyone keeps bring magic back into the mix. They are two very different animals. You(and WotC) are banking on treating the similar, your both in for a rude awakening.

In magic, you well, need the cards to play. D&D, you dont. You can use chits or whatever. And annoying folks to buy them in small amounts is not going to go over well. You have to be kidding about anything more than $10 for the whole MM....your out of your mind.

 

[Traycor]

OK, here is what we "know" will be part of the DDI subscription (subject to change, of course).

Dungeon "subscription"
Dragon "subscription"
Character sheet program
Character creator (creates the virtual "figure" for the VTT)
DM Tools (not a lot of details here yet)
D&D Game Table
- certain number of tokens available at start
- certain number of "monsters" available at start

Given the value of the magazine subscriptions I think that hardly qualifies as "no very much at all." You may not want it, or use it, but you are getting it if you subscribe.

I highly disagree. And I can break it down too.
The magazine subscriptions were giving me articles that I paid for, except now they are virtual only, available on the website. But wait, I was getting articles for free on the website all the time already. Not only is this not an ADD in value, this is a LOSS in value because I was getting this for free before. Now I'll have to pay for it. (On top of that, printing is a huge chunk of magazine cost. Without printing, the monetary value of those magazines shrinks to a fraction)

Character sheet - Character Modeler - DM Tools - Game table w/limited tokens:
Any video game, or MMO that I buy or subscribe to comes with all of these things... only much MUCH MUCH more! Any video game would provide me with dozens and dozens of monsters, all fully animated. These minatures won't even have animation!

And the game table is FLAT! I mean, FLAT?!!! What video game have you ever paid for that didn't come with terrain and props and environments? I know that Wizards is comparing what they are offering with the PnP game, but that doesn't work. DDI is a digital product that they plan to charge monthly for.

(Hope I'm not coming off rude. I feel very strongly about this)

To make the DDI valuable as a subscription it needs vast improvement.
- All monsters in the MM available at launch!
- All models fully animated!
- Terrain! Evironments! Props!

If you think that sounds crazy or like a pipe dream, go buy even an old video game for $5 at Walmart. No 3D game released in the last 10 years has come without these elements. How does Wizards plan to convince the average consumer that they are providing them with anything even remotely worth their monthly subscription???

 

[Dormammu]

Everyone keeps bring magic back into the mix. They are two very different animals. You(and WotC) are banking on treating the similar, your both in for a rude awakening.

I am mentioning it not because it is the same game, but because it is the same company. The thing to note is that the costs for Magic Online are outrageously expensive. Wizards sets those prices, so why should we assume they will not use a similar pricing strategy here? I'd rather be braced for that and be pleasantly surprised if virtual minis are cheap.

 

[Dormammu]

I highly disagree. And I can break it down too.
The magazine subscriptions were giving me articles that I paid for, except now they are virtual only, available on the website. But wait, I was getting articles for free on the website all the time already. Not only is this not an ADD in value, this is a LOSS in value because I was getting this for free before. Now I'll have to pay for it. (On top of that, printing is a huge chunk of magazine cost. Without printing, the monetary value of those magazines shrinks to a fraction)

And if you cancel your subscription to DDI, do you retain copies of all the magazines that came out while you were subscribed or do you have to keep paying to refer back to old issues?

 

[Traycor]

I also think that Dungeon and Dragon each need their own full websites, seperate from the Wizards website.

Otherwise: 1.) the non-subscription part of the website will never get updated or
2.) some of the articles are free to non-subscribers, which will basically leech off and diminish the value of the mag subscription.

To make the value clear to both subscribers and non-subscribers, the magazines need their own space entirely.

 

[Traycor]

Given the value of the magazine subscriptions I think that hardly qualifies as "no very much at all." You may not want it, or use it, but you are getting it if you subscribe.

On the contrary, I not only think the Dungeon content is useful, I feel it is necessary. DDI is much like an MMO (they say it isn't, but that doesn't change that it is a virtual, online, multiplayer game). What MMO have you ever subscribed to that didn't come with plot as part of the subscription????

I mean... if I log into WoW, I don't have to pay extra for the orcs to have an agenda that I need to combat. That's expected. Why does Wizards think that providing me with Dungeon magazine content is "extra" that I'm paying for? It's mandatory! If I'm slapping down $15 a month, then Wizards had better be releasing new stuff for me to use all the time or the price isn't worth its upkeep. And having content to run (when paying a subscription) is just one very small piece of the pie. That hardly makes the value worth its cost (on its own anyway).

 

[frankthedm]

I understand the impulse, but I think we live in a world where we have to get used to paying for virtual goods.

One should never need to get used to such things.

A virtual mini may not have that much inherent value, but I think you're paying more for the service than the actual product.

Since I am also expecting wotc to not allow user uploaded monsters for personal use, any perceived value of their virtual minis will be far artificially inflated beyond their fair value.

 

[Novem5er]

A yearly subscription to Dragon or Dungeon was around $45 each... for a total of $90. For both magazines, that equates to about $7.50 a month. Now, to be fair, that price was subsidized by advertisements in the magazine... something DDI won't have (I assume).

So lets trade no advertising for the fact that there is no physical printing or shipping of the product, and the fact that I need a PC to access the material. Even Steven.

So we're paying $7.50 a month for both DDI magazines. Assuming they will charge $15 for the whole package, what are we getting for the other $7.50 we are paying?

The DDI Tools, such as the character generator, the DM toolset (still not sure what this is), and the Gaming Table.

Let's take away the magazines for a moment. Would anyone pay $7.50 a month to have:

1)A character generator.. 3D image and stats.
2)DM tools... which is going to help making adventurers, which are supposed to be easier to create anyway (part of the lure of 4E in the first place!)
3) A flat battle grid, with flat monster tokens, flat terrain, no animation, and no built in mechanics... but with a VOIP chat system built in.

Let's look at D&D Online (the MMO).
For $15 a month, I get a character generator (for 1st level PCs) with 3D modeling.
A 3D environment with 3D monsters, animation, mechanics, and AI
300+ hours of adventure material, stories, etc.
A VOIP system.

So are the DDI tools (not counting the magazines) worth 50% of an MMO subscription?

I really hope they throw some more goods in the pile to really justify the cost... aka free 3D minis for Pelor's sake! Or they could dramatically lower the subscription price or make it free.

Yeah, how about that. Make is a free tool... but then charge us for minis? That's more appropriate than pay to play... and then pay to make the experience "better".