Who is interested in the Digital Initiative?

[Big Bucket]

For me - no thanks.

I just am not interested in digital files for a few reasons:

*My sad old computer is nowhere near the table.
*I'm bad at keeping up with backing up the files on my 'puter and have had a HD failure and files lost before.
*The Big One: Reading the Content - I don't want to buy a digital copy only to spend money on printing it because I won't read it on the computer. Then I end up losing/destroying pages I've printed. I really need the book in hand. Share it with the group at the table and read it while stretched out on the couch, in the car (while someone else is driving, of course), or wherever.

In our group of four I'm the most gung-ho about buying new stuff. I'm fairly certain the rest of the guys won't be interested either.

 

[Maggan]

Wow...taking a look at the results of this poll, for WotC's sake I hope ENWorld does not provide anything resembling a realistic sample of D&D players. If it does, then this bodes very poorly for WotC's desire to profit from online content. I mean, such a small fraction of voters are even interested in TRYING it.

I was actually thinking the exact opposite.

The readership of Dungeon and Dragon represents around 1% of the total number of D&D players.

If this poll indeed would be representative of D&D players, the 3.25% who would absolutely buy into the digital initiative is three times the number of those who bought Dragon and Dungeon.

That would be enough for WotC to go "boooyah pwned" to anyone who's predicted the failure of the digital offering, since that would mean that instead of getting a fraction of the money from 1% of the gamers (since Paizo needs their cut and all that), they would be getting all of the money from 3.25% of the players.

Add to that almost 30% who are saying that if the service is as good as Dragon and Dungeon they will take a look at it. Not all will like it of course, but a lot will, which will add to the 3.25%.

And add to this 22% that are undecided, of which a substantial part might be expected to sign up if they think the service is up to what they expect.

Let's be conservative in our estimates. Based on this poll 3.25% would absolutely try it. Let's say that out of the 52% who might be interested, around 7% sign up, making the total 10%.

Let's say that the number 5 million D&D players which has been used in other threads is too high, so I'll revise it down to 3 million.

10% of 3 million is 300 000.

300 000 players signs up to the digital initiative. Let's say that they pay two bucks a month, that's 600 000 dollars going straight to WotC each month. Even if only 5% sign up, that's 300 000 dollars each month. If 1% sign up, equalling the population that bought Dragon and Dungeon, it's still 60 000 dollars each month that can be used to produce content for the digital initiative.

At 5 cents a word, for every % that signs on, WotC could buy over 1 million new D&D words (rules or setting material) each month from freelancers. That's more than one hardback book each month (I actually believe it's close to 2,5 books, but I'm not sure of the word count).

For the money they bring in from just 1% of the D&D players available.

So IF these numbers were representative of the entire population of D&D players, it proves that WotC has made the correct commercial decision, and shows why it would be important for them not to concede even the small percentage that bought Dragon and Dungeon as customers.

But as the numbers aren't representative, it doesn't prove squat.

/M

 

[trancejeremy]

Eh - like I said in some other thread, the number of registered users on ENWorld is about the number of Dungeon/Dragon subscribers. 50,000 or so.

I can't imagine there are many people who would be interested in D&D online, but haven't visited ENWorld. I'm sure there are some, but really, if you like D&D (at least 3.x) and are online, surely you'd visit here. So I would have to guess that maybe they'd get 5-10k members at most (at most). Yeah, at $10-20 a month, that's not bad money, probably more than they got from Paizo, but it's not huge, either.

I wonder if perhaps WOTC wants to move away from traditional tabletop roleplaying, and become almost like a MMORPG. Minus the fancy computer graphics and all that. They see how popular WoW is, and want to cash in somehow.

 

[Maggan]

Eh - like I said in some other thread, the number of registered users on ENWorld is about the number of Dungeon/Dragon subscribers. 50,000 or so.

Yeah, what I wanted to say was that if you want to pretend that these numbers are representative of all D&D players, these number actually look really good for WotC.

The real crux would be how many are registered on WotC boards?

They would be far more likely to sign up to the service.

/M

 

[DragonLancer]

Not interested. If it was being published properly like Dungeon and Dragon was, then I would consider it but I won't touch it as online only.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Interested? Yes.

Will pay for it? Too early to tell.

 

[nerfherder]

Sure I'm interested but I'm not buying anything until I have a firm grasp of what is being offered and what price they're asking for it. Until then it's just speculation.

qfmft!

 

[D.Shaffer]

I'm in the 'I'll see what they offer, then decide' category. Until we get some concrete facts instead of opinion and guesswork, I wont know whether it'll be worth it or not until that point.

 

[JustKim]

I won't touch it as online only.

Are you aware that you have an RPGNow bookshelf?

 

[Mortellan]

I may get flamed for this, but if I have to pay for an online download, please keep the cartoons out of it.

Awww man!