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<blockquote data-quote="Dungeoneer" data-source="post: 5436046" data-attributes="member: 91777">This is a pretty big generalization.&nbsp; Does it really hold true for all kinds of content, everywhere?It's been proven pretty definitively in the last couple of years that paywalls are a bad idea for newspapers and news magazines.&nbsp; It's not hard to see why - having a snarky pen and an opinion on whatever Steve Jobs said this week does not make one a rarity on the internet.&nbsp; Why should I pay for your news and opinion when there's free news and opinion everywhere else?The kind of content WotC produces for DDI is qualitatively different.&nbsp; Most obviously, there's not a lot of competition.&nbsp; Not too many other sites are creating rules for D&amp;D 4e, and even ones that do produce quality rules (I'm looking at you, At-Will!) can't create nearly the volume of them that WotC does.It's also the case that the New York Times doesn't own the news they're reporting on.&nbsp; WotC does however own the game they are writing about.I'm not saying I think that WotC's system for DDI is The One True Way (I think they do a lot of things wrong, actually) but neither do I agree with the blanket statement that Paywalls Are Bad.Counterexample: The Wall Street Journal has a paywall and it has by all accounts been quite successful.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; Well, it turns out that people are less inclined to share financial data that gives them an edge in the market.&nbsp; In other words, the WSJ's content is qualitatively different from the NYT, and it gives them an edge.Hmm.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dungeoneer, post: 5436046, member: 91777"] This is a pretty big generalization. Does it really hold true for all kinds of content, everywhere? It's been proven pretty definitively in the last couple of years that paywalls are a bad idea for newspapers and news magazines. It's not hard to see why - having a snarky pen and an opinion on whatever Steve Jobs said this week does not make one a rarity on the internet. Why should I pay for your news and opinion when there's free news and opinion everywhere else? The kind of content WotC produces for DDI is qualitatively different. Most obviously, there's not a lot of competition. Not too many other sites are creating rules for D&D 4e, and even ones that do produce quality rules (I'm looking at you, At-Will!) can't create nearly the volume of them that WotC does. It's also the case that the New York Times doesn't own the news they're reporting on. WotC does however own the game they are writing about. I'm not saying I think that WotC's system for DDI is The One True Way (I think they do a lot of things wrong, actually) but neither do I agree with the blanket statement that Paywalls Are Bad. Counterexample: The Wall Street Journal has a paywall and it has by all accounts been quite successful. Why? Well, it turns out that people are less inclined to share financial data that gives them an edge in the market. In other words, the WSJ's content is qualitatively different from the NYT, and it gives them an edge. Hmm. [/QUOTE]

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