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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 3468234" data-attributes="member: 1457">How about this? In order to launch a successful subscription model you need A) content, and B) subscribers. By moving the content of Dragon and Dungeon online you simultaneously create A as well as a pool of people who are demonstrably willing to pay for A--in other words, potential B. If you keep the magazine and just reprint the stuff online, it's a mess. Who is responsible for formatting the content for the web? For maintaining the online structure? For editing? For archiving, hosting fees, customer service? For paying the freelancers for the creation of the content in the first place? What about the customer? They want Dragon content--content from a magazine published by Paizo--and yet that content is available online only at WotC's site? That's confusing.Remember that Dragon and Dungeon content are just one component of WotC's DI. As of now, it's the only component of DI that we're aware of--everything else is unannounced. So Dragon and Dungeon content is a perfect introduction to the DI. Even though a fraction of D&D players read those magazines, every player knows about them, and so every player will potentially be curious to check out the DI, if only to browse the portions of Dragon and Dungeon content that will be free. That's a terrific, natural intro to the rest of the DI.Keeping both delivery mechanisms going simultaneously would be short-sighted, and dilute the value of the DI. By making the WotC DI the sole source of that content, they focus customer interest and create a one-stop shop for all things D&D. That's a long-term view, and it's smart. -zPS: As for greedy, I don't understand how that word applies. WotC is a corporation. It exists by providing products and services that people want to buy. Any pricing is determined by demand; they'll charge exactly as much as the most people are willing to pay that results in the greatest amount of profit. Not a penny more or a penny less. Whether that'll be 1,000,000 people willing to pay $5/month, or 500,000 people willing to pay $10/month, well, that's up to WotC's market research company to help determine. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But that's not greed. That's a purely mechanical function of economics. PSS: Given the figure I saw earlier of 4 million D&D players, I bet they're hoping 5% will pay at least $10/month, resulting in a minimum $2 million bucks a month in subscriptions. That's a nice round number, and enough so that one month of revenue will cover the annual salaries of twenty full-time programmers, leaving the other 11 months to cover other costs and maybe even return a bit of profit. If more people like it, they can charge less. If fewer people like it, they'll have to charge more (and hope to avoid a death spiral). Given that Netflix, Blockbuster Online, etc. have subscriptions of $5-$25 a month, MMORPGs run $10-$20 a month, and Dragon & Dungeon ran a total of $6/month, I bet they'll settle in the $5-$15 range. Maybe five bucks for basic "Player" access, and a higher amount for full-featured "DM" access.</blockquote>

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