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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 3478203" data-attributes="member: 22779">The problem with all of that is the assumptions that the profits that Dragon and Dungeon make are enough to keep them going if WOTC does it.  If they were, then I would guess that they would have kept the magazines going.  However, I'm willing to think that they are looking at the bottom line and saying that it just isn't worth it.Somewhere around here was also mentioned a fairly large price hike for magazines by the postal service.  That would take a big bite out of the profits right there.As far as people who live in countries where their internet is regularly censored, well, since Paizo only published in English, I highly doubt they had much penetration there.  Possible, but, extremely unlikely.  OTOH, it is quite possible for WOTC to have the DI offered in different languages.  After all, I see the PHB, DMG and numerous other books in Japanese when I head down to the hobby shops here.  It would never be profitable enough to print Dragon in Japanese, but, translating a website?  Not such an insurmountable task.The problem is, everyone points to Paizo and says they were making money.  I'm sure that's true.  But, were they making enough money?  I don't know.  I have no idea.  A sneaking suspicion, based on the 100k magazines/month in their stats says no, they weren't making a lot of money.  Maybe a lot for a 3rd party publisher, but, possibly not enough for a publisher the size of WOTC.  Remember also, the DI doesn't have to make more money than Dungeon and Dragon, only more money than the license brought in to make it a success.Yes, the magazine is in a non-volatile format, but, the distribution is so small that virtually no one actually sees it.  Yes, websites get hacked.  Then again, post trucks get into car accidents and burn (which happened a few months back)  No medium is fool proof.If WOTC publishes the magazine itself, it's simply competing with itself.  That's never good for business.  If it was going in the model of a newspaper website, and mostly paid for by advertising space on the website, then possibly.  But, they are going with a subscription model.  Meaning that people who get the magazine instead of the web access are a net loss.I'm fairly confident that this conversation was held at WOTC long before we've had it.  They looked at the pros and cons of dropping the magazine and decided that dropping it made more sense.  I would love to hear their thinking on this as I'm sure most people would.</blockquote>

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