# Gamehackery: What Does the Subscription Boom Mean to Gamers?



## Morrus

Adventure paths make for common subscription products (EN World has three); they really are a great way of handling it.  There's a couple of models - pay it all up-front and then get the content periodically (the standard magazine model); or pay a small recurring subscription to continue receiving content (which is how DDI does it).  The important thing, IMO, is to ensure the customer gets to keep anything acquired that way - no "renting" of products, or access only available through a specific manner.


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## Ahnehnois

Very simply, subscriptions are good for the seller and bad for the buyer. In the context of gaming anyway; my cable subscription makes sense because I know I'm going to watch TV every month and I know there will be something to watch. Heck, I know I'll need toilet paper, too.

With a gaming subscription, though, I don't know when I'll be able to play, and there's no assurances that any particular company will put out something that's worth paying for at any particular time. And the great thing for the company is that if they get you to subscribe during a period of high gaming or to get discounts on some good content, there's a strong chance that the customer will be patient and continue to pay a nominal fee even under less ideal circumstances.

I absolutely will not pay a subscription fee for any rpg products. I'll actively combat any attempt to monetize rpgs through that route. When it comes to gaming, I evaluate a specific product, and only if I am fairly impressed will I put forth a small amount of money for the ability to permanently own it.


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## delericho

I am fairly stunned that we haven't seen a collapse in DDI subscriptions in the last six months. I keep expecting it to happen, but those numbers just keep going up.

I agree (and have said in the past) that subscriptions are the way of the future. Indeed, it looks like Kickstarter may be the method of choice for funding a one-off product (or limited-size product line, with things like GM's screens as stretch goals), while the subscription becomes the model of choice for ongoing lines, such as D&D and Pathfinder.

And I don't have a problem with that, not in the slightest. After all, the alternative would probably be the cancellation of the product lines entirely, and nobody benefits from _that_. The one thing I do very much hope to avoid, though, is any _required_ subscription. Indeed, even the 4e Character Builder skirts the line a bit close, IMO; it's sufficiently good that I wouldn't play 4e without access to it. So, yeah, make the subscription something it's nice to have, and I'll be delighted; make it something _required_, and I'll stick with what I've got.

As for what I'd be willing to subscribe to... things to make prepping and running my game easier. A top-quality Monster Builder would be ideal (especially if I can modify it with my custom house rules). Campaign management software would be good, too - something to track the passage of days, to lay out NPC plots and schemes, to create handouts quickly (with a bank of built in art; otherwise, I can just use Word), to create item cards (or spell cards, or...). Oh, and an electronic character sheet, complete with buff/debuff management handling, would be excellent - several of my players have moved to using an iPad for SRD lookups, so moving to an electronic character sheet is the next logical step.

There's a big *but* to all this, though... I play 3e, and the more I hear about 5e, the less likely it sounds like I'll make the switch. So, WotC, how are you going to square that circle?


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## Radiating Gnome

Ahnehnois said:


> Very simply, subscriptions are good for the seller and bad for the buyer.




This sort of blanket assertion really gets me frustrated. I'm not saying that subscriptions are never bad for the buyer; I just don't think that they *must* be. 

I played 4e for years.  The digital services provided by DDI are very valuable to me -- even though DDI doesn't have everything that I would like it to have, it's still very good.  

The character builder is an incredibly valuable resource. As a player, it makes it much easier to make characters. As a DM, it means that I don't need to double check my player's math every week to make sure they aren't making mistakes.  
The Compendium is incredibly handy, and being able to quickly look up any reference -- including those from books that have just hit the street -- is new, and worth my money.  
Those two alone -- nevermind access to the adventures, art, and other character options that come as the content part of the subscription -- for me DDI was a VERY valuable subscription.  The content alone might not have been worth paying for, but when you add the tools, I'm in.  

My subscription to En World gives me tools that I use pretty heavily -- search, etc -- but in the case of En World, it's much more important to me that the subscription supports the community, keeps the lights on, etc. Again, that has a lot of value for me, and I don't think it's bad for me as the customer. 

A content subscription -- like the adventure paths that Paizo and En World offer -- I also see value in those for the consumer. 

I absolutely agree that there are some cases where the subscription is a terrible idea.  And some programs designed to hoodwink and abuse the customer.  I'm sure I'm not the only one here who got into big trouble as a young teenager with a Science Fiction Book Club membership. I mean, they were demonic.

But insisting that subscriptions are always bad for the customer is just too broad a brush.  I think there are excellent examples -- in the gaming industry -- where subscription services are good for both customer and business.  

-rg


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## Radiating Gnome

Holy crap, the Science Fiction Book Club still exists!  Someone start sharpening stakes, we need to put those vampires down NOW!


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## Ahnehnois

Radiating Gnome said:


> This sort of blanket assertion really gets me frustrated. I'm not saying that subscriptions are never bad for the buyer; I just don't think that they *must* be.



I was talking about game content subscriptions only; you may still disagree with that assertion and find it overbroad, but I think it's generally (if not in every conceivable circumstance) true.



> I played 4e for years.  The digital services provided by DDI are very valuable to me -- even though DDI doesn't have everything that I would like it to have, it's still very good.



I don't doubt that it's useful. However, I would not pay a fee to use it. The market standard is to have the rules available online in a user-friendly format for free. There are also a number of good free character builders and other resources for various systems out there. Charging for things that should be free is not cool.



> My subscription to En World gives me tools that I use pretty heavily -- search, etc -- but in the case of En World, it's much more important to me that the subscription supports the community, keeps the lights on, etc. Again, that has a lot of value for me, and I don't think it's bad for me as the customer.



This is very different from an rpg subscription, though. With an ENW site subscription, you know what you're getting in terms of services, and you can use it any time you use message boards, as opposed to when you can get a group of people together for several hours to game. A much lower barrier of entry. So if you use ENW a lot, it's probably a good investment. For me, it's on the list of things that I might conceivably spend money on if I had more money (whereas I wouldn't pay for DDI or a Paizo subscription even if I was rich). But it's also very important to note that ENW is free; the subscription is a premium addon. If an rpg released a free SRD and had some campaign managing software or character building tools as an addon for high volume users, that would be a reasonable model in my mind. The subscription isn't to the rpg itself, and isn't intended for the general consumer.



> A content subscription -- like the adventure paths that Paizo and En World offer -- I also see value in those for the consumer.



I really don't. It seems to me that Paizo subscriptions are a perfect example of a company taking advantage of customer loyalty and making a ton of money while putting out products of mixed quality and utility (keeping in mind that I actually like Pathfinder). But I'm cool with Paizo because they're not requiring you to subscribe in order to play the game. You can use the PFSRD for free or buy books individually; the subscription is an addon for people who really want it, and generally these are people who know what they're paying for and aren't being taken advantage of. I would not recommend anyone "buy in" in that way, but they're not closing the door on me as a customer as much as with the DDI model (which I suppose is also an addon, but there's no SRD, no free-to-play). 



> I absolutely agree that there are some cases where the subscription is a terrible idea.  And some programs designed to hoodwink and abuse the customer.



To me, there are some great products being put out in the rpg industry. But the big players are not doing well. WotC has crashed, and Paizo is treading water (this is my critical opinion of product quality, not my guess as to their profit margins). I used to buy rpg products regularly, but my purchasing has waned for a variety of reasons. I think those companies should be putting out better materials for less, period. Much better for a lot less. In that context, the idea of trying to get me to pay for a subscription is lunacy.



> But insisting that subscriptions are always bad for the customer is just too broad a brush. I think there are excellent examples -- in the gaming industry -- where subscription services are good for both customer and business.



I have a hard time seeing that. Getting groups of people together and finding large time slots for rpg playing is hard. A subscription could conceivably make sense only if it gets used regularly, and I don't see any reason this would ever be the case for the average rpg player. Sure, some people make a regular weekly game for decades, but most of us have other obligations.

Furthermore, the nature of the gaming hobby is that the usefulness of adding new content diminishes over time. Once you have a working ruleset, you generally don't want to relearn things constantly. Incremental revisions are okay (and more of them would be a positive development for the industry, IMO), but minor revisions to the basic system aren't enough to sustain a subscription business, and major revisions can't be done frequently enough to justify subscription. Expansions to new rules subsystems create rules bloat and feed into smaller and smaller niches. Content production outpaces demand as players and DMs learn how to improvise and homebrew. Experienced players either lock in to one game, acquire all the content they need, and drop out of the marketplace, or they expand to new systems (which wouldn't fall under the same subscription). Playing an rpg isn't about acquiring content, it's about learning skills. That's the contradiction of rpgs-the deeper you are into one and the better you know it, the less you need to spend money on it.

This is different from, say, underwear and toilet paper. Using these things does not reduce your need for more of them later. Also, they don't last as long as dice.

The macro level reality here is that I don't think anyone's really cracked rpgs as a business. And given the nature of how they work, I don't see any reason why rpgs would ever be any more profitable than they are now. So I resist attempts to monetize them in new ways because I like having a hobby that doesn't waste my money.


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## Radiating Gnome

Ahnehnois said:


> The market standard is to have the rules available online in a user-friendly format for free. There are also a number of good free character builders and other resources for various systems out there. Charging for things that should be free is not cool.




I'm not sure I agree that there's a "market standard" like this.  Certainly there are free character generators for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. I'm especially fond of PCGen because I'm a huge fan of open source projects.  But is the same true for every game system? 

And even if there are -- why is it "not cool" to charge for something you've created? 

If you've created something -- whether it's a character builder, an adventure, or a new game -- don't you have every right to charge for it? If the utility and quality are good enough, shouldn't a provider have the right to try to charge for it?  

DDI provides a character builder and the compendium for 4e; but it's still entirely possible to buy the books and not subscribe.  Plenty of people are subscribing, though -- why is that not cool? 

It's one thing to say "I wouldn't buy that." It's quite another to say "That shouldn't be a paid product." It's the equivalent of saying "I don't like fish, so fish shouldn't be sold." 



Ahnehnois said:


> It seems to me that Paizo subscriptions are a perfect example of a company taking advantage of customer loyalty and making a ton of money while putting out products of mixed quality and utility (keeping in mind that I actually like Pathfinder). But I'm cool with Paizo because they're not requiring you to subscribe in order to play the game. You can use the PFSRD for free or buy books individually; the subscription is an addon for people who really want it, and generally these are people who know what they're paying for and aren't being taken advantage of. I would not recommend anyone "buy in" in that way, but they're not closing the door on me as a customer as much as with the DDI model (which I suppose is also an addon, but there's no SRD, no free-to-play).




Is there someone who does require that you subscribe to play their game at this point? It's still entirely possible to buy the D&D books, download a character sheet and make your characters by hand. Lone Wolf Studios produces the Hero Builder which has a 4e data set -- for a one time fee you could make 4e characters without a subscription in a nice, digital way. I'm not sure that there is an example at this point of a game that requires a subscription to play. 

In the future?  That might be the case. Certainly the companies like the idea. I'd bet that they try to edge us closer. Bottom line, though, in the gaming industry like any other, your dollars are your votes. If you don't want to spend money, you opinion doesn't make much impact on the companies producing products. 



Ahnehnois said:


> I have a hard time seeing that. Getting groups of people together and finding large time slots for rpg playing is hard. A subscription could conceivably make sense only if it gets used regularly, and I don't see any reason this would ever be the case for the average rpg player. Sure, some people make a regular weekly game for decades, but most of us have other obligations.




I'm one of those who has had a group together for regular gaming for many years.  Believe it or not, I manage to do that without shirking my other obligations.  Am I the minority?  



Ahnehnois said:


> Furthermore, the nature of the gaming hobby is that the usefulness of adding new content diminishes over time. Once you have a working ruleset, you generally don't want to relearn things constantly. Incremental revisions are okay (and more of them would be a positive development for the industry, IMO), but minor revisions to the basic system aren't enough to sustain a subscription business, and major revisions can't be done frequently enough to justify subscription. Expansions to new rules subsystems create rules bloat and feed into smaller and smaller niches. Content production outpaces demand as players and DMs learn how to improvise and homebrew. Experienced players either lock in to one game, acquire all the content they need, and drop out of the marketplace, or they expand to new systems (which wouldn't fall under the same subscription). Playing an rpg isn't about acquiring content, it's about learning skills. That's the contradiction of rpgs-the deeper you are into one and the better you know it, the less you need to spend money on it.




I would absolutely have no trouble with anything you're saying here if you were only talking for yourself -- or maybe the subset of gamers that you belong to.  If you'd said "Once I have a working ruleset" that's awesome, I get it.  

I, personally, enjoy the evolution of the game system, and I'm often mixing in new elements and features, even when the game isn't changing.  My players enjoy experimenting with new classes and options.  This isn't saying that your position is wrong -- just that it's not the only point of view.   



Ahnehnois said:


> The macro level reality here is that I don't think anyone's really cracked rpgs as a business. And given the nature of how they work, I don't see any reason why rpgs would ever be any more profitable than they are now. So I resist attempts to monetize them in new ways because I like having a hobby that doesn't waste my money.




I wish I had access to better data -- to be able to either agree or disagree with you with some sense of certainty. I think it's a tricky, complex business, with a shrinking customer base.  But there's still plenty of opportunity for small companies to live and thrive in the long tail.  

My suspicion is that Hasbro's need for a revenue stream of a certain size -- and therefore a fan base of a certain size -- creates a need for a level of success that is difficult to achieve given the current models.  Paizo seems to have done quite well for themselves, being able to carve out a customer base for themselves based on fan loyalty -- but they are a much smaller company and need a lot less to be successful than Hasbro/Wizards needs.  

Other, much smaller companies -- maybe Pelgrane, Pinnacle, etc -- they can succeed with even smaller customer bases. 

So, when you say "no one has cracked it" -- I think success looks different from a lot of different points of view. But I think that their idea of success (making a comfortable living for the right number of employees) and yours (creating a game that I enjoy that doesn't cost me too much) are so different that it's going to be hard to find a balance point. 

-rg


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## Ahnehnois

Radiating Gnome said:


> I'm not sure I agree that there's a "market standard" like this.  Certainly there are free character generators for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder. I'm especially fond of PCGen because I'm a huge fan of open source projects.  But is the same true for every game system?



No, but I think it's fair to say that Paizo is setting the standard for the rpg market right now.



> And even if there are -- why is it "not cool" to charge for something you've created?



If something cooler (or as cool, or even close to as cool) is available for free, then charging for it is not cool. If the cost to the consumer is unreasonably high compared to the cost to the producer, that's also not cool. If the cost to the consumer is monthly, but the cost to the producer is one-time (with, possibly, minimal upkeep), that's not cool.



> DDI provides a character builder and the compendium for 4e; but it's still entirely possible to buy the books and not subscribe.  Plenty of people are subscribing, though -- why is that not cool?



Mainly because there's no SRD for people who don't want to pay anything to start. Again, open gaming is the gold standard. Regardless of what a company's rights are, why should we settle for less? Wouldn't you rather that the same content you pay for would be available for free? And isn't that a realistic expectation, given what Paizo is doing, and what WotC did while it was using the OGL? And how much does it really cost to produce rpg content?



> It's one thing to say "I wouldn't buy that." It's quite another to say "That shouldn't be a paid product." It's the equivalent of saying "I don't like fish, so fish shouldn't be sold."



Logically, I agree with your argument. The reason I'm so demanding of WotC is because I consider D&D to be the most popular and culturally significant rpg, and thus them to a significant extent the caretakers of the hobby. (Also, I believe fish shouldn't be sold because of the harm that fishing causes, regardless of whether I eat them or not, but that's a tangent). But yes, the companies can do what they want. But I won't pay a subscription fee. That's what I'm trying to say.



> Is there someone who does require that you subscribe to play their game at this point?



No. This thread is about future directions, and we're talking about intermediate steps in that direction. DDI is not charging to play the game, but it is charging for things that are similar to what was previously free, and thus is such a step. It is worth noting that in other arenas, the battle between different business models for gaming, subscriptions among them, is quite pitched, and consumers are getting taken advantage of in some cases.



> If you don't want to spend money, you opinion doesn't make much impact on the companies producing products.



You're right about that. I've made efforts to "vote with my money", by supporting low-cost, open content products, but unfortunately I don't have as much money to spend as I did a few years ago (or hopefully will in the near future), regardless of what the marketplace is doing. C'est la vie.



> I'm one of those who has had a group together for regular gaming for many years.  Believe it or not, I manage to do that without shirking my other obligations.  Am I the minority?



I believe so. Not that that's a bad thing; I envy that. It would be great to have a gaming group meet on a regular basis over a long period of time. But I think that realistically, there are a lot of intermittent, transient, part-time, and lapsed players out there. My own perspective is that I've had some consistency in players over the years, but it's getting tough to make regular sessions, and I don't see it getting easier, and we don't even have kids.



> I, personally, enjoy the evolution of the game system, and I'm often mixing in new elements and features, even when the game isn't changing.  My players enjoy experimenting with new classes and options.  This isn't saying that your position is wrong -- just that it's not the only point of view.



I'm always tinkering with new rules myself, but I find it unlikely that, even in a diverse range of perspectives, many people will have a constant high demand for gaming products over a long period of time. Some demand for some, very little for others.



> I wish I had access to better data -- to be able to either agree or disagree with you with some sense of certainty. I think it's a tricky, complex business, with a shrinking customer base.  But there's still plenty of opportunity for small companies to live and thrive in the long tail.



That's true. I don't know about big companies though.



> So, when you say "no one has cracked it" -- I think success looks different from a lot of different points of view. But I think that their idea of success (making a comfortable living for the right number of employees) and yours (creating a game that I enjoy that doesn't cost me too much) are so different that it's going to be hard to find a balance point.



Having observed an erosion in the quality of the gaming market (from my perspective, perhaps not WotC's). I think it's really important to be an active consumer. I understand that inflation happens, but when I see the quality of products for my game of choice going down and new costs appearing, I think it's important to fight back. As is our broader reality in the modern world, when our interests as individuals are opposed to those of institutions, we have to dig in and fight, or those institutions will walk all over us.


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## Morrus

Ahnehnois said:


> No, but I think it's fair to say that Paizo is setting the standard for the rpg market right now.




The market leader doesn't set the standard.  The market leader sets the high water mark.  If others were able to do what the market leader does, _they'd_ be the market leader. Expecting the entire industry to match the market leader is not a reasonable expectation, IMO. So I can't agree that Paizo is setting the standard for the RPG market.

Anyhow, that's by-the-by.  There is no standard, at least in the context you're discussing one.  While you clearly have personal expectations, those are not in any way a standard.


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## delericho

Ahnehnois said:


> Wouldn't you rather that the same content you pay for would be available for free?




No, because I want Mike Mearls and Erik Mona to be able to afford to eat occasionally.

As a larger point, though, there's this: if WotC and Paizo can't make money producing these games, they will stop. And nobody gains by that - we lose out because we can't get the support that, often, we want; the employees lose out because their livelihoods are now gone; the companies lose out because these decisions are not instant and so by the time they act they've lost money.

WotC and Paizo have no divine right to our money, of course, nor do they have a right even to exist. But they do have the right to _try_ to make money, and if that means packaging up a product that they think people will like for a price that they think people will pay, I really don't see the great evil in that.


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## Ahnehnois

[MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION]
Well, of course they're trying to make money. I believe they'd be better served by making the buy-in to the game low to nil, and saving the subscription model for those who are deep into the game. That's what Paizo does. Effectively, the hardcore fanboys are the ones financially supporting the company, and having so much freely available generates more players and more good will, which converts the occasional player to a subscriber. Free-to-play is still a business model.


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## Mike Eagling

Ahnehnois said:


> I was talking about game content subscriptions only; you may still disagree with that assertion and find it overbroad, but I think it's generally (if not in every conceivable circumstance) true.




I have a certain sympathy for your opinion but I have to agree with [MENTION=150]Radiating Gnome[/MENTION] that the subscription model is not automatically bad for the consumer. It really boils down to whether or not the consumer believes the subscription is good value for money.

I personally don't have any desire to subscribe to Paizo's rulebooks or card sets, for example. But I do have a comics subscription and might consider an adventure path, if there was one I really wanted.

The subscription model, generally, seems to be the current vogue of business. It isn't a panacea. It'll work for some businesses, some products, and some consumers, but not for others.



Ahnehnois said:


> The market standard is to have the rules available online in a user-friendly format for free. There are also a number of good free character builders and other resources for various systems out there. Charging for things that should be free is not cool.




I do disagree with this. I'm not sure there is a "market standard" and I don't believe anything should automatically be free, however much I might want it to be.

I'm no expert on the OGL, etc. but the fact game rules are available online strikes me as a quirk of that licence rather than an automatic rendering of game systems being free-as-in-beer. If I'm interpreting the alleged goals of the OGL correctly then games released under such licences are supposed to be free-as-in-speech. Nothing about the OGL implies that everything connected to these games are automatically available to anyone without charge. Indeed, given the fact rules and the like can be found legally online for free, I suspect companies have to start charging for tools and services connected to those games or they'll go out of business.


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## Kaodi

I know this thread is supposed to be about RPG subscriptions, but... What in _God's name_ is the upside of subscribing to Microsoft Office? Sounds to me like that is just a fancy way to say, "We are charging more for the same."


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## delericho

Kaodi said:


> I know this thread is supposed to be about RPG subscriptions, but... What in _God's name_ is the upside of subscribing to Microsoft Office? Sounds to me like that is just a fancy way to say, "We are charging more for the same."




I haven't checked it out, but how about this:

I make very heavy use of Word, some use of Excel, and very, very little use of anything else. However, on those occasions when I do, nothing else really fits. Therefore, I need to buy one of the fuller-featured offerings, paying a lot of money for tools I will barely use.

Under a subscription-based model, I probably end up paying considerably more for Word and Excel, closer to the 'real' value of those products, but can then consider everything else effectively free. In theory, at least.

(That said, what would be even better would be the option to buy just Word and Excel, and then have a microtransaction-based pay-to-use option for all the other tools.)

Of course, the _real_ likely consequence of them moving to subscription-only is that that is the thing that pushes me to find an alternative solution. They _almost_ did it with the 'ribbon' interface, but I found a freeware patch to make that useable again. This, though...


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## Ahnehnois

Mike Eagling said:


> I have a certain sympathy for your opinion but I have to agree with [MENTION=150]Radiating Gnome[/MENTION] that the subscription model is not automatically bad for the consumer. It really boils down to whether or not the consumer believes the subscription is good value for money.



True. I explained why I think that is unlikely to be the case for rpg products for most consumers..



> I'm no expert on the OGL, etc. but the fact game rules are available online strikes me as a quirk of that licence rather than an automatic rendering of game systems being free-as-in-beer. If I'm interpreting the alleged goals of the OGL correctly then games released under such licences are supposed to be free-as-in-speech. Nothing about the OGL implies that everything connected to these games are automatically available to anyone without charge. Indeed, given the fact rules and the like can be found legally online for free, I suspect companies have to start charging for tools and services connected to those games or they'll go out of business.



The license itself isn't really the issue. You can't copyright game rules to begin with (a thorny issue that I'm sure ENW's lawyers have more to say about than I do). But no, the license doesn't make it free.

Pathfinder, though, hosts the PRD. They make their non-core books open. For WotC, it can be argued that they weren't all on the same page, or that they didn't intend for their game to be available to everyone so easily, but with PF it's very clear that they do. They want the game to be freely available online, which is effectively a form of advertising for their setting, adventures, and those who want hardcover references/collectibles. There's a very strong contrast between that and DDI. Paizo's mentality is to show us what they have first, and then ask us to pay for it.  If you want one product, buy that. You want the pdf, buy it (at a reasonable price, no less). If you want everything, buy a subscription. WotC's approach has been, you pay us first (for DDI or a book), then you'll find out what you're getting for your money.

Hopefully, they've heard loud and clear that they need to re-embrace open gaming, because if they don't get that, there are certainly more steps that could be taken in the subscription model direction in the future.


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## Mike Eagling

Ahnehnois said:


> True. I explained why I think that is unlikely to be the case for rpg products for most consumers..




Some proportion of consumers, true, but without any figures it's nothing more than conjecture. I do agree that it isn't how I buy rule books or other game supplements.



Ahnehnois said:


> The license itself isn't really the issue. You can't copyright game rules to begin with (a thorny issue that I'm sure ENW's lawyers have more to say about than I do). But no, the license doesn't make it free.
> 
> Pathfinder, though, hosts the PRD. They make their non-core books open.




Ah, but in the case of Pathfinder the licence surely is the issue. The game is essentially d20 with the serial numbers filed off. Without the OGL Pathfinder would have been less likely to exist if not impossible. As you say, game mechanics are not covered by copyright but the similarities between PF and DnD3x are arguably more than just mechanical.

Someone more knowledgable than me can probably confirm or deny this but I was under the impression that the SRD being published online is a consequence of the OGL rather than altruism on the part of Paizo? The RPG equivalent of publishing GPL source code?



Ahnehnois said:


> For WotC, it can be argued that they weren't all on the same page, or that they didn't intend for their game to be available to everyone so easily




There does seem to be an opinion that the OGL was a marketing ploy that didn't pan out the way WotC and later Hasbro intended, as far as their profit margin is concerned, and ultimately that is what Hasbro cares about. If they can charge for products and services then they will and its up to us to decide whether or not to pay for them. Luckily, the OGL has made PF and all manner of other systems available and enabled a host of third parties to support them. And that's without the various closed source systems out there that are doing ok for themselves.

For my part, I don't play 4e and i'm unlikely to buy into DnDNext, so what Hasbro do with DnD won't really affect me. I think it's unlikely they'll go down the OGL route though. I like the OGL and think its great for the hobby but I'm not sure I'd like it so much if I was a game publisher.


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## Radiating Gnome

Ahnehnois said:


> Hopefully, they've heard loud and clear that they need to re-embrace open gaming, because if they don't get that, there are certainly more steps that could be taken in the subscription model direction in the future.




I'm quite certain that this is not the message they've received. With their subscription numbers not dropping, it just doesn't seem likely.  

-rg


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## GMMichael

What important in a service to which I'd subscribe?  It has to be something I want, that I can't do myself.  Regarding DDI - I can make characters, draw maps, and maintain a campaign myself, thanks.  Don't need it.  I'll subscribe to cell phone service though.  I can't shout too far.

Would I prefer tools or content?  I always think "content" first, and then I remember how good the 3.5E accessory books were for jogging my imagination.  Those were always more like tools to me.  So, some of each.

Current RPG subscriptions: none, unless you count an internet connection, which is both a subscription (with TONS of content) and can be used for RPGs.

Open Game License: I've made an RPG that is much simpler, yet mechanically similar, to OGL.  And I'm giving away free monthly subscriptions.


----------



## dd.stevenson

I just did a quick proof-read of everything I just wrote here, and I realize that it may come off as a bit critical. So, let me preface this by saying thank-you for posting this article and I enjoyed reading it. 



Radiating Gnome said:


> *A Subscription is a Relationship
> *
> A purchase can be fairly anonymous. A fistful of lawnmower money may buy a players handbook, but it doesn't forge a connection between the purchaser and the company that produce the book.
> 
> A subscription, though.... that's a relationship. It builds a connection between company and customer that the company can use to offer additional products and services.



I think you missed an opportunity here to point out that this relationship, like all relationships, is a two-way street. In exchange for the expectation of future income, the compay commits themselves _in the eyes of their customers_ to the future delivery of goods/services. 

Which means that, from the company's point of view, alterations to subscription-based relationships are fraught with peril. The most obvious cases are the huge drop in goodwill that WotC suffered when they ended the print runs of Dungeon and Dragon, and what they seem to be flirting with again as DDI moves into its sunset phase. More subtle, but I suspect more important, is the fact that sensible business managers approach changes to subscription delivery models with trepidation and an if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mindset that stifles all but the most pedestrian innovations. (For example, see Paizo's extreme reluctance to offer a PDF only subscription to their APs.)



Radiating Gnome said:


> *"I want to Buy it, not Rent it"
> *
> Sure you do. And I don't blame you. But you're fighting a losing battle.
> 
> In typical subscription programs -- along the magazine model -- you get your content in the mail each month and it's yours to keep. But when we start looking at RPG Tools as a Service -- like DDI or Fantasy Grounds -- when your subscription ends you no longer have access to that data.
> 
> *A subscription for a service offers so many benefits to the company (steady revenue, durable connections to customers, and awesome data)* that it's critical for a company to propel you over those concerns. Maybe it's better price, or better services, or both. You can expect that companies with the necessary support structure to handle a subscription program of some sort to move in that direction.



I'm objecting to the bolded part because you seem to have conflated the subscription/one-time purchase question with the service/product question. In fact, they are orthogonal. In principle, I can subscribe to a service or a product, just as I can one-time purchase a service or a product.

In light of this, it's worth noting that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the advantages you mention--steady revenue, durable connections, and data--are advantages of the subscription model, rather than being unique to the _subscription service_ model as you claim. Of course, a case could be made that the service industry has an advantage in each of these categories, but again, this isn't really linked to the subscription question in any way that I can see.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Kaodi said:


> I know this thread is supposed to be about RPG subscriptions, but... What in _God's name_ is the upside of subscribing to Microsoft Office? Sounds to me like that is just a fancy way to say, "We are charging more for the same."



Agreed--in this case, the subscription service model is pretty blatant rent-seeking behavior.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Personally, the only things I subscribe to are magazines- so far, only physical ones*- and cable (no premium channels). I _do_ have a smartphone and a hotspot, each with a data plan, but I'll be changing that when my contract rolls over.  By going back to a feature phone...if they're still available.  (If my employment ever demands I use a smartphone, that will be a different story.)

I just have not seen much of anything worth renting when I could buy instead.






* in fact, I have dropped every magazine subscription tht has gone purely digital.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

dd.stevenson said:


> I just did a quick proof-read of everything I just wrote here, and I realize that it may come off as a bit critical. So, let me preface this by saying thank-you for posting this article and I enjoyed reading it.




Believe it or not, I own many pairs of Big Boy Pants and can totally handle criticism -- especially when it's as thoughtful and well argued as yours.  I appreciate it very much. 



dd.stevenson said:


> I think you missed an opportunity here to point out that this relationship, like all relationships, is a two-way street. In exchange for the expectation of future income, the compay commits themselves _in the eyes of their customers_ to the future delivery of goods/services.
> 
> Which means that, from the company's point of view, alterations to subscription-based relationships are fraught with peril. The most obvious cases are the huge drop in goodwill that WotC suffered when they ended the print runs of Dungeon and Dragon, and what they seem to be flirting with again as DDI moves into its sunset phase. More subtle, but I suspect more important, is the fact that sensible business managers approach changes to subscription delivery models with trepidation and an if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mindset that stifles all but the most pedestrian innovations. (For example, see Paizo's extreme reluctance to offer a PDF only subscription to their APs.)




Excellent point.  I think that it's interesting that these pressures have not prevented Wotc from making dramatic changes to the services they provide. The most significant example of that was the change from the downloadable character builder to the online one. That was one feature that was in the "it ain't broke" column -- at least from the customer point of view -- but by making the transition they were able to deliver a version that made many improvements. There was (and still is) plenty of rage over that change, like any change, but it was a move IMO that was the right way to go. 



dd.stevenson said:


> I'm objecting to the bolded part because you seem to have conflated the subscription/one-time purchase question with the service/product question. In fact, they are orthogonal. In principle, I can subscribe to a service or a product, just as I can one-time purchase a service or a product.
> 
> In light of this, it's worth noting that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the advantages you mention--steady revenue, durable connections, and data--are advantages of the subscription model, rather than being unique to the _subscription service_ model as you claim. Of course, a case could be made that the service industry has an advantage in each of these categories, but again, this isn't really linked to the subscription question in any way that I can see.




Right again. Certainly the first two advantages are equivalent.  The data mining you can get by studying the way an online service is used is a lot easier to gather and study than the data you can gather from a content subscription's membership.  If Paizo wants to find out which articles in the Adventure Paths are being used the most, they don't have a good way to get that data without asking for it. But if Wotc wants to know which character classes are being used the most, all they need to do is write a query of their user data. Paizo can probably gather something similar by studying traffic statistics for their online version of their PRD, but that's actually studying the data the get from the service they provide (the free online version of the rules) rather than the content. 

-rg


----------



## delericho

dd.stevenson said:


> (For example, see Paizo's extreme reluctance to offer a PDF only subscription to their APs.)




I'm a bit surprised by this (their reluctance), but I suppose it makes sense.

If they offer a PDF-only version, it's quite likely that many of their subscribers will go that route, and many will just as steadfastly refuse. Problem is, that may mean that the cost for printing the physical product becomes prohibitive (because the print run is that much smaller, leading to a much higher unit cost), and if they take the next logical step and go digita-only, they may lose enough subscribers (which, incidentally, would include me) they may no longer have enough subscribers to pay for the creation of the material itself.

Yeah, it's a tricky one.


----------



## Mike Eagling

delericho said:


> and if they take the next logical step and go digita-only, they may lose enough subscribers (which, incidentally, would include me)




I'm glad I'm not the only Luddite here! 

My consumption of PDFs has increased considerably since owning an iPad but I wouldn't want them to replace the physical books.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Radiating Gnome said:


> Excellent point.  I think that it's interesting that these pressures have not prevented Wotc from making dramatic changes to the services they provide. The most significant example of that was the change from the downloadable character builder to the online one. That was one feature that was in the "it ain't broke" column -- at least from the customer point of view -- but by making the transition they were able to deliver a version that made many improvements. There was (and still is) plenty of rage over that change, like any change, but it was a move IMO that was the right way to go.



We can't know for sure, but I've an inkling that the offline character generator did very much fall in the "broken" column from the viewpoint of the management at the time. 



Radiating Gnome said:


> Right again. Certainly the first two advantages are equivalent.  The data mining you can get by studying the way an online service is used is a lot easier to gather and study than the data you can gather from a content subscription's membership.  If Paizo wants to find out which articles in the Adventure Paths are being used the most, they don't have a good way to get that data without asking for it. But if Wotc wants to know which character classes are being used the most, all they need to do is write a query of their user data. Paizo can probably gather something similar by studying traffic statistics for their online version of their PRD, but that's actually studying the data the get from the service they provide (the free online version of the rules) rather than the content.



That's a very fair point. So--to recap--we have identified superior data collection as the key advantage to subscription services vs. product subscriptions. Now let me pose a question: do you believe that's really all there is to it? Do you believe that companies are keen to convert product lines into services, solely in order to collect better data about their customers? 

I don't. That's because there is another benefit to taking a fairly tangible product (a piece of software, a book, etc.) and marketing it as an intangible service: marketing goods as services allows companies to provide less value to customers, while charging more money for the privilege. (I was going to spend a little bit of time mucking about for a cite to back this point up, but on reflection that's not really necessary: you as much as cede this point in the "I want to Buy it, not Rent it" section of your article.)

And that's why I view the end of the article as a bait-and-switch: it takes the advantages of the subscription model (steady income and strong customer connections) and shoehorns them into arguments in favor of subscription _services_, which are in actuality only a very specific type of subscription. And then ends asking the audience what it would take to get them to swallow the bitter pill of purchasing a fairly tangible product on a service basis.

Personally, my answer to this question is going to be pretty simple: I won't ever be interested in purchasing a tabletop rpg on a service basis, thank you very much, but I can think of plenty of honest-to-goodness services that _would_ add value to my game table. Things like adventure and setting content, organized play, and improved networking tools to help meet more gamers interested in my style of game will always be worth paying for--at least in my book. Additionally, I currently pay 10 bucks a month to roll20, since I live out in the boonies and I'm happy to support the product that pretty much single-handledly enables my pursuit of this hobby. I strongly prefer to buy this service in a system-agnostic format, though.


----------



## Hussar

Ahnehnois said:


> True. I explained why I think that is unlikely to be the case for rpg products for most consumers..
> 
> The license itself isn't really the issue. You can't copyright game rules to begin with (a thorny issue that I'm sure ENW's lawyers have more to say about than I do). But no, the license doesn't make it free.
> 
> Pathfinder, though, hosts the PRD. They make their non-core books open. For WotC, it can be argued that they weren't all on the same page, or that they didn't intend for their game to be available to everyone so easily, but with PF it's very clear that they do. They want the game to be freely available online, which is effectively a form of advertising for their setting, adventures, and those who want hardcover references/collectibles. There's a very strong contrast between that and DDI. Paizo's mentality is to show us what they have first, and then ask us to pay for it.  If you want one product, buy that. You want the pdf, buy it (at a reasonable price, no less). If you want everything, buy a subscription. WotC's approach has been, you pay us first (for DDI or a book), then you'll find out what you're getting for your money.
> 
> Hopefully, they've heard loud and clear that they need to re-embrace open gaming, because if they don't get that, there are certainly more steps that could be taken in the subscription model direction in the future.




I'd point out that Paizo, because it uses the SRD, has pretty much zero choice about making its books OGL.  OTOH, Golarian is not OGL is it?  You cannot put up any Paizo adventure path for free, even with an S15 because the modules are all closed content.  At least, that's my understanding, and I'm freely admitting I could be wrong.

But the mechanics?  They didn't really have a whole lot of choice considering a very, very large block of their mechanics are already OGL.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> But the mechanics?  They didn't really have a whole lot of choice considering a very, very large block of their mechanics are already OGL.



I'm not a lawyer, but I would think that most of their supplements, which are new material not directly derived from SRD stuff, could be closed if they wanted them to be, and that they could be doing something similar to DDI if they wanted to.


----------



## Nytmare

I've been mulling over this the past couple of days and I think the issue regarding rented software, at least for me, is the fact that in general and at least in the past, you rented things whose cost was otherwise prohibitive.  If I can't afford to buy my own washing machine and dryer, I can go to a laundromat where a secondary individual or group has invested in, provides, and maintains the machines.  If I don't want to, or cannot buy a car, or a house, or any other big ticket item, the "natural" solution that arose from our economic system was that a person who *could* afford it could step in and provide it in exchange for money, goods, or services.  Granted a lot of it has to do with the fact that that's the system I was born into and grew up in, but to me that system seems (for all intents and purposes) fair and ethical.  

This (relatively) new trend however manipulates and twists things around.  Now, a company takes a product they create (usually already a niche product) and exaggerates its cost by no longer offering to sell it to anyone.  Then they cut out the middle man and rent out the now priceless product themselves, and they have the added benefit of having total control over the prices being set cause there's no one to compete with.

To me, a cell phones and internet services are entirely different.  I can't buy my own cell towers, and satellites, and construct my own networks.  Although I'm sure that the corporations love it, that isn't being purposefully denied to me as another avenue for them to milk money out of me.

I guess that, more than anything, I'm sad that there aren't more people who are as appalled at the system as I am.


----------



## Nagol

Nytmare said:


> I've been mulling over this the past couple of days and I think the issue regarding rented software, at least for me, is the fact that in general and at least in the past, you rented things whose cost was otherwise prohibitive.  If I can't afford to buy my own washing machine and dryer, I can go to a laundromat where a secondary individual or group has invested in, provides, and maintains the machines.  If I don't want to, or cannot buy a car, or a house, or any other big ticket item, the "natural" solution that arose from our economic system was that a person who *could* afford it could step in and provide it in exchange for money, goods, or services.  Granted a lot of it has to do with the fact that that's the system I was born into and grew up in, but to me that system seems (for all intents and purposes) fair and ethical.
> 
> This (relatively) new trend however manipulates and twists things around.  Now, a company takes a product they create (usually already a niche product) and exaggerates its cost by no longer offering to sell it to anyone.  Then they cut out the middle man and rent out the now priceless product themselves, and they have the added benefit of having total control over the prices being set cause there's no one to compete with.
> 
> To me, a cell phones and internet services are entirely different.  I can't buy my own cell towers, and satellites, and construct my own networks.  Although I'm sure that the corporations love it, that isn't being purposefully denied to me as another avenue for them to milk money out of me.
> 
> I guess that, more than anything, I'm sad that there aren't more people who are as appalled at the system as I am.




There is a natural price control mechanism -- others can build competing products.

That said, the license/rental model does offer more comprehensive control over how the product is used -- only on _this_ system by _these_ people for _this_ period.  Copyright has all these limits and contraints on the woebegone creator don't you know -- fair use, first sale doctrine, lack of obsolescence, etc. that the licensing/rental model negates.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

dd.stevenson said:


> And that's why I view the end of the article as a bait-and-switch: it takes the advantages of the subscription model (steady income and strong customer connections) and shoehorns them into arguments in favor of subscription _services_, which are in actuality only a very specific type of subscription. And then ends asking the audience what it would take to get them to swallow the bitter pill of purchasing a fairly tangible product on a service basis.




That may be a fair assessment of my arguments -- I'm not sure i got to quite such a clear point.  

I think, though, that because in our industry at this point, I'm having a hard time thinking of a subscription product that is entirely service, not either a content subscription (Like an Adventure Path) or a content+service subscription (like DDI), that when we're talking about service+content subscriptions it's not unfair to blend in the advantages of content subscriptions.  A big component of the DDI subscription is content -- and while it's not always as high quality as a monthly Paizo AP product, it's also not as expensive (and comes bundled with the online tools).

I'm trying to think... if there are any subscription services for gamer stuff that are all service without content, and the only examples I can come up with are the VTT options like Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.



dd.stevenson said:


> Personally, my answer to this question is going to be pretty simple: I won't ever be interested in purchasing a tabletop rpg on a service basis, thank you very much, but I can think of plenty of honest-to-goodness services that _would_ add value to my game table. Things like adventure and setting content, organized play, and improved networking tools to help meet more gamers interested in my style of game will always be worth paying for--at least in my book. Additionally, I currently pay 10 bucks a month to roll20, since I live out in the boonies and I'm happy to support the product that pretty much single-handledly enables my pursuit of this hobby. I strongly prefer to buy this service in a system-agnostic format, though.




There's some interesting attitudes to unpack there.  You want content, organized play, and networking tools -- and VTT tools.  That's actually a pretty robust set of wants that could (and are) be offered as services. But you prefer having relationships with multiple smaller companies rather than getting all of those from a single source. 

Now think about a video game service like Steam.  It's an online store/community hug/multi play organizing hub for video games.  Would you be interested in a Tabletop RPG version of that? What would have to be different?

I mean -- the point I wanted to get with the article was not to ask you what it would take to get you to swallow a bitter pill -- but what you would LIKE in a service like this.  Imagine the service (or services) that could make this good for you.  And maybe the company that produces it isn't the game company -- maybe what we're talking about is an evolution of the RPGNow PDF store -- one that adds community, organized play, and good VTT options for every game system they sell.  Is that something worth subscribing to? 

-rg


----------



## Nytmare

Nagol said:


> There is a natural price control mechanism -- others can build competing products.




If it were a thriving industry, like the car industry let's pretend, then yes.  If the car companies got together and announced that they were no longer going to be selling cars, just manufacturing and renting, there would be about 15 minutes of rioting and murders, and then a new car company who wanted to sell cars would pop into existence.

But do you think that an industry, or more to the point a market, that's as weak and strangled as the RPG market currently is, has the strength to support enough competition for things to get healthy?


----------



## Nagol

Nytmare said:


> If it were a thriving industry, like the car industry let's pretend, then yes.  If the car companies got together and announced that they were no longer going to be selling cars, just manufacturing and renting, there would be about 15 minutes of rioting and murders, and then a new car company who wanted to sell cars would pop into existence.
> 
> But do you think that an industry, or more to the point a market, that's as weak and strangled as the RPG market currently is, has the strength to support enough competition for things to get healthy?




By having the competition not be profit-minded.  If you look a the industry, a lot of the product in the tertiary tier is made as a hobby.  Any revenue generated is a sweet bonus.  Hobby development has started to climb into the secondary tier as well.  It's following much the same path as writing -- a base of people willing to provide it for free limits prices for those who try to make a living at it.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Radiating Gnome said:


> That may be a fair assessment of my arguments -- I'm not sure i got to quite such a clear point.



You might not personally be at such a clear point, but the article is clearly worded. "Want to buy rather than rent? You're fighting a losing battle," it proclaims. Why is it a losing battle? "Because of steady revenue, durable connections to customers, and awesome data." In light of this, what's a constructive market participant to do? "Tell me what you want in a subscription service."



Radiating Gnome said:


> I think, though, that because in our industry at this point, I'm having a hard time thinking of a subscription product that is entirely service, not either a content subscription (Like an Adventure Path) or a content+service subscription (like DDI), that when we're talking about service+content subscriptions it's not unfair to blend in the advantages of content subscriptions.  A big component of the DDI subscription is content -- and while it's not always as high quality as a monthly Paizo AP product, it's also not as expensive (and comes bundled with the online tools).
> 
> I'm trying to think... if there are any subscription services for gamer stuff that are all service without content, and the only examples I can come up with are the VTT options like Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.



I've seen a few fly by night 3.x npc builders that are service subscription based: but, yeah, I would agree that the TTRPG industry hasn't yet proven fertile ground for servicizing (MMOs excepted; and even these thrive on content delivery).



Radiating Gnome said:


> There's some interesting attitudes to unpack there.  You want content, organized play, and networking tools -- and VTT tools.  That's actually a pretty robust set of wants that could (and are) be offered as services. But you prefer having relationships with multiple smaller companies rather than getting all of those from a single source.



Not so. I would much rather buy these services from a single source. However, at the moment I'm not keen on 3E or 4E D&D. So I'm sort of stuck fending for myself, for the time being.



Radiating Gnome said:


> Now think about a video game service like Steam.  It's an online store/community hug/multi play organizing hub for video games.  Would you be interested in a Tabletop RPG version of that? What would have to be different?



No problem here: this is something I think about every time I log onto Steam. And every time I think about it, I'm left feeling that the Steam format would be hard-pressed to add great value to my TTRPG experience. The problem is that Steam is a storefront first, and an everything else third. Whereas I would want my TTRPGSTEAM product to be a community/gamefinder first, a free content aggregator second, a VTT third, and a storefront--well, a storefront not at all.

Why? I can't quite put my finger on it, to be honest, but there's something about sitting down to prep for a TTRPG that makes me not want to be marketed to. It's as if the creative or the escapist mindset is not compatible with the consumer mindset, if that makes any sense.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

dd.stevenson said:


> voNo problem here: this is something I think about every time I log onto Steam. And every time I think about it, I'm left feeling that the Steam format would be hard-pressed to add great value to my TTRPG experience. The problem is that Steam is a storefront first, and an everything else third. Whereas I would want my TTRPGSTEAM product to be a community/gamefinder first, a free content aggregator second, a VTT third, and a storefront--well, a storefront not at all.
> 
> Why? I can't quite put my finger on it, to be honest, but there's something about sitting down to prep for a TTRPG that makes me not want to be marketed to. It's as if the creative or the escapist mindset is not compatible with the consumer mindset, if that makes any sense.




I like to think that these sorts of conversations -- imaginative conversations about what might be -- can be very constructive in a couple of ways. There's obviously no need to change the way we do anything, from our point of view as individual gamers.  But the way products and services are offered to us will change -- maybe quickly, maybe slowly, but inevitably.  

By having conversations out ahead of the change, we may be able to frame and inform the conversations about those changes.  Not that I have any special access to anyone, but I have to believe that if we have a constructive enough conversation -- or conversations -- people will notice and listen.  

Also, I think it doesn't hurt us as consumers to prepare for the changes in the market by thinking about what we might see.  In this case, if we understand that these game companies, which tend to be anemic business propositions, and are facing dwindling audiences, etc -- if we understand that those organizations need to find better ways to do business for their own survival -- and we see a value in their ongoing survival -- we might find a way within ourselves to support those changes, rather than gnash our collective teeth every time someone changes something. 

Too often, I think, members of the gamer audience see themselves in a sort of adversarial relationship with the game companies.  We imagine that they're out to screw us over, just desperate to take our money. It's easy to forget that each one of those game designers is someone who loves the game and their primary goal is to make the best game they can. We're all on the same team.  

So, anyway, that's what I'm trying to explore -- what I think might be coming, what might be interesting within that trajectory, etc.  

-rg


----------



## Nytmare

Radiating Gnome said:


> Also, I think it doesn't hurt us as consumers to prepare for the changes in the market by thinking about what we might see.  In this case, if we understand that these game companies, which tend to be anemic business propositions, and are facing dwindling audiences, etc -- if we understand that those organizations need to find better ways to do business for their own survival -- and we see a value in their ongoing survival -- we might find a way within ourselves to support those changes, rather than gnash our collective teeth every time someone changes something.




The designers aren't the ones making the decisions as to how the games are sold though, are they?

I know that a lot of this is very much a product of me being a child of the 80s, but in business, I'm big on the onus being on the company to concede to what is best for as many customers as possible so that they can show enough profit so that everyone gets paid and that they can start/fund the next project.  Not for the customers to grin and bear it when the company makes decisions that appear to be based solely off of keeping just enough of their customer base happy so that they can make as much money as possible.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

Nytmare said:


> ...I'm big on the onus being on the company to concede to what is best for as many customers as possible so that they can show enough profit so that everyone gets paid and that they can start/fund the next project.  Not for the customers to grin and bear it when the company makes decisions that appear to be based solely off of keeping just enough of their customer base happy so that they can make as much money as possible.




I hear you, but there are decent odds that you might be one of the minority of customers whose tastes and preferences are not satisfied by new methods.  That doesn't mean they're making bad business decisions.  

That's especially true if you're someone for whom one of the best features of the hobby is that it can be inexpensive.  If you're not planning to spend money on the game, the companies producing the game would be making very bad business decisions if they were trying to make you happy.  They need to pick a strategy that will give them a good, sustainable business, and (perhaps unfortunately) that means getting people to spend money. Especially for the bigger companies who have people's livelihoods dependent upon that revenue.  


-rg


----------



## Mike Eagling

Radiating Gnome said:


> That's especially true if you're someone for whom one of the best features of the hobby is that it can be inexpensive.  If you're not planning to spend money on the game, the companies producing the game would be making very bad business decisions if they were trying to make you happy.  They need to pick a strategy that will give them a good, sustainable business, and (perhaps unfortunately) that means getting people to spend money. Especially for the bigger companies who have people's livelihoods dependent upon that revenue.




I think this is one of the reasons why the RPG industry is forever described as being in a state of decline. Buying a rulebook is really all that is necessary to play the game. The idea of homebrewing everything else is almost an inherent part of the hobby. It therefore doesn't surprise me that Hasbro, for example, has put their supporting content behind a pay wall.


----------



## Nytmare

Radiating Gnome said:


> I hear you, but there are decent odds that you might be one of the minority of customers whose tastes and preferences are not satisfied by new methods.  That doesn't mean they're making bad business decisions.




That's what I mean though.  "Prefer to buy and refuse to rent" is definitely a minority, but do you think that there's any chance of them losing even one customer who prefers to rent and refuses to buy, especially when the price is practically the same?    

My personal (albeit unprofessional) business philosophies assume that good business decisions are what make the industry and communities as a whole stronger, and that a "sustainable business" is not one where you build in a bunch of strategies and safety precautions so that you can strangle off your own, old products so that they stop being your own worst competition.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Radiating Gnome said:


> I like to think that these sorts of conversations -- imaginative conversations about what might be -- can be very constructive in a couple of ways. There's obviously no need to change the way we do anything, from our point of view as individual gamers.  But the way products and services are offered to us will change -- maybe quickly, maybe slowly, but inevitably.
> 
> By having conversations out ahead of the change, we may be able to frame and inform the conversations about those changes.  Not that I have any special access to anyone, but I have to believe that if we have a constructive enough conversation -- or conversations -- people will notice and listen.
> 
> Also, I think it doesn't hurt us as consumers to prepare for the changes in the market by thinking about what we might see.  In this case, if we understand that these game companies, which tend to be anemic business propositions, and are facing dwindling audiences, etc -- if we understand that those organizations need to find better ways to do business for their own survival -- and we see a value in their ongoing survival -- we might find a way within ourselves to support those changes, rather than gnash our collective teeth every time someone changes something.
> 
> Too often, I think, members of the gamer audience see themselves in a sort of adversarial relationship with the game companies.  We imagine that they're out to screw us over, just desperate to take our money. It's easy to forget that each one of those game designers is someone who loves the game and their primary goal is to make the best game they can. We're all on the same team.
> 
> So, anyway, that's what I'm trying to explore -- what I think might be coming, what might be interesting within that trajectory, etc.




You've been completely gracious in handling my criticisms--thanks for that.

To answer your question about what I think the future should/will look like, I have to assert something that some people probably disagree with. Specifically, I believe that the spoken/printed word are the foundation of our hobby, and that map-orientated tabletop tools (and other visual tools as well) will always be somewhat peripheral to this market as a whole. Thus, I believe that the future of the ttrpg industry will resemble the future of the publishing industry (rather than, say, the CRPG industry). 

I know you've explored this in other articles, but the publishing industry is in flux right now--its old business model is dead, and nothing new has risen yet to functionally replace it. E-publishing has hope, but it's just not there yet and it's not perfectly obvious that it will ever be more than a mere shadow of the publishing industry of the 20th century. I'm both a kindle app user (on my ipad) and an avid technophile, and even I still yearn for the physical book when I'm flipping through my virtual pages. It's possible that young people will be exposed to only virtual pages and thus not be conditioned to read physical books, but I don't think that's the most likely outcome, as long as the dead tree publishing industry can soldier on with the blockbuster model.

At a guess, I would say that the future of publishing lies within some yet-to-be-produced electronic device, that closely resembles a dead tree book, but which can be configured to display different content on its pages with the press of a button. Also, and perhaps alternatively, I would speculate that we're going to see a serious print-on-demand boom, perhaps reaching the point where every middle class family has a book printer next to their computers in their homes.

But all this has been explored by people better informed than I, and we're still no closer to the solution. So who really knows?

Now all that being said, I don't think that the TTRPG brands will ever become shy about merchandising their lines into the CRPG space. Right now, I suspect that we're looking at the beginning of a low-end CRPG boom consisting of products like _Torment: Numenera_. It's more than possible that these products will evolve into a set of end-user tools that could be used by would-be dungeon masters easily create great content for online sessions. However, while such a suite of products might come to overshadow the TTRPG industry, I don't believe it could ever legitimately replace it.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

dd.stevenson said:


> You've been completely gracious in handling my criticisms--thanks for that.




LOL. Having hung out a shingle that might as well read "Guy Who Dares To Be Wrong On The Internets" rather than "Gamehackery", I think it's important to be able to take criticism well.  



dd.stevenson said:


> At a guess, I would say that the future of publishing lies within some yet-to-be-produced electronic device, that closely resembles a dead tree book, but which can be configured to display different content on its pages with the press of a button. Also, and perhaps alternatively, I would speculate that we're going to see a serious print-on-demand boom, perhaps reaching the point where every middle class family has a book printer next to their computers in their homes.
> 
> But all this has been explored by people better informed than I, and we're still no closer to the solution. So who really knows?
> 
> Now all that being said, I don't think that the TTRPG brands will ever become shy about merchandising their lines into the CRPG space. Right now, I suspect that we're looking at the beginning of a low-end CRPG boom consisting of products like _Torment: Numenera_. It's more than possible that these products will evolve into a set of end-user tools that could be used by would-be dungeon masters easily create great content for online sessions. However, while such a suite of products might come to overshadow the TTRPG industry, I don't believe it could ever legitimately replace it.




As a web developer, working with designers, one of the trickiest things to do when working with a designer who had been a print designer before taking up web design, was getting them to think outside of the rigid, structured world of print design.  Web design can be incredibly fluid and graceful as it adapts itself to different size screens and windows, but a print designer will want to force specific dimensions so their design works the way it would in print. 

And, I think the same thing is true for our game content -- whether it's going to be text or text and graphics or text and graphics and maps and minis -- right now we're still living in the print paradigm.  Even when we switch to digital, we're in a world of pages.

IMO, that new platform will be the one that breaks that paradigm.  

And yet....  There's still theater.  Movies, with all of their glitz and advantages, haven't eliminated stage performances.  And sometimes, as in the case of last year's Warhorse, the stage performance is far superior to the filmed version.  Some things are just better on stage. 

So maybe I'm wrong, and the digital frontier for tabletop gaming will be the same as theater.  MMOs will come and go, and get most of the money and attention, but TRPGs will carry on as more and more people find the pleasures to be had there.  

To make that work, if that's the model we need to pursue, we need to make sure that our games take full advantage of the things that TRPGs do better than MMOs.  

-rg


----------



## Mike Eagling

dd.stevenson said:


> To answer your question about what I think the future should/will look like, I have to assert something that some people probably disagree with. Specifically, I believe that the spoken/printed word are the foundation of our hobby, and that map-orientated tabletop tools (and other visual tools as well) will always be somewhat peripheral to this market as a whole. Thus, I believe that the future of the ttrpg industry will resemble the future of the publishing industry (rather than, say, the CRPG industry).




Well I, for one, totally agree with you.



dd.stevenson said:


> I know you've explored this in other articles, but the publishing industry is in flux right now--its old business model is dead, and nothing new has risen yet to functionally replace it.




I'm not quite so sure traditional publishing is dead but it has certainly been affected by the rise of the Internet and digital media. It will certainly have to adapt, just as the music and TV/film industries.

I've not seen much discussion of piracy concerning digital publishing. The subject does not seem to garner as much press coverage as it does in the music and film industry. Or maybe I'm just not seeing the coverage. I've certainly encountered pirated PDFs and I'm sure it is a significant issue for publishers. It is another reason why I can understand the use of a paywall for services such as DDI--and a desire to implement some kind of subscription model.



dd.stevenson said:


> I'm both a kindle app user (on my ipad) and an avid technophile, and even I still yearn for the physical book when I'm flipping through my virtual pages. It's possible that young people will be exposed to only virtual pages and thus not be conditioned to read physical books, but I don't think that's the most likely outcome, as long as the dead tree publishing industry can soldier on with the blockbuster model.




I agree with this too. I have owned a computer for more years than I've been playing RPGs and even work in IT. However, I love _books_ and only started to enjoy reading PDFs since owning an iPad. I still prefer the physical article but my collection of PDFs is getting larger by the week.

I've not seen the actual product but the "augmented PDF" of Nova Praxis [http://voidstar.squarespace.com/nova-praxis] seems like a first step into the future of RPGs.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Radiating Gnome said:


> As a web developer, working with designers, one of the trickiest things to do when working with a designer who had been a print designer before taking up web design, was getting them to think outside of the rigid, structured world of print design.  Web design can be incredibly fluid and graceful as it adapts itself to different size screens and windows, but a print designer will want to force specific dimensions so their design works the way it would in print.
> 
> And, I think the same thing is true for our game content -- whether it's going to be text or text and graphics or text and graphics and maps and minis -- right now we're still living in the print paradigm.  Even when we switch to digital, we're in a world of pages.
> 
> IMO, that new platform will be the one that breaks that paradigm.



Totally agree. Sometime down the line, I'm certain there will be a communications breakthrough that blurs the line between print media and other media. Personally I think that google glasses are the tech to watch, but if not that then something else will step up to take presentation off the screen once and for all. But I'm nearing my mid thirties, and I have little hope that this will happen in my lifetime.



Radiating Gnome said:


> And yet....  There's still theater.  Movies, with all of their glitz and advantages, haven't eliminated stage performances.  And sometimes, as in the case of last year's Warhorse, the stage performance is far superior to the filmed version.  Some things are just better on stage.
> 
> So maybe I'm wrong, and the digital frontier for tabletop gaming will be the same as theater.  MMOs will come and go, and get most of the money and attention, but TRPGs will carry on as more and more people find the pleasures to be had there.
> 
> To make that work, if that's the model we need to pursue, we need to make sure that our games take full advantage of the things that TRPGs do better than MMOs.



At the moment, I think the TTRPG market is unsustainably depressed, owing mainly to the maverick management of its flagship brand. At the same time, I think the MMO market is functioning in a bubble, owing mainly to Blizzard Entertainment's incredibly talented design team moving into this new market. So I think the future may look a bit brighter than current trendlines would imply.

Still, I don't disagree that MMOs will remain much more accessable than TTRPGs for the forseeable future.



Mike Eagling said:


> I'm not quite so sure traditional publishing is dead but it has certainly been affected by the rise of the Internet and digital media. It will certainly have to adapt, just as the music and TV/film industries.



Traditional publishing is not dead, but its old business model is. Right now, if you want to make a living writing books, your options are to move up into the JK Rowling league (the blockbuster model) or to cultivate your own following on Amazon, using your own money to cover advertising costs.


----------



## Shingen

Mike Eagling said:


> I'm not quite so sure traditional publishing is dead but it has certainly been affected by the rise of the Internet and digital media. It will certainly have to adapt, just as the music and TV/film industries..




This. 

I think the subscription model, also, is very profitable to publishers because of people forgetting to cancel subscriptions. I have many friends who don't play certain MMOs who kept (or still have!) their subscriptions active.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

Shingen said:


> This.
> 
> I think the subscription model, also, is very profitable to publishers because of people forgetting to cancel subscriptions. I have many friends who don't play certain MMOs who kept (or still have!) their subscriptions active.




I've been that guy.  It's one of the reasons I like free-to-play MMOs like Guild Wars, which I have played quite a bit of, but not in a few months, but I don't have to decide if it's time to give up on my account and stop paying, since it's free. 

-rg


----------



## wingsandsword

Here's why subscriptions have a limiting factor. . .

I've got 2 bookcases full of gaming books.  1st through 3.5 editions of D&D, WotC and WEG Star Wars, White Wolf, LUG Trek, GURPS, lots and lots of stuff.  I've got boxes and boxes of miniatures for many settings and genres (and game mats and scenery for them), I've got pounds of dice.  I've got dozens and dozens of issues of the late, great Dragon Magazine on my shelves.   Thanks to real-life, I've barely been able to play at all in the last few years (and I post here way less often than I used to), and I've only bought a few books for a few games.  If I had to pay a subscription to keep playing, I'd probably have lost all that, and instead of looking at those shelves of books and browsing them, I'd just walk away from the hobby.

Among the many reasons I had nothing to do with 4e was that WotC made it clear that to play it, you were expected to have a subscription to DDI to play.

It's not a "losing battle" to want to buy something instead of subscribe to it.  Funny thing is, that roleplaying games are a luxury item, and the ones already in circulation are durable items.  I could game every free night I had for the rest of my life and never have to buy another gaming product from anybody.  There are still people out there playing older editions of D&D who haven't bought anything new in a decade or more (or decades).

Also, with a subscription if the creating company collapses, you lose the game.  How many RPG's have you liked that the company folded?  Even if the company doesn't fold, if it's a licensed game then the license itself might expire after a while for the company and the game go away.

In the Microsoft Office example, you think people won't go to OpenOffice or other competitors if they don't like having to pay MS every month?  That or use pirate copies of older editions, which are ridiculously easy to get.  A corporate IT department might have no problem with a subscription, but you really think that typical end-users want (or can afford) a monthly Microsoft subscription?

My wife's laptop died a couple of months ago.  She went out and bought a new one. . .and has hated Win8 with an undying passion.  Among the reasons, the few games included apparently require an XBox Live subscription (so she tells me).  It's asking her to pay money to pay games she's already paid for by buying the computer and OS.  

If the "industry" wants to move to a subscription based model, it better be prepared to deal with the consequences such as permanently chasing away lapsed fans, more casual fans, and people who don't have money to spend every single month.  You might think that this is nothing, after all, they weren't spending a lot of money to begin with, but they are part of the community, and you're helping to chase away community members and break up the community.  Don't expect subscription based RPG's to have the same widespread community support when everybody in the community has to pay a fee just to be a member.


----------



## Mike Eagling

wingsandsword said:


> My wife's laptop died a couple of months ago. She went out and bought a new one. . .and has hated Win8 with an undying passion. Among the reasons, the few games included apparently require an XBox Live subscription (so she tells me). It's asking her to pay money to pay games she's already paid for by buying the computer and OS.





Of course, Microsoft would claim your wife hadn't bought the games by buying the hardware and the operating system--she'd just bought the hardware and the operating system. She hadn't paid for the games, she'd just been given the free programs allowing her to play the games if she wanted to buy them too.


There's a question here about "what is a game?" We have traditionally seen games as products but, from a certain point of view, a game is a service that delivers an entertainment experience. The Internet has enabled computer game producers to reposition their games as services. Piracy is a factor in this but there are other reasons, including a change in revenue stream.


This "works" for computer games because of their ephemeral nature and the ease with which client computers can be connected to the company's servers. This isn't the case with a traditional tabletop RPG. As I said before, I'm currently unconvinced there's any way it could be viable. However, I can understand why WotC, etc. might see it as attractive.


----------



## wingsandsword

Mike Eagling said:


> We have traditionally seen games as products but, from a certain point of view, a game is a service that delivers an entertainment experience.




In 1987 my parents bought me a NES.  I still have it, and about two dozen games.  Am I still receiving an ongoing service from Nintendo of America in through standalone cartridges with a few dozen kilobytes of ROM on each of them?

If I buy a chess set, am I buying an ongoing service from the company that made the chess set?  If I sit down and craft a checkerboard and checkers, am I providing an ongoing service to the person who buys it?

If somebody sits down with D&D core books and runs an out-of-print edition, are they receiving an ongoing service from the now-defunct TSR or from WotC for a game they haven't made in years or decades?  How can they be providing a service when they don't have any clue if the game is even being played, or where, or have any way to contact the people who are playing the game?

I say not.  To provide a service you must be providing something of worth after the initial purchase, on an ongoing basis.  That's why I have nothing but scorn for "software as a service".  Bolting a subscription fee onto an existing program fails that test.  Even "updates" fail it when they are nothing but bug fixes and security patches for things that diligent and competent coders should have handled before the software was ever released.  

Yes, games can also be an ongoing service, like an MMORPG.  In that case, besides just the "game", you're buying the ongoing services of live GM's to host GM events and provide troubleshooting/support, as well as regular updates and additions.  When I subscribe to Dungeons and Dragons Online (which I do, at least sometimes, if you're ever on Cannith server I've got a 24th level Half-Elf Favored Soul named Zarachiel) I am paying Turbine for the time of the GM's and for the special events, and for new additions to the game, as well as the bandwidth and server capacity for running the actual game.  I am not paying simply to pay an existing game.


----------



## Mike Eagling

wingsandsword said:


> In 1987 my parents bought me a NES. I still have it, and about two dozen games. Am I still receiving an ongoing service from Nintendo of America in through standalone cartridges with a few dozen kilobytes of ROM on each of them?





I would say no. I would also argue that your SNES is a product. The games were supplied on cartridges and it had no networking capability. The experience of playing the game and the media/device used to deliver that experience were intrinsically linked back in 1987 in a way that isn't true of video games today.

A similar argument could be made for your chess example--meaning it is a product--and I happen to believe the same is true for traditional tabletop RPGs too.




wingsandsword said:


> If somebody sits down with D&D core books and runs an out-of-print edition, are they receiving an ongoing service from the now-defunct TSR or from WotC for a game they haven't made in years or decades? How can they be providing a service when they don't have any clue if the game is even being played, or where, or have any way to contact the people who are playing the game?





I didn't say TSR or WotC were providing a service. Neither did I say ALL games are a service. What I did say was that games can be seen as a service *from a certain point of view*. This is especially true of computer games and increasingly so.




wingsandsword said:


> That's why I have nothing but scorn for "software as a service".





Unfortunately a lot of software producers disagree with you. I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just saying that's the way the (software) industry is currently headed.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

wingsandsword said:


> In 1987 my parents bought me a NES.  I still have it, and about two dozen games.  Am I still receiving an ongoing service from Nintendo of America in through standalone cartridges with a few dozen kilobytes of ROM on each of them?
> 
> If I buy a chess set, am I buying an ongoing service from the company that made the chess set?  If I sit down and craft a checkerboard and checkers, am I providing an ongoing service to the person who buys it?
> 
> If somebody sits down with D&D core books and runs an out-of-print edition, are they receiving an ongoing service from the now-defunct TSR or from WotC for a game they haven't made in years or decades?  How can they be providing a service when they don't have any clue if the game is even being played, or where, or have any way to contact the people who are playing the game?
> 
> I say not.  To provide a service you must be providing something of worth after the initial purchase, on an ongoing basis.  That's why I have nothing but scorn for "software as a service".  Bolting a subscription fee onto an existing program fails that test.  Even "updates" fail it when they are nothing but bug fixes and security patches for things that diligent and competent coders should have handled before the software was ever released.
> 
> Yes, games can also be an ongoing service, like an MMORPG.  In that case, besides just the "game", you're buying the ongoing services of live GM's to host GM events and provide troubleshooting/support, as well as regular updates and additions.  When I subscribe to Dungeons and Dragons Online (which I do, at least sometimes, if you're ever on Cannith server I've got a 24th level Half-Elf Favored Soul named Zarachiel) I am paying Turbine for the time of the GM's and for the special events, and for new additions to the game, as well as the bandwidth and server capacity for running the actual game.  I am not paying simply to pay an existing game.




Well, now, the two primary operating TRPG subscription models shouldn't offend you, if I understand your position correctly. 

Paizo's model is a subscription to a product line -- but once you have the product, it's yours, you don't lose it when you cancel your subscription. 

WOTC's model provides online tools as a web service -- Character builder, Monster Builder, Reference database, and access to PDFs of content (pdfs which will still be yours, if you've downloaded them -- what you lose when you cancel your subscription is access to the archives, not access to the copies you've already downloaded). Parts of this are a web service -- not quite software as service, but close enough, I'm sure, to draw your scorn. But I think you're missing a lot of the work and value that they include -- or at least, that they did include when 4e was in it's prime.  At it's best, they were releasing content updated that added content from newly published sourcebooks into the database each month -- from the books and dungeon and dragon articles both.  New character options, monsters, magic items, rules -- all added to the compendium and released right about when the book hits the shelves. That takes a lot of not-trivial work, and at least for me it's worth paying for that service. And by delivering it as a web service, they make it available to subscribers in a far more effective way than they did before with the downloadable tools.

In the future, I don't think there would be a viable program that wasn't offering either one or the other -- although a free-to-play/microtransaction version might be interesting, it's not clear to me how that one might work.

-rg


----------



## Hussar

Wings said:
			
		

> Among the many reasons I had nothing to do with 4e was that WotC made it clear that to play it, you were expected to have a subscription to DDI to play.




I'd just like to point out that this is completely untrue.  There is absolutely no requirement to have a DDI sub.  Sure, they want you to, of course.  But, this meme that has persistently circulated that you need a DDI sub to play 4e is completely baseless.

If you can play 3e without online tools, you certainly can play 4e which is a considerably simpler system.

But, I wonder if this is an issue with subs.  Detractors point to any sub program of a company they don't like and then use that as a stump point in ongoing edition wars.  "Oh, you don't want to play THAT game, you need a sub to play".  It's one of those things that sounds like it could be true and people often don't bother to actually do any fact checking before buying into it, particularly if it happens to confirm their own biases.


----------



## Radiating Gnome

Hussar said:


> I wonder if this is an issue with subs.  Detractors point to any sub program of a company they don't like and then use that as a stump point in ongoing edition wars.  "Oh, you don't want to play THAT game, you need a sub to play".  It's one of those things that sounds like it could be true and people often don't bother to actually do any fact checking before buying into it, particularly if it happens to confirm their own biases.




I think that's right on the nose. People see a subscription for a game that they don't like and they see it as a sign that the company is just out to screw people.  People who enjoy the game (by and large) can see the value offered by the subscription and are happy to pay it.  

Obviously a lot of the conversation about topics like theses focuses on D&D and it's permutations, but my hope has been to try to make the conversation mostly philosophical and generic -- assume an imaginary game that you enjoy, and a subscription service of some sort that you value.  What might it look like? 

-rg


----------



## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> There is absolutely no requirement to have a DDI sub.



FWIW I would never make that case. Of course, playing off the books alone is entirely possible. Somewhat disincentivized due to the spreading out of "core" material over more books and rampant early errata, but hardly impossible.

I would, however, make the case that putting the rules compendium under that subscription makes it much harder to learn about that system and increases the propensity of misconceptions about it. It also makes people who aren't part of that subscription feel like "outsiders", so to speak. It has had a polarizing effect.

And again, the reason this is such a big issue is because the main competitor(s) have the same stuff online for free, and fans are happy to make tools for free.



> If you can play 3e without online tools, you certainly can play 4e which is a considerably simpler system.



You can, and, wait, what? ... Oh never mind.


----------



## tomBitonti

Radiating Gnome said:


> This sort of blanket assertion really gets me frustrated. I'm not saying that subscriptions are never bad for the buyer; I just don't think that they *must* be.
> 
> ... text omitted ...
> 
> A content subscription -- like the adventure paths that Paizo and En World offer -- I also see value in those for the consumer.
> 
> ... text omitted ...
> 
> -rg




I'm thinking the intent of "subscriptions are good for the seller and bad for the buyer" was intended as a "bad, in an overall average sense, to buyers".  Certainly individuals can find value in subscriptions.

Subscriptions seem to definitely remove choice, while offering convenience, and while changing a price point, possibly lower, and possibly higher.

Also, there seem to be different sorts of subscriptions: A subscription to an online database (e.g., DDI) seems to be to be a rather different product than a periodical subscription.  The main difference seems to be that a buyer can usually decline a periodical subscription, buying issues one off as desired, and moving to a subscription purchase only when they find themselves buying issues often enough that a subscription is a better (cheaper and more convenient) deal.  Online subscription practices seem to take away these options.

Thx!

TomB


----------



## tomBitonti

Hussar said:


> I'd just like to point out that this is completely untrue.  There is absolutely no requirement to have a DDI sub.  Sure, they want you to, of course.  But, this meme that has persistently circulated that you need a DDI sub to play 4e is completely baseless.
> 
> If you can play 3e without online tools, you certainly can play 4e which is a considerably simpler system.
> 
> But, I wonder if this is an issue with subs.  Detractors point to any sub program of a company they don't like and then use that as a stump point in ongoing edition wars.  "Oh, you don't want to play THAT game, you need a sub to play".  It's one of those things that sounds like it could be true and people often don't bother to actually do any fact checking before buying into it, particularly if it happens to confirm their own biases.




Wait ... the initial statement was "you were *expected* to have a subscription to DDI to play".  (Bold added by me.)  There is a big difference between an expectation and a requirement.  The expectation seems to provide information about the sellers intent, and does seem to have an impact on what the seller makes convenient (or not).

Thx!

TomB


----------



## tomBitonti

Mike Eagling said:


> There does seem to be an opinion that the OGL was a marketing ploy that didn't pan out the way WotC and later Hasbro intended, as far as their profit margin is concerned, and ultimately that is what Hasbro cares about. If they can charge for products and services then they will and its up to us to decide whether or not to pay for them.




Additional text omitted.

I'd say that a particular opinion, not a factual one.  I could equally assert that OGL frightened some folks at WotC, and those folks eventually had the upper hand in managing the game.  Or, that certain folks were so dis-enamored with the business model that they spent the whole of 4E chewing off their arm to get themselves out of the trap they felt the model to be.  YMMV.  It's opinion, since we've never had a chance to review internal emails or do detailed psychological profiles of the decision makers.

Thx!

TomB


----------



## Mike Eagling

tomBitonti said:


> I'd say that a particular opinion, not a factual one.




I completely agree, indeed I essentially said it was an opinion!

The view of the OGL I put forward there was based on a bunch of websites I'd read and certainly wasn't intended to be authoritative.


----------



## delericho

tomBitonti said:


> Wait ... the initial statement was "you were *expected* to have a subscription to DDI to play".  (Bold added by me.)  There is a big difference between an expectation and a requirement.




IIRC, at the presentation where 4e was first announced, someone (possibly Chris Perkins) likened the digital offering (what was to become DDI) to "the fourth core rulebook". Of course, it's possible I'm imagining that, or it was the Rouse on this site, or something. Certainly, though, WotC would have very much liked to have all 4e players be DDI subscribers (and, of course, would very much have liked to have a fully-featured DDI available on launch day).

Fortunately, though, they had the good sense to make it a nice-to-have - that while those tools were very nice and extremely useful (to the extent that I won't play 4e without access to the Character Builder), they were never actually necessary. (And, indeed, based on WotC's estimates of player numbers (~1 million), and our best guess of DDI subscribers (~80k), it seems that the subscribers are actually a fairly small minority amongst 4e players. Though there could be a mass of 'unknown' subscribers on there, or a massive amount of sharing of accounts.)


----------



## delericho

Ahnehnois said:


> And again, the reason this is such a big issue is because the main competitor(s) have the same stuff online for free...




It's probably worth noting that the core of Paizo's business is not the rules but rather the Adventure Path product... and specifically _subscriptions to_ the Adventure Path product. It makes absolute sense for them to put the rules online for free, because that reduces the entry requirements for using the thing that they actually want to sell you.

But if every Paizo subscriber cancelled their subscription and instead bought each monthly volume via the online store, that would probably kill Paizo stone dead, even if they bought _exactly the same products_. Because a subscription means an (almost) guaranteed sale, and with enough of those they can be sure they'll sell enough copies to pay for the print run. But an ad-hoc buying pattern, even with the same overall sales, is a much riskier proposition.

WotC's business model appears to be built around two things: sales of Core Rulebooks (specifically PHB1) and subscriptions to DDI, with the former becoming less important with time and the latter moreso. Under that model, it doesn't make sense to make the rules freely available online - doing so would directly reduce book sales, and would also make it possible for people to create tools every bit as good as those in DDI, reducing subscriptions. Now, if WotC could find a way to reverse the appeal of DDI, so people are primarily interested in the e-mags and get the Compendium and tools as an added extra, then that reverses the calculation. But assuming they can't, and that most people subscribe for the tools and get the magazines as an added bonus, the rules have to stay paywalled.


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## Ahnehnois

delericho said:


> It's probably worth noting that the core of Paizo's business is not the rules but rather the Adventure Path product... and specifically _subscriptions to_ the Adventure Path product. It makes absolute sense for them to put the rules online for free, because that reduces the entry requirements for using the thing that they actually want to sell you.



That may be. This would go back to my earlier point about how the group of people who financially support the company is a small and distinct subset of the people who actually play the game.

In a larger sense, this business model could be stated as "For every 100 people that use our free rules, 10 of of them will buy the rulebooks, and 1 will voluntarily become an adventure path subscriber. If we sell those people a high enough volume at a high enough margin, their business can support us in making new general interest products that we can release for free and sell in hardback to attract the next 100." Not to mention that the existing ruleset continues to attract players regardless of whether the company does anything at all. Establishing the SRD is essentially a one-time cost, but it keeps attracting people over time, some of whom will eventually become high-volume customers. That's the free-to play model. It works for Paizo because they are indeed able to get a ton of money from that group of subscribers by keeping them happy.

So I wouldn't say that the rules are tangential at all. They're the thing that attracts people in the first place, even if they're not the direct source of income for the company.


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## delericho

Ahnehnois said:


> In a larger sense, this business model could be stated as "For every 100 people that use our free rules, 10 of of them will buy the rulebooks, and 1 will voluntarily become an adventure path subscriber. If we sell those people a high enough volume at a high enough margin, their business can support us in making new general interest products that we can release for free and sell in hardback to attract the next 100."




Fair enough. There's a problem, though - WotC, as a larger company, have much higher requirements to succeed. WotC would probably starve on Paizo's current feast.


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## Ahnehnois

delericho said:


> Fair enough. There's a problem, though - WotC, as a larger company, have much higher requirements to succeed. WotC would probably starve on Paizo's current feast.



Indeed, this is uncertain. It is entirely possible that after so many hundreds (or thousands) of people, the proportion of diehard converts decreases. Diminishing returns. It's also entirely possible that the number of potential players is limited. I make no claims that Paizo's business model would meet WotC's goals. Or that any business model would. My perspective, as always, is that rpgs are a great hobby for players but are not very amenable to being monetized.

I do not, however, think that _increased_ reliance on subscriptions on their part would help.


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## tomBitonti

Mike Eagling said:


> I completely agree, indeed I essentially said it was an opinion!
> 
> The view of the OGL I put forward there was based on a bunch of websites I'd read and certainly wasn't intended to be authoritative.




Hi, yeah, I should *definitely* have read through that more carefully.  Was on a roll catching up to the thread and moved to quick!

Thx!

TomB


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## delericho

Ahnehnois said:


> My perspective, as always, is that rpgs are a great hobby for players but are not very amenable to being monetized.




You're probably right. Especially now - between the 3e SRD, the Pathfinder version, and the various free games, there's more material available at zero cost than a person will ever use; if you prefer a hardcopy, then according to eBay a copy of the 3.0e core rules can be had for $20 with ease; and with at least eight distinct versions of _D&D alone_ out there, I'm really not sure how much space there is for a ninth version.



> I do not, however, think that _increased_ reliance on subscriptions on their part would help.




Well, there's a threshold of pain, below which a person can pay for a subscription and barely count the cost. That's why I'm still a Pathfinder AP subscriber despite never actually having used one of the adventures. I suspect, as RG noted in the OP, that WotC have calculated the price for DDI that maximises their income, probably based on that factor.

There's another benefit, and it's the flip side of the "you lose it all when your sub lapses" issue. When 4e was released, I picked up the core books and gave it a go, and promptly set it aside. A couple of years later, my current group formed, with a number of people who were rather more keen on the edition. But by that time there were at least a dozen books out there for the edition - and it simply wasn't possible for me to "catch up" - the cost, and the time to read, was prohibitive.

But a subscription was cheap, and gave access to the Compendium and the Character Builder, which was close enough. I couldn't catch up on the books, but I could afford to pay a low(ish) monthly fee for access to all the stuff I needed. Starting an active sub meant that I gained access to all that stuff.

(Or, at least, it would have. What _actually_ happened was that our DM maintained the characters on his machine, and printed out what we needed as we needed it. So I didn't actually have to subscribe, which I daresay WotC would consider less than ideal.)


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## Ahnehnois

delericho said:


> Well, there's a threshold of pain, below which a person can pay for a subscription and barely count the cost.



I would think that's an extremely low threshold on average. How many gamers are kids? Or college students? Or young adults with no jobs and huge debts? I doubt the gaming industry is immune to the overall economic climate of the past few years.



> There's another benefit, and it's the flip side of the "you lose it all when your sub lapses" issue. When 4e was released, I picked up the core books and gave it a go, and promptly set it aside. A couple of years later, my current group formed, with a number of people who were rather more keen on the edition. But by that time there were at least a dozen books out there for the edition - and it simply wasn't possible for me to "catch up" - the cost, and the time to read, was prohibitive.



That's a good point, but it also is a problem with 4e. If you just pick up the 3.5 core books, set them aside, and start a game years later, you're not missing all that much. With 4e, the "everything is core" mentality, the proliferation of numerous releases with minimal substantive content, and the constant revisions push the game away from that mentality. It is, to coin a phrase "butter scraped over too much bread"  (Or if you like this approach you'd use a different phrasing.)

Is that working though? Trying to get away from having three books be "the game" and spreading it out over more releases? Not the way I would go. Most non-D&D games are far more complete at first release out of necessity. People have been crying for a more comprehensive initial 5e release, and WotC seems to be saying they'll get it. The subscription isn't as big of a benefit in your scenario if you can buy a fully formed game at a reasonable price from day 1.


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## Hussar

Ahnehnois said:


> /snip
> So I wouldn't say that the rules are tangential at all. They're the thing that attracts people in the first place, even if they're not the direct source of income for the company.




I'm not sure that's true.  I'd say that the setting and adventure paths are what attract people in the first place.  Paizo has made a very strong business out of producing fantastic adventures and setting fiction.  That's mostly what they're known for.

WOTC is far better known for rules creation.

And, let's not forget the fact that a very large chunk of Pathfinder's rules are OGL.  It's not like Paizo has any choice about putting it's rules online.  So much of it is OGL, they could try to close content it, but, at that point, it's not even worth it.  They might as well make it all OGL and gain tons of goodwill from fans for doing so since trying to close the gate at this point would be very difficult.

But, it is interesting to note that nothing Golarian is OGL.  None of the setting material is OGL.  That's all behind that "paywall".


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## delericho

Hussar said:


> And, let's not forget the fact that a very large chunk of Pathfinder's rules are OGL.  It's not like Paizo has any choice about putting it's rules online.  So much of it is OGL, they could try to close content it, but, at that point, it's not even worth it.  They might as well make it all OGL and gain tons of goodwill from fans for doing so since trying to close the gate at this point would be very difficult.




I will be very interested to see what happens when Paizo decide the time has come to do Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Do they stick with the OGL-based ruleset (in which case, why bother with a new edition?), or do they go for something significantly different - and in the latter case, do they open it or keep it closed?


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## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> I'm not sure that's true.  I'd say that the setting and adventure paths are what attract people in the first place.  Paizo has made a very strong business out of producing fantastic adventures and setting fiction.  That's mostly what they're known for.



While there is some truth to that, I think Pathfinder is still much better known than Golarion. Obviously the two are connected. That being said, look at it as a matter of sine qua non. Take away the ruleset and what is Paizo? I can't imagine they'd be even as well known as they were when they produced Dragon for WotC. Even if their adventures were killing it. Take away their setting and what are they? Maybe less profitable, but still easily the #1 rpg in 2013. Someone has to take all the gamers' disposable income.

After all, there are plenty of better settings out there. And, arguably, better rules. Their success started by capturing a large and disenchanted base of orphan customers. Not their add-on content.



> And, let's not forget the fact that a very large chunk of Pathfinder's rules are OGL.



Well, most of their post-core stuff isn't.



> But, it is interesting to note that nothing Golarian is OGL.  None of the setting material is OGL.  That's all behind that "paywall".



Again, that's the free-to-play model. Attract as many customers as possible by making the essentials free, then charge for add-ons. Golarion is decidedly an add-on.


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## Li Shenron

Radiating Gnome said:
			
		

> "I want to Buy it, not Rent it"
> 
> Sure you do. And I don't blame you. But you're fighting a losing battle.




The way I see it, the battle is between your company and my wallet. As far as subscription goes, my wallet stays close. I can still play the game. Who's losing the battle?



> What's more, as more and more products and services are available by subscription, fewer customers will balk at this sort of scheme. We will become used to subscribing to Microsoft Office, to Photoshop.




If the subscription model remains successful, it will probably be because customers will have no choice: probably most people need MS Office or Photoshop for work, so the subscription model will work as a sort of blackmailing, they either buy a subscription or won't be able to work properly. Those SW product can take advantage of a dominant position on the market, especially MS products due to being tied to Windows, in fact every now and then they get fined for that, at least in the EU.



> So, you tell me -- what's important for you in a service you'll subscribe to? Are you more interested in tools or content?




It totally depends on the product at stake.

For a RPG? Nothing, it's almost impossible I would subscribe. I don't see the reason why I should commit to spending a certain sum, no matter how small (and I mean it... I wouldn't subscribe even if it costed 10c, I just wouldn't bother) for buying stuff that I simply don't need. Nice to have maybe, but to me RPGs are fundamentally pen & paper, occasional props can improve gaming but the fundamental fun comes from your own mind, everything else is purely optional, and sometimes even gets in the way. In many ways, I just think RPGs are not even meant to be a business in the first place.

Other products, once again it depends... but in general I detest the idea of subscribing to entertainment. I don't want any TV channel, book/magazine or online gaming subscription. I want to watch a movie when I feel like, read a book when I feel like, play a game when I feel like. A subscription is a model that makes me feel like I _must_ "consume entertainment at a steady rate" (a purposefully horrible sentence here) otherwise I'd be wasting my money.

And that's what I think most subscribers actually do, waste their money or waste their time. A small minority are doing just fine, but most people subscribing to an online MMORPG are either not playing enough (and thus paying much more compared to what they would if the game was just bought once) or are compelled to play too much instead of studying, working or at least move from the sitting position. Same with TV subscription, it's not easy to watch it just the right amount, assuming such thing exists, in my view I would be either watching it more than I should or less than what I've paid for. It's not against the law, but I don't want to end up like that.

I would understand much more a subscription to that toilet paper to be honest.


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## delericho

Li Shenron said:


> Other products, once again it depends... but in general I detest the idea of subscribing to entertainment. I don't want any TV channel, book/magazine or online gaming subscription. I want to watch a movie when I feel like, read a book when I feel like, play a game when I feel like. A subscription is a model that makes me feel like I _must_ "consume entertainment at a steady rate" (a purposefully horrible sentence here) otherwise I'd be wasting my money.




The other model that I can see catching on is the micro-transaction-based pay-per-use model, where the provider gives you access to their library of materials to use as required, and you pay a small fee each time you actually do so.

The advantage of this over subscription (for the customer) is obvious - they have the same level of access, but are only paying for what they actually use. (They may well not end up paying _less overal_ though - under this model you'd pay every time you accessed your PHB too.) The downsides are that it takes more effort to set up and administer, and to process the payments, and that there's the possibility of service degradation at peak times. (Though all of these issues should reduce with time.)

I can't see the pay-per-use model working with RPGs, because it does depend on the high-use items being behind the wall, and I suspect the market would respond to that by moving to some other game. But for entertainment products, I can certainly see this happening. We're in the last generation or two of physical media, and will be moving to digital delivery soon enough (and, unfortunately, I've just discovered that DVDs are nowhere near as durable as I thought...). I won;t be at all surprised when some company (quite possibly Disney) decide to stop selling their movies entirely, and instead provide access via an online portal allowing you to watch anything they own... for a very small fee.


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## Radiating Gnome

Li Shenron said:


> The way I see it, the battle is between your company and my wallet. As far as subscription goes, my wallet stays close. I can still play the game. Who's losing the battle?




I think the point I was trying to make was that they still win in aggregate.  They may lose out on you as a customer, because you are not interested in their business model, or not willing to pay the price where they have set it, but in the aggregate, they believe they will have enough other people willing to pay that they won't miss your money.  

Keep in mind; the less interested you are in spending money on your hobby, the less interested the publishers SHOULD be in your opinion about their products and services.  It would be irresponsible of them to pay attention to a customer who isn't willing to spend the money to keep them in business.  

It's business -- whether it's a business that's wired for big success or not, it's still a business.  Dollars are votes.  It's not fair, or necessarily right, but that's what it is.  

-rg


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## delericho

Radiating Gnome said:


> Keep in mind; the less interested you are in spending money on your hobby, the less interested the publishers SHOULD be in your opinion about their products and services.




One point on that, though: if the customer isn't interested on spending money on _a subscription_ but would be willing to spend significant money on _ownership_ if that were offered, then that IS something the company should be interested in.

But then, I'm sure you were considering that.


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## Radiating Gnome

delericho said:


> One point on that, though: if the customer isn't interested on spending money on _a subscription_ but would be willing to spend significant money on _ownership_ if that were offered, then that IS something the company should be interested in.
> 
> But then, I'm sure you were considering that.




We get into trouble with this sort of hypothetical conversation -- and yet anything specific turns almost instantly into edition wars, which is besides the point.  

So, yeah, I do consider that; however, if I were running a company, and I had the choice of pleasing 3 customers who are going to subscribe to my products or services and pay me money every month, or pleasing 6 who will buy my products once in a while, when they feel like it or need them -- _even if the money works out to be the same in the end_ -- I'm going to work for the subscribing customers because the reliable, steady flow of cash makes all my other business cashflow issues (like paying my developers, keeping the lights on in the offices, etc) a whole lot easier to manage. 

-rg


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## delericho

Radiating Gnome said:


> So, yeah, I do consider that; however, if I were running a company, and I had the choice of pleasing 3 customers who are going to subscribe to my products or services and pay me money every month, or pleasing 6 who will buy my products once in a while, when they feel like it or need them -- _even if the money works out to be the same in the end_ -- I'm going to work for the subscribing customers because the reliable, steady flow of cash makes all my other business cashflow issues (like paying my developers, keeping the lights on in the offices, etc) a whole lot easier to manage.




Indeed. Actually, I said something not dissimilar a few posts ago.


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## Radiating Gnome

delericho said:


> Indeed. Actually, I said something not dissimilar a few posts ago.




Ha!  I believe I said it first in the original column two weeks ago (in the section "Smoothing out Boom and Bust").  I also told it to my dog about a month ago, while we were out for a walk.  So, I win. Nyah! 

-rg


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## tomBitonti

Li Shenron said:
			
		

> The way I see it, the battle is between your company and my wallet. As far as subscription goes, my wallet stays close. I can still play the game. Who's losing the battle?






Radiating Gnome said:


> I think the point I was trying to make was that they still win in aggregate.  They may lose out on you as a customer, because you are not interested in their business model, or not willing to pay the price where they have set it, but in the aggregate, they believe they will have enough other people willing to pay that they won't miss your money.
> 
> Keep in mind; the less interested you are in spending money on your hobby, the less interested the publishers SHOULD be in your opinion about their products and services.  It would be irresponsible of them to pay attention to a customer who isn't willing to spend the money to keep them in business.
> 
> It's business -- whether it's a business that's wired for big success or not, it's still a business.  Dollars are votes.  It's not fair, or necessarily right, but that's what it is.
> 
> -rg




Here, I'm with Li Shenron: Li's comment was specific to spending money on *subscriptions*, not to spending money on the hobby in general.  I don't see a valid shift to the general statement "less interested you are in spending money on your hobby".

Thx!

TomB


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## tomBitonti

delericho said:


> Fair enough. There's a problem, though - WotC, as a larger company, have much higher requirements to succeed. WotC would probably starve on Paizo's current feast.




Question here is what does "higher" mean: Higher rate of return?  Higher sales volume?  Larger share of the market?  Higher net profit per investment dollar?

Thx!

TomB


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## Radiating Gnome

tomBitonti said:


> Here, I'm with Li Shenron: Li's comment was specific to spending money on *subscriptions*, not to spending money on the hobby in general.  I don't see a valid shift to the general statement "less interested you are in spending money on your hobby".
> 
> Thx!
> 
> TomB




Good point. I made a leap there.  I see the two as related, and I think the conversation I had with Delericho that followed that post bear that out.  

-rg


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## Radiating Gnome

tomBitonti said:


> Question here is what does "higher" mean: Higher rate of return?  Higher sales volume?  Larger share of the market?  Higher net profit per investment dollar?
> 
> Thx!
> 
> TomB




Higher revenues, one way or the other, I think.  That's probably a question of higher margins, higher volume, all of it.  

-j


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## delericho

tomBitonti said:


> Question here is what does "higher" mean: Higher rate of return?  Higher sales volume?  Larger share of the market?  Higher net profit per investment dollar?




Bottom line: they need more money. There are other ways to put it, of course, but that's what it boils down to.

There are various reasons for this. As a larger company, they have bigger overheads that have to be paid for. As a publicly-traded company, they are required to maximise shareholder return. As part of Hasbro, they have targets imposed from above that they have to meet. And I'm sure there are others.

But, ultimately, what it comes down to is a question: does D&D make enough money to continue?


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## Li Shenron

delericho said:


> I can't see the pay-per-use model working with RPGs, because it does depend on the high-use items being behind the wall, and I suspect the market would respond to that by moving to some other game. But for entertainment products, I can certainly see this happening.




I agree, and in fact this is not so different from the old vhs/dvd rental businesses. In some countries I've heard that this is almost disappeared, but where I live it's still a viable business. In fact, when it comes to movies, I have long lost interest in buying DVDs and I only rent movies (well also I go to the cinema and watch some movies from online TV). At some point down the line, I realized that since the vast majority of movies I only watch once, even paying as high as 5e for a rental costs me less than a decent DVD from the discount-bin. 

OTOH I would not subscribe to a movie rental service such as netflix or similar, in principle (for what I've said before) and in practice (because it's just so typical of subscription-based services to offer a selection of inferior products). I can't say that DDI is an inferior product of course, I have no idea... but in other entertainment areas, maybe Spotify seems to be the only service with quality service IMHO.



tomBitonti said:


> Here, I'm with Li Shenron: Li's comment was specific to spending money on *subscriptions*, not to spending money on the hobby in general.  I don't see a valid shift to the general statement "less interested you are in spending money on your hobby".




Yes, definitely! Although I'm not really a big spender myself (got probably maybe ~30 RPG books or so, all 3ed) my comment was only related to subscriptions.


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