But don't worry Fat Cats, I'll still buy a ton of 4th edition books and pay for insider. But I want you to know that I have no love for you as a company, who's only real desire is to make money.
~Quay DeVoll
The fact that you would not offer "insider" as a free bonus to 4th edition is ridiculous. Apparently paying over $100 for the three core rule books is not enough, you have to continue to squeeze everything you can out of the players. It is wrong, what happened to cheap trade paperbacks and fringe benefits? When did DnD decide it was a game that excluded the less fortunate from its upper echelon of more wealthy players? It makes me sick, you people write stories and adventures about heroes and good people and all you care about is milking that extra gold piece from the commonwealth. I thank the gods that Mr.G isn't here to see this. The people in charge are going to chase gamers away with all these "fees for fun". Just make dnd insider free. How hard would it be to give the players something for free? I mean since the 30 plus dollars i spent on each the 20 3.5 DnD books i own just got flushed down the toilet.
But don't worry Fat Cats, I'll still buy a ton of 4th edition books and pay for insider. But I want you to know that I have no love for you as a company, who's only real desire is to make money.
~Quay DeVoll
Right, because when you bought your 3rd edition books, you got free copies of E-Tools (I suppose if you bought early enough and liked the Master Tools program you did).
Me, I'm kind of upset that when I buy a DVD of a movie I really enjoy, I don't get the soundtrack for free, or copies of the script online for free.
DDI is a service SEPARATE from 4th Edition. It is not required, it is an OPTION. Some of those optional services WILL be available on a limited basis to non-subscribers. This currently includes the Rules Comendium, the Character Builder, and I think one more of the tools.
They are limited by giving you less information than you would get as a paid member, but it's still there to be used.
If you choose to pay for the service (which will be constantly updated as new content is released, either from new books for via the magazines), then you get more.
I really don't get why people want to burn Wizards at the stake for trying to find a new revenue stream. Especially when that stream is optional. In this world of "adapt or die" economics, they're catching an awful lot of flack for trying to adapt.
Where does the sense of entitlement come from lately?
/goes off grumbling about schools, rap music, and tells all these kids to stay offa his lawn.
Right, because when you bought your 3rd edition books, you got free copies of E-Tools (I suppose if you bought early enough and liked the Master Tools program you did).
Me, I'm kind of upset that when I buy a DVD of a movie I really enjoy, I don't get the soundtrack for free, or copies of the script online for free.
DDI is a service SEPARATE from 4th Edition. It is not required, it is an OPTION. Some of those optional services WILL be available on a limited basis to non-subscribers. This currently includes the Rules Comendium, the Character Builder, and I think one more of the tools.
They are limited by giving you less information than you would get as a paid member, but it's still there to be used.
If you choose to pay for the service (which will be constantly updated as new content is released, either from new books for via the magazines), then you get more.
I really don't get why people want to burn Wizards at the stake for trying to find a new revenue stream. Especially when that stream is optional. In this world of "adapt or die" economics, they're catching an awful lot of flack for trying to adapt.
Where does the sense of entitlement come from lately?
/goes off grumbling about schools, rap music, and tells all these kids to stay offa his lawn.
I very much agree with you. And I do not understand why people seem to think they are entitled to more than what they pay for. I kinda equate it to a Ferrari. "Holy **** that Ferrari looks awesome. Look at all of the cool features and the thing is pretty and fast. What? It costs money? But I want it. So it should be free. Wait, your saying you want money for your product? BS, your greedy. I demand it be free or at a price I personally am willing to pay, which is $5 bucks. So I hate you now. You didn't meet my price point."
Substitute Ferrari for anything someone might want (I recently saw a Ferrari and I think they look awesome but never would pay for it. I however don't feel entitled to get one without paying.)
$15-20.... might be overkill.
Remember, it (I think) costs a significant amount just to run the site. The applets and stuff in DDI will be self sufficient as far as money goes, but probably not too much more.
Also, I personally place a lot of the economic blame on pressure from Hasbro, not WOTC.
I very much agree with you. And I do not understand why people seem to think they are entitled to more than what they pay for. I kinda equate it to a Ferrari. "Holy **** that Ferrari looks awesome. Look at all of the cool features and the thing is pretty and fast. What? It costs money? But I want it. So it should be free. Wait, your saying you want money for your product? BS, your greedy. I demand it be free or at a price I personally am willing to pay, which is $5 bucks. So I hate you now. You didn't meet my price point."
Substitute Ferrari for anything someone might want (I recently saw a Ferrari and I think they look awesome but never would pay for it. I however don't feel entitled to get one without paying.)
If I were going to go with a car analogy I'd think it's more akin to people wanting to buy a car, then complaining that bumper stickers, decals, and a custom paint job all cost extra.
Things you don't need, but if you want them, well. . .
Just don't play, plenty of us landed on that square.
The fact that you would not offer "insider" as a free bonus to 4th edition is ridiculous. Apparently paying over $100 for the three core rule books is not enough, you have to continue to squeeze everything you can out of the players. It is wrong, what happened to cheap trade paperbacks and fringe benefits? When did DnD decide it was a game that excluded the less fortunate from its upper echelon of more wealthy players? It makes me sick, you people write stories and adventures about heroes and good people and all you care about is milking that extra gold piece from the commonwealth. I thank the gods that Mr.G isn't here to see this. The people in charge are going to chase gamers away with all these "fees for fun". Just make dnd insider free. How hard would it be to give the players something for free? I mean since the 30 plus dollars i spent on each the 20 3.5 DnD books i own just got flushed down the toilet.
But don't worry Fat Cats, I'll still buy a ton of 4th edition books and pay for insider. But I want you to know that I have no love for you as a company, who's only real desire is to make money.
~Quay DeVoll
You know I'm getting sick and tired of people who think they should get everything for free and are simply entitled to have stuff. Gaming is a hobby. Like almost all hobbies, you have to invest in it.
People have to develop D&DI by the way. They deserve to get paid for doing so. It's also costly to maintain something like D&DI. The fee of $15 a month is not unreasonable. And seriously, if you can't afford $15 dollars a month, then you need to something else with your life.
OMG they hit your 10 doller a month price point. so why are you complaining again?
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=16149897#post16149897
No one is holding a bow at anyones head and saying pay WOTC 15/month for DDi or I'll crit hit your head with my +6 Vorpal bow of slaying and arrow of instant death.
Bottom line, WOTC is a business. They have bills to pay, wages to pay and profit to make. If you don't think their product is worth it, don't pay for it. But don't expect them to fall over and give it away either.
Read my post here for an explanation of why some feel there is no value in having to pay an ongoing fee for a piece of stand alone software:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=16149897#post16149897
First of all there's a couple of issues.
One, this is not WoW or an MMO so apples and oranges.
But saying you did want to compare the both assuming they are the same, here are a couple of things that do compare. World of Warcraft requires about 0 brains to play (for the most part). This means it can be enjoyed by all. They know from previous MMOs (Ultima Online as an early one, Everquest as a more recent example to when WoW when WoW came out) that the general price point is between $10-$15. They also know (and were right) that millions of people will sign up, and last I remember it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 mil (its probably more now, but lets just say 5 mil for example). That means for that 5 million, they get $65 million a month. MONTH!! Now, they have a lot of resources (server, bandwidth and the like) dedicated to WoW, but you can't seriously tell me that $65 million is not a serious insane profit. That gains them a few things. Because they make a boat load of money, they now can dedicate a hell of a lot of resources behind that to create new content for the game. Last I remember on the WoW box, it does not say "Oh btw, your $15 a month entitles you to a lot of free content upgrades that most games usually charge for in expansions." (and ill admit, WoW is one of the first to add anything but minor balance and holiday even changes for the monthly fee. Before that, you basically got what you got and the expansions is what dictated new stuff). But they get the monthly fees to justify doing that, which of course increases their subscriber base, cause lets face it thats cool.
Now, DDI and Dungeons & Dragons. A game that requires some thought behind it (as the rules have to be done by the DM and players, as well as manually keeping track of stuff for the most part, tho DDI itself well assist in that). I virtually guarantee that if you tried to get all the currently people subscribed WoW to play D&D, you would have a lot of people who just can't grasp it. Yes thats arrogant and condescending, yet I believe it to be at least semi accurate (feel free to argue this point with me as I am curious others thoughts on this). Even that being said and dismissed, you still are not going to get anywhere near the amount of subscribers for DDI no matter the price point because you need to know how to play D&D ahead of time and many choose to not (whereas WoW hands everything to you, you just need to know how to mash buttons for the most part and be able to read the screen). This means that say they only get 100,000 subscribers. (that would be nice, who knows what the real number would be). Now say WoW only got that kind of subscriber base? Do you think that Blizzard would be making a profit on that. Even if so, do you think they could dedicate the amount of programmers and artists to continue adding new content for that. The only way Blizzard could do that would be to either cut jobs, which would limit the amount they could do as far as addons or raise the price to say $20 a month.
As with many things, cost for a service or good goes down with demand assuming supply can be met. If someone has access to a billion apples, the cost per apple is going to be less than if someone has access to 100 apples. The same goes the other way. If Wizards expects only to get 100,000 potential subscribers based on book sales (again, arbitrary number but still) they have to set the price point to something that will make it worth doing, hopefully worth adding to and still make a profit (if there is no profit, there is no product). Obviously if Wizards thought they were going to get 5 million subscribers, they could justify $10 a month as that would be $50 million in money they would gain vs the $150,000 a month they would get at $15 a month.
Another way to look at it would be this (I just wrote something similar to this in another thread). Say they have a potential customer base of 500,000 subscribers. Say out of those, 100,000 see no need for the tools cause they only play around a table. Now your down to 400,000. Say all 400,000 would be willing to pay $5 a month. Thats $2mil a month. Say out of those, 300,000 would be willing to pay $10 a month. Thats $3 mil a month. And say out of those 200,000 would be willing to pay $15 a month. Thats also $3 million a month (ill address this in a second). And say out of those 200,000 only 100,000 would be willing to pay $20 a month. Thats $2mil a month.
Now check that out, if they set the price point at $10 a month for everyone they get $3,000,000 in revenue. However if they set it to $15 a month, its the same. However they actually are making more as you have 100,000 less people draining resources on their servers. And if they make it $20, they are making less money by quite a bit.
This holds for most values. Say start with a million people.
200,000 don't need it.
800,000 x $5 = $4,000,000
600,000 x $10 = $6,000,000
400,000 x $15 = $6,000,000
200,000 x $20 = $4,000,000
10million
1 mil don't need it
9,000,000 x $5 = $45,000,000
8,000,000 x $10 = $80,000,000
6,000,000 x $15 = $90,000,000
4,000,000 x $20 = $80,000,000
4,000,000 x $15 = $60,000,000
The only way $15 wouldn't work is if you had a insane amount of people drop out cause $15 was way too much. To get the same kind of revenue that $5 would have to get, it would require almost double the amount of subscribers to make the same amount of money that $15 would, plus more resources are now being used.
Ill fully admit that I maybe missing something, but to me $15 seems reasonable considering $5 would make it not cost effective, $10 can be had for the year cost and $15 is where it seems to be the sweet spot. Even if you look at my 10 millions example, you would have to claim that by 8mil are willing to pay $10 and only half are willing to eek that extra $5 a month. I (and im sure Wizards agree) don't think that $5 is going to effect their subscriber base all that much.
And one last thing, who knows. For that $15, we may see them get enough subscribers and money to start adding things that weren't originally advertised. Animated minis (even at extra cost, still that would be awesome). Animated effects (arrow from one token/mini to another for a ranged attack). A whole new program to do something (maybe a random dungeon creator where you feed it a partys level, how many encounters you want and it auto creates a dungeon, tiles and traps and all with the encounters already rolled up.) The fact is you don't know what you will gain for $15 a month, much like you don't know on most MMOs when they first come out. Some, like Ultima Online don't really add anything other than the expansions. Some like WoW, add a lot.
30 plus dollars i spent on each the 20 3.5 DnD books i own just got flushed down the toilet.
If you like 3.5 better then 4ed then play it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything especially not pay for D&DI.
Quay you make quite the moving and passionate speech. Surely you will take action and get rid of your books and refuse to support such an evil empire right?
No I see you said you will still use D&DI and keep buying books. WTF do they care what you think, they have your money but you still have your hypocricy.
At first I thought that the 4ed manuals had a code to access the software features (so only manual owners could use it), but a monthly fee is ridiculous. We need the name of the person who thought of that, in order to guarantee that person never ever works in a gaming company.
I don't see any reason to pay for DDI.
At first I thought that the 4ed manuals had a code to access the software features (so only manual owners could use it), but a monthly fee is ridiculous. We need the name of the person who thought of that, in order to guarantee that person never ever works in a gaming company.
Its not their fault that your assumption was wrong.
First of all there's a couple of issues.
One, this is not WoW or an MMO so apples and oranges.
But saying you did want to compare the both assuming they are the same, here are a couple of things that do compare. World of Warcraft requires about 0 brains to play (for the most part). This means it can be enjoyed by all. They know from previous MMOs (Ultima Online as an early one, Everquest as a more recent example to when WoW when WoW came out) that the general price point is between $10-$15. They also know (and were right) that millions of people will sign up, and last I remember it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 mil (its probably more now, but lets just say 5 mil for example). That means for that 5 million, they get $65 million a month. MONTH!! Now, they have a lot of resources (server, bandwidth and the like) dedicated to WoW, but you can't seriously tell me that $65 million is not a serious insane profit. That gains them a few things. Because they make a boat load of money, they now can dedicate a hell of a lot of resources behind that to create new content for the game. Last I remember on the WoW box, it does not say "Oh btw, your $15 a month entitles you to a lot of free content upgrades that most games usually charge for in expansions." (and ill admit, WoW is one of the first to add anything but minor balance and holiday even changes for the monthly fee. Before that, you basically got what you got and the expansions is what dictated new stuff). But they get the monthly fees to justify doing that, which of course increases their subscriber base, cause lets face it thats cool.
Now, DDI and Dungeons & Dragons. A game that requires some thought behind it (as the rules have to be done by the DM and players, as well as manually keeping track of stuff for the most part, tho DDI itself well assist in that). I virtually guarantee that if you tried to get all the currently people subscribed WoW to play D&D, you would have a lot of people who just can't grasp it. Yes thats arrogant and condescending, yet I believe it to be at least semi accurate (feel free to argue this point with me as I am curious others thoughts on this). Even that being said and dismissed, you still are not going to get anywhere near the amount of subscribers for DDI no matter the price point because you need to know how to play D&D ahead of time and many choose to not (whereas WoW hands everything to you, you just need to know how to mash buttons for the most part and be able to read the screen). This means that say they only get 100,000 subscribers. (that would be nice, who knows what the real number would be). Now say WoW only got that kind of subscriber base? Do you think that Blizzard would be making a profit on that. Even if so, do you think they could dedicate the amount of programmers and artists to continue adding new content for that. The only way Blizzard could do that would be to either cut jobs, which would limit the amount they could do as far as addons or raise the price to say $20 a month.
As with many things, cost for a service or good goes down with demand assuming supply can be met. If someone has access to a billion apples, the cost per apple is going to be less than if someone has access to 100 apples. The same goes the other way. If Wizards expects only to get 100,000 potential subscribers based on book sales (again, arbitrary number but still) they have to set the price point to something that will make it worth doing, hopefully worth adding to and still make a profit (if there is no profit, there is no product). Obviously if Wizards thought they were going to get 5 million subscribers, they could justify $10 a month as that would be $50 million in money they would gain vs the $150,000 a month they would get at $15 a month.
Another way to look at it would be this (I just wrote something similar to this in another thread). Say they have a potential customer base of 500,000 subscribers. Say out of those, 100,000 see no need for the tools cause they only play around a table. Now your down to 400,000. Say all 400,000 would be willing to pay $5 a month. Thats $2mil a month. Say out of those, 300,000 would be willing to pay $10 a month. Thats $3 mil a month. And say out of those 200,000 would be willing to pay $15 a month. Thats also $3 million a month (ill address this in a second). And say out of those 200,000 only 100,000 would be willing to pay $20 a month. Thats $2mil a month.
Now check that out, if they set the price point at $10 a month for everyone they get $3,000,000 in revenue. However if they set it to $15 a month, its the same. However they actually are making more as you have 100,000 less people draining resources on their servers. And if they make it $20, they are making less money by quite a bit.
This holds for most values. Say start with a million people.
200,000 don't need it.
800,000 x $5 = $4,000,000
600,000 x $10 = $6,000,000
400,000 x $15 = $6,000,000
200,000 x $20 = $4,000,000
10million
1 mil don't need it
9,000,000 x $5 = $45,000,000
8,000,000 x $10 = $80,000,000
6,000,000 x $15 = $90,000,000
4,000,000 x $20 = $80,000,000
4,000,000 x $15 = $60,000,000
The only way $15 wouldn't work is if you had a insane amount of people drop out cause $15 was way too much. To get the same kind of revenue that $5 would have to get, it would require almost double the amount of subscribers to make the same amount of money that $15 would, plus more resources are now being used.
Ill fully admit that I maybe missing something, but to me $15 seems reasonable considering $5 would make it not cost effective, $10 can be had for the year cost and $15 is where it seems to be the sweet spot. Even if you look at my 10 millions example, you would have to claim that by 8mil are willing to pay $10 and only half are willing to eek that extra $5 a month. I (and im sure Wizards agree) don't think that $5 is going to effect their subscriber base all that much.
And one last thing, who knows. For that $15, we may see them get enough subscribers and money to start adding things that weren't originally advertised. Animated minis (even at extra cost, still that would be awesome). Animated effects (arrow from one token/mini to another for a ranged attack). A whole new program to do something (maybe a random dungeon creator where you feed it a partys level, how many encounters you want and it auto creates a dungeon, tiles and traps and all with the encounters already rolled up.) The fact is you don't know what you will gain for $15 a month, much like you don't know on most MMOs when they first come out. Some, like Ultima Online don't really add anything other than the expansions. Some like WoW, add a lot.
So the basis of your entire rebuttal is "Wizards deserves to make as much money as Blizzard and anyone who plays video games is too stupid to understand D&D"
So the basis of your entire rebuttal is "Wizards deserves to make as much money as Blizzard and anyone who plays video games is too stupid to understand D&D"
My argument on that part is that D&D does require more "work" in the sense you do have to do basic math, you have to be able to use a pencil among many other things. WoW requires you to know how to use a mouse and keyboard. Ill concede that there are more complications in WoW that other MMOs (talent trees, tactics on which attacks to use and then how to use them) but still, I suspect you see a lot of people who play WoW and other MMOs that would look at D&D and what is required to play it and decide that its not worth their time (be it they can't grasp it, or too lazy to do it).
My main argument can be summed up like this in these two very summarized ideas. Stop being cheap thinking your entitled to DDI for free and two, wait till the thing comes out before you claim that it sucks or on the other side of that coin before you claim that other things are better (the only reason that claim semi works is cause DDI is not out yet, but people argue that the product sucks even tho its not out which is stupid).
I don't understand why so many people are so filled with venom at the idea that it will cost money to use a complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service.
Cause people are cheap. That seems to be the only thing I can think of.
That or they truly can't afford it and are upset that it looks so awesome that they want it but can't have it, tho I find it hard to believe people who play D&D and buy books for $30+ each can't afford $15 a month to play the game that they spend $30 a book on, spend gas to drive among many other costs usually associated with gaming sessions.
I don't understand why so many people are so filled with venom at the idea that it will cost money to use a complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service.
I suspect some are concerned about "complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service" occurring.
I suspect some are concerned about "complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service" occurring.
I agree that many have the concern (even I do and im one of the supporters of DDI at this point). Lets wait till the damn thing comes out before we jump to conclusions on whats going on. As I stated before in another post, when you bought World of Warcraft, it does not say on the back of the box that "You will get free new content, new dungeons, new monsters and new lots of stuff." So I would suspect we will not know about DDI till after a couple months in at least.
I suspect some are concerned about "complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service" occurring.
That's my worry in a nutshell.
If it is a "complex, multi-feature, regularly-updated service", then I'll definitely pay the 15$ monthly charge and see if i can get my friends to do so as well. After all, we'll probably save more than that on gas ^_^.
Buuuut, if it ends up being nothing more than a stand alone software suite that never gets updated, then a subscription definitely seems out of line. However, a reasonable purchase price would work just fine.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens with it.