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$15 a month is on the high side of what my gamers can afford (a few of my friends are pretty budget conscious). $15 a month for me is absolutely fine- and I want to spend that on something worth $15. Hell, if you could provide something related to D&D worth $20 a month, I'd be thrilled. But I have to agree that the product is worth the price.

The issue I have is that I don't believe what has been discussed so far is worth $15. 2 magazines are worth $6-7 a month to me. PDF versions of books I own should be free (although WOTC REALLY should think about copying O'Reilly books' safari online (http://safari.oreilly.com/)).

All the software should be purchasable, not subscribed. I'd estimate total value as somewhere between $60-$150, depending on what is delivered. Matchmaking/Access to figure models is something I'd value at around $5 a month.

When parallels to MMOs are made, I'd point out that a virtual tabletop is much more similar to a standard networked video game with online play- such as starcraft, diablo, or warcraft (or halo/unreal tournament). All of these used a matchmaking service that blizzard provided for free- because simply, it wasn't an expensive service to provide. I don't see why the decision was made to have all the DDI software be subscription/server based beyond someone in accounting thinking "wow, MMOs make a lot of money! how can we get in on that?"

It's really hard to talk about whether or not DDI will be worth the money they are asking for, because they have announced more about the price than the product. The product as discussed so far isn't worth it IMO. If they considered a safari model (where you have a limited ability to view books you DON'T own), provided a nicely packaged set of tools for gms (wiki, forums, etc...), and a matchmaking service using a recommendation engine (or supporting tagging of users by other users at least)- then at least they would be presenting a business proposition that made sense to me. I'd probably even pay surprising amounts to participate in games run by accomplished gms. I still think the software they have discussed should be purchased, not rented, and that it should function in stand-alone mode.

I'll repost here because it is something I think every one is saying, just not directly... And just to reassure everyone I am quoting myself.

While working on my MBA I was given a choice. Pay $60 per class for e-books or $100 plus per class for the real thing. I chose the PDF e-books and printed what I needed.

Regular text book.................................... ..............................$125
E-book text in pdf format.................................. ......................$ 60
Savings between text and e-book.................................... .........$ 65

Now Wizards is offering two magazines and some tools for:
Monthly................................. ........................................ ........$180
Yearly.................................. ........................................ .........$120
Savings between "monthly" and yearly online.................................$ 60

Two Magazines each month maybe $10 if bought off the shelf at $120
Subscription to both figuring the usual 30%..............................$ 84
Savings between subscription and monthly...............................$ 36

Now I did not subscribe to either magazine, though I consider myself a faithful reader. I looked at each and determined if the content at the time either a) appealed to me, or b) there was enough relevant material to be of value. So let's take out 4 mags each from the equation.

Eight each magazine for 8 months.................................. .........$ 80
Subscription with a few months of unused content in DDI............$120
Extraneous expense for unused content and tools......................$ 40

To me that is not a good value even if you pay for a year at a time.

The e-publishing concept is a way for publishers to provide content at a savings to both the consumer (you and me) while also reducing costs on the publisher's (here Wizards of the Coast) end. I see no elimination of links in the value chain here, in fact they added links to re-inflate their pricing scheme. From producer to customer there is virtually no difference between printed and online, and that is where many of us have a problem.
I took the survey initially asking about the DDI, I told them point blank in that survey, based on other online services it should not be over $60 a year period. And with the description of the online only e-tools, I thought that was a bit much, because I get much better control over my players characters and my NPC's with the stand alone product the CMP fixed because Wizards could not keep from changing the specifications with Fluid on the first attempt.

So no I will not be buying into this scheme to rent space and time to store my campaign information on a server that could be hacked by any 10 year old boy or girl in the world.

Thank you

DanBackslide wrote:

To reiterate my comment on the platform thread: I'd love to subscribe to Dungeon and Dragon. But I don't want to pay extra cash for electronic tools that, as a Mac user, I can't run.

I'm figuring $10/mo for the magazines would be fair. The print magazines had a $6.99 cover price, and had advertising to defray some of the cost. True, electronic-only magazines wouldn't have printing costs, but there's still writers, artists and designers to pay. Not to mention servers, storage, and bandwidth.

C'mon, WotC, throw us a bone here! It sounds like most of the DDI apps won't be available for months, so you're gonna have a hard time (or at least a long delay) monetizing the effort. A magazine-only subscription might net you some much-needed cash flow from the online effort...

Sorry, do the math from my original post. $10 is still too much. Writers of text books get much more in return than do contributers to magazines. Not to say that they don't deserve it (authors) but having friends who write anything from articles to movies I am aware of what authors are paid and small fraction of that $10 will be seen by the authors. I see no reason that WotC would change that long standing practice. If a text can be sold in pdf for around 60% (actually less) of cover price, there is absolutely no reason[b] that Dragon Mag and Dungeon Mag in pdf should be over $7.20 for both![/b] Even at the price you quoted it should not be over $8.40. Am I pinching pennies? Maybe, but if the company is gonna pinch you better believe I am going to also!

And I am sorry that Mac is not supported because it could easily have been, but these threads have been losing the point complaining about that issue. Yes it is an addition cost to you, who have spent plenty to purchase (what is best described in financial terms) a niche computer. (Hey I used and like Macs, but I find PC's much easier to use, and less expensive on my finances)

The point is and has always been from my POV even as a PC user they have bundled [/b]crap that I will never use[/b] along with the magazines just to inflate their subscription costs beyond a point that I cannot even justify subscribing to it.