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Sep 7, 2010 -- 1:28PM, Formulajh7 wrote:

Sep 7, 2010 -- 12:39PM, Dane_McArdy wrote:

Sep 7, 2010 -- 12:20PM, Nyarlathotep wrote:

Sep 7, 2010 -- 8:29AM, Formulajh7 wrote:

I may even have more info than the above.

You may.  There may be a teapot orbiting Jupiter too.  I wouldn't bet on either of the two being true.

The Internet Financial Expert is a species only slightly less common than the Internet Tough Guy.

Well, since the company I work for, does work for Hasbro, though I don't work on that client, I can see the files, and I have looked at them, and Hasbro and WoTC is doing fine.

Take it for what you want.

If a steady and substantial decrease in profit margin in the DnD product subsidary means there doing fine then sure there doing fine. Anyone with "files" on hasbro would also know well enough to know that Hasbro is a huge multi-national company and WoTC could go chapter 11 6 times and Hasbro would be doing fine.

You would also know that Magic the gathering sales even though they are in diffrent buckets is the only thing keeping the WoTC subsidary realtivly stable.

Whatever. You are wrong. DnD makes more money then it costs to produce. Companies don't continue to produce a product that makes less then it brings in. If that was true, DnD would be dead. They would stop making it.

And no body needs numbers to understand that.

Sep 8, 2010 -- 9:38AM, Argy wrote:

Companies sell things at a loss all the time.   The xbox 360 and the PS3 both retail for less than they cost to produce.   The same with most mobile phones in the US.   If their strategy was to say, sell minis that do make money or push people to magic Via D&D then they could certainly justify selling D&D at a loss.

I'm not saying thats whats happening, I'm just saying that companies sell products and services at a loss all the time.

Yes, they do things that don't directly bring in money, but producing DnD books and such isn't one of them. For example, these forums cost money for them to run and maintain, but they don't directly make money for WoTC for the DnD brand. Having a forum has become an expected function for games.

Some of those consules you mention also lowered prices because of low sales, AND the consul is less important then the games, which is where the real money is. So if you have to take a hit to the price of the consuls, so that you have a shot at the real money, the games, it's then just better business.

There isn't any reason of these sorts for WoTC to make DnD at a lost. It makes money, and keeps it's self going. It's not a huge money maker, but it does well enough.

Which was echoed by WoTC staff at Gen Con, who I talked to.

A good example of this. A few years back, when the NYTimes was starting to go under, an independant person sat down and figured out that if they GAVE each of their subscription customers a Kindle, and delivered their content via that, it would keep the Times afloat and make them profitable. That included restructing the process for production of the materials to be delivered via Kindle.

Sep 8, 2010 -- 5:18AM, Kalex_the_Omen wrote:

Myztek,

This is all quite logical and makes a lot of sense, except that you left out one large piece of the puzzle.  The number of people who actually need a VTT it likely such a small portion of the total number of people playing D&D that development of what is apparently an expensive and time intensive tool would probably not pay off in the long run.

I know that for the people who really need a VTT to play this is a huge issue, but honestly for the vast majority of us, and probably for WotC it simply is not.  There are several other VTTs out there.  You might want to try to see if you can get traction with one of them on a 3d version.  Perhaps Fantasy Grounds 3 could be 3d.

Regards,

Kalex the Omen

If you don't need the VTT and it wouldn't encourage you to buy Insider - fine.  That has no impact on the point that the benefits of Insider are not benefits well suited to a subscription service.

By the way, can you share the market survey results you're using to support your statements?

Sep 8, 2010 -- 5:21PM, fofoolin wrote:

i dont want a vtt.  i want other tools. 

get together, drink beer, role dice.

From my perspective a VTT doesn't mean you don't get together.  I've always played D&D primarily as a reason to hang out with people doing something we all enjoy.

For the last couple of years my group has used an LCD TV flat on our gaming table for displaying maps (and before that we used an overhead projector).  We were still using minis and such, but I can see a point where a VTT becomes a useful replacement for the tools we were using.  Doing things that way around might seem expensive, but we all got together and bought 37" HD (1920x1080) LCD (which runs at about 60dpi)  that the guy who's place we game at uses for his normal TV, but we never screwed the stand on so we can lift it off and place it down.  Its big enough for the majority of battles.

I've used map tools for running online games and its OK, and has some cool features like visibility management, but its not perfect.

All this is to say... a VTT doesn't necessarily mean you're not all hanging out in the same room drinking beer and what not!

From WotCs perspective, though, they have issues ahead in terms of tools.  Its easy to come up with a huge list of tools that a DM would love.  Now try and do the same for players.  Now factor in what percentage of Insiders are regular DMs to those who rarely or never DM.

In terms of appealing to the largest number of subscribers, the 'next project' isn't as clear cut as you might think.