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I was on the fence about dropping my DDI subscription when the compiled magazines were dropped. My iPad is now cluttered with a ton of articles and sometimes they go unread. In the end I renewed my subscription for a year. I don't use the CB, compendium or the other tools but the two magazines I use a lot.

The benefits of the magazines outweighed the cancellation of my subscription. I realized Wizards is a company and they will do whatever it takes to profit. Complaining does little. The majority rule and apparently the majority don't download compiled magazines.

Only two decisions by Wizards has angered me. The cancelation of Skirmish and the ending of compiled PDF magazines. Two strikes I suppose. I'm wondering what the third strike will be...hopefully it will never come.

I'm just one little bunny of an untold number of subscribers. I roll with Wizards' punches.

Jun 17, 2011 -- 3:59AM, Dugan7f wrote:

Still no compilations?

Not a good result....

Sadly, Steve Winters made it very clear that they were very clear about never having compiled magazines. They even made this decision after considering fan based complaints. It. Is. Gone. Forever.

Doesn't feel like we have magazines anymore. Just a smattering of articles.

For me, the lack of compiled pdf's is yet another feature of my DDI subsciption that was important to me that Wizards has decided to remove.  Every year I see fewer reasons to maintain my sub......

May 12, 2011 -- 9:15AM, Huscarl wrote:

'm not saying WotC should or shouldn't restart the compilations, just that they should stop stonewalling and make a statement to their customers. There may not have been a decision made, but how is it wrong for me to ask for that information? I have to make assumptions because of their lack of further communication on the issue.

We were under the impression that we had been blunt and to-the-point. The compilations aren't coming back.

I'm not prescient, so I can't guarantee that online publishing will remain frozen in time, as it is today into perpetuity. But for as far as we can see into the future, with the current online structure, management, business model, and subscriber behavior, the compilations are off the table.

We apologize if someone got the impression that we were equivocating on this subject. 

Steve

Somehow, not compiling the magazines is saving Wizards money. My best bet is that they transferred the work of a designer to the authors.

They would have to hire a designer to do the compiled magazines- that is what, technically, is off the table. Compiled magazines are never coming back- no matter how many dislike its removal.

I have a close friend in publishing and she works at a major magazine company as an editor within their online magazine department.  She confirmed my suspicion by analyzing the structure and format of the articles. They are very formulaic. She showed me how a complex magazine is actually pretty detailed in how it is designed. There are also a lot of steps involved; a lot of employees. The D&D online magazine is very basic and is what you get when you don't have a designer. She bust up laughing at the notion that individual articles were being downloaded more than the compiled magazines. She shook her head and said- it's saving them money- PERIOD.

She also read Steve Winters Digital Publishing article. She said everything written before the last sentence was to lead to its message: this is how the digital magazines are going to be done and we are not changing it, no matter the complaints.