OMG .... WOTC does it again

[torstan]

WotC has to be about sales unfortunately as they are a business. However I don't think it is quite as bad as it sounds. The gametable comes 'free' with the subscription which also includes Dungeon and Dragon magazines and a rules compendium. I think other people do elements of all of those better for free. However it still seems a decent package for the cost of 2 print magazines a month so I don't feel WotC are being completely unreasonable with the pricing they are using for these products. However that may just be because I am looking on from the perspective of the UK pound which makes $15 pretty affordable

As this is only a subscription service, I don't see how this being bought by someone else as a gift, or as an impulse buy really affects this. Anyone who impulse buys a monthly subscription and is disappointed will drop it after a couple of months and go elsewhere. The other apps just need to reach these disaffected users with advertising, good word of mouth and pretty screenshots so the disaffected know what they are missing elsewhere.

As for rptools succeeding, I think they already have. There is a solid and loyal user base for what is first and foremost a hobby project. As I understand it maptool was never intended to be a business. It is a fun free app developed for fun and the love of a type of gaming. Trevor is happy to keep coding it as long as people give him fun and challenging extras to code in and (most importantly) post good feedback whenever a game goes well with it. I can't see users migrating away from maptool given we seem to have a developer who does it for love, gives it away for free, tries to incorporate specific requests into the programme on the time-scale of a month or so and is willing to talk directly with any user experiencing problems until those problems are resolved. When WotC provide that level of service for free there may be a question but I can't see that being too cost-effective!

The paying apps are a different matter as they are actually in competition with WotC.

[Redrobes]

Gametable is old news though recently released. Its been talked about a lot right back to iCon 2007 no less. Theres a lot of chat about it on FUM but ill summarize the salient points.

1. Its a pay per month subscription type model which is the primary beef for just about everyone who has ever commented on it.
2. It uses these 3D tokens of which you cant build them yourself.
3. You actually have to pay extra on top of the monthly subs to get more tokens over and above the 2D ones.
4. All players 3D tokens are pooled for the session but if a player leaves for one week then his token goes away.
5. Nobody has ever seen a real wilderness screenie so far. Alright if you like dungeons.

( The details are not clear so I might have some errors in there ).

In terms of VTTs there are about 5 really good ones of which just a few are pretty popular and of them MapTool is the most popular because it is good and free. If MapTool declared that somehow they wanted to charge then I think things would be different. Of the 5 good ones I think all the others charge. Then there are some really popular not so graphical tools like (what is it ?) OpenRPG (?) plus another 30 something VTTs of some kind or another.

WotC is playing catchup and though they have money and legal IP on their side I think the game is over for as long as MapTool keep up the pressure. Traditionally WotC software has been rubbish but this looks better than previous outings.

Theres going to be some people who will use official stuff no matter what but methinks that you would need a hole in the head to want to use gametable - if not then expect a hole in the wallet at any rate.

I don't think that WotC really get that RPG's are predominantly a user generated concept. Its hard to monetize it beyond the core rule books. This is particularly true now that desktop software can make great maps, printers can print them and the write up to commercial standards and the internet allows you to deliver them to anyone on the planet.