[daplunk]

Originally Posted by jkthomsen9

I do not dispute any of this. LWD NEEDS to have a pricing system in place that is profitable. What I do have a problem with is paying full retail for a book at my local hobby store for $34.99. Then having the hobby shop charge me $2.00 a month FOREVER or they are going to repossess my book.

The difference here is once you leave the shop you stop using their resources. They rely on continuous traffic through the store to keep themselves running. If the shop turns off the lights it does not impact you until the next time you want to make a purchase.

HLO you purchase the content and then continue to access the service. You continue to use their resources regardless of what part of the world you are in.

Originally Posted by jkthomsen9

If $34.99 dose not cover the cost raise the unit price. I would not mind if LWD wanted me to pay $10 a month to access all content. I have no idea what price point the market will bear, but I am positive that Paizo, Hasbro, and LWD financial executives have looked long and hard at this question. LWD has the right to price their products however they see fit.

LWD are working within the limitations of the license agreement they have signed. They will know the numbers but if the license agreement requires that LWD pay Paizo X amount for every copy of the content provided to each individual customer and they change the model so that every single customer gets access to every single product then I suspect you would find the price sky rocket beyond the means of many people. Until the RPG industry recognise that these services provide an additional benefit to their products and does not discourage customers from purchasing their content in the first place I don't think we will see this happen. And lets be honest, you can play these games without the core books if you have Hero Lab / Realm Works so technically they have something to be concerned about.

Originally Posted by jkthomsen9

I am emphatically saying I will not pay both.

This is something LWD knew before they announced the tool. There was always going to be a % of customers who simply will not sign up to the new model. Honestly we saw a very similar and very loud backlash over the DnDBeyond release. Fast forward a year and the tool is getting more popular by the day. The nay-sayers are opening their wallets and signing up because of the benefit it offers. LWD are trying to position themselves for the current market. HLC is an old market. With people who are stuck in their ways but there's a significant portion of the digital RPG market not using their tool. This is such an intelligent decision by LWD, sure it wont appeal to everyone but it will appeal to a much larger market than exists in HLC today.

Originally Posted by jkthomsen9

Plus remember that we do not know all the details yet, but in the upcoming content market for Realmworks you will be required to purchase the PDF from Paizo PRIOR to be allowed to purchase the data set from LWD. I do not disagree with this but it is an additional cost, as I have purchased FAR FAR FAR more data sets than books or PDF's. In the past I have purchased every data set but only the books I actually use. In fact having bought the data set has caused me to purchase the PDF so I could use the feat/class feature in organized play.

I love this decision by Paizo. I really wish WOTC would follow in their footsteps. Yes it means people will most likely purchase the pdf over the book but that's the direction the market is headed. Again though, nothing LWD can do here but adhere to the terms of the license agreement.