taking20 roll20 vs fantasy grounds cost

[gaara6666]

Really great full transparency insightful video on the cost of roll20 vs fantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gHmxi4EydE very insightful

[LordEntrails]

Thanks. I wish it wasn't 40 minutes long though :)

I will say it's interesting to see how he describes the differences and capabilities of the various subscription levels of Roll20. The two product's different approaches to license types/tiers are very different; Roll20 is about functionality, FG is about connectivity/# players.

He's not as well informed as I wish he was on a few topics, like mentioning their are sales on Steam, but not knowing those sales are duplicated on the FG Store. But, not too big of a deal.

I think he also didn't do a good job of covering standard vs ultimate FG licenses. But pointing out the 6 month 0% financing was a good catch (I wasn't aware of it).

But, I think it's still a good video.

[Nylanfs]

Note, the financing is only available in the US I believe.

[viresanimi]

Well. He is probably American and since that is the center of the universe....

All in all I think it is a pretty good video. I just can't take his statement about r20 looking better seriously. Windows browser vs. graphical interface. *facedesk*


Vires Animi

[gaara6666]

Honestly, I think the financial difference highlighting how much you pay for modules in R20 versus half the cost to buy them in FG is the most significant. REALLY $50 for a book that costs nothing to produce or distribute compared to a hard cover. That is criminal.

[LordEntrails]

... for a book that costs nothing to produce or distribute compared to a hard cover. That is criminal.
That's not true. I believe Zacchaeus has stated somewhere that ToA took something like 500 hours to convert to FG. Add on top of that proofing, communication and other overhead. That is not "costs nothing". Far from it. At minimum wage in the US that something like $5000 just for the converter. I hope people converting official WotC products, rather for Roll20, FG, or anyone else get paid better than that (FG pays via percentage/royalty and I have no idea what volume a converter gets).

Their is a large cost to convert things to VTT formats. We need to keep that in mind.

Now yes, their is not a substantially incremental cost per unit. Making one ToA costs almost the same as making a million copies of it. But even additional digital copies have a cost, after all, SW (or whoever) has to have a server (costs money), has to maintain and patch that server (costs money), and has to pay for an internet connection and bandwidth to deliver all those copies. But depending how you aportion that, all that still has a measurable cost associated to it. I'm sure you could research it, but a server and bandwidth for a company like SW costs roughly a $1000 US/year.

[damned]

That's not true. I believe Zacchaeus has stated somewhere that ToA took something like 500 hours to convert to FG. Add on top of that proofing, communication and other overhead. That is not "costs nothing". Far from it. At minimum wage in the US that something like $5000 just for the converter. I hope people converting official WotC products, rather for Roll20, FG, or anyone else get paid better than that (FG pays via percentage/royalty and I have no idea what volume a converter gets).

Their is a large cost to convert things to VTT formats. We need to keep that in mind.

Now yes, their is not a substantially incremental cost per unit. Making one ToA costs almost the same as making a million copies of it. But even additional digital copies have a cost, after all, SW (or whoever) has to have a server (costs money), has to maintain and patch that server (costs money), and has to pay for an internet connection and bandwidth to deliver all those copies. But depending how you aportion that, all that still has a measurable cost associated to it. I'm sure you could research it, but a server and bandwidth for a company like SW costs roughly a $1000 US/year.

Not only that but the ongoing maintenance of the products, bug checking, QA, updates as new features are added to the rulesets too.
And at the end of the day it is the resultant work of many peoples IP and it has value.
The rights holders set the price and the market determines whether they find the price acceptable.
If the market (gaara6666 in this case) dont find it acceptable the market has the option to not purchase.

[gaara6666]

Yes but at the same time as someone who was in the finance and retail industry for years perhaps I was being overly simplistic. What I was more referring to was cost of shipping, raw materials, distribution, and cost of advertising to vendors in store not just online stores like amazon. You look at a cost creep; now while server costs and hosting and conversions of an item are still costs you are looking at the cost of a server not per "individual item" So if they are having a server for $1000 a year you are talking about hosting a multitude of services and items. My thought process was the cost incrementally vanishes when you weigh how much utility you get out of webhosting and downloading mutiple SKUs of items versus a physical book object that static in its use and utility.

[Bidmaron]

Switch to pathfinder. You get a free pdf or a discount if you already own the pdf

[JohnD]

Switch to Castles and Crusades you get everything you need for just $10.

[damned]

The cost incrementally reduces when you are dealing with massive scale.
The costs above are massively under-estimated.
Take an online distribution company like Amazon - they spend billions annually on IT infrastructure - there is no way to vanish that cost even on the scale they operate on.

[Andraax]

Take an online distribution company like Amazon - they spend billions annually on IT infrastructure - there is no way to vanish that cost even on the scale they operate on.

Actually, Amazon turned it into a profit center. They sell their IT infrastructure services - it's actually the largest part of their annual income.

[damned]

Actually, Amazon turned it into a profit center. They sell their IT infrastructure services - it's actually the largest part of their annual income.

That is both true and untrue.
They added additional DCs and servers and fibre and techs etc because they were so good at it and sell those to the rest of us.
Its quite possible if they never did this they might not have survived to this day being that in some years it has provided closer to 100% of their profit and still today provides at least 70% of their profit.
That in no (or at least no meaningful) way reduces the cost of the IT infrastructure and human IT resources required to support their content and delivery operations.