Fantasy Grounds Unity engine

[Andraax]

Just counting my GM hours (2 games a week, ~4hrs per game session) and *not* including my playing time, my cost for a fixed license works out to $0.11 per hour. Using a subscription for the same period of time would be $0.28 per hour (except that the subscriptions didn't exist when I started...)

If you throw in playing time, I'm around Zacc's numbers as well (though I don't track playing time as well as I track GM time...)

[Waldbaer]

and don't forget prep time you of course could run an adventure by simply doing that. But actually for me prepping everything as good as possible is a big part of the fun.

[poppy_thompson]

I don't doubt that there are many out there with the stats that Zacc and Andraax are at, but I would guess they are equaled, if not greatly exceeded by those with much higher hourly rates. Just as Zacc said, it depends on the user. I have owned the Ultimate License (no subscription here) for approximately 3 years. In that time I have used it quite a bit. Scheduling sessions to run. Playing in games as much as possible. Using it as a tool to create characters. Hell, I even use it to run a character I play in my regular (every week for the past 3+ years) Sunday night game on Roll20. I have converted several games to FG that I was running on Roll20 because I dropped a lot of money to buy it.

I had to justify spending $300+ dollars upfront and additional money on modules over the course of the last 3 years. I have been a participant, as a player or DM, in 5 or 6 campaigns with sessions lasting between 3 to 4 hours. One has lasted a year with the group trying to meet consistently every week for a year. It didn't happen, but I'll conservatively use it. The others have been every other week and lasted any where from 3 to 6 months. Again, scheduling prevented meeting every session, but for simplicity and conservatism, I'll assume we did. That puts me around 400 hours rounded up. If I only count the cost of the software, I am at $0.38/hour. That isn't accurate, though. I bought the PHB, MM, and DMG. That raises it to $0.75/hour. But, I purchased adventure modules to DM. I don't have all of the material, because I stopped buying them until I decide to run them. I have the adventures up through Out of the Abyss. No discount here for completing the bundle. Each of those running $50. That is another $200. I also bought the SCAG and LMoP, $30 and $15 (pretty sure it was $20 when I bought it, but...) I have run or am running each of these in some form or another, so they all count toward my hourly rate making it $1.36/hour.

I would say that is closer to the norm, but not quite there. On the other extreme, I know people that have purchased the software and use it a few times a year due to various reasons (family, work, life). Those folks outnumber me greatly. Their cost per hour would be so much greater.

[Modu]

Sure, people who play MMOs also get great value, because that's the nature of these games. You spend a lot of time on them. I used to play MUDs that charged by the hour, that was a bad scene. I digress.

I have been a subscriber for 2 years. I love Fantasy Grounds, it makes being a DM a lot more fun. Combined with the fact you can buy the complete modules ready to run is AMAZING. This software makes DM'ing so much less stressful.

However, the Coming Soon™ updates are pretty discouraging. Yes, it's great that you are waiting till it's ready, but there are some highly requested features hiding behind this nebulous update. Features your competition is already doing. I'm not going to get into the pro's and con's of each, but why would I even look at the competition at all? Because they have some major features you don't. When I hear software developers say Coming Soon™, I assume it's at least a year or more away. That makes me want to look at the competition even more for the next game I run.

Just my honest feedback, two cents, whatever it's worth to ya'll.

[ddavison]

We are not quite at the "light at the end of the tunnel" stage with development of FGU. We all wish that we were, but we are simply not there yet. We've been balancing development on FGU with development of updates and new content releases for the current version. Because the content will be backward compatible, these updates and new content also apply to FGU. Any projected dates I would have posted last year or even earlier this year would have been wrong and we would have disappointed users with nothing gained. Instead of doing that, we plan to just keep the resources working on it moving forward in their areas. We have shifted Moon Wizard over to focus on FGU. Furthermore, we are looking to expand our team to get yet another resource to help finish up parts and pieces of it. We did this at the start of 2017 already, but that work was not able to address our needs and we had to take a step back and re-evaluate some things. A massive amount of work has already been completed and some of the stuff that's there is pretty awesome. I don't even want to show it off at the moment, though, because we still have plenty of unknowns on our schedule for other components that need to be working well before we get there.

I'm very proud of what FG can do today and I am happy with how we stack up against the competition. We don't beat the competition in every single category, but I am happy with the number of places where we do. Once we complete FGU, this should become even more pronounced.

[Waldbaer]

I'm very proud of what FG can do today and I am happy with how we stack up against the competition. We don't beat the competition in every single category, but I am happy with the number of places where we do. Once we complete FGU, this should become even more pronounced.

There's no need to convince all and also no need to beat the competition in every single category. Just choose the correct ones And the videos and promotion I have seen of FGU it looks like that you're working on the right fields. So nevermind - out of my perspective as stated earlier, this thread is great for brainstorming and delivering maybe things to the developers they did not thought of before. But it leads nowhere until FGU is ready to go the next step.

I believe this will not end talking about price terms or bad mood because someone thinks he's not treated well as a customer - but we're circling kind of the topics again and again
Just my 2cents today,

[Nylanfs]

Well we are gamers, talking about minutia are kinda what we do. Especially if it gives us an extra +1 to hit or damage. :-)

[poppy_thompson]

I'm very proud of what FG can do today and I am happy with how we stack up against the competition. We don't beat the competition in every single category, but I am happy with the number of places where we do. Once we complete FGU, this should become even more pronounced.

You should be. I think it is a superior product to the competition. The monologue about the estimate value per hour that I have gotten out of the software wasn't intended to denigrate the software cost, at all. I made a decision based on the product as it stood against the competition at the moment of purchase. I will continue to use the software and encourage my regular Roll20 Sunday group to use it, as well. Because I made the decision to purchase the license outright, that $/hour value will continue to drop. I look forward to it dropping to Zacc levels.

Stop thinking this is a rip off or anything else.
We paid for FG3. We paid for a product we have received already. Any discounts being talked about are ALL ABOUT LOYALTY to the customer and making sure that we all get a great value out of the license.

With that said, I would like to address this fallacy of 'loyalty'. I am not loyal to FG. I am invested in FG. I am a customer that made a decision that the product was worth the price quoted. Smiteworks must provide me with a reason to continue to spend my money on their product. I will not blindly continue to do it without justification. I will make the same assessment when FGU is finally released, if there is a cost associated with the upgrade. How does it stack up to the competition? Does it give value for money? Will I (and my group) use it enough without issue to warrant the upgrade? Included in that assessment will be the current version of FG.

Counter to that, Smiteworks isn't loyal to their customers. They are beholden to their customers, just like every other business. They have a responsibility to their owners and staff to continue to provide a service that is marketable. If they didn't provide a valuable service, their customers would find it somewhere else. Even the most ardent customers.

Thankfully, there appears to be a balance between the investment of the customers and Smiteworks ability to provide a valuable service. Long may it reign.

[ddavison]

Loyalty is earned each and every day for a business. We can certainly build up trust or erode it with our choices and actions. Hopefully we make the right ones and it validates your investment and encourages you to continuing investing with us. We certainly try not to take any of our customers for granted.

[Nylanfs]

Unless they are a rock golem, then you can take them for granite...