Suggestion to make monthly issues separately purchasable
NZgunner
Traveler
I've recently taken advantage of the latest Humble Bundle offer and while it comes with a ton of styles etc I need MORE!!
I'm going to subscribe to the 2022 Annual (and probably beyond) but there are some historical issues that I'd like to buy. The problem is that you can only buy the whole Annual, and in quite a few cases a good chunk of the Annual has already been made available either as free to all subscribers or as part of the bundle I purchased.
I'm reluctant to purchase a full annual when I already have 3 or 4 of the issues, and there are only another 2 or 3 that I'm interested in and don't have.
If the issues were available separately I would already have purchased a few.
(NB I know there's a decently discounted, 50%, all Annuals bundle, and while that looks to be good value, the very old Annuals don't look to have too much going for them)
Comments
As someone who has purchased the annuals through the years I can tell you that there is no single year where everything that was released was useful to me at the time and in some case still is not. What I can tell you is that you will find that down the road something you thought was not very useful when it was released does become useful. This has happened numerous times recently has I expand my mapping and learning. So even if you have a couple of the issues in an annual from a humble bundle deal and currently only see using a couple more from that same year it is worth getting the entire year.
The $40 cost of the annual is well worth it even if you only use a handful of issues from that annual. There is a lot of value in the annuals and at $40 each and it is a cheap purchase. Yes to buy all of them even at the 50% off seems expensive but compare it to other purchases you make. How much use with you get out them is what is important. Let's say 1/2 the issues in an annual you will use, now compared that $40 cost to buying new video game (which you will set aside once you complete it) or even a dinner out, the annual content will last much longer that either of the other two purchases and you will have extra issues to explore down the road as you grow in your mapping experience.
I find there are lessons in the Annuals on how to do things I hadn't thought about using until later.
@Jeff B I think the issue is not so much that we won't find them useful. Rather, it is that we are buying duplicates. Due to buying various bundles over the years, I may have 4-8 of a particular annual. I now want to own the missing for that year. So instead of paying $40 for 12, I am really paying $40 for as little as four. For example, I own 5 of annual 2 and 8 of annual 3, 8 of annual 6.
While it would take some programming, I would like an option to buy the rest of an annual for less than the full price.
I can also verify that maps I didn't think I want or would be useful turn out to be later on, so I am generally ok with buying a complete annual. But I have avoided buying some annuals because I already own most of what is in the set.
Some kind of discount for issues effectively previously purchased might be useful, from the comments of the bundle purchasers. The OneBookShelf sites (DriveThru RPG, etc.) offer this for bundled products on their sites, which shows as a "Previous purchaser discount", and subtracts an amount based on what items in the bundle you've already purchased before you purchase the bundle. You still get all the download links (effectively duplicating some you already have), but that way you're only paying once for each item purchased.
This might be quite complex for ProFantasy to set up, as some of the comments I've seen from bundle purchasers suggest the bundle contents aren't very straightforward to identify (i.e. with what's come from where), though if so, that might suggest there needs to be a different way for the bundle contents to be organised in the first place.
I think it may be difficult to program a bundle discount. I have separate files for each bundle. I do not know what is in the file, but Profantasy should know what is in each file. So in theory, it should know that I say have 6 in a particular annual. I can then buy the rest of the annual for say $20.
Perhaps it would be worth the time for Profantasy to go through all the annuals and create new bundles organized by theme. All the Cosmographer stuff in one, etc.
It can't be that hard to differentiate the issues surely? This is what the current annual looks like in my downloads, each month with a separate issue.
Make separately purchased issues something like 5 euros each, with the decent discount coming if you buy the whole annual.
I'm suggesting this because I would almost certainly not purchase any more past annuals (unless strongly recommended to get a particular one - happy to be pointed in the right direction 🙂), but there are certainly separate issues I would be tempted too pick up.
That is only the current year's annual. Once the year is completed all the issues are put into one installer.