WotC has severely hurt itself by allowing Amazon to heavily discount the rule books. As far as I am concerned the "value" of a "PHB" is $30 not the MSRP of $50.
I am looking at Amazon UK, prices are : (New/Used) Used prices include UK postage, the New items are covered by free Prime postage.
PHB is £41.99 / £22.96 - DMG is £30.33 / £22.00 - MM is £30.64 / £23.47 which is right around the $50 / $30 mark. Wordery has them all at about £30.00. The 'Used' prices are from online book / game stores selling NEW items undercutting Amazon itself, so someone, somewhere is still making a profit even on the £20-£25 prices.
Heck, I can get a book sent from the US and even with the couple of quid delivery, is stillcheaper than me going into town and pulling one off a shelf in Travelling Man. I am extraordinarily unlikely to want to pay £40.00 a pop for anything purely digital. Even £20 would be too much, I think.
I am looking at Amazon UK, prices are : (New/Used) Used prices include UK postage, the New items are covered by free Prime postage.
PHB is £41.99 / £22.96 - DMG is £30.33 / £22.00 - MM is £30.64 / £23.47 which is right around the $50 / $30 mark. Wordery has them all at about £30.00. The 'Used' prices are from online book / game stores selling NEW items undercutting Amazon itself, so someone, somewhere is still making a profit even on the £20-£25 prices.
Heck, I can get a book sent from the US and even with the couple of quid delivery, is stillcheaper than me going into town and pulling one off a shelf in Travelling Man. I am extraordinarily unlikely to want to pay £40.00 a pop for anything purely digital. Even £20 would be too much, I think.
I don't lay the blame purely on Amazon. There is, overall, an expectation that something without physical form will be cheaper than something physical. I won't pay the same price for an ebook as dead trees. I won't pay the same price for a digital download as for a PS4 disk.
For books, especially, it's intentional. For years, I've heard how authors see only a pittance for what they write, especially in the gaming arena. I've heard as high as each change of hands doubles the cost -- author -> editor -> publisher -> printer -> distributor -> store. At the very least, I expect to save that final markup from the store and, probably, a chunk of the distribution, as the printing blurs into it. Whenever I see a WotC digital product offered for the full MSRP of the print version -- or even close to it -- I assume that someone, somewhere is gouging the next person in the stream and I have a general policy against getting screwed.
If it means that the author gets a bit more money, I'm willing to meet in the middle, so to speak. Nevertheless, my policy for Kindle books is that I won't pay more than the paperback version because of the inherently transitory nature of digital consumption (online privacy is a different matter). That's for what's, essentially, a perpetual license. If I'm paying a subscription on top, that price goes down unless the subscription provides additional benefit that justifies the cost. In fact, I find it hard to justify paying anything beyond the subscription price when access to the content is tied to the subscription -- not impossible, but difficult.
Speaking for myself as well as my group of players, a one-time fee would be preferable to a subscription model, at least for the basic features. Even then, it'd have to be fairly inexpensive. Otherwise, I doubt that more than one or two of us would pick this up from the Play Store.
To keep things brief and simple as I can: My players would need access to any content that would allow them to create and keep track of the character that they want to play (this would include any additional race/class/background options that aren't included in the Player's Handbook but not necessarily Unearthed Arcana or homebrew content). I, as Dungeon Master, would need access to a comprehensive rules compendium, monster statistics, and information on magic items (which I could, hopefully, through a connected experience, transfer individual items to the players who possess them). I wouldn't mind paying a one-time fee (each) for features such as additional character sheets, adventure modules, maps, Plane Shift content, Unearthed Arcana content, etc. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I honestly can't see my players wanting to pay more than a one-time fee to use this app besides for unlocking additional character sheets. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd go back to any of the numerous "unofficial"/unpaid alternatives available on the Play Store (which also don't charge for the ability to add in custom/homebrew content), such as Squire.
The only way I can envision my group wanting to pay for a subscription model would be if the app were frequently updated and that subscription gave us access to all or most of its features (not including digital/PDF versions of the adventure books) without having to pay any additional one-time fees.
For a one-time fee, I'd estimate that the most my group would be willing to pay between $15 - $20; a subscription service would have to be between $3 - $5 a month to be worth consideration. Note: Most of my group is unwilling to pay $15/month for an online game that we all loved during beta testing.
Those are just my two cents (from a DM whose bought every 5e book published thus far).
It's really not. The video game industry has been using this for years. A unique license key sold in the retail box that is activated online and associated with an account. Amazon does or did (not sure if this is still a thing) apply digital licenses to your account when buying certain audio CDs. WOTC either provides cards with codes to retailers with instructions and stipulations for distributing them with purchases of physical books, or starts shrink-wrapping their books and including the codes within and establishes a resource to retailers to exchange or report tampered books. There's no reason that WOTC couldn't provide the book information in portal form instead of PDF and tie that access to a license key.
Also, people don't steal gift cards by taking photos of them in stores, since gift cards aren't activated until they're purchased. That activation process isn't feasible in this case, though, since most gaming and comic shops don't have the PoS systems necessary to activate cards.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I honestly can't see my players wanting to pay more than a one-time fee to use this app besides for unlocking additional character sheets. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd go back to any of the numerous "unofficial"/unpaid alternatives
This is one of my biggest concerns. As a DM, the potential power of having an interactive character sheet that I can pull up at a glance, that interacts with all the homebrew items we've made, and that connects in with a campaign management and encounter building tool down the road is exciting. The problem arises if it requires the entire group of people to pay a subscription to have that power or if it requires everyone to individually buy a plethora of content so that everyone has the same information to draw from.
There has to be an option for allowing DMs to use all of the tools they have purchased without being hamstrung if by a player who hasn't bought all of the content. I refuse to tell a player "You can't be that class/use that ability/have that background/etc., because you can't afford to purchase the content on DDB." I'm not going to ruin someone's fun because of their financial situation.
If a one-time fee option is available for buying class specific material, then it needs to provide access to all the content for that class. In other words, there has to be the ability to buy "The Fighter Pack" and not "The PHB Fighter Pack", "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide Fighter Pack", etc.
As far as books go, the best idea I've seen is to have a code come with the purchase of a book and I think anything more than MSRP to get the book and the code together would be pushing it. As others have stated, you can buy the books on Amazon for $30. The option to purchase just a digital code would be nice could potentially be priced at around $15-$20, thus making up the difference between MSRP and actual retail price of the books. I think it would buy WotC a lot of good will with the community if there was a limited time period at launch where digital versions for use on DDB could be purchased at a significant discount - I'm talking $10 at the most. At this point a lot of people have already bought books and the majority opinion seems to be that most are unwilling to buy a digital version of the books at anything remotely close to MSRP.
If everything pans out, and the current product is giving me hope that it will, then I think the bulk of subscriptions will likely be DMs who the financial means to be able to spend some money to significantly reduce the amount of time needed for housekeeping and building custom encounters, monsters, and items. I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Wouldn't this be epic?
Alright, someone finally baited me to respond to something before the formal pricing announcement...I have to put the lid back on it.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Definitely a good idea, but as a player, I'd still like to have my own account. Possibly offered as a package deal with a DM and the others of that group, but... what if I take part in two different groups? I'd want my account to be able to speak to both DMs' accounts. Or if my DM were to cancel their account, I wouldn't want my account to disappear along with it. So yes, definitely, I'm all in favor of a DM being able to pay for one subscription with multiple accounts. But if this combines with being able to link separate accounts so a DM can assign gear/loot to an account not part of her/his subscription, it'd be even better.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Wouldn't this be epic?
Alright, someone finally baited me to respond to something before the formal pricing announcement...I have to put the lid back on it.
The formal pricing announcement which is wheeeeeeen? ;D
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Definitely a good idea, but as a player, I'd still like to have my own account. Possibly offered as a package deal with a DM and the others of that group, but... what if I take part in two different groups? I'd want my account to be able to speak to both DMs' accounts. Or if my DM were to cancel their account, I wouldn't want my account to disappear along with it. So yes, definitely, I'm all in favor of a DM being able to pay for one subscription with multiple accounts. But if this combines with being able to link separate accounts so a DM can assign gear/loot to an account not part of her/his subscription, it'd be even better.
Accounts are different than characters - players will certainly be able to have their own account. More on all of this soon.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Wouldn't this be epic?
Alright, someone finally baited me to respond to something before the formal pricing announcement...I have to put the lid back on it.
Hey BadEye,
I'm glad to see a response even if it was non-committal. Yes it would definitely be cool if a DM's subscription allowed them to share their content (purchased and homebrew) with their players... As a manager of online services for several companies I know how hard it is to want to clear up confusion and misinformation but not be allow to say anything. Good luck.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Wouldn't this be epic?
Alright, someone finally baited me to respond to something before the formal pricing announcement...I have to put the lid back on it.
You activated my trap card! I was happy waiting patiently for pricing, so it's a pleasant surprise to get the update. :)
I think you guys are building an awesome system, it really is incredible and it has loads of potential. I know there's a lot of cynicism, some of which seems justified, but I think you guys are doing a great job listening and communicating with everyone. Obviously it's a business and people need to make money, however I think you have shown that you're looking at this as community driven tool and doing what you can to make it as accessible as possible. The way you're handling everything up to this point has me feeling optimistic about how the end product is going to turn out.
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Definitely a good idea, but as a player, I'd still like to have my own account. Possibly offered as a package deal with a DM and the others of that group, but... what if I take part in two different groups? I'd want my account to be able to speak to both DMs' accounts. Or if my DM were to cancel their account, I wouldn't want my account to disappear along with it. So yes, definitely, I'm all in favor of a DM being able to pay for one subscription with multiple accounts. But if this combines with being able to link separate accounts so a DM can assign gear/loot to an account not part of her/his subscription, it'd be even better.
Accounts are different than characters - players will certainly be able to have their own account. More on all of this soon.
Good to know and thanks again for the update. I'm pretty sure most DMs are happy to not cover the full cost for one more thing. :)
I think the best way to address the concern of not being able to use the tools available because one or two players can't afford to purchase the content is to offer a DM or party subscription with a certain number of "seats.". Obviously the ability to purchase additional seats would need to be there. We have a group of six - five players and the DM - and I can't see myself paying more than $10/month to have access to all of the features.
Definitely a good idea, but as a player, I'd still like to have my own account. Possibly offered as a package deal with a DM and the others of that group, but... what if I take part in two different groups? I'd want my account to be able to speak to both DMs' accounts. Or if my DM were to cancel their account, I wouldn't want my account to disappear along with it. So yes, definitely, I'm all in favor of a DM being able to pay for one subscription with multiple accounts. But if this combines with being able to link separate accounts so a DM can assign gear/loot to an account not part of her/his subscription, it'd be even better.
Accounts are different than characters - players will certainly be able to have their own account. More on all of this soon.
What if a player could designate a "DM" for a particular character. A DM could then view all the characters assigned to them and even "edit" them. DM edits wouldn't change the values on the character sheet but would show up on a mouse over (or out to the side in a different color) with the option to accept the edit or discard it.
Based on all the talk within this thread, my overly generic high-level assumption is that the account structure may look a bit like:
Community (Free): Perhaps free access to the SRD compendium and ability to "join" a Campaign group as a Player/Fan (access to campaign maps, wikis, etc).
Player (basic): Access to the above + Character Builder & a Character Vault of sorts that allows you to import your created character into a Campaign Group
DM (full): Access to the above + all other D&D resources, streaming and custom campaign tools.
I expect the the financial burden to be mostly on the DM as that's somewhat standard even in PnP. My hope is that there's a gifting option where Players can gift a sub or at least donate towards the DM's sub.
After reading through everything (a lot of great and not so great ideas out there), here's where I am, currently:
I like the idea of a minimal cost/rent-to-own subscriptions. It makes the most sense (in my head, at least) to have tiered plans (eg., Free, Player, and DM). While I'm pretty open as to what would be included at each level, I will say that the DM account should have access to everything (with maybe an exception for adventure modules or the like) in DDB and have the ability to grant full characters, items, homebrew, etc. to all other levels a la Roll20 or Obsidian Portal. The DM (almost) always assumes the bulk of the cost for D&D and acts as a distributor to the adventurers. I have no issue with that being the case here. If DDB includes a way for players to donate to a DM, great, but that's not a deal breaker for me.
At least some of the subscription fee should go toward "credits" for digital content. This is where the rent-to-own I mentioned above comes in. For example, let's say the DM subscription cost is $5. As a DM, you have access to everything as long as you maintain your subscription. Each month, you could "earn" $2.50+ to use to purchase digital content from DDB. This digital content is now the user's. Along with that, everything created by the user in DDB should be the user's forever. No take backs. Even if the subscription ends, you should still have access to what you "paid for." Of course, this method assumes that there will always be new content available for purchase. Perhaps transferring any remaining credit when an account is canceled over to DMs Guild?
Real world example, Stitch Fix costs my wife $20/month. Each month, they send her a selection of clothes based on whatever style she said she was interested in and in the sizes she indicated. If she chooses to purchase any of the items, the $20 monthly cost goes toward the final cost of those items (e.g., the $70 jeans only cost her an additional $50), and she sends the rest back with free shipping.
I don't necessarily think the digital version of books should be free, even if you already have the physical copy. Converting the printed material into the DDB format with the appropriate Tool Tips and links, etc. is no small task. That being said, digital versions of print media should be cheaper than print media. While one could argue that an equal amount of work went into producing each, the "printing"/distribution costs of digital media are negligible. Maybe 50% of the current price on Amazon?
Lastly, I like the idea of tying the subscription cost into Amazon Prime, but Twitch would either have to change their eligibility policy (Twitch Prime only available to the Amazon account holder that officially purchased Amazon Prime in the household) or this would bypass Twitch Prime altogether.
Sorry if anything above is confusing or incoherent. My 4-month old, human sorcerer has decided he only wants to nap for 30 minutes at a time. I'm more than happy to edit or clarify anything brought to my attention.
Sorry if anything above is confusing or incoherent. My 4-month old, human sorcerer has decided he only wants to nap for 30 minutes at a time. I'm more than happy to edit or clarify anything brought to my attention.
All makes sense to me. And I feel your pain. I have a 3-month sorcerer, and a 2 year barbarian.
I will not pay for anything. Especially since all of this can be found for free elsewhere. Simple google will yield results.
I've already bought the books, I'm not going to pay for an "online" watered down version of them. Especially for "premium" features.
Everything should be all inclusive for one flat single price if you want to make money from these shenanigans.
Thanks for the thoughts. The good news is, we're not asking anyone to pay for what's currently here (or available via a Google result). The only thing that will require purchase are the things you can't (legally) get on Google.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Speaking for myself as well as my group of players, a one-time fee would be preferable to a subscription model, at least for the basic features. Even then, it'd have to be fairly inexpensive. Otherwise, I doubt that more than one or two of us would pick this up from the Play Store.
To keep things brief and simple as I can: My players would need access to any content that would allow them to create and keep track of the character that they want to play (this would include any additional race/class/background options that aren't included in the Player's Handbook but not necessarily Unearthed Arcana or homebrew content). I, as Dungeon Master, would need access to a comprehensive rules compendium, monster statistics, and information on magic items (which I could, hopefully, through a connected experience, transfer individual items to the players who possess them). I wouldn't mind paying a one-time fee (each) for features such as additional character sheets, adventure modules, maps, Plane Shift content, Unearthed Arcana content, etc. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I honestly can't see my players wanting to pay more than a one-time fee to use this app besides for unlocking additional character sheets. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd go back to any of the numerous "unofficial"/unpaid alternatives available on the Play Store (which also don't charge for the ability to add in custom/homebrew content), such as Squire.
The only way I can envision my group wanting to pay for a subscription model would be if the app were frequently updated and that subscription gave us access to all or most of its features (not including digital/PDF versions of the adventure books) without having to pay any additional one-time fees.
For a one-time fee, I'd estimate that the most my group would be willing to pay between $15 - $20; a subscription service would have to be between $3 - $5 a month to be worth consideration. Note: Most of my group is unwilling to pay $15/month for an online game that we all loved during beta testing.
Those are just my two cents (from a DM whose bought every 5e book published thus far).
I'm glad to see a response even if it was non-committal. Yes it would definitely be cool if a DM's subscription allowed them to share their content (purchased and homebrew) with their players... As a manager of online services for several companies I know how hard it is to want to clear up confusion and misinformation but not be allow to say anything. Good luck.
I think you guys are building an awesome system, it really is incredible and it has loads of potential. I know there's a lot of cynicism, some of which seems justified, but I think you guys are doing a great job listening and communicating with everyone. Obviously it's a business and people need to make money, however I think you have shown that you're looking at this as community driven tool and doing what you can to make it as accessible as possible. The way you're handling everything up to this point has me feeling optimistic about how the end product is going to turn out.
Good to know and thanks again for the update. I'm pretty sure most DMs are happy to not cover the full cost for one more thing. :)
Bonus points for the YuGiOh reference.
Thank you! I'll return your kindness with bonus points to you for spelling YuGiOh using the proper case for each letter.
Based on all the talk within this thread, my overly generic high-level assumption is that the account structure may look a bit like:
I expect the the financial burden to be mostly on the DM as that's somewhat standard even in PnP. My hope is that there's a gifting option where Players can gift a sub or at least donate towards the DM's sub.
After reading through everything (a lot of great and not so great ideas out there), here's where I am, currently:
Sorry if anything above is confusing or incoherent. My 4-month old, human sorcerer has decided he only wants to nap for 30 minutes at a time. I'm more than happy to edit or clarify anything brought to my attention.
I will not pay for anything. Especially since all of this can be found for free elsewhere. Simple google will yield results.
I've already bought the books, I'm not going to pay for an "online" watered down version of them. Especially for "premium" features.
Everything should be all inclusive for one flat single price if you want to make money from these shenanigans.