I genuinely don't understand why this is so hard to grasp. You may have bought the books already. You may even have bought the Fantasy Grounds packages. That entitles you to exactly nothing from Curse. Why? Because Curse didn't publish those. There is absolutely no tie, there. It's not even the same as me buying the paperback of Storm Front (Dresden, book 1) and now wanting the hardcover -- those are both published by the same company, AFAIK.
Curse is building a digital platform. That's their business. They could use all the content they've currently made available (I think, not a lawyer) without talking to WotC at all. If you think you can do a better job, knock yourself out. They'd still have all the costs associated with it and, presumably, recognize that only that content, for free, isn't a sustainable business. Very, very few people would be willing to pay for the extra character slots to use only the basic rules.
So, what do they do? They go to WotC and negotiate a license deal. Curse can sell the content at X rate, which they mark up to Y, to cover their costs and turn a profit (because profit is the point of business). Curse can't give you any non-open content, legally, without paying WotC for it. That's not their product. Curse's product is the digital platform. The content is there to help power it, but they have to pay for it, too. They just think they can be successful using something akin to the mobile "freemium" model. They just also have to pay WotC a cut before they can even put the money towards paying their developers, whereas Clash of Clans gets to put it all towards recouping previous investments (sans Apple's cut, which is going to be a lot smaller than the WotC license).
So, really, you aren't asking Curse to allow you to have content for free. You're asking them to pay WotC, on your behalf, to let you use the content online. Even if WotC said, "Sure, if you can verify they own the books, go for it," you're asking them to now implement some system to ensure licensing compliance. I guess you could go to WotC and ask for a voucher, putting the burden on them, but WotC isn't Curse. Why would they issue a voucher?
Assuming WotC and Curse have an even split of the income (unlikely), they still don't have the authority to wave Curse's right to their cut. So, now you're asking WotC to pay Curse on your behalf. Or, you're asking Curse to take a loss. And, really, since Curse needs to be able to actually pay their staff, etc. what you're actually asking is that the rest of us pay for your access to the service. Or... since the vast, vast majority of folks who are going to look at this service in the next couple years are almost guaranteed to be in the same boat (have bought the physical books), you're pushing the cost for everyone onto a very small segment of folks who are willing to use the service as their sole source of content. A $150 price tag for each book is a great way to kill the service.
If you want the content in this format, pay for the content in this format. It's entirely possible that the final price for that product will exceed your willingness/ability to pay. If enough people fall into that category, Curse will either shut down DDB or find a way to lower the price. If you're the exception, they'll carry on -- or maybe even raise the prices a bit until they feel like they have optimal ROI. Either way, it's not going to be any sort of moral argument that moves the needle. It'll be market forces and that's exactly how it should be. I swear, Thomas Sowell should be required reading in high school civics.
Curse is owned by Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.com. I pay a fee to Amazon to buy an ebook. Now, my cost to buy the audiobook is often reduced.
Let's say that penguin books is the publisher. Penguin still gets paid. Amazon still gets paid. Audible still gets paid. Author still gets paid.
It's good that we have a digital version of the D&D or AD&D. But I prefer that D&DB can released an app version that doesn't need to be online always or rely on a web browser to view its contents. What happened if we gone to summer camp where mobile or wifi signals are poor or non existent.
I also love the single purchase model for the reference/companion/adventure module where I need to pay once and the purchase are recorded under my Apple account when I purchase it on my iPad, so I can restore my purchases if I need to transfer my device. And also an update notifications to inform about new updates errata available.
Its also nice if the GM module have a map creator where the GM can create and plan the next adventure with a map reference available on his device and also wifi connection to other player devices to see stats, calculate saving throws, giving experience points and rewards.
It's good that we have a digital version of the D&D or AD&D. But I prefer that D&DB can released an app version that doesn't need to be online always or rely on a web browser to view its contents. What happened if we gone to summer camp where mobile or wifi signals are poor or non existent.
I also love the single purchase model for the reference/companion/adventure module where I need to pay once and the purchase are recorded under my Apple account when I purchase it on my iPad, so I can restore my purchases if I need to transfer my device. And also an update notifications to inform about new updates errata available.
Its also nice if the GM module have a map creator where the GM can create and plan the next adventure with a map reference available on his device and also wifi connection to other player devices to see stats, calculate saving throws, giving experience points and rewards.
While the app likely won't be available at release it is an option they are working.
$30 per core rulebook is kind of steep if you already had to pay $50 for it...
People keep saying that. I don't think it makes any sense though.
I went into a game shop and bought my 5th edition books when they came out... and if I head into a game shop to pick up another copy, or I decide to shop on Amazon, or I buy some digital version like Fantasy Grounds or Roll20, the price is never affected by me already owning a copy - so why should that be any different for D&D Beyond?
$30 per core rule-book is, matter of fact, not even kind of steep - it's among the cheapest prices for said books available.
There is no legal or moral obligation to offer a discount for preexisting owners, but if they could think of a way to integrate digital purchases at a minimum (e.g. via Amazon) it would make this a less bitter pill for customers to swallow. If you're just getting into D&D for the first time it's no problem, but the people who are most likely to be excited by this service are also the people who probably own physical or digital (or both!) copies of books, which don't come cheap. Those are the people you want to win over with a gesture of goodwill like this.
The logistics of how they sort out proof of purchase for physical copies is probably too difficult to overcome, but digital I think is a possibility. Like a $5 "upgrade" from your digital copy or something like that.
I love how "they have no legal obligation" seems to be the most used rejoinder when people complain about having to sink even more money into their favorite past-time. Maybe if a not insignificant amount of people all have the same complaint, there's actually something there worth exploring? Maybe they're not all just giant babies who don't understand capitalism or whatever. Gosh, I'm sure y'all are a blast to hang out with.
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DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder) Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
It's a natural reaction really, when people have invested money into their hobby and now there's a new version that they really want and it's going to cost even more.
I get that, I think most people do - I don't think that anybody likes handing over their hard-earned money.
With regards the number of people complaining?
There are now over 160,000 accounts on D&D Beyond, with over 60,000 posts between them. I read pretty much all of the posts on these forums (outside of the PbP) and would estimate around 20-30 people at most posting complaints about prices.
That is significantly lower than I would expect for most products really.
There have been some queries on top of that about whether it's possible to get discounts for already owning the physical books (it isn't), but the level of complaints have been lower than I expected.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't complain - by all means, if you feel something is wrong or could be better, you should always say something.
What I am saying is, this is a significantly cheaper way of owning and playing D&D than we have had for a long time (possibly cheapest ever, factoring in inflation) and it comes with a load of digital tools as well!
So, I can also see why a number of people are defending that too.
I love how "they have no legal obligation" seems to be the most used rejoinder when people complain about having to sink even more money into their favorite past-time. Maybe if a not insignificant amount of people all have the same complaint, there's actually something there worth exploring? Maybe they're not all just giant babies who don't understand capitalism or whatever. Gosh, I'm sure y'all are a blast to hang out with.
If a not insignificant amount of people all have the same complaint, there MAY be something there worth exploring. Simply having a statistically significant group of people all say the same thing does not mean they are correct. For example, and I'm being intentionally extreme here and not doing a side-by-side comparison of this and the pricing structure of DDB, a not insignificant amount of people complained about abolishing slavery. Were they right just because there were a lot of them? What about the other not insignificant amount of people who thought abolishing slavery was a good idea? Are they wrong because the group that complained was already "right?" Are both groups right even though, from a technical standpoint, only one of them can be?
Hyperbole aside, the amount of people making a claim does not give said claim veracity. The claim (or complaint) must have something other than just the number of people backing it. The complaint that I see most often on these boards with regard to pricing for DDB is that people have already spent money on 5e, and do not wish to purchase that same content again. That is a very understandable claim, and one that is not without merit. If you have purchased something, you shouldn't have to purchase it again just to keep enjoying it. On the other hand, that claim does not actually address what is being offered by DDB.
If you choose to spend money on DDB (not a requirement for 5e or even to use DDB), you are not simply purchasing the same content you have already purchased. You are also paying for the time, effort and skill that others have used to present that content in a more useful format as found in the many tools that DDB offers that are linked to the content. If you do not feel that the price point they have determined reasonable for said time, effort and skill, the moderators have stated that you are free to use their tool to add content from the books you have purchased as private homebrew that can be shared with players of your campaign without even getting a subscription.
Additionally, it should be noted that Curse (the company that built DDB) is not WotC (the company that owns DnD 5e). While WotC has given Curse their official seal of approval for DDB, WotC is not compensating them on our behalf. The money that you spent on the physical books has no direct, monetary benefit for Curse. Any claim that your book purchase should count toward purchasing, or (as is commonly requested) being given, material on DDB is to say that, essentially, because you gave another company money, this completely different company should reward you for it.
Even if we were to get to a point where WotC paid Curse, their increased expenditure would find it's way to the consumer, which would likely be increased costs for the physical books. In that event, having purchased the book before there was digital integration, you would have to buy a new book (at the increased cost) to receive access to the digital content, or purchase the digital content on its own. In either case, we end up essentially where we are now only with the consumer paying a different company for the content.
Of course, the above comments only address the complaints that DDB is trying to charge you for something you already bought. If the complaint is that the cost is above your budget/comfortable price range, that is an entirely different discussion.
tl;dr
Hyperbolic example of why large groups of people are not always correct
The complaints I see most often about the pricing structure (intentionally or unintentionally) misrepresent reality
DDB is not just a digital copy of the books. Treating it as such is a false equivalency.
Money spent on DnD books do not go to Curse.
Even if they did, it would be because we paid WotC more for the books.
This is not directed toward people who simply cannot afford DDB and are not making a claim that their past purchases should be credited toward DDB purchases.
There really is no point in any more complaining until pricing gets revealed.
Some product details would be nice:
1. Will I be able to buy the rulebook and have access to it on all my devices for that one price? My iPhone, my PC, my Android tablet.
2. Will I be able to print anything out?
3. Annotations and bookmarking, will they be supported, and will they sync across devices?
4. Will I be able to receive errata seamlessly, and not have to lose my bookmarks and annotations?
5. Will this be more than just a PDF with some custom DRM wrapper around it, like others have tried in the past?
6. Will native pinch and zoom be supported on tablets and phones?
7. What resolution will the graphics be in?
8. Will the rulebooks just be a page for page reproduction of the printed book, or will they be completely hyperlinked and searchable and be more database-like.?
There really is no point in any more complaining until pricing gets revealed.
Some product details would be nice:
1. Will I be able to buy the rulebook and have access to it on all my devices for that one price? My iPhone, my PC, my Android tablet.
2. Will I be able to print anything out?
3. Annotations and bookmarking, will they be supported, and will they sync across devices?
4. Will I be able to receive errata seamlessly, and not have to lose my bookmarks and annotations?
5. Will this be more than just a PDF with some custom DRM wrapper around it, like others have tried in the past?
6. Will native pinch and zoom be supported on tablets and phones?
7. What resolution will the graphics be in?
8. Will the rulebooks just be a page for page reproduction of the printed book, or will they be completely hyperlinked and searchable and be more database-like.?
There really is no point in any more complaining until pricing gets revealed.
Some product details would be nice:
1. Will I be able to buy the rulebook and have access to it on all my devices for that one price? My iPhone, my PC, my Android tablet.
2. Will I be able to print anything out?
3. Annotations and bookmarking, will they be supported, and will they sync across devices?
4. Will I be able to receive errata seamlessly, and not have to lose my bookmarks and annotations?
5. Will this be more than just a PDF with some custom DRM wrapper around it, like others have tried in the past?
6. Will native pinch and zoom be supported on tablets and phones?
7. What resolution will the graphics be in?
8. Will the rulebooks just be a page for page reproduction of the printed book, or will they be completely hyperlinked and searchable and be more database-like.?
Answers:
1. Yes - one-time purchase for the source. This is usable at launch anywhere you can access a browser, and later offline with the mobile app.
2. Yes, character sheets will export to a PDF for printing. As for the actual content, nothing is stopping you from printing out the pages.
3. Not entirely sure what you mean with this one. Possibly something like what Kindle does? If so, no, it's not in for launch. If there's enough interest, we could explore that as a possibility.
4. All errata will uni-laterally be incorporated in the source content. As an official digital D&D source, it's important that we stay completely current.
5. All the digital sourcebook content is built completely for the web (and later) mobile app - it's definitely not a PDF.
6. Pinch and zoom as per the browser is already happening, and it will be supported in the mobile app once it's available.
7. Depends on the type of image. For typical "art," most things will be around 1000 pixels at the largest dimension to make sure we don't grind things to a halt for slower connections (and we further compress/ reduce the size for placement in the pages). You can lightbox and view/ download the images at the higher 1000 pixel range, however. For maps, they're going to come out to 3000 at the largest dimension if the original map artwork was at least that hi-res.
8. Completely hyperlinked and searchable, just like the rest of the site.
I made long posts elsewhere, but here's my takeaway:
The arguments against the pricing are not unreasonable, but sometimes unrealistic. It happens because, simply, a lot of people don't feel that digital goods are equal in value to physical goods. To many people (even people who are ok with the pricing) the values for each are different. That's just economics 101, you want the price for your goods/services to cover the cost of labor, but in reality it's the spot between or above the cost of producing the good/service, up to the highest price people will pay for it.
To compound this issue, DND Beyond is marketed as a supplement to tabletop, but other than the database it's essentially a digital copy of the books. So customers will draw a comparison between their physical books (that they already own, because you wouldn't be here unless you were already into D&D) and the digital service being offered.
It all sounds obvious when it's written out like this, but it's important to think about it in this real way so you avoid people being hyperbolic and tilting at windmills full of strawmen.
If I were in charge of the product (based on armchair guesses as I don't have access to Twitch's numbers or pricing strategy) I would probably have not done digital sourcebooks at all, especially if the pricing would wind up being the cost of the physical books off of Amazon. Why? Because players will compare buying the actual thing off of Amazon versus the digital product here and some will complain. Conversely, it'd give extra incentive to make the subscription costs more aggressive. I would play up the strength of the database distinct from researching the rules, since players will generally either have the books, or want the books. That way you can market DNDB as a "must have tool" even more than "a tool that also comes with books you've already bought".
Your brand, marketing and public perception are important, and it's what's at play here.
As for the distinction between WotC and Twitch, the average consumer is either not going to know about that crossover, or not care. So hoping that your base understands that you're trying to recoup an amount of money to cover licensing and product engineering separate from WotC is pointless. This is how virtually every online tabletop venture screws up, because WotC can leverage the ill will their customers have onto the creators of online content and suffer very little backlash, while the online content creators (who do need the money and generally aren't evil) get raked over the coals. Why not just avoid that entirely by circumventing the situation that creates that friction in the first place?
Online Compendiums are one of those services that feels useful on paper to the consumer, but winds up not being used all that often in practice. Sure, people will use it, but would it be cost effective to keep it in place and upkeep such a system? An online character creator, monster database, item database and simple tools like initiative tracking are more than enough. A lot of people use Obsidian Portal, but an Obsidian Portal where you don't have to re-write all the stuff in your players guide would be a great boon. Adding in all the rules in a readable format always feels like a waste when it causes players to draw comparisons to the physical product, and winds up not being used as often as anything else.
I love how "they have no legal obligation" seems to be the most used rejoinder when people complain about having to sink even more money into their favorite past-time. Maybe if a not insignificant amount of people all have the same complaint, there's actually something there worth exploring? Maybe they're not all just giant babies who don't understand capitalism or whatever. Gosh, I'm sure y'all are a blast to hang out with.
Completely aside from your point (which I happen to agree with): is your username a Jex Thoth reference??
I made long posts elsewhere, but here's my takeaway:
The arguments against the pricing are not unreasonable, but sometimes unrealistic. It happens because, simply, a lot of people don't feel that digital goods are equal in value to physical goods. To many people (even people who are ok with the pricing) the values for each are different. That's just economics 101, you want the price for your goods/services to cover the cost of labor, but in reality it's the spot between or above the cost of producing the good/service, up to the highest price people will pay for it.
To compound this issue, DND Beyond is marketed as a supplement to tabletop, but other than the database it's essentially a digital copy of the books. So customers will draw a comparison between their physical books (that they already own, because you wouldn't be here unless you were already into D&D) and the digital service being offered.
It all sounds obvious when it's written out like this, but it's important to think about it in this real way so you avoid people being hyperbolic and tilting at windmills full of strawmen.
If I were in charge of the product (based on armchair guesses as I don't have access to Twitch's numbers or pricing strategy) I would probably have not done digital sourcebooks at all, especially if the pricing would wind up being the cost of the physical books off of Amazon. Why? Because players will compare buying the actual thing off of Amazon versus the digital product here and some will complain. Conversely, it'd give extra incentive to make the subscription costs more aggressive. I would play up the strength of the database distinct from researching the rules, since players will generally either have the books, or want the books. That way you can market DNDB as a "must have tool" even more than "a tool that also comes with books you've already bought".
Your brand, marketing and public perception are important, and it's what's at play here.
As for the distinction between WotC and Twitch, the average consumer is either not going to know about that crossover, or not care. So hoping that your base understands that you're trying to recoup an amount of money to cover licensing and product engineering separate from WotC is pointless. This is how virtually every online tabletop venture screws up, because WotC can leverage the ill will their customers have onto the creators of online content and suffer very little backlash, while the online content creators (who do need the money and generally aren't evil) get raked over the coals. Why not just avoid that entirely by circumventing the situation that creates that friction in the first place?
Online Compendiums are one of those services that feels useful on paper to the consumer, but winds up not being used all that often in practice. Sure, people will use it, but would it be cost effective to keep it in place and upkeep such a system? An online character creator, monster database, item database and simple tools like initiative tracking are more than enough. A lot of people use Obsidian Portal, but an Obsidian Portal where you don't have to re-write all the stuff in your players guide would be a great boon. Adding in all the rules in a readable format always feels like a waste when it causes players to draw comparisons to the physical product, and winds up not being used as often as anything else.
Except DDB isn't just a digital version of the book, which makes your post regarding it as such a straw man argument. That's the primary issue here. People keep treating DDB as though it's a PDF when it's not. Even in your attempt to downplay what DDB is offering, you acknowledge that DDB is more than that by asking us to discount the database. There is a (rather extensive) database that allows access in a variety of different ways on a variety of different platforms. That database is also connected to a character builder that auto-populates based on that database and the choices the user makes. Users even have the ability to add their own entries to the database through the homebrew section, which is also able to interact with the character sheet in the same way as the rest of the database.
Then there's the forums with cross-linking, dice rolling (with included fudged roll detectors), and the ability to bring together a large community of people that share a passion for DnD. This forum even allows us to debate (civilly) about our passion for the game and everything that goes along with it, including whether or not we feel the price presented is fair. I happen to think it is incredibly fair, but I can also see where it is out of the price range of others. Unaffordable and unfair, however, are not the same.
Instead of pretending DDB is something it isn't (and has never claimed to be), I think a better way forward is to look at what DDB is and make decisions based on that. If you're just looking for an official PDF of the books and don't have a use for anything else, then DDB is not what you are looking for. If, however, you are looking for a digital toolset that allows you to utilize all of the content of DnD in a unified system, with the bulk of the "grunt work" done by other people so you can spend more time playing and less time initializing, then I think DDB has some value for you.
For the amount of work they've put in and what they're offering, I think the subscription costs and digital content purchase prices are well within the fair range. Would I like to see cheaper prices? Of course, but I do not feel in anyway that the price that's been set is a ripoff.
Still not going to pay for something I've already purchased. Also not going to pay a fee for something that can be found elsewhere for free.
Hopefully you can rethink your "pricing" for this.
Perhaps a one time flat fee of 5 bucks or something. That would be ok.
You don't need to pay anything for something you've already purchased. The mods and staff have said you are free to use their tool to input as much (or as little) of the books you already own on their website as private homebrew (able to be shared to your campaign without a subscription cost). If you'd rather not go through that effort, you could pay Curse for the convenience of having them do all of that work on your behalf.
I am not currently aware of anywhere I can (legally) obtain for free everything that DDB is offering. If you could show me where I could do so, I'd be more than happy to take a look at it to revise my opinion on whether or not DDB is priced fairly. Otherwise, I think an offer of $5 for everything might be a bit insulting to the creators.
Personally I would like to suggest a pricing plan that I would not mind paying for. Create a plan whereby you pay per month for access to a specific campaign and all other WotC published materials (including for example the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide and Volo's). Included in this would be something similar to a campaign tracker. For example: I am running "Out of the Abyss". I pay around $10 - 20 a month for access to the campaign "book" and all other WotC published materials. My players would then be able to access notes that I have made while in a session, creating an automatic session-by-session write up. They would also be able to create PCs that would be used in that campaign and have access to NPC information their PCs would be cognizant of. I would suggest that adding an initiative and combat tracker into the package.
This would allow DMs and players to keep all of their notes and various sheets in one place. I feel that anything less is not going to be particularly useful to players or DMs and Beyond will not have enough staying power.
As a DM I am not willing to pay $90 for the books I have already bought and still be missing out information that comes in Volo's and Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. And, on top of that pay a monthly fee. I have found that some monsters are missing from the Beyond Monsters thread and as a result have not used Beyond because I can not rely on it for everything I need and it therefore becomes a distraction (if those things have been subsequently added, well I do not have the time to check that you have a complete listing).
I understand that there will be plenty of people that will disagree with what I have said and I respect your opinion, please respect mine.
Will there be a way to demo a book? Could I get access to the Player's Handbook for say, 30 minutes to an hour to see how I like it?
There are no current plans to offer this. One D&D Beyond goes live on August 15th, there are bound to be a whole load of Twitch/YouTube reviews and guides popping up, which should help you decide. :)
It's good that we have a digital version of the D&D or AD&D. But I prefer that D&DB can released an app version that doesn't need to be online always or rely on a web browser to view its contents. What happened if we gone to summer camp where mobile or wifi signals are poor or non existent.
I also love the single purchase model for the reference/companion/adventure module where I need to pay once and the purchase are recorded under my Apple account when I purchase it on my iPad, so I can restore my purchases if I need to transfer my device. And also an update notifications to inform about new updates errata available.
Its also nice if the GM module have a map creator where the GM can create and plan the next adventure with a map reference available on his device and also wifi connection to other player devices to see stats, calculate saving throws, giving experience points and rewards.
the purchasing has me a little concerned but i hope that the services provided will be worth my money
Why so serious??
I love how "they have no legal obligation" seems to be the most used rejoinder when people complain about having to sink even more money into their favorite past-time. Maybe if a not insignificant amount of people all have the same complaint, there's actually something there worth exploring? Maybe they're not all just giant babies who don't understand capitalism or whatever. Gosh, I'm sure y'all are a blast to hang out with.
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
It's a natural reaction really, when people have invested money into their hobby and now there's a new version that they really want and it's going to cost even more.
I get that, I think most people do - I don't think that anybody likes handing over their hard-earned money.
With regards the number of people complaining?
There are now over 160,000 accounts on D&D Beyond, with over 60,000 posts between them. I read pretty much all of the posts on these forums (outside of the PbP) and would estimate around 20-30 people at most posting complaints about prices.
That is significantly lower than I would expect for most products really.
There have been some queries on top of that about whether it's possible to get discounts for already owning the physical books (it isn't), but the level of complaints have been lower than I expected.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't complain - by all means, if you feel something is wrong or could be better, you should always say something.
What I am saying is, this is a significantly cheaper way of owning and playing D&D than we have had for a long time (possibly cheapest ever, factoring in inflation) and it comes with a load of digital tools as well!
So, I can also see why a number of people are defending that too.
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There really is no point in any more complaining until pricing gets revealed.
Some product details would be nice:
1. Will I be able to buy the rulebook and have access to it on all my devices for that one price? My iPhone, my PC, my Android tablet.
2. Will I be able to print anything out?
3. Annotations and bookmarking, will they be supported, and will they sync across devices?
4. Will I be able to receive errata seamlessly, and not have to lose my bookmarks and annotations?
5. Will this be more than just a PDF with some custom DRM wrapper around it, like others have tried in the past?
6. Will native pinch and zoom be supported on tablets and phones?
7. What resolution will the graphics be in?
8. Will the rulebooks just be a page for page reproduction of the printed book, or will they be completely hyperlinked and searchable and be more database-like.?
1. Yes - one-time purchase for the source. This is usable at launch anywhere you can access a browser, and later offline with the mobile app.
2. Yes, character sheets will export to a PDF for printing. As for the actual content, nothing is stopping you from printing out the pages.
3. Not entirely sure what you mean with this one. Possibly something like what Kindle does? If so, no, it's not in for launch. If there's enough interest, we could explore that as a possibility.
4. All errata will uni-laterally be incorporated in the source content. As an official digital D&D source, it's important that we stay completely current.
5. All the digital sourcebook content is built completely for the web (and later) mobile app - it's definitely not a PDF.
6. Pinch and zoom as per the browser is already happening, and it will be supported in the mobile app once it's available.
7. Depends on the type of image. For typical "art," most things will be around 1000 pixels at the largest dimension to make sure we don't grind things to a halt for slower connections (and we further compress/ reduce the size for placement in the pages). You can lightbox and view/ download the images at the higher 1000 pixel range, however. For maps, they're going to come out to 3000 at the largest dimension if the original map artwork was at least that hi-res.
8. Completely hyperlinked and searchable, just like the rest of the site.
I made long posts elsewhere, but here's my takeaway:
The arguments against the pricing are not unreasonable, but sometimes unrealistic. It happens because, simply, a lot of people don't feel that digital goods are equal in value to physical goods. To many people (even people who are ok with the pricing) the values for each are different. That's just economics 101, you want the price for your goods/services to cover the cost of labor, but in reality it's the spot between or above the cost of producing the good/service, up to the highest price people will pay for it.
To compound this issue, DND Beyond is marketed as a supplement to tabletop, but other than the database it's essentially a digital copy of the books. So customers will draw a comparison between their physical books (that they already own, because you wouldn't be here unless you were already into D&D) and the digital service being offered.
It all sounds obvious when it's written out like this, but it's important to think about it in this real way so you avoid people being hyperbolic and tilting at windmills full of strawmen.
If I were in charge of the product (based on armchair guesses as I don't have access to Twitch's numbers or pricing strategy) I would probably have not done digital sourcebooks at all, especially if the pricing would wind up being the cost of the physical books off of Amazon. Why? Because players will compare buying the actual thing off of Amazon versus the digital product here and some will complain. Conversely, it'd give extra incentive to make the subscription costs more aggressive. I would play up the strength of the database distinct from researching the rules, since players will generally either have the books, or want the books. That way you can market DNDB as a "must have tool" even more than "a tool that also comes with books you've already bought".
Your brand, marketing and public perception are important, and it's what's at play here.
As for the distinction between WotC and Twitch, the average consumer is either not going to know about that crossover, or not care. So hoping that your base understands that you're trying to recoup an amount of money to cover licensing and product engineering separate from WotC is pointless. This is how virtually every online tabletop venture screws up, because WotC can leverage the ill will their customers have onto the creators of online content and suffer very little backlash, while the online content creators (who do need the money and generally aren't evil) get raked over the coals. Why not just avoid that entirely by circumventing the situation that creates that friction in the first place?
Online Compendiums are one of those services that feels useful on paper to the consumer, but winds up not being used all that often in practice. Sure, people will use it, but would it be cost effective to keep it in place and upkeep such a system? An online character creator, monster database, item database and simple tools like initiative tracking are more than enough. A lot of people use Obsidian Portal, but an Obsidian Portal where you don't have to re-write all the stuff in your players guide would be a great boon. Adding in all the rules in a readable format always feels like a waste when it causes players to draw comparisons to the physical product, and winds up not being used as often as anything else.
Hi.
Still not going to pay for something I've already purchased. Also not going to pay a fee for something that can be found elsewhere for free.
Hopefully you can rethink your "pricing" for this.
Perhaps a one time flat fee of 5 bucks or something. That would be ok.
Hi,
Personally I would like to suggest a pricing plan that I would not mind paying for. Create a plan whereby you pay per month for access to a specific campaign and all other WotC published materials (including for example the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide and Volo's). Included in this would be something similar to a campaign tracker. For example: I am running "Out of the Abyss". I pay around $10 - 20 a month for access to the campaign "book" and all other WotC published materials. My players would then be able to access notes that I have made while in a session, creating an automatic session-by-session write up. They would also be able to create PCs that would be used in that campaign and have access to NPC information their PCs would be cognizant of. I would suggest that adding an initiative and combat tracker into the package.
This would allow DMs and players to keep all of their notes and various sheets in one place. I feel that anything less is not going to be particularly useful to players or DMs and Beyond will not have enough staying power.
As a DM I am not willing to pay $90 for the books I have already bought and still be missing out information that comes in Volo's and Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. And, on top of that pay a monthly fee. I have found that some monsters are missing from the Beyond Monsters thread and as a result have not used Beyond because I can not rely on it for everything I need and it therefore becomes a distraction (if those things have been subsequently added, well I do not have the time to check that you have a complete listing).
I understand that there will be plenty of people that will disagree with what I have said and I respect your opinion, please respect mine.
Thank you
Will there be a way to demo a book? Could I get access to the Player's Handbook for say, 30 minutes to an hour to see how I like it?
When it the mobile app going to be released?
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