Though D&D Beyond and Hasbro probably won't read this, it doesn't hurt to hope that somebody who cares and has the power to do something about it will.
I've understand the logic believing you can make more money on full content sales in the marketplace, but it just isn't true, especially given that it wasn't ALWAYS that way. This decision feels like punishment and will be viewed as such, and when you do this to your customers, then tend to feel like they're being treated unfairly. In many cases, it will drive people away from the service, and if that happens, it will cost you more in the long run then leaving it as it was.
I feel like Hasbro believes that content sharing is the answer, but it's really not. Sure, a DM with five players is the only one who needs to buy content, and yep, they can absolutely talk their players into contributing. Then, they all get into a campaign and enable sharing with a subscription, and boom, they all get the content. Nice and inexpensive.
But let's be honest: a lot of us like theory-crafting and building our own characters for testing and fun. It was great to not HAVE to build those characters in a campaign, as we could drop a few bucks and unlock new individual options. But since Hasbro is hell-bent on price-gouging and forcing players to buy entire product bundles to enjoy something so menial as one magic item, spell, or subclass option, I guess they are going to lose those couple bucks from every user in this boat.
A suggestion: split new title releases up into two things: "DM content," and "Player content." Monsters and NPCs, maps, adventure writing, and lore can all be built into the "DM content" portion, which could be, say, 60% of the price, whereas the "PC content" could account for the other 40% of the price. It's a great solve, it gets us a bunch of the unlockables we want without having to stab ourselves in the bank account.
Something to chew on. Here's to hoping for a positive outcome.
Idk about the 60% idea, but having à la carte available to players (but non shareable) VS full books for DMs (shareable with your group) could be a nice compromise.
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Though D&D Beyond and Hasbro probably won't read this, it doesn't hurt to hope that somebody who cares and has the power to do something about it will.
I've understand the logic believing you can make more money on full content sales in the marketplace, but it just isn't true, especially given that it wasn't ALWAYS that way. This decision feels like punishment and will be viewed as such, and when you do this to your customers, then tend to feel like they're being treated unfairly. In many cases, it will drive people away from the service, and if that happens, it will cost you more in the long run then leaving it as it was.
I feel like Hasbro believes that content sharing is the answer, but it's really not. Sure, a DM with five players is the only one who needs to buy content, and yep, they can absolutely talk their players into contributing. Then, they all get into a campaign and enable sharing with a subscription, and boom, they all get the content. Nice and inexpensive.
But let's be honest: a lot of us like theory-crafting and building our own characters for testing and fun. It was great to not HAVE to build those characters in a campaign, as we could drop a few bucks and unlock new individual options. But since Hasbro is hell-bent on price-gouging and forcing players to buy entire product bundles to enjoy something so menial as one magic item, spell, or subclass option, I guess they are going to lose those couple bucks from every user in this boat.
A suggestion: split new title releases up into two things: "DM content," and "Player content." Monsters and NPCs, maps, adventure writing, and lore can all be built into the "DM content" portion, which could be, say, 60% of the price, whereas the "PC content" could account for the other 40% of the price. It's a great solve, it gets us a bunch of the unlockables we want without having to stab ourselves in the bank account.
Something to chew on. Here's to hoping for a positive outcome.
Idk about the 60% idea, but having à la carte available to players (but non shareable) VS full books for DMs (shareable with your group) could be a nice compromise.