With D&D Beyond, we are able to see the digital version of the books we purchase.
With D&D Beyond, the selling point of the digital books is the integration with the Character Builder and the Maps VTT. They don't sell PDFs because that's what the purpose of it is. (Yes it also gives them control over product distribution too). Without the digital integration, it would be pointless. And they have a hard enough time accepting that they need to support 5e, instead of replacing it with 5.5e. They are not going to implement D&D 1E or 2E with digital integration.
With D&D Beyond, we are able to see the digital version of the books we purchase.
If you go to eBay, you can find a lot of the old vintage books, that are not playable with the 2024 rules.
With D&D being over 50 years old, it would be nice if they allowed us to purchase some of the old books on D&D beyond and view in our Library.
This would be a good Money make for D&D Beyond and it would rekindle some old childhood memories for us.
Just a thought.
Most of the content from older editions is available in PDF form on DM's Guild.
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With D&D Beyond, the selling point of the digital books is the integration with the Character Builder and the Maps VTT. They don't sell PDFs because that's what the purpose of it is. (Yes it also gives them control over product distribution too). Without the digital integration, it would be pointless. And they have a hard enough time accepting that they need to support 5e, instead of replacing it with 5.5e. They are not going to implement D&D 1E or 2E with digital integration.
They already did this years ago, as mentioned, with DMs guild.