At this point, I think the pricing makes sense. What you get for free is quite good, and the tier system is not bad as well. My issue is pricing for the rules supplements. I already own the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, DM's Guide, and Volo's. I am absolutely not paying for them a second time to use for this system, and I'm certain that many other players and DMs who have spent around $150 on the books agree. If anything, there should be a box where you may input the serial numbers of your books to receive them on the Beyond service at a discounted price. I am certain I will continue to use the free version, but I am not giving over a cent to WOTC until something is done about the pricing of modules and sourcebooks.
Curse develops and manages D&D Beyond, not WOTC. They've spent the time transcribing, coding, and hyperlinking WotC content to bring the experience to you digitally. Having paid WotC for physical copies, why shouldn't Curse be compensated for the vast amount of work performed here on D&D Beyond? Don't you believe they've done a wonderful job here?
I apologize- I didn't mean to diminish or devalue the wonderful work Curse has done. But I still believe that the current sourcebook prices are much too high.
The pricing model is too high to add sourcebooks and adventures, especially (as has been said) for someone who has already purchased the hard copies. A S/N system should be put into place where one can register their books. Besides, it's not like you guys have put in that much work to warrant the $30 dollar price; the software has been coded, and the source material was written by someone else. All you're doing is creating a new database file with the new content.
I have a character sheet app on my phone right now that cost me $3 and has all the character creation content I need, and a free spellbook app that has all the spell information I need. Your model is simply not sustainable in the current market. I would at most pay $3 per sourcebook and $2 per adventure, as you aren't offering enough additional functionality or content for the price.
While I will wait for sales to come up for things, I'm only doing that because I'm poor. Otherwise, I think the full book prices are very reasonable. It honestly really shocks me that people are complaining so vehemently about the pricing, as well as all these expectations of getting access for free simply because they bought a physical copy. The argument for that is so incredibly fallacious that I'm convinced I now understand how Trump got elected.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Lets say you LOVE the original Ghost Busters movie from the 80's You bought it on DVD ( Lets low ball it and say $20 ) you bought the Collector edition on Blue Ray that comes with Ghost Busters 2 and digital copies for both ( Roughly about $40) Now the anniversary of the movie comes around and your local theater is going to play it. would you go the box office and tell them since you bought the movie and have it at home you don't want to pay them to see it and they should allow you in for free?
While I will wait for sales to come up for things, I'm only doing that because I'm poor. Otherwise, I think the full book prices are very reasonable. It honestly really shocks me that people are complaining so vehemently about the pricing, as well as all these expectations of getting access for free simply because they bought a physical copy. The argument for that is so incredibly fallacious that I'm convinced I now understand how Trump got elected.
Copyright law states that once I've paid for a book or movie or whatever, I am allowed to transfer that content to other formats for personal use without having to pay a fee. This is no different, except that Curse is performing the transfer service, and the price they are offering it at is simply not competitive. They are not creating content and selling it, so I shouldn't have to pay them full retail price for said content. All they're doing is converting it to a database to work within software that they've already created.
I would have no problem with them charging for the software, but they are the ones who are choosing to offer their content for free while "selling" us content that they didn't create and to which we already have access (if we purchased said book).
Lets say you LOVE the original Ghost Busters movie from the 80's You bought it on DVD ( Lets low ball it and say $20 ) you bought the Collector edition on Blue Ray that comes with Ghost Busters 2 and digital copies for both ( Roughly about $40) Now the anniversary of the movie comes around and your local theater is going to play it. would you go the box office and tell them since you bought the movie and have it at home you don't want to pay them to see it and they should allow you in for free?
False equivalence. Your example would be more accurate if I had to pay a fee to transfer the content from my Ghostbusters DVD to my computer in order to watch it without the disk. That is a legitimate use of copyrighted content for which I've paid and shouldn't cost anything. The same applies to scanning a hard copy of a book I've purchased; it's legitimate and free as long as it is for personal use and I'm not sharing or distributing the copyrighted material.
They aren't charging us for the content but for the service, and I don't think the service is worth the price they are currently planning on offering it at, especially when there are similar offerings already available for a fraction of the price.
...especially when there are similar offerings already available for a fraction of the price.
Not legally, there aren't - unless you are specifically referring to using something that only provides you SRD content and the option to add-in content that is only available legally by purchasing it at D&D Beyond's prices or higher.
Even then, D&D Beyond is identical - you can pay zero to use it, and input all the content from whatever books you've already bought as home-brew - so it's literally impossible for some other offering to be "a fraction of the price".
While I will wait for sales to come up for things, I'm only doing that because I'm poor. Otherwise, I think the full book prices are very reasonable. It honestly really shocks me that people are complaining so vehemently about the pricing, as well as all these expectations of getting access for free simply because they bought a physical copy. The argument for that is so incredibly fallacious that I'm convinced I now understand how Trump got elected.
Copyright law states that once I've paid for a book or movie or whatever, I am allowed to transfer that content to other formats for personal use without having to pay a fee. This is no different, except that Curse is performing the transfer service, and the price they are offering it at is simply not competitive. They are not creating content and selling it, so I shouldn't have to pay them full retail price for said content. All they're doing is converting it to a database to work within software that they've already created.
I would have no problem with them charging for the software, but they are the ones who are choosing to offer their content for free while "selling" us content that they didn't create and to which we already have access (if we purchased said book).
When you buy a book, you buy a license of use, not the copyright.
If you decide to buy two physical PHB, do you pay only for one? No, you have to pay for two licenses and two services. Same here.
Not sure how to vote. Do you mean full print price or full DDB price? From the beginning, I've said that the Amazon (print) price would be about the max I'd be willing to pay for a digital copy. That's where things seem to be coming in. So, yeah, I'll pay full DDB price. But, no, I won't pay full print price.
At this point, I think the pricing makes sense. What you get for free is quite good, and the tier system is not bad as well. My issue is pricing for the rules supplements. I already own the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, DM's Guide, and Volo's. I am absolutely not paying for them a second time to use for this system, and I'm certain that many other players and DMs who have spent around $150 on the books agree. If anything, there should be a box where you may input the serial numbers of your books to receive them on the Beyond service at a discounted price. I am certain I will continue to use the free version, but I am not giving over a cent to WOTC until something is done about the pricing of modules and sourcebooks.
I apologize- I didn't mean to diminish or devalue the wonderful work Curse has done. But I still believe that the current sourcebook prices are much too high.
The pricing model is too high to add sourcebooks and adventures, especially (as has been said) for someone who has already purchased the hard copies. A S/N system should be put into place where one can register their books. Besides, it's not like you guys have put in that much work to warrant the $30 dollar price; the software has been coded, and the source material was written by someone else. All you're doing is creating a new database file with the new content.
I have a character sheet app on my phone right now that cost me $3 and has all the character creation content I need, and a free spellbook app that has all the spell information I need. Your model is simply not sustainable in the current market. I would at most pay $3 per sourcebook and $2 per adventure, as you aren't offering enough additional functionality or content for the price.
While I will wait for sales to come up for things, I'm only doing that because I'm poor. Otherwise, I think the full book prices are very reasonable. It honestly really shocks me that people are complaining so vehemently about the pricing, as well as all these expectations of getting access for free simply because they bought a physical copy. The argument for that is so incredibly fallacious that I'm convinced I now understand how Trump got elected.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
Lets say you LOVE the original Ghost Busters movie from the 80's You bought it on DVD ( Lets low ball it and say $20 ) you bought the Collector edition on Blue Ray that comes with Ghost Busters 2 and digital copies for both ( Roughly about $40) Now the anniversary of the movie comes around and your local theater is going to play it. would you go the box office and tell them since you bought the movie and have it at home you don't want to pay them to see it and they should allow you in for free?
Copyright law states that once I've paid for a book or movie or whatever, I am allowed to transfer that content to other formats for personal use without having to pay a fee. This is no different, except that Curse is performing the transfer service, and the price they are offering it at is simply not competitive. They are not creating content and selling it, so I shouldn't have to pay them full retail price for said content. All they're doing is converting it to a database to work within software that they've already created.
I would have no problem with them charging for the software, but they are the ones who are choosing to offer their content for free while "selling" us content that they didn't create and to which we already have access (if we purchased said book).
False equivalence. Your example would be more accurate if I had to pay a fee to transfer the content from my Ghostbusters DVD to my computer in order to watch it without the disk. That is a legitimate use of copyrighted content for which I've paid and shouldn't cost anything. The same applies to scanning a hard copy of a book I've purchased; it's legitimate and free as long as it is for personal use and I'm not sharing or distributing the copyrighted material.
They aren't charging us for the content but for the service, and I don't think the service is worth the price they are currently planning on offering it at, especially when there are similar offerings already available for a fraction of the price.
Not legally, there aren't - unless you are specifically referring to using something that only provides you SRD content and the option to add-in content that is only available legally by purchasing it at D&D Beyond's prices or higher.
Even then, D&D Beyond is identical - you can pay zero to use it, and input all the content from whatever books you've already bought as home-brew - so it's literally impossible for some other offering to be "a fraction of the price".
Not sure how to vote. Do you mean full print price or full DDB price? From the beginning, I've said that the Amazon (print) price would be about the max I'd be willing to pay for a digital copy. That's where things seem to be coming in. So, yeah, I'll pay full DDB price. But, no, I won't pay full print price.
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D&D Beyond FoundersI'm going to lock this thread, as the same discussion is happening in two threads currently.
Please continue any discussions on pricing in this thread:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/news-announcements/5335-release-date-august-15th-pricing-details-announced
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