You say this as if whatever it would cost to implement it wouldn't pay for itself almost immediately. Clearly there's a market for this, look at the level of outcry when they took it away.
It takes a lot of small purchases to be significant, and it's not actually a small cost. Let's say that 95% of the people currently paying $1.99 for a single item instead buy nothing, and 5% will pay $29.99. That's a net loss of $0.50 per. Now, assume it takes $5,000 in developer time to add the feature. They need 10,000 sales to break even.
If it was about money they could have simply raised the price for piece meal purchases, this is about control not money.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
You say this as if whatever it would cost to implement it wouldn't pay for itself almost immediately. Clearly there's a market for this, look at the level of outcry when they took it away.
It takes a lot of small purchases to be significant, and it's not actually a small cost. Let's say that 95% of the people currently paying $1.99 for a single item instead buy nothing, and 5% will pay $29.99. That's a net loss of $0.50 per. Now, assume it takes $5,000 in developer time to add the feature. They need 10,000 sales to break even.
Their problem is that they need to publish books that have higher useful to vaguely interesting ratios.
10,000 sales would be over all a la carte purchases, too, not just any given one of them since it should not need to be separately programmed for each individual item. That is not a big number at all. If they only make 10,000 sales of any given full book worldwide, it would likely be considered a major failure even if they made a profit on such low sales.
If it was about money they could have simply raised the price for piece meal purchases, this is about control not money.
It is most certainly about money. Hasbro is a publicly traded corporation, everything they do is about money. The only question is what their theory of value was, and there's really only two likely possibilities
The product was unprofitable or marginal in its own right.
Removing the product might cause people to shift to a more expensive product.
When a company kills a product some people love, internet conspiracy theories focus on #2, but in reality it's almost always #1.
If it was about money they could have simply raised the price for piece meal purchases, this is about control not money.
It is most certainly about money. Hasbro is a publicly traded corporation, everything they do is about money. The only question is what their theory of value was, and there's really only two likely possibilities
The product was unprofitable or marginal in its own right.
Removing the product might cause people to shift to a more expensive product.
When a company kills a product some people love, internet conspiracy theories focus on #2, but in reality it's almost always #1.
Sorry there are more motives than that, this lines right up with banking on the walled garden, they're just funneling towards that. Lose now win later is what they are banking on.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Why are you assuming a la carte purchases are all single items? A lot are, sure, but I expect many will be multiple items to build a new character. Looking back most of my purchases were $6-12, a couple were even $30+ as I bought race\class\spell bundles from multiple books, and I can't be the only one to have done this.
Why are you assuming a la carte purchases are all single items? A lot are, sure, but I expect many will be multiple items to build a new character. Looking back most of my purchases were $6-12, a couple were even $30+ as I bought race\class\spell bundles from multiple books, and I can't be the only one to have done this.
Why did I buy content here? Because I liked being able to buy exactly what I did or did not want for my characters. When books went on sale, I was able to buy the rest of it if I chose to.
I have access to ALL 5e content, the same way anyone with the internet does, for free. I still chose to come here recently (last month) and purchase the monsters from Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage for $6. I will never, ever run a 'megadungeon' game, but I wanted the monsters so I bought them. Again, this is despite having access to the content for free elsewhere. Had the only option been to purchase the entire book, DDB would have received $0 instead of $6.
Now DDB has strongly suggested to me that I can keep my money. Doesn't take much twisting of my arm to direct me towards not spending money I don't have to. If my players manage to level up in Foundry without needing DDB to do it, I'll be canceling my subscription and ignoring this site entirely. I don't have much money, and DDB just raised the price of being a DM to include full books only.
If it was about money they could have simply raised the price for piece meal purchases, this is about control not money.
It is most certainly about money. Hasbro is a publicly traded corporation, everything they do is about money. The only question is what their theory of value was, and there's really only two likely possibilities
The product was unprofitable or marginal in its own right.
Removing the product might cause people to shift to a more expensive product.
When a company kills a product some people love, internet conspiracy theories focus on #2, but in reality it's almost always #1.
The problem with (2) is that it is just as likely to be an exec either having heard the cost of adding a la carte to the new sales interface and not looking at or even considering the lost sales, simply assuming them immaterial or having dollar signs in their eyes blindly assuming that without a la carte there will be a massive increase in sales of complete books, someone with an ideological bent, incensed that people are even able to by a la carte when complete books are not being purchased or any combination of the above.
Hasbro has its share of failures along with successes and as TSR proved, this is a tough industry to maintain.
In other words, (2) does not equate to the assumptions they are basing the decision on are correct ones.
When I first got started in D&D, I chose Beyond at the time because it was tailored towards in-person play, and the character creation tool was pretty easy and intuitive. I checked out Roll20 a little bit too, but I did not need the VTT and it was a bit of a hassle to set things up, so I stuck with Beyond.
While à la carte purchases is not the main selling point for me personally, it is still a selling point that gave Beyond a more user friendly and welcoming atmosphere. It gave a sense that anyone can play D&D. You are a broke ass college student eating ramen? No worries! A character option literally costs about the same as a cup of noodles or a box of mac & cheese.
Every day it seems I recognize this website and its server less and less. No individual purchases sucks and dropping it unannounced sucks even more. These decisions are making me genuinely question why I even use my account here over other providers at this point.
I’m really unhappy about the a la carte option being removed. DnD historically has been a cheap game to play - just paper, pen, and a set of dice. DnDBeyond has so much potential to keep that “accessible to all” feel, but so much of what WOTC is doing just feels like they’re not only more interested in money than the community of people who play, but that they’re actively trying to undermine the community.
I’m really unhappy about the a la carte option being removed. DnD historically has been a cheap game to play - just paper, pen, and a set of dice. DnDBeyond has so much potential to keep that “accessible to all” feel, but so much of what WOTC is doing just feels like they’re not only more interested in money than the community of people who play, but that they’re actively trying to undermine the community.
That isn't actually true. The 1e books were quite pricy. And a la carte was never an option before now because the tech wasn't there. That does not mean this is a good business decision on their part, but is nevertheless the history.
Loosing single purchases is really stupid, was gonna buy the death cleric but its gone and im not spending money on 30$ for it. Oh well friend has the dms guide irl will just do it the old fashion way.
Hey folks! I am going to make a wider post about this, but as the most active thread on the forums about the marketplace changes, it seemed prudent to start here.
Regarding partial purchases: if you want to buy a book that you made a la carte/individual purchases from, you must contact customer service to receive your discount. The marketplace article has been updated to reflect this.
I have a feeling they aren't going to back this up soon, especially since it has been radio silence from someone other than you in this forum. We know they will only consider changing it back once it hits their bottom line.
At the time I write this there are 24 pages on just this discussion alone, and the same conversation is happening on other parts of the forum as well as other online circles. It is near fully unanimous in the negative view of WotC and DDB for this change. Yet they've said nothing in the past 2 weeks, not even acknowledge they've heard us.
If WoTC / Hasbro refuse to back pedal on the marketplace change, then what they should certainly do is make sure all future purchases of physical books, whether that be at a FLGS, Amazon, or other third party, they include a redemption code for the digital content bundle. I only buy alt covers, which can only be done at a FLGS. I am not given the liberty of the option to tack on the digital content for $10 more and that certainly does not encourage me to buy a bundle direct from DDB. Have us provide a proof of purchase for redemption code for those who've bought books after the change. And all future books be shipped in some wrapping so that a single use coupon code can be included inside to get the digital content. College textbooks do that as an option, and honestly I'd be fine with that. What I'm not okay with is dropping $60 on a physical book and then another $30-40 to use just one subclass or magic item.
But until there is some sort of change, instead of getting periodic $5-$10 purchases from the vast majority of us, they'll get none. Thousands of people spending $5 adds to more than a few hundred spending $30. Add in the loss of subscriptions and they'll be in the red fast. We aren't suggesting changes, we're promising boycott.
I tried to look up the numbers but it looks like they sell about a million books at the big box stores alone a year.
If they only make 10 bucks a book thats about 10 million a year in book sales.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here. Maybe half as much in total counting memberships and sales.
They know the numbers though and have a plan to make more money.
take monsters of the multiverse: it has 30 species, had $2 for a single species piece-meal, for that same investment you can get the digital and physical copy (unsure about shipping).
That's not how the piecemeal worked. You'd only pay up to the total cost of the book. When you bought enough of the individual species that section became fully paid for and the rest was included. If you bought enough to hit the $29 (or however much the full digital source cost) that was it and you got the rest. If the book ever went on sale, it would be the discounted price minus what you already spent. It never went above the original cost.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
I'm much less concerned with whether ala carte was a major profit center. it was a digital tool with some level of positive return on investment. I'm more concerned with them removing useful functionality without warning.
actually, it's worse if it wasn't very profitable. if direct profitability is the motivator, what's next? character portrait image hosting? "legacy" dice? the forever-beta encounter tracker?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
d&d beyond decision-makers: bring back a-la carte. please. literally every single piece of feedback i have seen about the removal of this has been negative.
your community, your customers, are crying out for this to return; as are our d&d beyond using friends who aren't commenting on the forums or in the discord server.
since all higher-up decision makers seem to care about are profits and - let's be honest - have absolutely no idea nor care about your community base and their opinions (spoken from my own career experience working for an extremely similar business model), let me put it this way from a corporate employee standpoint:
not acknowledging this mistake & reverting a-la carte purchases is a surefire way to lose thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in transactions and a severe loss of customers.
also: it's shady as HELL for not making any announcement about this change bar a semi-hidden news post on your website. (unless this was a decision the poor marketing/CM person who was forced to put it somewhere made to try and avoid as much backlash that they would recieve on front lines as possible, i sympathise - that's smart as hell and godspeed to you!)
If it was about money they could have simply raised the price for piece meal purchases, this is about control not money.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Their problem is that they need to publish books that have higher useful to vaguely interesting ratios.
10,000 sales would be over all a la carte purchases, too, not just any given one of them since it should not need to be separately programmed for each individual item. That is not a big number at all. If they only make 10,000 sales of any given full book worldwide, it would likely be considered a major failure even if they made a profit on such low sales.
It is most certainly about money. Hasbro is a publicly traded corporation, everything they do is about money. The only question is what their theory of value was, and there's really only two likely possibilities
When a company kills a product some people love, internet conspiracy theories focus on #2, but in reality it's almost always #1.
Sorry there are more motives than that, this lines right up with banking on the walled garden, they're just funneling towards that. Lose now win later is what they are banking on.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Why are you assuming a la carte purchases are all single items? A lot are, sure, but I expect many will be multiple items to build a new character. Looking back most of my purchases were $6-12, a couple were even $30+ as I bought race\class\spell bundles from multiple books, and I can't be the only one to have done this.
Rest assured, you're not.
Why did I buy content here? Because I liked being able to buy exactly what I did or did not want for my characters. When books went on sale, I was able to buy the rest of it if I chose to.
I have access to ALL 5e content, the same way anyone with the internet does, for free. I still chose to come here recently (last month) and purchase the monsters from Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage for $6. I will never, ever run a 'megadungeon' game, but I wanted the monsters so I bought them. Again, this is despite having access to the content for free elsewhere. Had the only option been to purchase the entire book, DDB would have received $0 instead of $6.
Now DDB has strongly suggested to me that I can keep my money. Doesn't take much twisting of my arm to direct me towards not spending money I don't have to. If my players manage to level up in Foundry without needing DDB to do it, I'll be canceling my subscription and ignoring this site entirely. I don't have much money, and DDB just raised the price of being a DM to include full books only.
Message received, DDB. Message received.
The problem with (2) is that it is just as likely to be an exec either having heard the cost of adding a la carte to the new sales interface and not looking at or even considering the lost sales, simply assuming them immaterial or having dollar signs in their eyes blindly assuming that without a la carte there will be a massive increase in sales of complete books, someone with an ideological bent, incensed that people are even able to by a la carte when complete books are not being purchased or any combination of the above.
Hasbro has its share of failures along with successes and as TSR proved, this is a tough industry to maintain.
In other words, (2) does not equate to the assumptions they are basing the decision on are correct ones.
When I first got started in D&D, I chose Beyond at the time because it was tailored towards in-person play, and the character creation tool was pretty easy and intuitive. I checked out Roll20 a little bit too, but I did not need the VTT and it was a bit of a hassle to set things up, so I stuck with Beyond.
While à la carte purchases is not the main selling point for me personally, it is still a selling point that gave Beyond a more user friendly and welcoming atmosphere. It gave a sense that anyone can play D&D. You are a broke ass college student eating ramen? No worries! A character option literally costs about the same as a cup of noodles or a box of mac & cheese.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Every day it seems I recognize this website and its server less and less. No individual purchases sucks and dropping it unannounced sucks even more. These decisions are making me genuinely question why I even use my account here over other providers at this point.
I’m really unhappy about the a la carte option being removed. DnD historically has been a cheap game to play - just paper, pen, and a set of dice. DnDBeyond has so much potential to keep that “accessible to all” feel, but so much of what WOTC is doing just feels like they’re not only more interested in money than the community of people who play, but that they’re actively trying to undermine the community.
That isn't actually true. The 1e books were quite pricy. And a la carte was never an option before now because the tech wasn't there. That does not mean this is a good business decision on their part, but is nevertheless the history.
Loosing single purchases is really stupid, was gonna buy the death cleric but its gone and im not spending money on 30$ for it. Oh well friend has the dms guide irl will just do it the old fashion way.
I have a feeling they aren't going to back this up soon, especially since it has been radio silence from someone other than you in this forum. We know they will only consider changing it back once it hits their bottom line.
At the time I write this there are 24 pages on just this discussion alone, and the same conversation is happening on other parts of the forum as well as other online circles. It is near fully unanimous in the negative view of WotC and DDB for this change. Yet they've said nothing in the past 2 weeks, not even acknowledge they've heard us.
If WoTC / Hasbro refuse to back pedal on the marketplace change, then what they should certainly do is make sure all future purchases of physical books, whether that be at a FLGS, Amazon, or other third party, they include a redemption code for the digital content bundle. I only buy alt covers, which can only be done at a FLGS. I am not given the liberty of the option to tack on the digital content for $10 more and that certainly does not encourage me to buy a bundle direct from DDB. Have us provide a proof of purchase for redemption code for those who've bought books after the change. And all future books be shipped in some wrapping so that a single use coupon code can be included inside to get the digital content. College textbooks do that as an option, and honestly I'd be fine with that. What I'm not okay with is dropping $60 on a physical book and then another $30-40 to use just one subclass or magic item.
But until there is some sort of change, instead of getting periodic $5-$10 purchases from the vast majority of us, they'll get none. Thousands of people spending $5 adds to more than a few hundred spending $30. Add in the loss of subscriptions and they'll be in the red fast. We aren't suggesting changes, we're promising boycott.
I tried to look up the numbers but it looks like they sell about a million books at the big box stores alone a year.
If they only make 10 bucks a book thats about 10 million a year in book sales.
How much do you think they make in piecemeal purchases at DDB? I personally do not think they make a million a year in sales here. Maybe half as much in total counting memberships and sales.
They know the numbers though and have a plan to make more money.
That's not how the piecemeal worked. You'd only pay up to the total cost of the book. When you bought enough of the individual species that section became fully paid for and the rest was included. If you bought enough to hit the $29 (or however much the full digital source cost) that was it and you got the rest. If the book ever went on sale, it would be the discounted price minus what you already spent. It never went above the original cost.
Wizards spend $143 million for D&D Beyond. They wouldn't have done that if it wasn't making at least multiple millions. However, I would not be surprised if D&D Beyond functions on a whales and minnows model and the people using the a la carte options are minnows.
I'm much less concerned with whether ala carte was a major profit center. it was a digital tool with some level of positive return on investment. I'm more concerned with them removing useful functionality without warning.
actually, it's worse if it wasn't very profitable. if direct profitability is the motivator, what's next? character portrait image hosting? "legacy" dice? the forever-beta encounter tracker?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Loss leaders used to be a market thing, now its make it so anti consumer people just leave, anyone else notice this?
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
c+p my message from the discord server:
d&d beyond decision-makers: bring back a-la carte. please. literally every single piece of feedback i have seen about the removal of this has been negative.
your community, your customers, are crying out for this to return; as are our d&d beyond using friends who aren't commenting on the forums or in the discord server.
since all higher-up decision makers seem to care about are profits and - let's be honest - have absolutely no idea nor care about your community base and their opinions (spoken from my own career experience working for an extremely similar business model), let me put it this way from a corporate employee standpoint:
not acknowledging this mistake & reverting a-la carte purchases is a surefire way to lose thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in transactions and a severe loss of customers.
also: it's shady as HELL for not making any announcement about this change bar a semi-hidden news post on your website. (unless this was a decision the poor marketing/CM person who was forced to put it somewhere made to try and avoid as much backlash that they would recieve on front lines as possible, i sympathise - that's smart as hell and godspeed to you!)