This was a bad choice. Please roll this decision back ASAP. You are going to lose players and LOSE revenue in the future over this change. Pure. F.cking. Greed. And it's not going to work.

Imagine being so stupid that you get rid of what are effectively micro transactions on a gaming platform in 2024.

Remarkably bad move. I think all of my purchases here have been a la carte because I don't need the majority of the information in those books. This is not going to cause me to buy full books, I'm just going to find the missing information elsewhere and go back to making characters in PDF character sheets and continue playing my games on another platform.

Quote from WhitestElric >>

All of your competitors offer some kind of digital support for their products, whether that is working through Bits and Mortar, providing PDFs with proof of in store purchase, putting digital access codes in the books, or just sending the PDFs to anyone that asks and shows proof of a physical copy. We're talking Paizo, Modiphius, Free League, Evil Hat, Goodman Games, Exalted Funeral, pretty much everyone else offers SOMETHING. WotC is the ONLY major RPG publisher that does not do this in any way whatsoever, and because of that it cannot be argued that D&D Beyond now direct selling all the books in exclusive physical + digital bundles isn't undercutting FLGS'. DDB isn't poaching sales from retailers because DDB ships a week earlier, it's poaching sales because WotC refuses to provide digital support for retailers, and WotC knows that and is still trying to eat the lunch of FLGS'. 

Can D&D's competitors really offer what D&D can provide in terms of convenience and quality of life though? What 5e is really lacking are PDFs, but we have a substitute for that in the form of digital compendiums on Beyond, and its equivalents on Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry. I cannot comment on other companies' compendium since I have not tried them, but what Beyond's compendium lack in reliability and access (you need internect connection whereas PDF do not), it is made up for with ease of navigation through hyperlinks and integration with the database.

D&D is not the most competitive on price either, but it did have à la carte purchases on Beyond at one point to be somewhat competitive. I do not know of any other TTRPG that sells content at that individual level of granularity. Pathfinder's rules are completely free whereas D&D's rules are not, but D&D got UA for free. UA content is not super polished compared to paid published content, but UA is free content.

In terms of physical tools, the only TTRPG that comes close to Wizards is Pathfinder. Both got dice, dice trays, dice bags (red dragon dice bag is super cute), dice towers, GM screens, rule cards, book tabs, book bags, notebooks, character folders, minis, flat minis, tokens, terrain, mats, and whatever miscellaneous products you can think of. While you can use generic products for some of them, you cannot really use generic products for various rule cards, and having tailored book tabs and GM screens makes running prewritten adventures easier.

In terms of digital tools, I think D&D got the best character builder. Despite its many flaws, it is the easiest to use and the best looking one. D&D and Pathfinder both got really good databases, but I think Pathfinder edges out in this one since theirs is completely free. I do not know any other TTRPGs with databases as easy to use as Wizards' and Paizo's though. For VTTs, unless a TTRPG is really small and obscure, I think most TTRPGs are on pretty equal footing in this aspect being available on Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry.

And in terms of having a community and finding other people to play and bond with, D&D by far is the easiest one to get into and start. Pathfinder is not as easy as D&D, but it should not be that much more difficult either. Both got organized play in AL and PS. For every other TTRPG though, people are going to have more difficulty finding a community and group of people to play with, whether online or in real life. 

Quote from Driscale >>

Quote from AuroraMoon >>

hypothetically say it costs dndbeyond $20 to be able to sell a single copy of a book, they in return sell it to the customer for $40 (a potential $20 profit), now if the customer only spends say $6 to cherry pick out what they want creates a potential lose of $14 per book 

 

you know what's worse than a $14 loss? a 100% loss from people not buying the book at all

That assumes only those two avenues exist; if they get people who were slowly buying a la carte buying whole books instead, then they just need that segment to offset the people who are marching off in a huff over the change. Which is obviously what they expect to happen, or they wouldn't have made the shift.

I know most of the posts are about classes, feats items.... but it appears the copendium is no longer an option either.

I kinda want to stay out of this, but I confess to being angry about it.

i have bought a few books after buying enough little things, but given how generally useless to me most stuff is, unless there is a super compelling reason for me to buy. Book, it just means fewer purchases from me.

i would have bought some bits from the Vecna thing, but this wipes out the entire book for me — wasn’t interested in the “story” or adventure, but the little stuff and adds would have been nice. So, probably a good 20 bucks lost entirely there.

If they continue past practice of adding new stuff into adventures, it means they lose any money they could have gotten from me. 

I don’t hold animosity about it, though — I am not going to shout and throw things are write vicious letters or report them to some Twitter hack or YT doofus over it — just isn’t that big a deal.

they lost money doing this — and the redesign of the store is pretty and all, I grant, but not exciting enough.

I would love to see the break down numbers of exactly what has been piecemeal purchased.

What was so popular that people just had to have it.
And how many of those people bought anything else.

Those who spent the most money could have their opinions weighted better.

I know I'm not the only one voicing my opinnion about this, but I feel like it is something worth bringing up as loudly as possible. 

I'm a fairly casual D&D player. Mostly a player, but occasionally I also DM. I have purchased all the core books I deem necessary (physical copies, but out of convenience also digitally). I don't get the chance to play as often as I'd like, and because of that buying entire books feels very expensive. This is why being able to buy just the components I need was a huge selling point for using D&D Beyond. I was able to pick and choose things I needed for my campaigns, even on the fly if something came up mid-game. With the update, that option is gone, and I am not about to start buying entire books either. For the sake of other casual players with smaller budgets like me, please bring back the a la carte purchasing options.

I agree. 

I don't see myself making any future purchases from DDB or WOTC now that a la carte purchase options have been removed from D&D Beyond (even though I've always purchased the full books in both physical and digital formats). IMHO this change clearly shows that WOTC no longer cares about their fan base at all.

Even after all of your recent ludicrous shenanigans, missteps, bad press, and apologies, I've stuck with the D&D brand as a loyal fan (of over 40 years). I can no longer do that. WOTC is making it abundantly clear that fans are irrelevant to them and only deep-pocketed customers matter (though even their relevance seems to be limited to how recently they purchased anything). I had expected to spend a lot with WOTC this year due to the new sourcebooks coming out. Now, I think I'll spend that money on an entirely different system (even though I'm a legendary bundle owner, a master tier subscriber, and have an entire bookshelf full of official 5e physical books in my office).

Worse, this is yet another bad business decision. Most of the a la carte customers you had made those purchases because they either couldn't afford a full book or couldn't justify the cost when there were only a few things in it that they wanted. You may think this will turn a la carte purchasers into full-book customers, but in reality, I believe you'll likely just lose them all altogether. It will be interesting to see what WOTC / DDB revenues look like in a year. Even with the release of (most of) the updated 5e books (or whatever you're calling them this week) I suspect DDB's and probably WOTC's revenues will be significantly down by then.

Why would you throw away all those future purchases? You can't honestly believe you'll turn all of those customers into full book buyers.

It appears to me that WOTC is intent on pushing D&D fans away. Well congratulations, you succeeded. I'm done.

I'm in the same boat as you. I just started playing about a year ago and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on something that I'll barely if ever use. I've created several characters though by buying the individual components that I needed. I think that letting people buy the individual part sand pieces will only encourage them to eventually buy the whole book. If I bought $10 worth of stuff and can get a book for $20 instead of $30, that book now enter into the "Might as well buy it" territory. They are going to lose more money than they anticipate.

Any statement from WotC?

Quote from sangros_ >>

Any statement from WotC?

 

 
The official announcement is on the homepage of D&D Beyond.  You can also look at the staff response on this thread - at the top of this thread, there is a “jump to staff post” button (you have to go to landscape mode in mobile to find it).  That takes you to the first staff post on the subject - and each staff post has a button to jump to the next staff post. 

Beyond that, nothing presently. 

on regular PC web-browing, the jump to first staff post is the red 'B' at the top of the forum. 

Brand new player and subscribed member here. I bought the digital Handbook for $30 a few weeks ago and started my first campaign as a Barbarian. I'm loving the game so far and have just reached level 3 where I get to pick my primal path. I've spent the last week or so exploring and comparing the options for my character in great detail only to come back ready to purchase one a la carte and find the option has been removed. What an absolute disappointment this is, knowing I could have purchased the one I was considering a week ago but wanting, to my detriment, to learn more about this great game. I will NOT be spending another $30 on Xanthar's Guide just to be able to have a specific primal class. So now I'm stuck with my second option which came with the Handbook. So anyway, as a new member of this DDB platform I'm certainly starting with a sour taste in my mouth and now considering going the old pencil and paper route. Please DDB fix this.

Quote from LaTiaJacquise >>

Thank you so much for this perspective. I used to run youth D&D tables for my FLGS and am a huge evangelist of our Educator Resources program, so I can sympathize with how you feel about that.

I will say that the goal of selling physical/digital bundles on DDB was never to jeopardize the FLGS. In fact, we've begun to incentivize shopping your FLGS by offering them the ability to sell physical copies early, similar to the digital early access program. I've always seen it as increasing the ways people can get their hands on D&D, but I agree that it can look differently from other perspectives.

 
I never bought D&D books from my FLGS that I already didn't specifically want to buy in completion. If I wanted the full contents of a book, I'd buy a phyiscal copy because if I'm spending full retail price then I want to actually own the media.

The strength of the a la carte feature is the way it works in tandem with the character creator. So many of us players regularly build out characters we may never even get a chance to play just to be able to visualize them more easily. I peronally have around 75-80 characters on D&D Beyond, most of which are just theoretical. I've previously deleted many beyond that. Whenever I wanted to build with a feature that I didn't have yet, I'd go purchase that feature a la carte.

Before D&DBeyond and the a la carte feature I'd just make characters on PDFs, because all the class features/spells/feats/etc exist on the internet somewhere. Or if I'm feeling really analog I could go see if my library has copies and scan/copy the pages I need. The value of D&D Beyond is that is provided a one-stop shop to do it all and the "convenience fee" of the a la carte purchases was manageable. The a la carte feature made it so I spend more time on D&D Beyond, which in the attention economy of today's world is only a boon for WotC.

This is all to say, at least based on my consumer habits, the a la carte feature was never taking away purchases from my FLGS.