I would note that another plausible cause for all of this is just staffing; the glacial pace of updates to the site strongly suggest that the development staff is quite small.
Now, it's important to note that they re-architected the store. That's not something you do to kill off an old product you don't like -- if you really object to a given product, you just stop selling it. It's also not something you do casually, because no matter how you do it, it's going to annoy your customers. Mostly, the reason you do something like that is because the old system needs some sort of update, and it's easier to write a new store than update the old one. Note that staffing comes into play here: if you've laid off the staff who understand how the old system worked, making those necessary updates on the old software may simply not be feasible. Another common trigger is that a key component is end-of-life and needs to be replaced.
Once you've decided that you're going to replace a component like that, you look at the features of the old store, prioritize them (based on how much you value them and how much work they are to implement), and implement as many of them as you can manage given your deadlines and available staff (if the deadline is sufficiently far in the future you may look at hiring new staff, that's generally not feasible in the near term). A la carte purchasing didn't make the cutoff. It's almost certainly not the only thing that didn't, it's just the one that the most people got upset about.
Now, does this mean that Wizards can be pressured into restoring the feature? In the short term, no: building and debugging a system like that takes time. On a longer time frame, maybe.
This is fine and would be legitimate if they simply explained it as such. In fact, it would be beneficial for WoTC to telegraph this via announcement. The lack of explanation reduces the likelihood of this scenario IMHO.
This is fine and would be legitimate if they simply explained it as such. In fact, it would be beneficial for WoTC to telegraph this via announcement. The lack of explanation reduces the likelihood of this scenario IMHO.
You greatly overrate the competence of Wizards at communicating. Hanlon's Razor really does apply here. This is not to say that incompetence and stupidity shouldn't be criticized.
This is fine and would be legitimate if they simply explained it as such. In fact, it would be beneficial for WoTC to telegraph this via announcement. The lack of explanation reduces the likelihood of this scenario IMHO.
You greatly overrate the competence of Wizards at communicating. Hanlon's Razor really does apply here. This is not to say that incompetence and stupidity shouldn't be criticized.
They have so many simple avenues for communication at this point that incompetency on that level stretches disbelief a bit.
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.
Why are you assuming categories like that? This is not a CCG. It does not function on luck, lockboxes, or any of the things that usually fit with a whales and minnows model.
Now, if you are arguing that their marketing department is looking at it that way, that is just another way of saying that they are making blind assumptions.
It probably does work on something close to a power-law distribution. You have the long tail who buy little or nothing, the people who buy one book, the people who buy a couple of books and a master subscription, all the way up to the ones who buy everything. Piecemeal buying probably smoothed out the graph some, but the bulk of it is whole-book purchases.
While it doesn't have the unlimited spend possibility of the typical "free" game, it's not dissimilar. (Though I bet "three books and a master subscription" is a significant bump in the graph.)
This is probably close to it. They have said something like 20% of the player base (DMs, usually) does the vast majority of the purchasing.
But this would be by design, no? At a table, players and the DM, you cannot expect everyone to buy everything because that literally doesn't make sense? If this was the case, hosting a game for just six people would cost hundreds of dollars of investment. Which other game on earth costs hundreds of dollars to host six people?
Yeah, it's by design. DDB is pretty clearly set up to replicate the usual table experience, where only one person has the core books, maybe with an extra copy of the PH running around. This is why piecemeal buying likely isn't that big a deal to WotC -- the game's culture doesn't encourage building characters with stuff only you own, so it mostly sells only to people who build characters outside of games, and groups that have the print books and don't want to buy them digitally as well. (And various other relatively small populations.)
You greedy bastards. lol. Do you think we're going to dish out for the full-price books now instead? Short-sightedness is your class speciality now isn't it WOTC? You just fail your customers again and again. Unbelievable.
Hell if they said "no more individual item/feat/class option purchases, only the full sections" I'd have been okay with it. I mean, I kind of do that anyway. "You can no longer individually buy the Sword of Slaying Great Dragons, but you can still buy just the magic item bundle from The Book of Cool Dragon Stuff."
Agree that this would have been a pretty good middle ground, if only they'd communicated and weighed up the options first.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
Hell if they said "no more individual item/feat/class option purchases, only the full sections" I'd have been okay with it. I mean, I kind of do that anyway. "You can no longer individually buy the Sword of Slaying Great Dragons, but you can still buy just the magic item bundle from The Book of Cool Dragon Stuff."
Agree that this would have been a pretty good middle ground, if only they'd communicated and weighed up the options first.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
The longer they take to say this wasn't motivated by greed, the more motivated by greed it looks.
Well, it didn't take long to hit my first instance of this being an obstacle. Playing Tales from the Yawning Portal tonight, up to the Hidden Shrine adventure and a point where the players found a magic item. Would have immediately purchased it from the marketplace, but now I'm up for the full cost of the book... unless I apparently manually figure out how much of it I already bought a la carte (which is presumably most things up until this point) and contact support for a discount? Seems like too much effort, so homebrew it will have to be? Truly a sad state of affairs.
Yeah, it's by design. DDB is pretty clearly set up to replicate the usual table experience, where only one person has the core books, maybe with an extra copy of the PH running around. This is why piecemeal buying likely isn't that big a deal to WotC -- the game's culture doesn't encourage building characters with stuff only you own, so it mostly sells only to people who build characters outside of games, and groups that have the print books and don't want to buy them digitally as well. (And various other relatively small populations.)
To me, that doesn't even seem like a good business model. It seems like they would want to find ways sell products to both DM's and players, espeically since, at least at indiviual tables, the players outnumber the DM.
Hell if they said "no more individual item/feat/class option purchases, only the full sections" I'd have been okay with it. I mean, I kind of do that anyway. "You can no longer individually buy the Sword of Slaying Great Dragons, but you can still buy just the magic item bundle from The Book of Cool Dragon Stuff."
Agree that this would have been a pretty good middle ground, if only they'd communicated and weighed up the options first.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
The longer they take to say this wasn't motivated by greed, the more motivated by greed it looks.
Ok, step back a moment. Perspective.
This is a for profit company. This is not a charity. D&D is a luxury product, not a necessity. They do not owe any of us anything, nor are any of us going to starve or go without water or shelter if their products are not available at the prices we prefer.
There is no moral high ground here on our parts.
The main risk at pricing too high or too inconveniently is theirs, not ours. It is their bottom line at risk, not ours. It is they who risk going without food or shelter if their products fail, not us. Note that does not make any of us charities, either! None of us have any obligation to purchase, either.
Personally, I think this is a horrid business decision on their part, but 'greed' is not a term that applies to such situations in any conventional sense.
Hell if they said "no more individual item/feat/class option purchases, only the full sections" I'd have been okay with it. I mean, I kind of do that anyway. "You can no longer individually buy the Sword of Slaying Great Dragons, but you can still buy just the magic item bundle from The Book of Cool Dragon Stuff."
Agree that this would have been a pretty good middle ground, if only they'd communicated and weighed up the options first.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
The longer they take to say this wasn't motivated by greed, the more motivated by greed it looks.
Ok, step back a moment. Perspective.
This is a for profit company. This is not a charity. D&D is a luxury product, not a necessity. They do not owe any of us anything, nor are any of us going to starve or go without water or shelter if their products are not available at the prices we prefer.
There is no moral high ground here on our parts.
The main risk at pricing too high or too inconveniently is theirs, not ours. It is their bottom line at risk, not ours. It is they who risk going without food or shelter if their products fail, not us. Note that does not make any of us charities, either! None of us have any obligation to purchase, either.
Personally, I think this is a horrid business decision on their part, but 'greed' is not a term that applies to such situations in any conventional sense.
"They do not owe us anything" is such a sign of complacency in lieu of blatant anti-consumer tactics. Even if they are doing financially well the greed of upper management and shareholder's short term profit will be first in consideration of the worker bee in the company. We're seeing it happen all over, companies with record high profits laying of people in large swaths to 'restructure'. Yes, the do owe us because without us they don't get to keep operating. Piss off your entire fanbase and watch as the revenue dwindle.
You say there's no moral high ground but parade with it in your first sentence.
This is a change that NEEDS to be reverted. It is absolutely ridiculous that after WOTC bought them things got to this level. I am considering switching to and entire platform altogether. There are so many great platforms that provide the same service. The only reason I was using DDB is because I was supporting the game through it but if they treat their customers like this (considering all the issues they had the past 2 years) I don't think they are worth the consideration I am giving them. Both me and my players used the individual purchases whenever we needed something new just for the convenience and for providing support back to the creators but everyone in my group just about had it with this last straw. I an genuinely considering making my own private character sheet and automation app just out of spite at this point.
The website is harder to navigate, there are so many ribbon bars that cover the screen. I did some math and 23% of the page is covered in the 4 ribbons that are on the marketplace page. Everything got cluttered. Functionality got removed from multiple places in the website. Features that were promised a while ago were never implemented. Things have gotten more expensive. The books provide less useful materials than they used to. What's even the point in providing support anymore? Actually now that I think about it after writing all this I realize that I should not even care about it anymore I think I'm done.
To me, that doesn't even seem like a good business model. It seems like they would want to find ways sell products to both DM's and players, espeically since, at least at indiviual tables, the players outnumber the DM.
Thing is though, that's essentially what a la carte purchasing was; even if your DM owns a lot of the books, and you have access via content sharing in a campaign, you only have access via content sharing in that campaign.
If you want to privately create some characters as possible back-ups, or for future use, or just try out builds etc. then you need to unlock any content you require for yourself, which a la carte purchasing made significantly more accessible. This is also true for any players who just prefer to use a digital tool for their character sheet, rather than doing it with pen and paper; there will be plenty of groups where DMs are not really interested in double dipping for digital content, but players might still prefer to use the digital tools.
Another common case mentioned is what if you'd like to use a race or sub-class from an adventure or campaign book that your group doesn't need, because you've no plans to run Spelljammer for example? A la carte made it easy to just pick up the one or two you needed, or buy all the races just so you have access should you ever need it.
Put it's not as if that method of purchasing costs anything significant; once a digital book is made it's pretty much 100% profit aside from hosting fees and support staff costs, but divided amongst millions of sales those are negligible, meanwhile a la carte is enabling players who wouldn't otherwise purchase anything to spend a few dollars here and there, and doing that adds up when you have millions of users playing campaigns lasting months or years. If a la carte was actually some kind of loss, D&D Beyond can feel free to publish some evidence backing that up, until then we have no reason to assume otherwise considering that's the model the site has used pretty much from its creation (certainly for years before Wizards of the Coast bought it for a substantial sum of money).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
"They do not owe us anything" is such a sign of complacency in lieu of blatant anti-consumer tactics. Even if they are doing financially well the greed of upper management and shareholder's short term profit will be first in consideration of the worker bee in the company. We're seeing it happen all over, companies with record high profits laying of people in large swaths to 'restructure'. Yes, the do owe us because without us they don't get to keep operating. Piss off your entire fanbase and watch as the revenue dwindle.
You say there's no moral high ground but parade with it in your first sentence.
There is no moral high ground on their part, either.
Why are you assuming there will be even short term profit from this for them?
That they need sales to stay in business does not mean they owe us. It means they need to offer product we are willing to buy at the price they ask or else we will simply not purchase it. That is not the same as 'owing us.' Someone else's property remains theirs until it is sold and they are not normally obligated to set any given price nor to sell it at all. They can actually simply choose to stop selling the product at all. Personally, I think that would be even more foolish than this decision to drop a la carte, but they can. We are not owed the existence of this game, at all, let alone at any pricing we think should be.
When they set the price higher than people are willing to pay for the product, people will stop buying the product. This is one of the most basic principles of economics. It is very likely they are doing that here.
But just as I am saying to you, they do not owe us, I am also saying to them, we do not owe them, either. They decide the price at which they are willing to sell, we decide the price at which we are willing to purchase, and where and when and if our limits overlap enough for there to be agreement, there will be sales. No owing involved on either side.
And if a seller, any seller, is setting their price higher than a buyer is willing to pay, that is simply the limits of each. The seller is no more being greedy wanting to receive more in return for their product than the buyer is wanting to pay less for what they purchase. At least, where luxuries are concerned.
Yeah, it's by design. DDB is pretty clearly set up to replicate the usual table experience, where only one person has the core books, maybe with an extra copy of the PH running around. This is why piecemeal buying likely isn't that big a deal to WotC -- the game's culture doesn't encourage building characters with stuff only you own, so it mostly sells only to people who build characters outside of games, and groups that have the print books and don't want to buy them digitally as well. (And various other relatively small populations.)
To me, that doesn't even seem like a good business model. It seems like they would want to find ways sell products to both DM's and players, espeically since, at least at indiviual tables, the players outnumber the DM.
It's the business model they had. When you're working with paper books, there's nothing you can do to stop people passing them around, and that's the competition when you try to introduce online tools. Convenience is not going to win out over "now everybody has to buy the books".
If they'd gone with keeping piecemeal buying, but removed content sharing, the yelling would be orders of magnitude worse, and justifiably so. That would collapse the DDB business model. The groups I'm in, who are scattered across multiple time zones, would be migrated to google docs within weeks. It'd be annoying AF, but we'd do it. Within a few months, there'd be unofficial tooling being circulated. You'd have to fill in the data yourself, but somebody would have a good enough character sheet built in google sheets or something. I think such things already exist, but they don't see much use because they're way less convenient.
Despite what you see some people claiming, WotC do actually understand how people play this game.
Yeah, it's by design. DDB is pretty clearly set up to replicate the usual table experience, where only one person has the core books, maybe with an extra copy of the PH running around. This is why piecemeal buying likely isn't that big a deal to WotC -- the game's culture doesn't encourage building characters with stuff only you own, so it mostly sells only to people who build characters outside of games, and groups that have the print books and don't want to buy them digitally as well. (And various other relatively small populations.)
To me, that doesn't even seem like a good business model. It seems like they would want to find ways sell products to both DM's and players, espeically since, at least at indiviual tables, the players outnumber the DM.
It's the business model they had. When you're working with paper books, there's nothing you can do to stop people passing them around, and that's the competition when you try to introduce online tools. Convenience is not going to win out over "now everybody has to buy the books".
If they'd gone with keeping piecemeal buying, but removed content sharing, the yelling would be orders of magnitude worse, and justifiably so. That would collapse the DDB business model. The groups I'm in, who are scattered across multiple time zones, would be migrated to google docs within weeks. It'd be annoying AF, but we'd do it. Within a few months, there'd be unofficial tooling being circulated. You'd have to fill in the data yourself, but somebody would have a good enough character sheet built in google sheets or something. I think such things already exist, but they don't see much use because they're way less convenient.
Despite what you see some people claiming, WotC do actually understand how people play this game.
Those tools have been around far longer than DDB. DDB just made it a lot easier, and piece meal made it an easy choice to switch, that is not to say DDB doesn't have issues, several of which go unaddressed going on 8 years and wotc's first choice was addressing (and screwing up) the store, yet still no dark mode (though they claim accessibility is important unless it is visual issues that dark mode would solve), the utter failure that the search function is, an owned content page and the plethora of other places the time and money could have been spent that would have filled the forum with thanks and accolades.
Instead they just spit on their users and are unhappy when this dis was not well received. No wotc does not understand their players at all.
the Kellogs cereal CEO had a bad interview that led to a boycott. the metgala embraced a tone-deaf expression of inequity that led to sharp criticism and wide-ranging ad revenue disruption. the suits know about this stuff even if you guys don't follow it. simple solution or not, they aren't going to release a statement now without a good long think first. and anyway it's important to note who a potential statement would be directed at: fans, a vocal minority. so if they haven't made a statement by this friday (the classic day to dump unflattering news), then it's either because that minority is of low value (already own the product, not the target of ads) or the statement would put at risk the expected continued influx of new users (wouldn't look good in gotcha headlines) or both.
i'm saying we might not get to know why this happened, but it is not coming across as being on the low-brain-use side of hanlon's.
They have so many simple avenues for communication at this point that incompetency on that level stretches disbelief a bit.
What on earth gave you the impression Wizards was competent at PR? They've had multiple debacles over the years. The reality is that their management of this situation is incompetent regardless of their motivation, so it doesn't tell you anything more than that they're bad at PR.
Hell if they said "no more individual item/feat/class option purchases, only the full sections" I'd have been okay with it. I mean, I kind of do that anyway. "You can no longer individually buy the Sword of Slaying Great Dragons, but you can still buy just the magic item bundle from The Book of Cool Dragon Stuff."
Agree that this would have been a pretty good middle ground, if only they'd communicated and weighed up the options first.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
The longer they take to say this wasn't motivated by greed, the more motivated by greed it looks.
Ok, step back a moment. Perspective.
This is a for profit company. This is not a charity. D&D is a luxury product, not a necessity. They do not owe any of us anything, nor are any of us going to starve or go without water or shelter if their products are not available at the prices we prefer.
There is no moral high ground here on our parts.
The main risk at pricing too high or too inconveniently is theirs, not ours. It is their bottom line at risk, not ours. It is they who risk going without food or shelter if their products fail, not us. Note that does not make any of us charities, either! None of us have any obligation to purchase, either.
Personally, I think this is a horrid business decision on their part, but 'greed' is not a term that applies to such situations in any conventional sense.
Purposely making a product worse in order to squeeze more money out of it's customers is objectively greedy, acting like the only form of greed is the kind related to resources is so blatantly disingenuous it's unreal.
Acting like they're going to fail and go hungry tomorrow because we didn't all buy overpriced books is also incredibly disingenuous.
Overall it just feels like you're playing Devil's Advocate for people who don't deserve it.
They have so many simple avenues for communication at this point that incompetency on that level stretches disbelief a bit.
What on earth gave you the impression Wizards was competent at PR? They've had multiple debacles over the years. The reality is that their management of this situation is incompetent regardless of their motivation, so it doesn't tell you anything more than that they're bad at PR.
This. Let us not forget, this is a company that failed to respond to the biggest crisis in recent D&D’s history - the OGL leak - for, what, ten days? That is not entirely PR’s fault - legal and management would have to be part of the conversation… but, guess what? If you are having a problem big enough that the Washington Post reports on the story, you work round the clock to get your message out as quickly as possible… and you try to make a message that doesn’t seem dismissive of your community’s concerns.
As far as I can tell, the only competent community-facing person Wizards has on the D&D side of things is LaTiaJacquise - they at least listen, respond, and clearly use language players understand (no easy feat - we are the community that threw a fit when folks forgot the meaning of the word “draft). But the rest of their team? Consistently (and nearly universally) making problems far worse than they are through slow, often tone-deaf responses.
This is fine and would be legitimate if they simply explained it as such. In fact, it would be beneficial for WoTC to telegraph this via announcement. The lack of explanation reduces the likelihood of this scenario IMHO.
You greatly overrate the competence of Wizards at communicating. Hanlon's Razor really does apply here. This is not to say that incompetence and stupidity shouldn't be criticized.
They have so many simple avenues for communication at this point that incompetency on that level stretches disbelief a bit.
Yeah, it's by design. DDB is pretty clearly set up to replicate the usual table experience, where only one person has the core books, maybe with an extra copy of the PH running around. This is why piecemeal buying likely isn't that big a deal to WotC -- the game's culture doesn't encourage building characters with stuff only you own, so it mostly sells only to people who build characters outside of games, and groups that have the print books and don't want to buy them digitally as well. (And various other relatively small populations.)
You greedy bastards. lol. Do you think we're going to dish out for the full-price books now instead? Short-sightedness is your class speciality now isn't it WOTC? You just fail your customers again and again. Unbelievable.
Be welcome, but be wary.
The fact it’s been two weeks and the only person who has said anything is one community manager makes this whole situation a lot worse. The longer they wait the less likely we are to continue supporting them even if they make this right.
The longer they take to say this wasn't motivated by greed, the more motivated by greed it looks.
Well, it didn't take long to hit my first instance of this being an obstacle. Playing Tales from the Yawning Portal tonight, up to the Hidden Shrine adventure and a point where the players found a magic item. Would have immediately purchased it from the marketplace, but now I'm up for the full cost of the book... unless I apparently manually figure out how much of it I already bought a la carte (which is presumably most things up until this point) and contact support for a discount? Seems like too much effort, so homebrew it will have to be? Truly a sad state of affairs.
To me, that doesn't even seem like a good business model. It seems like they would want to find ways sell products to both DM's and players, espeically since, at least at indiviual tables, the players outnumber the DM.
Ok, step back a moment. Perspective.
This is a for profit company. This is not a charity. D&D is a luxury product, not a necessity. They do not owe any of us anything, nor are any of us going to starve or go without water or shelter if their products are not available at the prices we prefer.
There is no moral high ground here on our parts.
The main risk at pricing too high or too inconveniently is theirs, not ours. It is their bottom line at risk, not ours. It is they who risk going without food or shelter if their products fail, not us. Note that does not make any of us charities, either! None of us have any obligation to purchase, either.
Personally, I think this is a horrid business decision on their part, but 'greed' is not a term that applies to such situations in any conventional sense.
"They do not owe us anything" is such a sign of complacency in lieu of blatant anti-consumer tactics. Even if they are doing financially well the greed of upper management and shareholder's short term profit will be first in consideration of the worker bee in the company. We're seeing it happen all over, companies with record high profits laying of people in large swaths to 'restructure'. Yes, the do owe us because without us they don't get to keep operating. Piss off your entire fanbase and watch as the revenue dwindle.
You say there's no moral high ground but parade with it in your first sentence.
This is a change that NEEDS to be reverted. It is absolutely ridiculous that after WOTC bought them things got to this level. I am considering switching to and entire platform altogether. There are so many great platforms that provide the same service. The only reason I was using DDB is because I was supporting the game through it but if they treat their customers like this (considering all the issues they had the past 2 years) I don't think they are worth the consideration I am giving them. Both me and my players used the individual purchases whenever we needed something new just for the convenience and for providing support back to the creators but everyone in my group just about had it with this last straw. I an genuinely considering making my own private character sheet and automation app just out of spite at this point.
The website is harder to navigate, there are so many ribbon bars that cover the screen. I did some math and 23% of the page is covered in the 4 ribbons that are on the marketplace page. Everything got cluttered. Functionality got removed from multiple places in the website. Features that were promised a while ago were never implemented. Things have gotten more expensive. The books provide less useful materials than they used to. What's even the point in providing support anymore? Actually now that I think about it after writing all this I realize that I should not even care about it anymore I think I'm done.
Thing is though, that's essentially what a la carte purchasing was; even if your DM owns a lot of the books, and you have access via content sharing in a campaign, you only have access via content sharing in that campaign.
If you want to privately create some characters as possible back-ups, or for future use, or just try out builds etc. then you need to unlock any content you require for yourself, which a la carte purchasing made significantly more accessible. This is also true for any players who just prefer to use a digital tool for their character sheet, rather than doing it with pen and paper; there will be plenty of groups where DMs are not really interested in double dipping for digital content, but players might still prefer to use the digital tools.
Another common case mentioned is what if you'd like to use a race or sub-class from an adventure or campaign book that your group doesn't need, because you've no plans to run Spelljammer for example? A la carte made it easy to just pick up the one or two you needed, or buy all the races just so you have access should you ever need it.
Put it's not as if that method of purchasing costs anything significant; once a digital book is made it's pretty much 100% profit aside from hosting fees and support staff costs, but divided amongst millions of sales those are negligible, meanwhile a la carte is enabling players who wouldn't otherwise purchase anything to spend a few dollars here and there, and doing that adds up when you have millions of users playing campaigns lasting months or years. If a la carte was actually some kind of loss, D&D Beyond can feel free to publish some evidence backing that up, until then we have no reason to assume otherwise considering that's the model the site has used pretty much from its creation (certainly for years before Wizards of the Coast bought it for a substantial sum of money).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
There is no moral high ground on their part, either.
Why are you assuming there will be even short term profit from this for them?
That they need sales to stay in business does not mean they owe us. It means they need to offer product we are willing to buy at the price they ask or else we will simply not purchase it. That is not the same as 'owing us.' Someone else's property remains theirs until it is sold and they are not normally obligated to set any given price nor to sell it at all. They can actually simply choose to stop selling the product at all. Personally, I think that would be even more foolish than this decision to drop a la carte, but they can. We are not owed the existence of this game, at all, let alone at any pricing we think should be.
When they set the price higher than people are willing to pay for the product, people will stop buying the product. This is one of the most basic principles of economics. It is very likely they are doing that here.
But just as I am saying to you, they do not owe us, I am also saying to them, we do not owe them, either. They decide the price at which they are willing to sell, we decide the price at which we are willing to purchase, and where and when and if our limits overlap enough for there to be agreement, there will be sales. No owing involved on either side.
And if a seller, any seller, is setting their price higher than a buyer is willing to pay, that is simply the limits of each. The seller is no more being greedy wanting to receive more in return for their product than the buyer is wanting to pay less for what they purchase. At least, where luxuries are concerned.
It's the business model they had. When you're working with paper books, there's nothing you can do to stop people passing them around, and that's the competition when you try to introduce online tools. Convenience is not going to win out over "now everybody has to buy the books".
If they'd gone with keeping piecemeal buying, but removed content sharing, the yelling would be orders of magnitude worse, and justifiably so. That would collapse the DDB business model. The groups I'm in, who are scattered across multiple time zones, would be migrated to google docs within weeks. It'd be annoying AF, but we'd do it. Within a few months, there'd be unofficial tooling being circulated. You'd have to fill in the data yourself, but somebody would have a good enough character sheet built in google sheets or something. I think such things already exist, but they don't see much use because they're way less convenient.
Despite what you see some people claiming, WotC do actually understand how people play this game.
Those tools have been around far longer than DDB. DDB just made it a lot easier, and piece meal made it an easy choice to switch, that is not to say DDB doesn't have issues, several of which go unaddressed going on 8 years and wotc's first choice was addressing (and screwing up) the store, yet still no dark mode (though they claim accessibility is important unless it is visual issues that dark mode would solve), the utter failure that the search function is, an owned content page and the plethora of other places the time and money could have been spent that would have filled the forum with thanks and accolades.
Instead they just spit on their users and are unhappy when this dis was not well received. No wotc does not understand their players at all.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
the Kellogs cereal CEO had a bad interview that led to a boycott. the metgala embraced a tone-deaf expression of inequity that led to sharp criticism and wide-ranging ad revenue disruption. the suits know about this stuff even if you guys don't follow it. simple solution or not, they aren't going to release a statement now without a good long think first. and anyway it's important to note who a potential statement would be directed at: fans, a vocal minority. so if they haven't made a statement by this friday (the classic day to dump unflattering news), then it's either because that minority is of low value (already own the product, not the target of ads) or the statement would put at risk the expected continued influx of new users (wouldn't look good in gotcha headlines) or both.
i'm saying we might not get to know why this happened, but it is not coming across as being on the low-brain-use side of hanlon's.
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!
What on earth gave you the impression Wizards was competent at PR? They've had multiple debacles over the years. The reality is that their management of this situation is incompetent regardless of their motivation, so it doesn't tell you anything more than that they're bad at PR.
Purposely making a product worse in order to squeeze more money out of it's customers is objectively greedy, acting like the only form of greed is the kind related to resources is so blatantly disingenuous it's unreal.
Acting like they're going to fail and go hungry tomorrow because we didn't all buy overpriced books is also incredibly disingenuous.
Overall it just feels like you're playing Devil's Advocate for people who don't deserve it.
This. Let us not forget, this is a company that failed to respond to the biggest crisis in recent D&D’s history - the OGL leak - for, what, ten days? That is not entirely PR’s fault - legal and management would have to be part of the conversation… but, guess what? If you are having a problem big enough that the Washington Post reports on the story, you work round the clock to get your message out as quickly as possible… and you try to make a message that doesn’t seem dismissive of your community’s concerns.
As far as I can tell, the only competent community-facing person Wizards has on the D&D side of things is LaTiaJacquise - they at least listen, respond, and clearly use language players understand (no easy feat - we are the community that threw a fit when folks forgot the meaning of the word “draft). But the rest of their team? Consistently (and nearly universally) making problems far worse than they are through slow, often tone-deaf responses.