Bring Back A La Carte

Quote from Lamoon01 >>

For those interested, a quote from Brian Perry from his AMA on Reddit 

'First, we know that a la carte disappeared without much notice, and we apologize for the way it was handled. Things like this AMA help create the level of transparency the community deserves. We are going to be working on ways to give players access to smaller packages of content based on what character they want to build. A la carte exactly like before is unlikely. What was starting to happen with tens of thousands of items needed to be individually checked for entitlements by our services. This was impacting site speed and stability.'

Thanks for posting that.  That sounds like a fair explanation to me for altering it, but removing it entirely with little notice still feels bad.  It's just a shame it's in an AMA somewhere we have to find or rely on the informed kindness of someone else on the forum remembering.

Realistically I think most people would gladly sacrifice the ability to buy a single item if they retained the ability to buy all the items in a book for $5-$10.  Same for feats and even classes.

Hopefully they really are looking into bringing it back in some capacity.

Forever wishing they would bring a la carte back... There are so many subclasses I would have paid a few dollars for, but I really don't want to buy a whole book... again... because I already have them as physical copies... I also think it's insane that we would have to buy the books twice to be able to use them on d&d beyond AND to have physical copies. I feel like doing something like they do with the Warhammer codex's would be great. They shrink wrap the codex's and you can put in a code to have access to everything in the app. Just have to buy once.

Quote from ChemicalCatastrophe >>

They shrink wrap the codex's and you can put in a code to have access to everything in the app. Just have to buy once.

 It's been brought up before: Any copies where the shrink wrap is broken instantly become less valuable and the LGS has to eat the cost. It's risky to even carry those.

Quote from ChemicalCatastrophe >>

Forever wishing they would bring a la carte back... There are so many subclasses I would have paid a few dollars for, but I really don't want to buy a whole book... again... because I already have them as physical copies... I also think it's insane that we would have to buy the books twice to be able to use them on d&d beyond AND to have physical copies. I feel like doing something like they do with the Warhammer codex's would be great. They shrink wrap the codex's and you can put in a code to have access to everything in the app. Just have to buy once.

 a la cart i think won't return, they literally made the class stater packs  as an cheaper alternative, but having an access code in the phisikal books I think would not be a so bad Idea, but these books have to be more expensive than the books witout code( bcause both should exist some with code and some without it),  you also have to pay VTT of books for other VTT platforms, but a la cart may never retun because of the growiing list of spells, backround, Monster, Magic Items and Feats that make it less useful. This is the reason the Starter Packs are an alternative for is and yes there not all options are in there but it is a compromise.

Agreed, please bring a la carte purchasing back!

Ahh... I see. That makes sense. :(

I think they're using the new subscription system to drop content as you do it a la carte. With the difference that you can't choose what do you want to buy...

That reason for no a la carte is  BS.  With everything they've added since removing it, they've added a ton of workload.  Site speed and reliability can be handled in much better ways, than just removing content.  In the past I even bought feats that I should have had access to in my digital books, but couldn't.  Not only is the really frustrating customers, they are losing out on another income stream.  I think it would benefit Wizards to do an analysis on the money they are potentially losing due to this change.

Quote from Ebo >>

That reason for no a la carte is  BS.  With everything they've added since removing it, they've added a ton of workload.  Site speed and reliability can be handled in much better ways, than just removing content.  In the past I even bought feats that I should have had access to in my digital books, but couldn't.  Not only is the really frustrating customers, they are losing out on another income stream.  I think it would benefit Wizards to do an analysis on the money they are potentially losing due to this change.

 The real reason they cut it was because a series of journalists did a stupid by saying A La Carte was exactly the same as video game microtransactions(cutting the context of how these things function on here vs in a video game) at a time where Jimquisition parroting was at an all-time high, & the stock price wobbled in value beyond investors' comfort levels.

Quote from Dark_Jester89 >>

Quote from Lamoon01 >>

For those interested, a quote from Brian Perry from his AMA on Reddit 

> 'First, we know that a la carte disappeared without much notice, and we apologize for the way it was handled. Things like this AMA help create the level of transparency the community deserves. We are going to be working on ways to give players access to smaller packages of content based on what character they want to build. A la carte exactly like before is unlikely. What was starting to happen with tens of thousands of items needed to be individually checked for entitlements by our services. This was impacting site speed and stability.'

 

 

This explanation just doesn’t make sense. They’re claiming the site struggled with individual $2 purchases, but now they want to sell “small packages” made up of the exact same entitlements. How does that solve anything? How long are they going to be blaming bad site code/inherited a bad site until they just get better coders?

Whether you buy a subclass alone or inside a $30 book, the character builder still has to check your account permissions either way. The entitlement system already exists. Bundling things differently doesn’t remove that.

Their own explanation contradicts itself. If granular ownership was supposedly the technical problem, adding a bunch of mini-bundles would still create tons of entitlement combinations to track. And let’s be real: granular digital ownership is a solved problem everywhere else. Steam, Amazon, Epic, iTunes, YouTube, even in house to WOTC; MTG Arena; all of them handle massively more complex entitlement systems without killing individual purchases. It's 2026, we have the power, we have the technology.

This wasn’t about site stability. They killed the $2 entry point because they want people buying full books or curated bundles instead. This is a business decision, not a technical limitation, just a corporate compromise to quiet the backlash while still ensuring we will never spend just two bucks on this platform again. 

WOTC constantly falling back on “bad inherited code”/"bad site" is getting old. D&D Beyond has been under WOTC ownership for years now. At some point, you need to stop blaming the previous owners and start owning the platform you paid hundreds of millions for.  If the codebase is really that outdated, then replace the systems and people refusing to modernize it so the community stops getting held back by constant “bad code” excuses. Legit, take the site down for two weeks if that’s what it takes to finally clean things up instead of using technical debt as the explanation for every anti-consumer change and point of failure.

 Please read & acknowledge the ding-dang roadmap before you post stuff like that last paragraph. It'll save you some mental energy.

Also, it was bad press regarding A La Carte that was the motivator, not simple conspiracy entirely.

A lot of cheesy gaming journalism outlets were copying the Jimquisition method of describing microtransactions as the basis for hell in gaming & grounds for Marxist revolution against big video game companies, and the wrong journalists in the right places saw A La Carte, thought they could Jimquistion an apparent system of untargeted microtransactions for big hits, wrote hit pieces devoid of context shaming customers for buying them, & spooked the stock market.

It's the same reason Totem Barb was changed. A good hit piece with a sliver of truth that hits hard & gets a ton of views can spook the stock market into price wobbles, & the shareholders demand things be fixed so their stock doesn't lose value(& usually, boomers' money used to make said investments).