The problem is it's not digital content. It's a content product that is digital. If you got a subscription that would mail you new content every 6ish months and you had been receiving the books like the PHB, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, then suddenly got a series of flip maps, well I can't speak for everyone, but I would be very unhappy with that as being "content" in relation to the others.
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// I am Arenlor Developers should read This Changelog Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
I did answer the poll with the idea that I thought would get 15% off of all products that are in a digital format and didn't realize they would have to be included as part of the legendary bundle to qualify for the 15% but it wouldn't have affected my decision to buy the legendary bundle. I'm not particularly heartbroken because pretty much every coupon I've ever had would have some limitations when a permanent discount there will always be a few that fall outside the parameters of the original design eventually. If they didn't reword things it would be unfair but I don't feel cheated or lied to. That opinion could change if there started to be more exceptions than qualifying products but shoot people run companies and occasionally they don't word things perfectly.
Unless the term 'Digital Content' was well-defined in the advertising making the difference between it and other digital products clear when selling the Legendary Bundle originally (which I'm reasonably certain is not the case), I think D&D Beyond has made an error here.
The maps product is clearly content and is clearly digital. I agree that it shouldn't be included in the Legendary Bundle by default, but given the wording of the Legendary Bundle when it was originally sold I think it's still 'correct' for the discount to apply, and I strongly suspect that D&D Beyond could be successfully sued for false advertising - though it would almost certainly not be worth anyone's time to do (and I am not a lawyer or have experience with lawsuits, so could be entirely wrong here).
The problem is that they're now claiming that 'Digital Content' is a term-of-art when there was zero indication that it was a term-of-art in the Legendary Bundle advertisement (unless I'm gravely mis-remembering it). If they had made that clear in the first place, or used a different term that isn't all-encompassing of all digital products, then they'd be in a better position.
I don't find this to be a big problem - certainly not worth fighting that hard over at the moment - but I do think D&D Beyond could have handled this better.
I don't find this to be a big problem - certainly not worth fighting that hard over at the moment - but I do think D&D Beyond could have handled this better.
With the clarity of hindsight, I could say that 90% of life could have been handled better - so I agree this could have been too.
Without that clarity, and faced with making a decision to A) add a potentially exciting (to some portion of the community) new type of product and make the change to the Legendary Bundle's description to align it more with the always-intended purpose of it or B) pass on ever offering the map pack (or other non-WotC book/ adventure types of digital offerings in the future) while C) ensuring that the Legendary Bundle did not become bloated to the vast majority of customers that would not consider a map pack to be a part of it, the decision was straightforward for us.
I hesitate to mention this, but I'll go ahead and do so and cross my fingers my attempt at further transparency doesn't backfire.
I have held off on sharing the following in this thread because technically it is not 100% finalized yet, but I will go ahead and do so at least to state our goal and to broadcast that we always have the community at the forefront of our minds:
We plan to offer other bundles outside only the Legendary in 2019. This comes from a frequent request from the community to break it up into other categories.
We target offering additional map packs this year too (working on all the details now). Once we have more than one product offering, there will also be a Map Pack Bundle that will operate like the Legendary Bundle does for books/ adventures but for maps, including offering a forward-looking 15% discount for anything ever added to that bundle. Once that is available, the Tactical Maps Reincarnated product would fold into that bundle, and if you have already purchased the TMR pack, you will see the full total of the Map Pack Bundle discounted.
In other words, if you are interested in owning all the books/ adventures AND all the map packs and you want the 15% discount for both types of products, you would be able to do so and come out spending the same amount of money as if it all just fell under the Legendary Bundle. The difference is all the customers (the majority) that don't want the maps are not forced to pick those up (and vice versa), and then it means you would need to buy two things instead of one. Worth it in our minds for the flexibility.
Again, the above is not completely finalized, so something could go awry, but that is the intent and we should have more to share on that front soon.
I had to change my vote as I originally thought it would be discount on everything, but reading the responses everyone had I figured no it didn't. The reason is as the map pack has nothing to do with character generation or an adventure as text, monsters, magical items and so on. I have bought everything here except the map pack as it does not interest me in any way. The main reason is printing them out for use would suck up the ink big time, and getting them printed at a print shop on large paper would be costly. Others may want them but where I live getting mini's to use them with is almost a futile use of resources as any place I could physically look at mini's is a 3.5 hr drive away.
I voted yes on this because when I bought the Legendary Bundle I thought that was the case, because I thought all the content in the marketplace would be WotC products. When they announced the map pack I was kinda surprised about it and excited for people who would want to buy it (not my thing yet as I’m a new DM sticking to the published adventures until I get more comfortable). I didn’t think it would be included in the bundle though since its just a map pack and not an adventure or book.
I agree with DrJk here seems like i dick move to not have the discount that they promised seeing as this content they are selling is in a digital format. It's something I don't think I'd buy anyways but I still feel like I've been cheated.
You say that the legendary bundle would get too expensive but just don't add it into the 1st time purchase if that's the case and still offer the discount to the customers that have fork out a lot of cash already. Eventually it would become too for most people anyways, heck I was one of the 1st to get it when it was cheaper with less excess stuff that I didn't want and it was a push then.
"15% off all cups. except for those, those are mugs and that, that's a tankard."
The end result of insisting on the discount is two possibilities 1. Them raising the price 15% on all products that are more expensive 2. Them being scared to expand their brand.
We don't know why it doesn't apply we are just assuming it's a dick move or just to squeeze more money out. Maybe they have a price break from WOTC but not the map people. Maybe they have to pay an outside artist for the maps. Maybe it's a fee per map sold.
We don't know why it doesn't apply we are just assuming it's a dick move or just to squeeze more money out.
Actually, I'm assuming it's an illegal move. A charge of false or misleading advertising doesn't require intentionality. Appeals to emotion don't matter either, nor does pluralistic ignorance. At the end of the day, it's a matter of ethics: would a reasonable person have assumed from the language used to advertise the product that the discount would work on all future products provided on this website? If yes, then changing the terms or the language after the fact is most likely illegal, and definitely unethical, irrespective of what their intent may have been.
I love Apple products but I'll still hold them accountable if my Mac suddenly stops working due to their error.
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
It was unfortunate wording, as I think Badeye has intimated in hindsight. Personally, I'm not worried about it - I think the intent was reasonable (separating product categories) and regardless of the technical legalities (and I have no idea), if a mistake was made, it was an honest one (Briv is that sort of half-orc). This is such a good product it wouldn't have affected my decision.
YMMV. I hope people will resolve it amicably and this doesn't descend into another pricing model thread.
On the one hand, I too find this solution bad. Digital content is just that, and digital maps are definitely digital content.
On the other hand, I find the reasons for this actually ok. And in that light, the question remains if the current result could have been achieved while having less bad in the mix. Perhaps some goodie or sign of goodwill would have been nice.
Why didn't the legendary bundle say "15% discount on all products added to it after your purchase"? That would have avoided the problem and would have given the impression that you only get a discount on things DnDBeyond uses to sell the Legendary Bundle, which seems fair. Hindsight is everything and communication is hard, I guess.
We don't know why it doesn't apply we are just assuming it's a dick move or just to squeeze more money out.
I love Apple products but I'll still hold them accountable if my Mac suddenly stops working due to their error.
This analogy is not remotely the same thing. Nothing has stopped working for you.
We had a decision to make about whether to offer a new kind of product that Wizards of the Coast did not want to have as part of the Legendary Bundle or not to offer it. We determined the best route was to offer it and update product descriptions accordingly to maintain the actual intent of the Legendary Bundle.
I fully concur that the communication of that could have been smoother from the beginning. It's easy to see those things in hindsight, and we wouldn't make that kind of mistake again. I also have shared that the timing of this first map pack is a bit unfortunate since we don't have all of our new bundles finalized (i.e. formally approved) as of its release. As far as a "make good" goes, I have already shared that the target is to have an additional Map Pack Bundle that would allow everyone to get the same 15% discount you would have received if it was all part of the Legendary Bundle - this first pack would count as previous purchase credit and you would end up spending the same amount of money as if the map packs were part of the Legendary Bundle.
Again, we apologize the timing and communication did not go better, but we firmly believe this is the right move for the platform and in all of our research we have seen that validated.
If anyone in the meantime would like a refund for the full price map pack where you can wait on the discount from the upcoming bundle, feel free to contact our support team and we will take care of it.
**Bad Eye addressed the communication issue as I was typing this -- so I'm editing it just to add that I recognize that he literally wrote a reply to the issue I raise here before I finished raising it.**
I'm going to be honest here as well. I read "digital content products" as a catch all for any content (not a specified type of content) that I purchased (a a"product") in the DnDBeyond digital format ("digital"). I really struggle to understand how a map pack DOESN'T count as a digital content product.
If you'd wanted to be CLEAR, you could have said the legendary bundle provides a discount on all future rules supplements and adventures IF YOU MEANT THAT THOSE AND ONLY THOSE are to be included under the "digital content" umbrella. So rather than just listing what you claim you've ALWAYS meant you chose to use an ambiguous (I think quite misleading) term.
How in the world does a map pack that I purchase digitally NOT count as a digital content product? It is digital. It includes content (maps). It is a product. You're just making stuff up if you think it unreasonable that people are ticked off at the lack of clarity in that. Honestly if I'd known the legendary bundle discount only counted for future rules and adventures I'd STILL have purchased it and been happy with that. But to say that it includes a discount on all future digital content products and then pretend that you can make up other categories that would typically fit under that definition but still exclude them from the discount is just..... BAD communication (at best) and intentionally misleading your customers (at worst).
I'm not going anywhere as a customer. I love this product and I generally trust this team of developers. But yeah, this was BADLY mishandled from a communication standpoint. Just tell us up front what you mean by stuff so we know what we're buying. This feels like a flipping bait and switch.
A better analogy would be "Let's say Apple gave me a promised discount on all future Apple products of 10%. I'd be deeply upset / think it illegal if they then started selling something like a phone and said it wasn't a "product" and therefore was exempt from the discount."
A better analogy would be "Let's say Apple gave me a promised discount on all future Apple products of 10%. I'd be deeply upset / think it illegal if they then started selling something like a phone and said it wasn't a "product" and therefore was exempt from the discount."
If Apple reserved the right in their terms of sale to do that, then the legality of it would already be settled when you agree to those terms during your purchase.
In this case, however, you'll still be able to get the discount if you want the new types of products. You just need to wait a little longer for the new bundles to come out.
Important points to summarize:
It was a communication issue. Nobody is getting cheated or scammed, because you'll still be able to get the 15% discount when the new bundles come out.
The reason for breaking up the bundles is so that people don't have to purchase every product on D&D Beyond to get a discount on the products they want. This is a price hurdle for those who only want specific types of products and a growing problem as more and more products of different types are added to the collection provided by D&D Beyond.
**Bad Eye addressed the communication issue as I was typing this -- so I'm editing it just to add that I recognize that he literally wrote a reply to the issue I raise here before I finished raising it.**
If you'd wanted to be CLEAR, you could have said the legendary bundle provides a discount on all future rules supplements and adventures IF YOU MEANT THAT THOSE AND ONLY THOSE are to be included under the "digital content" umbrella. So rather than just listing what you claim you've ALWAYS meant you chose to use an ambiguous (I think quite misleading) term.
How in the world does a map pack that I purchase digitally NOT count as a digital content product? It is digital. It includes content (maps). It is a product. You're just making stuff up if you think it unreasonable that people are ticked off at the lack of clarity in that. Honestly if I'd known the legendary bundle discount only counted for future rules and adventures I'd STILL have purchased it and been happy with that. But to say that it includes a discount on all future digital content products and then pretend that you can make up other categories that would typically fit under that definition but still exclude them from the discount is just..... BAD communication (at best) and intentionally misleading your customers (at worst).
You said that I replied, but I'll further add specifically to your post:
The distinction between types of products has existed since Day 0, so yes, we have always meant the term like that. The reasoning for that was partially not to tip our hand at those future other types of products, because as soon as we brought that up it would generate more speculation than we felt like we could handle at the time.
Now, regardless of the above, I fully admit to - and provide apologies for - the ambiguity in the wording and acknowledge it as poor communication. I am not making anything up about people thinking this is unreasonable, because I understand for some it feels that way. We recognize that for most of our customers, it has not felt that way. That in no way invalidates the experience of those that feel that, and we already have been taking steps to provide an alternate route for those users to be able to have that 15% discount on all future map pack products too (which was already in progress, but hasn't been fully approved yet).
In short, I assure you this can be filed under bad communication and definitely not intentionally misleading anyone.
We will improve the communication, and have already taken steps with product descriptions to clarify the intent of the Legendary Bundle. As the new bundle types are introduced, I believe it will become clear that this was the right decision for the most people.
The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that Persons A have stated a problem, person B has stated the distinction, and persons A still feel the need to try to hammer away at this.
Persons A, regardless of what you thought, it was wrong. You are starting to sound like Tolls.
If you feel you are still not wrong, I dare you to lawyer up.
I think it's fair to say that this kerfuffle was an oversight (as BadEye has so much as admitted to already). I would be VERY hesitant to call it underhanded.
I mean, why is DDB going to wait until now to run a scam to rip people off for $2.25 (15% of $15)? In which realm of the multiverse does that make even a little bit of sense?
I mean, if you're mad enough over $2 to invoke the law, dude, I'll send you $2.
**Bad Eye addressed the communication issue as I was typing this -- so I'm editing it just to add that I recognize that he literally wrote a reply to the issue I raise here before I finished raising it.**
If you'd wanted to be CLEAR, you could have said the legendary bundle provides a discount on all future rules supplements and adventures IF YOU MEANT THAT THOSE AND ONLY THOSE are to be included under the "digital content" umbrella. So rather than just listing what you claim you've ALWAYS meant you chose to use an ambiguous (I think quite misleading) term.
How in the world does a map pack that I purchase digitally NOT count as a digital content product? It is digital. It includes content (maps). It is a product. You're just making stuff up if you think it unreasonable that people are ticked off at the lack of clarity in that. Honestly if I'd known the legendary bundle discount only counted for future rules and adventures I'd STILL have purchased it and been happy with that. But to say that it includes a discount on all future digital content products and then pretend that you can make up other categories that would typically fit under that definition but still exclude them from the discount is just..... BAD communication (at best) and intentionally misleading your customers (at worst).
You said that I replied, but I'll further add specifically to your post:
The distinction between types of products has existed since Day 0, so yes, we have always meant the term like that. The reasoning for that was partially not to tip our hand at those future other types of products, because as soon as we brought that up it would generate more speculation than we felt like we could handle at the time.
Now, regardless of the above, I fully admit to - and provide apologies for - the ambiguity in the wording and acknowledge it as poor communication. I am not making anything up about people thinking this is unreasonable, because I understand for some it feels that way. We recognize that for most of our customers, it has not felt that way. That in no way invalidates the experience of those that feel that, and we already have been taking steps to provide an alternate route for those users to be able to have that 15% discount on all future map pack products too (which was already in progress, but hasn't been fully approved yet).
In short, I assure you this can be filed under bad communication and definitely not intentionally misleading anyone.
We will improve the communication, and have already taken steps with product descriptions to clarify the intent of the Legendary Bundle. As the new bundle types are introduced, I believe it will become clear that this was the right decision for the most people.
Thanks!
BadEye, the part I bolded in your post reads a lot like 'intentionally misleading customers into thinking it covers more products than you intended it to'. You admit intending it to seem like it covered all products on D&D Beyond in order to hide that you were intending to have other products that it didn't cover in the future. That... doesn't look good. You claim there was no intent to mislead, but that bolded statement is directly contrary to that - unless you misspoke?
Also, reading through the Terms of Sale I see no point where it defines the product categories or allows D&D Beyond to change/remove an amount of discount sold to a customer. It does say D&D Beyond can change the price of things, but since the Legendary Bundle was sold based on giving a percent discount on future purchases rather than those future purchases having a given price, I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply. In fact, it uses the term 'digital content' in a way that doesn't seem to line up with the way D&D Beyond is now defining it (though they have the out that they only use the phrase 'products, services, or digital content', never 'digital content' on its own).
There may be parts of the Terms of Sale I missed that do apply to this situation, but if so I don't see them.
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The problem is it's not digital content. It's a content product that is digital. If you got a subscription that would mail you new content every 6ish months and you had been receiving the books like the PHB, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, then suddenly got a series of flip maps, well I can't speak for everyone, but I would be very unhappy with that as being "content" in relation to the others.
// I am Arenlor
Developers should read This Changelog
Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
I did answer the poll with the idea that I thought would get 15% off of all products that are in a digital format and didn't realize they would have to be included as part of the legendary bundle to qualify for the 15% but it wouldn't have affected my decision to buy the legendary bundle. I'm not particularly heartbroken because pretty much every coupon I've ever had would have some limitations when a permanent discount there will always be a few that fall outside the parameters of the original design eventually. If they didn't reword things it would be unfair but I don't feel cheated or lied to. That opinion could change if there started to be more exceptions than qualifying products but shoot people run companies and occasionally they don't word things perfectly.
Unless the term 'Digital Content' was well-defined in the advertising making the difference between it and other digital products clear when selling the Legendary Bundle originally (which I'm reasonably certain is not the case), I think D&D Beyond has made an error here.
The maps product is clearly content and is clearly digital. I agree that it shouldn't be included in the Legendary Bundle by default, but given the wording of the Legendary Bundle when it was originally sold I think it's still 'correct' for the discount to apply, and I strongly suspect that D&D Beyond could be successfully sued for false advertising - though it would almost certainly not be worth anyone's time to do (and I am not a lawyer or have experience with lawsuits, so could be entirely wrong here).
The problem is that they're now claiming that 'Digital Content' is a term-of-art when there was zero indication that it was a term-of-art in the Legendary Bundle advertisement (unless I'm gravely mis-remembering it). If they had made that clear in the first place, or used a different term that isn't all-encompassing of all digital products, then they'd be in a better position.
I don't find this to be a big problem - certainly not worth fighting that hard over at the moment - but I do think D&D Beyond could have handled this better.
With the clarity of hindsight, I could say that 90% of life could have been handled better - so I agree this could have been too.
Without that clarity, and faced with making a decision to A) add a potentially exciting (to some portion of the community) new type of product and make the change to the Legendary Bundle's description to align it more with the always-intended purpose of it or B) pass on ever offering the map pack (or other non-WotC book/ adventure types of digital offerings in the future) while C) ensuring that the Legendary Bundle did not become bloated to the vast majority of customers that would not consider a map pack to be a part of it, the decision was straightforward for us.
I hesitate to mention this, but I'll go ahead and do so and cross my fingers my attempt at further transparency doesn't backfire.
I have held off on sharing the following in this thread because technically it is not 100% finalized yet, but I will go ahead and do so at least to state our goal and to broadcast that we always have the community at the forefront of our minds:
We plan to offer other bundles outside only the Legendary in 2019. This comes from a frequent request from the community to break it up into other categories.
We target offering additional map packs this year too (working on all the details now). Once we have more than one product offering, there will also be a Map Pack Bundle that will operate like the Legendary Bundle does for books/ adventures but for maps, including offering a forward-looking 15% discount for anything ever added to that bundle. Once that is available, the Tactical Maps Reincarnated product would fold into that bundle, and if you have already purchased the TMR pack, you will see the full total of the Map Pack Bundle discounted.
In other words, if you are interested in owning all the books/ adventures AND all the map packs and you want the 15% discount for both types of products, you would be able to do so and come out spending the same amount of money as if it all just fell under the Legendary Bundle. The difference is all the customers (the majority) that don't want the maps are not forced to pick those up (and vice versa), and then it means you would need to buy two things instead of one. Worth it in our minds for the flexibility.
Again, the above is not completely finalized, so something could go awry, but that is the intent and we should have more to share on that front soon.
Thanks!
I had to change my vote as I originally thought it would be discount on everything, but reading the responses everyone had I figured no it didn't. The reason is as the map pack has nothing to do with character generation or an adventure as text, monsters, magical items and so on. I have bought everything here except the map pack as it does not interest me in any way. The main reason is printing them out for use would suck up the ink big time, and getting them printed at a print shop on large paper would be costly. Others may want them but where I live getting mini's to use them with is almost a futile use of resources as any place I could physically look at mini's is a 3.5 hr drive away.
I voted yes on this because when I bought the Legendary Bundle I thought that was the case, because I thought all the content in the marketplace would be WotC products. When they announced the map pack I was kinda surprised about it and excited for people who would want to buy it (not my thing yet as I’m a new DM sticking to the published adventures until I get more comfortable). I didn’t think it would be included in the bundle though since its just a map pack and not an adventure or book.
I agree with DrJk here seems like i dick move to not have the discount that they promised seeing as this content they are selling is in a digital format. It's something I don't think I'd buy anyways but I still feel like I've been cheated.
You say that the legendary bundle would get too expensive but just don't add it into the 1st time purchase if that's the case and still offer the discount to the customers that have fork out a lot of cash already. Eventually it would become too for most people anyways, heck I was one of the 1st to get it when it was cheaper with less excess stuff that I didn't want and it was a push then.
"15% off all cups. except for those, those are mugs and that, that's a tankard."
The end result of insisting on the discount is two possibilities 1. Them raising the price 15% on all products that are more expensive 2. Them being scared to expand their brand.
We don't know why it doesn't apply we are just assuming it's a dick move or just to squeeze more money out. Maybe they have a price break from WOTC but not the map people. Maybe they have to pay an outside artist for the maps. Maybe it's a fee per map sold.
Actually, I'm assuming it's an illegal move. A charge of false or misleading advertising doesn't require intentionality. Appeals to emotion don't matter either, nor does pluralistic ignorance. At the end of the day, it's a matter of ethics: would a reasonable person have assumed from the language used to advertise the product that the discount would work on all future products provided on this website? If yes, then changing the terms or the language after the fact is most likely illegal, and definitely unethical, irrespective of what their intent may have been.
I love Apple products but I'll still hold them accountable if my Mac suddenly stops working due to their error.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
It was unfortunate wording, as I think Badeye has intimated in hindsight. Personally, I'm not worried about it - I think the intent was reasonable (separating product categories) and regardless of the technical legalities (and I have no idea), if a mistake was made, it was an honest one (Briv is that sort of half-orc). This is such a good product it wouldn't have affected my decision.
YMMV. I hope people will resolve it amicably and this doesn't descend into another pricing model thread.
On the one hand, I too find this solution bad. Digital content is just that, and digital maps are definitely digital content.
On the other hand, I find the reasons for this actually ok. And in that light, the question remains if the current result could have been achieved while having less bad in the mix. Perhaps some goodie or sign of goodwill would have been nice.
Why didn't the legendary bundle say "15% discount on all products added to it after your purchase"? That would have avoided the problem and would have given the impression that you only get a discount on things DnDBeyond uses to sell the Legendary Bundle, which seems fair. Hindsight is everything and communication is hard, I guess.
This is not the case, as can be read about in our Terms of Sale.
This analogy is not remotely the same thing. Nothing has stopped working for you.
We had a decision to make about whether to offer a new kind of product that Wizards of the Coast did not want to have as part of the Legendary Bundle or not to offer it. We determined the best route was to offer it and update product descriptions accordingly to maintain the actual intent of the Legendary Bundle.
I fully concur that the communication of that could have been smoother from the beginning. It's easy to see those things in hindsight, and we wouldn't make that kind of mistake again. I also have shared that the timing of this first map pack is a bit unfortunate since we don't have all of our new bundles finalized (i.e. formally approved) as of its release. As far as a "make good" goes, I have already shared that the target is to have an additional Map Pack Bundle that would allow everyone to get the same 15% discount you would have received if it was all part of the Legendary Bundle - this first pack would count as previous purchase credit and you would end up spending the same amount of money as if the map packs were part of the Legendary Bundle.
Again, we apologize the timing and communication did not go better, but we firmly believe this is the right move for the platform and in all of our research we have seen that validated.
If anyone in the meantime would like a refund for the full price map pack where you can wait on the discount from the upcoming bundle, feel free to contact our support team and we will take care of it.
Thanks!
**Bad Eye addressed the communication issue as I was typing this -- so I'm editing it just to add that I recognize that he literally wrote a reply to the issue I raise here before I finished raising it.**
I'm going to be honest here as well. I read "digital content products" as a catch all for any content (not a specified type of content) that I purchased (a a"product") in the DnDBeyond digital format ("digital"). I really struggle to understand how a map pack DOESN'T count as a digital content product.
If you'd wanted to be CLEAR, you could have said the legendary bundle provides a discount on all future rules supplements and adventures IF YOU MEANT THAT THOSE AND ONLY THOSE are to be included under the "digital content" umbrella. So rather than just listing what you claim you've ALWAYS meant you chose to use an ambiguous (I think quite misleading) term.
How in the world does a map pack that I purchase digitally NOT count as a digital content product? It is digital. It includes content (maps). It is a product. You're just making stuff up if you think it unreasonable that people are ticked off at the lack of clarity in that. Honestly if I'd known the legendary bundle discount only counted for future rules and adventures I'd STILL have purchased it and been happy with that. But to say that it includes a discount on all future digital content products and then pretend that you can make up other categories that would typically fit under that definition but still exclude them from the discount is just..... BAD communication (at best) and intentionally misleading your customers (at worst).
I'm not going anywhere as a customer. I love this product and I generally trust this team of developers. But yeah, this was BADLY mishandled from a communication standpoint. Just tell us up front what you mean by stuff so we know what we're buying. This feels like a flipping bait and switch.
A better analogy would be "Let's say Apple gave me a promised discount on all future Apple products of 10%. I'd be deeply upset / think it illegal if they then started selling something like a phone and said it wasn't a "product" and therefore was exempt from the discount."
If Apple reserved the right in their terms of sale to do that, then the legality of it would already be settled when you agree to those terms during your purchase.
In this case, however, you'll still be able to get the discount if you want the new types of products. You just need to wait a little longer for the new bundles to come out.
Important points to summarize:
Homebrew Rules || Homebrew FAQ || Snippet Codes || Tooltips
DDB Guides & FAQs, Class Guides, Character Builds, Game Guides, Useful Websites, and WOTC Resources
You said that I replied, but I'll further add specifically to your post:
The distinction between types of products has existed since Day 0, so yes, we have always meant the term like that. The reasoning for that was partially not to tip our hand at those future other types of products, because as soon as we brought that up it would generate more speculation than we felt like we could handle at the time.
Now, regardless of the above, I fully admit to - and provide apologies for - the ambiguity in the wording and acknowledge it as poor communication. I am not making anything up about people thinking this is unreasonable, because I understand for some it feels that way. We recognize that for most of our customers, it has not felt that way. That in no way invalidates the experience of those that feel that, and we already have been taking steps to provide an alternate route for those users to be able to have that 15% discount on all future map pack products too (which was already in progress, but hasn't been fully approved yet).
In short, I assure you this can be filed under bad communication and definitely not intentionally misleading anyone.
We will improve the communication, and have already taken steps with product descriptions to clarify the intent of the Legendary Bundle. As the new bundle types are introduced, I believe it will become clear that this was the right decision for the most people.
Thanks!
The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that Persons A have stated a problem, person B has stated the distinction, and persons A still feel the need to try to hammer away at this.
Persons A, regardless of what you thought, it was wrong. You are starting to sound like Tolls.
If you feel you are still not wrong, I dare you to lawyer up.
I think it's fair to say that this kerfuffle was an oversight (as BadEye has so much as admitted to already). I would be VERY hesitant to call it underhanded.
I mean, why is DDB going to wait until now to run a scam to rip people off for $2.25 (15% of $15)? In which realm of the multiverse does that make even a little bit of sense?
I mean, if you're mad enough over $2 to invoke the law, dude, I'll send you $2.
Thank you for the reply and for the apology. It is (genuinely) appreciated.
BadEye, the part I bolded in your post reads a lot like 'intentionally misleading customers into thinking it covers more products than you intended it to'. You admit intending it to seem like it covered all products on D&D Beyond in order to hide that you were intending to have other products that it didn't cover in the future. That... doesn't look good. You claim there was no intent to mislead, but that bolded statement is directly contrary to that - unless you misspoke?
Also, reading through the Terms of Sale I see no point where it defines the product categories or allows D&D Beyond to change/remove an amount of discount sold to a customer. It does say D&D Beyond can change the price of things, but since the Legendary Bundle was sold based on giving a percent discount on future purchases rather than those future purchases having a given price, I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply. In fact, it uses the term 'digital content' in a way that doesn't seem to line up with the way D&D Beyond is now defining it (though they have the out that they only use the phrase 'products, services, or digital content', never 'digital content' on its own).
There may be parts of the Terms of Sale I missed that do apply to this situation, but if so I don't see them.