I know I'm pretty late to the party here, but why not just add access to the PHB in return for a subscription?
-Snip-
There has to be some way to get access to the PHB while paying for the service Curse provides, not the content WOtC created.
But what's the difference? Seriously I don't get it.
You're still paying Curse either way, and, in the case of a subscription, eventually paying more than than the buy-once model (as I've pointed out here and here), and for less value, since you don't get to use the content if you stop paying.
Why is the buy-once model so offensive to people? I understand the high upfront cost can be an issue, but there's many ways around that. Is the principle of "I will NOT re-buy content I already own," so important that people are unable to see that it's the better deal for them?
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
This kind of tool requires licensing and that means money. How hard is it to open a form-fillable PDF and go through the book step by step? If such a tool existed that had no licensed info, you would constantly be looking through the books to confirm things since you have no details about what you're picking. If such a tool was made to work free and legally, it would be fundamentally useless, as it wouldn't be able to output or display any content from any non-SRD material.
Tools like OrcPub operated in a legal grey area, as all they did was have names of things, with page numbers to find the rules, and would never provide anything but the page number...until they decided to charge for this content, which meant they were reselling WotC intellectual property without licensing it, hence them being shut down.
I know I'm pretty late to the party here, but why not just add access to the PHB in return for a subscription?
-Snip-
There has to be some way to get access to the PHB while paying for the service Curse provides, not the content WOtC created.
But what's the difference? Seriously I don't get it.
You're still paying Curse either way, and, in the case of a subscription, eventually paying more than than the buy-once model (as I've pointed out here and here), and for less value, since you don't get to use the content if you stop paying.
Why is the buy-once model so offensive to people? I understand the high upfront cost can be an issue, but there's many ways around that. Is the principle of "I will NOT re-buy content I already own," so important that people are unable to see that it's the better deal for them?
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
If you do not support your claims with a valid statistics, your conclusions are invalid.
I know I'm pretty late to the party here, but why not just add access to the PHB in return for a subscription?
-Snip-
There has to be some way to get access to the PHB while paying for the service Curse provides, not the content WOtC created.
But what's the difference? Seriously I don't get it.
You're still paying Curse either way, and, in the case of a subscription, eventually paying more than than the buy-once model (as I've pointed out here and here), and for less value, since you don't get to use the content if you stop paying.
Why is the buy-once model so offensive to people? I understand the high upfront cost can be an issue, but there's many ways around that. Is the principle of "I will NOT re-buy content I already own," so important that people are unable to see that it's the better deal for them?
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
If you do not support your claims with a valid statistics, your conclusions are invalid.
Ah, got it. You aren't actually interested in understanding those who think differently than you, you only are interested in complaining about them and telling them how wrong they are.
If you do not support your claims with a valid statistics, your conclusions are invalid.
Ah, got it. You aren't actually interested in understanding those who think differently than you, you only are interested in complaining about them and telling them how wrong they are.
On the contrary, I am very interested in your perspective, but my point was that you can't sell it as a general truth, valid for "most" players unless a sort of statistic is presented to support your claims.
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
Until you posted this I was having a hard time understanding the requests for a subscription model for the books, but I get it now, and I can see the logic of this request.
I was confused because I thought people wanted to pay a subscription to access the books online, which would cost more over time than buying the books, but what you're asking for is not access to the content of the books directly (ie. to reference or read), but to make a PC in a form-fillable sheet. I get that. That makes more sense.
So I guess the question becomes, how much do you think is an appropriate subscription amount to have a form-fillable character sheet that accesses ALL possible PC combinations? And how many character sheet "slots" should that subscription include?
To put in perspective, to have all Character options would mean PHB, Volo's, and XGtE. I think that's about $90? (I can't see prices anymore since I've bought the books).
The current Hero Tier subscription grants you unlimited character sheet slots for $2.17/month if you pay for a year up front, otherwise it's $2.99/month.
At $2.99 per month, it would take about 30 months, (2.5 years) to pay the equivalent of $90 (the cost of buying the three books upfront with NO discount).
That said, Curse is unlikely to do that because of the existing Hero Tier subscription that doesn't include all character options, so they'd likely have to charge more to make a difference between the existing tier for those who've already bought the books, and those who just want an all access builder.
Let's say they charge an extra dollar a month for that, so $3.99 per month. That means it would take about 22.5 months or 1.875 years, to pay the equivalent of all the books. Now, after that time period passes, you're still paying $3.99 a month, whereas those who bought the books, aren't. They're done, you're not.
You could accomplish the same thing by buying just the classes/components you need à la cart as you make each of your characters. If you make 6 or fewer, you'd be spending a lot less. Since the piecemeal purchases all add up toward the purchase of the full book, eventually you'd have the complete books.
Note that for folks who just want a character Builder and not the compendium, it needn't cost $90. Folks could just purchase the character options. For Xanathar's that's $19 for spells, subclasses, and feats and another $7 for all the magic items. For Volo's, it's just $10 or $13 depending on whether or not the subraces are included in the races bundle. I've purchased the PHB so can't see those numbers.
ive seen the suggestion made that folks who want a subscription model might consider deciding what they would pay per month for such a thing and then spend that much a month buying the content they need
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
....
To put in perspective, to have all Character options would mean PHB, Volo's, and XGtE. I think that's about $90? (I can't see prices anymore since I've bought the books).
Because many people ONLY want an automated character builder. That's it. They don't care about accessing the book online. They don't care about campaign tools. They only want an easy, automated tool to build a character from the books they already own and output it into a nice printable document.
There is a disconnect between what many players want, and what DNDB is. You can blame the players for wanting something that isn't offered. You can blame Curse and/or WOTC for poor market research.
Until you posted this I was having a hard time understanding the requests for a subscription model for the books, but I get it now, and I can see the logic of this request.
To put in perspective, to have all Character options would mean PHB, Volo's, and XGtE. I think that's about $90? (I can't see prices anymore since I've bought the books).
Let's say they charge an extra dollar a month for that, so $3.99 per month. That means it would take about 22.5 months or 1.875 years, to pay the equivalent of all the books. Now, after that time period passes, you're still paying $3.99 a month, whereas those who bought the books, aren't. They're done, you're not.
You could accomplish the same thing by buying just the classes/components you need à la cart as you make each of your characters. If you make 6 or fewer, you'd be spending a lot less. Since the piecemeal purchases all add up toward the purchase of the full book, eventually you'd have the complete books.
But $3.99 a month subscription for a character builder is a lot more palatable than $90 up front for books you already own, if all you care about is the character builder. And piecemeal doesn't work for those who want to make 4-5 characters a month. A subscription also gives you the option of canceling.
The difference may be psychological. But it is a lot easier to convince someone to pay a small fee every month for a SERVICE they didn't have before, than it is to convince them to pay some large amount for digital access to a PRODUCT they already own, especially if they only want access to the character builder and don't care about the digital access to the books.
What's to stop someone from paying $3.99 once, going ahead and making all the characters they'll need for the next year, and then cancelling their account before the next month gets charged?
The PDF export is supposed to see major improvements with the update, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
As i understand you can homebrew everything and create 6 characters and print them. Then just delete thema and create new ones.
That is free for people who doesnt want to pay but have the time and stamina to do everytning as homebrew.
At that point you'd save time by using the form fillable PDF and doing it that way! I don't get what's so hard about that. I paid for D&D Beyond to give my players the convenience since they're new, but they originally did it all by hand, they only started on here after a few sessions.
I can understand that point of view. However, I'm not sure it is due to poor market research. None of us are privy to how well (or not) the Curse business model is doing. We know they are posting positions, expanding the team, doing videos, articles, etc (non-core work so to speak). So anecdotally I would think the model they set is working for them from a business perspective. What you are describing is possibly a way to increase market share. But more market share does not necessary mean more profit. But then I'm part of the problem. I've paid for Legendary Bundle and kept up-to-date on all purchases (nothing left to buy) and have Master Sub. So I'm the customer voice saying, "I'm fine with paying for everything again" and their bank balance reflects it. There simply is no business case (or marginal to the point of ignoring) to bring in a customer who will pay a bit.
My guess is that they are setting themselves up for 6e. The whole "I will NOT re-buy content I already own" argument will fall down the wayside when 6e rolls out and is available from day 1 on DnDBeyond.com. DnDBeyond's biggest handicap has been they released the product well after 5e came out. They knew there was a segment of the population they would never win over. So they did not try beyond a certain point. They could not (or would not) strike a deal with WoTC to give existing physical product owners for a discount and/or exemption.
And certainly we can all agree that that no one company (WoTC or Curse) can be expected to provide every player with what they are looking for. They can only provide to a certain segment of the market. As people with the money. Our only influence is how we spend (not spending from the start does not really count and it doesn't shape the company's financial situation) and how we stop spending after we have paid a bit. Only those who pay and those who then choose not to pay (ie not re-subscribe, or not buy additional books etc) are the ones that will financially shape the future of DnDBeyond.com.
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
What's to stop someone from paying $3.99 once, going ahead and making all the characters they'll need for the next year, and then cancelling their account before the next month gets charged?
The PDF export is supposed to see major improvements with the update, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Which is probably precisely why there isn't a subscription option. There was a lot of this during 4e with the standalone character builder.
What's to stop someone from paying $3.99 once, going ahead and making all the characters they'll need for the next year, and then cancelling their account before the next month gets charged?
The PDF export is supposed to see major improvements with the update, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Which is probably precisely why there isn't a subscription option. There was a lot of this during 4e with the standalone character builder.
It wouldn't even be that hard to go ahead and plot out the level progression and export a PDF for each level, then save them all as separate files. Then when your character levels up, all you do is start using the next sheet in the folder. Inventory can be it's own sheet, so you don't even have to copy anything over, except maybe updating a few things (since the PDF is form-fillable).
It just seems to me that they have way more to lose by offering a subscription model than they have to gain.
What's to stop someone from paying $3.99 once, going ahead and making all the characters they'll need for the next year, and then cancelling their account before the next month gets charged?
The PDF export is supposed to see major improvements with the update, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Nothing. But then, the builder is already made, the server is already paid for, so as long as Curse/WOTC work out a decent license agreement, this is pure profit for both parties. $3.99 they wouldn't otherwise get. If you really want to, up the first month cost. "$10 for the first month, 3.99 for each month after that." Or put a subscription at $5.99, I bet most would still see that as fair price to get access to automated character builder.
In the end, it is what it is, the agreements are already negotiated, and nobody seems eager to capture the 'But I already bought the book' audience. I'm mostly just trying to explain the mindset to people who can't seem to fathom those that are affronted by the current business model.
My guess is that they are setting themselves up for 6e. The whole "I will NOT re-buy content I already own" argument will fall down the wayside when 6e rolls out and is available from day 1 on DnDBeyond.com.
Much to the detriment of the LGS. I already eschewed buying a physical XGTE from my LGS because I couldn't bring myself to pay for it twice, and I bought it on DNDB so I could use the character builder. (Before I realized how useless the PDF export was). A lot of the 'I won't buy it twice' crowd are going to choose digital only next edition, and the LGS is going to be hit really hard by the lack of sales on new product.
Let's say they charge an extra dollar a month for that, so $3.99 per month. That means it would take about 22.5 months or 1.875 years, to pay the equivalent of all the books. Now, after that time period passes, you're still paying $3.99 a month, whereas those who bought the books, aren't. They're done, you're not.
You could accomplish the same thing by buying just the classes/components you need à la cart as you make each of your characters. If you make 6 or fewer, you'd be spending a lot less. Since the piecemeal purchases all add up toward the purchase of the full book, eventually you'd have the complete books.
Just because I've not seen this addressed yet, you can't just take what exists now as a static thing and then say "well, after two years, you're basically wasting money!" Those two years will have new content as well that the subscription will continue to pay for. And as the years roll on, even more content will come out.
I would happily reoccur a $3.99/month payment for access to everything that exists in a builder. Dropping a large sum of money up front is not helpful for my needs and buying things piece-meal every month will continually leave me behind and without options that I may, on a whim, decide to try.
As for those concerned that people would subscribe and then cancel after making sheets....those users aren't your main customer base and they were likely never going to spend real money on DDB anyway. The fact that you got $4 out of them should be seen as a bonus and it's not like they won't spend that money again when something new comes out that they want to makes characters out of.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
As for those concerned that people would subscribe and then cancel after making sheets....those users aren't your main customer base and they were likely never going to spend real money on DDB anyway. The fact that you got $4 out of them should be seen as a bonus and it's not like they won't spend that money again when something new comes out that they want to makes characters out of.
That's not quite the concern - no one is concerned that current non-customers would only pay out sporadic monthly subscriptions and cancel their accounts, thus getting all they want from D&D Beyond without paying much.
The concern is that there might be a significant number of current customers (read: people willing to pay $X at the current pricing set up) that would pay $<X if the option were available. Basically, that if a subscription that could be used to get everything when needed and shut off when not needed became available, customers on track to spend $300+ on D&D Beyond over the next few years might become customers on track to spend only a fraction of that money over the same period of time because they wouldn't feel like they were "losing" anything by choosing that option.
Having a robust character builder (robust, as in it has built-in spell, feat, class feature, and magic item descriptions and mechanics) that does not require ownership of the books to use would also hurt book sales. I've run games for several groups in the past couple of years, and the vast majority of my players have relied on me as DM to know the rules, and if they even have a PHB, they only use it to look up those kinds of things. So if you're worried about your FLGS, you have to consider that aspect as well.
Regarding the builder already being made, that is true, but as AaronOfBarbaria put it, they already have a business model in place, and changing a working business model to one that brings in less revenue would be kind of dumb on their end.
It's not that I can't understand why people would want a standalone character builder. If that had been all that was initially offered, I might have stopped there as well and not bought into any other features. But what I think people on "my side" of the debate keep trying to stress is that, while it would be a great thing to have in a perfect world, there are just too many factors that make that model simply not feasible at present. I don't stand to gain from having to pay more money, as I don't work for WotC or Curse. But if I can sit here as a paying customer and justify the price and model of the product against every single point that comes up, then that tells me that some thought went into it beyond just scheming about how to milk the customers for all they're worth. Trust me, I don't enjoy burning money any more than anyone else on these boards does.
And I'm very open to hearing new ideas about how it can be done, as I'm sure the staff are, but in the past year or so of being on these boards, I haven't seen many.
The concern is that there might be a significant number of current customers (read: people willing to pay $X at the current pricing set up) that would pay $<X if the option were available. Basically, that if a subscription that could be used to get everything when needed and shut off when not needed became available, customers on track to spend $300+ on D&D Beyond over the next few years might become customers on track to spend only a fraction of that money over the same period of time because they wouldn't feel like they were "losing" anything by choosing that option.
If that is the concern, then it would be a clear sign that DDB is not actually offering a service that people want, but instead is offering a service that people have to buy into to cobble together the service that they actually want.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
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This kind of tool requires licensing and that means money. How hard is it to open a form-fillable PDF and go through the book step by step? If such a tool existed that had no licensed info, you would constantly be looking through the books to confirm things since you have no details about what you're picking. If such a tool was made to work free and legally, it would be fundamentally useless, as it wouldn't be able to output or display any content from any non-SRD material.
Tools like OrcPub operated in a legal grey area, as all they did was have names of things, with page numbers to find the rules, and would never provide anything but the page number...until they decided to charge for this content, which meant they were reselling WotC intellectual property without licensing it, hence them being shut down.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Note that for folks who just want a character Builder and not the compendium, it needn't cost $90. Folks could just purchase the character options. For Xanathar's that's $19 for spells, subclasses, and feats and another $7 for all the magic items. For Volo's, it's just $10 or $13 depending on whether or not the subraces are included in the races bundle. I've purchased the PHB so can't see those numbers.
ive seen the suggestion made that folks who want a subscription model might consider deciding what they would pay per month for such a thing and then spend that much a month buying the content they need
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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What's to stop someone from paying $3.99 once, going ahead and making all the characters they'll need for the next year, and then cancelling their account before the next month gets charged?
The PDF export is supposed to see major improvements with the update, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
As i understand you can homebrew everything and create 6 characters and print them. Then just delete thema and create new ones.
That is free for people who doesnt want to pay but have the time and stamina to do everytning as homebrew.
I'm not stupid. I'm just unlucky when I'm thinking.
I can understand that point of view. However, I'm not sure it is due to poor market research. None of us are privy to how well (or not) the Curse business model is doing. We know they are posting positions, expanding the team, doing videos, articles, etc (non-core work so to speak). So anecdotally I would think the model they set is working for them from a business perspective. What you are describing is possibly a way to increase market share. But more market share does not necessary mean more profit. But then I'm part of the problem. I've paid for Legendary Bundle and kept up-to-date on all purchases (nothing left to buy) and have Master Sub. So I'm the customer voice saying, "I'm fine with paying for everything again" and their bank balance reflects it. There simply is no business case (or marginal to the point of ignoring) to bring in a customer who will pay a bit.
My guess is that they are setting themselves up for 6e. The whole "I will NOT re-buy content I already own" argument will fall down the wayside when 6e rolls out and is available from day 1 on DnDBeyond.com. DnDBeyond's biggest handicap has been they released the product well after 5e came out. They knew there was a segment of the population they would never win over. So they did not try beyond a certain point. They could not (or would not) strike a deal with WoTC to give existing physical product owners for a discount and/or exemption.
And certainly we can all agree that that no one company (WoTC or Curse) can be expected to provide every player with what they are looking for. They can only provide to a certain segment of the market. As people with the money. Our only influence is how we spend (not spending from the start does not really count and it doesn't shape the company's financial situation) and how we stop spending after we have paid a bit. Only those who pay and those who then choose not to pay (ie not re-subscribe, or not buy additional books etc) are the ones that will financially shape the future of DnDBeyond.com.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
It just seems to me that they have way more to lose by offering a subscription model than they have to gain.
Each option from the PHB (sub-classes, feats, etc) are $1.99 each.
If you make a Human (for the feat option at 1st level), you can make a character for $5.97.
Arcane trickster $1.99 + Charlatan: $1.99 + Feat (Lucky): $1.99
The cost of the PHB is $29.99. In 5 months, making one new human character (with Feat) per month, you will have unlocked the entire PHB.
I don't understand the desire to pay way more than that and have nothing to show in the end but some characters.
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Having a robust character builder (robust, as in it has built-in spell, feat, class feature, and magic item descriptions and mechanics) that does not require ownership of the books to use would also hurt book sales. I've run games for several groups in the past couple of years, and the vast majority of my players have relied on me as DM to know the rules, and if they even have a PHB, they only use it to look up those kinds of things. So if you're worried about your FLGS, you have to consider that aspect as well.
Regarding the builder already being made, that is true, but as AaronOfBarbaria put it, they already have a business model in place, and changing a working business model to one that brings in less revenue would be kind of dumb on their end.
It's not that I can't understand why people would want a standalone character builder. If that had been all that was initially offered, I might have stopped there as well and not bought into any other features. But what I think people on "my side" of the debate keep trying to stress is that, while it would be a great thing to have in a perfect world, there are just too many factors that make that model simply not feasible at present. I don't stand to gain from having to pay more money, as I don't work for WotC or Curse. But if I can sit here as a paying customer and justify the price and model of the product against every single point that comes up, then that tells me that some thought went into it beyond just scheming about how to milk the customers for all they're worth. Trust me, I don't enjoy burning money any more than anyone else on these boards does.
And I'm very open to hearing new ideas about how it can be done, as I'm sure the staff are, but in the past year or so of being on these boards, I haven't seen many.