Perhaps if Curse looked beyond there greed (licensing would not be the full cover price of the books) they would get more customers and be an innovator so that if anyone were to buy a novel they would get a digital copy as well.
What if you buy the new book from Amazon? (I.e. I'm planning on replacing my players guidebook, and I can get from Amazon prime which I am a member, by the way, a lot cheaper than even getting it as a digital version here and have it is a physical copy). Sure, it only off by use dollars but still it's good. I'm not a beautiful detail because that would be problematic.
Even if you buy a new physical book from Amazon, you will not get a digital version. It is not stated nor is it implied you would get it. If you want an apples to apples comparison between the physical and digital books, then you want the Compendium Only version which is $19.99. However, the DNDBeyond version is a whole lot more than what you get with the physical book.
Perhaps if Curse looked beyond there greed (licensing would not be the full cover price of the books) they would get more customers and be an innovator so that if anyone were to buy a novel they would get a digital copy as well.
I think your beef is with WOTC, not Curse. Basically you are saying that Curse shouldn't get paid for their hard work. They are a separate company after all (owned by Twitch, who is owned by Amazon). And you are right, the Licensing isn't the whole book amount, otherwise how would Curse make money? Since the Compendium Only version (which is just a digital version without all the tie in's) is only $19.99, in only my own opinion that the license fee is between $5 - $10 a book.
Go read the link you were given by Stormknight, hope it helps.
I think it is really out of touch with reality to call Curse greedy when it comes to their pricing of D&D Beyond. Before they came along, everything digital for D&D was getting sold at prices equal to the MSRP of the physical books (~$50 for the more expensive products) - and Curse negotiated with Wizards of the Coast to be able to give customers pricing options that are far less expensive (~$20 for the "just the book, but digital" option, or ~$30 for the inclusion of Curse's tools for the more expensive products, plus with further chances at discounts [the sale at launch, the Critical Role discount code, and the constantly on offer discount of the Legendary Bundle) and with any bits and bobs you decide to buy counting towards the purchase of larger bundle, whether that's pieces of a book counting towards the full book, or each book counting towards the Legendary Bundle.
All of that, when they could have just charged what everyone else was already charging and not offered any kind of promotional or discount prices.
Perhaps if Curse looked beyond there greed (licensing would not be the full cover price of the books) they would get more customers and be an innovator so that if anyone were to buy a novel they would get a digital copy as well.
I think part of the value proposition of DDB, that many critics overlook, is the ability to come in and make uninformed and ill-mannered comments about the company and product on their own forums without being booted or abused by mods.
I feel like I need to repost this every time someone shows up and makes an account just to ask why they can't have a "free" digital copy because they have bought the physical books. (Honestly, though, I think Curse needs to do a WAY better job of letting people know upfront that they are NOT owned by WotC, nor is this the "official" WotC digital toolset.)
There is a whole thread about this. It's now kind of annoying that DDB doesn't do more to educate prospective consumers to avoid this, so... here goes:
D&D Beyond is not owned by Wizards of the Coast.
D&D Beyond is owned by Curse, which is owned by Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.
D&D Beyond (aka Curse/Twitch/Amazon) did not sell you the physical books - Wizards of the Coast did.
D&D Beyond (aka Curse/Twitch/Amazon) has to pay a licencing fee to WotC for the rights to resell their content in a new format (this web site), just like all the other legitimate web sites like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.
For these reasons, you cannot get a free/discounted copy of the book here, because what you paid for was a physical book from WotC, not a digital format from D&D Beyond, just like when you buy the physical copy of a novel you don't get the digital/audio version for free/discounted.
Here is an interesting article on Ars about a recent court case regarding the First Sale doctrine and the bundling of digital codes. If this ruling is upheld, it would be one very good reason why you will never see a bundled digital code from WotC.
TL;DR: First sale doctrine means you have the right to resell something you bought. Disney says that you must own the physical DVD to also use the bundled digital code for the digital version of the movie, thus according to Disney, if you resell your physical DVD you no longer have the right to keep the digital version. The Judge's ruling makes clear that the court sees the physical and digital versions as two separate things and that requiring the purchaser to give up the digital version if they resell the physical version is an abuse of copyright. The court believes that the user should be able to keep the digital download code, and even resell it as a separate thing from the physical copy. If this ruling stands (it will almost certainly be appealed) NO company will bundle any sort of digital download without jacking up the price to cover both.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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?
I feel like I need to repost this every time someone shows up and makes an account just to ask why they can't have a "free" digital copy because they have bought the physical books. (Honestly, though, I think Curse needs to do a WAY better job of letting people know upfront that they are NOT owned by WotC, nor is this the "official" WotC digital toolset.)
There is a whole thread about this. It's now kind of annoying that DDB doesn't do more to educate prospective consumers to avoid this, so... here goes:
D&D Beyond is not owned by Wizards of the Coast.
D&D Beyond is owned by Curse, which is owned by Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.
D&D Beyond (aka Curse/Twitch/Amazon) did not sell you the physical books - Wizards of the Coast did.
D&D Beyond (aka Curse/Twitch/Amazon) has to pay a licencing fee to WotC for the rights to resell their content in a new format (this web site), just like all the other legitimate web sites like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.
For these reasons, you cannot get a free/discounted copy of the book here, because what you paid for was a physical book from WotC, not a digital format from D&D Beyond, just like when you buy the physical copy of a novel you don't get the digital/audio version for free/discounted.
Agreed. Feel free to include my real math and real value obtained via DBB in my opinion. Curse can use my math example if they like (I already posted this, but meh):
So... I own physical copies of PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual for 5e. My group and I moved to 5e and threw all my eggs in the DnDBeyond.com basket. Not a single regret to this day. I got the Legendary Bundle (currently have access to every official piece of 5e content). picked up 2 Master Subs (second one on a second twitch account). Now I'm sharing all the official content across 6 campaigns I play in (DMing two). That's 31 (active) characters and 5 DMs, total unique individuals is 30. So that's 30 unique people who have access to all WotC official D&D content for the price of each digital book (properly digitized which is way better than just PDF). Legendary bundle offered discounts as well for a total of $337.20 USD for content and $110/yr USD for the two Master subs. Totally worth it in my opinion given a physical Player's Handbook from Amazon.com is $40 (if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber). So just the cost of each Player getting a PHB is = 30 players * $40 = $1200 USD (which is exactly what'd you need if anyone could look up any PHB content at any time via DnDBeyond.com). + Here's the big thing, it's made it easy for new people to play. I paid once, and now new people are welcome and don't have to worry about buying anything (except their dice :P for the in person games). It's the new Golden Age of D&D in my opinion. Whatever I can do to get more people to play the better!
And yes, if we all stole PDFs of these books we all could play for free. Now full disclosure, a few people did buy their own PHB or DMG or Monster Manual in the groups I play in. So yes that's sunk cost that could be recovered by selling their books back (they won't and neither will I).
Update: Due to Critical Role coupon code and my Legendary Sub: I also pre-ordered Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for $15.48 USD. So now all them people I mentioned above will get as well on release day.
I presented real math. Not imagined.
Even for a single group, the DnDBeyond.com pricing math isn't bad. And that's how we have to look at DnDBeyond.com as a resource for a group/campaign. The individual math for a single person is "meh".
And my 2 Master Subs. I see it as investment into the product for the long-haul. There are exciting new things coming out on a regular basis. Those cost money to make. My expectation is not for anyone to do so for free. Those "what-if" scenarios about what a character could look at level 20... already pretty easy to do. But once the character copy feature is done we can do that in silly minutes and try dozens of variations easily. Old pen and paper is/was painstaking and takes forever.
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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:
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!
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
Only one of you needs to buy the books. The person who buys the books then subscribes at the Master Tier which let's you share your purchased books with other people who have DDB accounts. Those people do NOT need to subscribe, they only need a free account. After you get your Master Tier sub, make a campaign, invite your wife to the campaign, and turn on content sharing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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?
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
Only one of you needs to buy the books. The person who buys the books then subscribes at the Master Tier which let's you share your purchased books with other people who have DDB accounts. Those people do NOT need to subscribe, they only need a free account. After you get your Master Tier sub, make a campaign, invite your wife to the campaign, and turn on content sharing.
I am still a new player with dreams of one day DMing, so I am not ready for that type of commitment yet. I am a bit sad that I can't have family accounts or what not but know those systems are ipen for abuse. Thanks for the information
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
Only one of you needs to buy the books. The person who buys the books then subscribes at the Master Tier which let's you share your purchased books with other people who have DDB accounts. Those people do NOT need to subscribe, they only need a free account. After you get your Master Tier sub, make a campaign, invite your wife to the campaign, and turn on content sharing.
I am still a new player with dreams of one day DMing, so I am not ready for that type of commitment yet. I am a bit sad that I can't have family accounts or what not but know those systems are ipen for abuse. Thanks for the information
You don't have to actually be the DM to create a campaign with Content Sharing on. When Content Sharing is turned on, everything that everyone has purchased is shared amongst everyone else in the campaign.
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
Only one of you needs to buy the books. The person who buys the books then subscribes at the Master Tier which let's you share your purchased books with other people who have DDB accounts. Those people do NOT need to subscribe, they only need a free account. After you get your Master Tier sub, make a campaign, invite your wife to the campaign, and turn on content sharing.
I am still a new player with dreams of one day DMing, so I am not ready for that type of commitment yet. I am a bit sad that I can't have family accounts or what not but know those systems are ipen for abuse. Thanks for the information
DefHalan, you don't need to buy the full books to start playing D&D with your friends and family. The "basic" rules are free, both on D&D Beyond, and from Wizard's web site as PDFs. The basic rules have more than enough to make starting characters, and have some monsters to run an adventure. If you are just starting our, I highly recommend the D&D Starter set which comes with the basic rules, pre-made characters, and the awesome adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver. You can buy the boxed set from Amazon for around $15, or buy it here on DDB for a digital copy.
(Honestly, though, I think Curse needs to do a WAY better job of letting people know upfront that they are NOT owned by WotC, nor is this the "official" WotC digital toolset.)
Complicating this is the fact that they *are* the official digital toolset of D&D (a phrase used heavily in their marketing). That it's not an actual WotC creation is harder to advertise in that context.
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
Only one of you needs to buy the books. The person who buys the books then subscribes at the Master Tier which let's you share your purchased books with other people who have DDB accounts. Those people do NOT need to subscribe, they only need a free account. After you get your Master Tier sub, make a campaign, invite your wife to the campaign, and turn on content sharing.
I am still a new player with dreams of one day DMing, so I am not ready for that type of commitment yet. I am a bit sad that I can't have family accounts or what not but know those systems are ipen for abuse. Thanks for the information
Note that "starting a campaign" on DDB isn't really that sort of commitment (though maybe I misread and you meant the commitment of the master tier subscription). It's just a place to put characters, so far, where the person who started the campaign can view/edit everyone else's characters. It tangentially allows you to enable content sharing so you can really just create a dummy campaign, have others create dummy characters in it, and whoever has the master tier subscription enables content sharing, then everyone has access to all content (though they can only use shared content in the character builder for characters in that campaign).
my dm's are worried about having to repurchase resources like phb and dm's guide that they already have physical copies of to access features on here. Is there a way to register already bought books to get access?
Public Mod Note
(Stormknight):
post moved from it's own thread to this one, where the topic is already under discussion
No, there is no way to receive content at free or further discounted price with proof of physical book ownership - mostly because there isn't a means by which to genuinely prove said ownership.
However, many of the different sorts of game element contained in the books can be input as private home-brew, and most of the sorts of game elements that can't currently be home-brewed into the tools will be able to be in the future.
If you mean Curse when you say "the developers", it had literally nothing to do with them and they have no means by which to enact changes to the fact that proof-of-purchase doesn't exist for the majority of ways to buy a book, and is easily fake by almost all of them, on their own.
If you mean Wizards of the Coast when you say "the developers", you are saying it was shortsighted of them to not sink a bunch of money and man-power into establishing a proof-of-purchase system that at the time of making the decisions and doing the work would only be of benefit in the event that a 3rd party came along that wanted to produce digital tools for Wizards of the Coast (who have learned their lessons, finally, after numerous mis-steps at trying to be or act like a software developer that they should stick to what they are good at and not waste their resources on more likely-to-fail attempts at 'going digital'). And that's not "shortsighted" that's just "not being precognitive" mixed with "not burning money and hoping it comes back later."
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Perhaps if Curse looked beyond there greed (licensing would not be the full cover price of the books) they would get more customers and be an innovator so that if anyone were to buy a novel they would get a digital copy as well.
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D&D Beyond FoundersPlease have a read of the start of this thread (the FAQ) and take a look through the discussion on the thread and also here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/6230-d-d-beyond-vs-physical-books-an-explanation
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What if you buy the new book from Amazon? (I.e. I'm planning on replacing my players guidebook, and I can get from Amazon prime which I am a member, by the way, a lot cheaper than even getting it as a digital version here and have it is a physical copy). Sure, it only off by use dollars but still it's good. I'm not a beautiful detail because that would be problematic.
Even if you buy a new physical book from Amazon, you will not get a digital version. It is not stated nor is it implied you would get it.
If you want an apples to apples comparison between the physical and digital books, then you want the Compendium Only version which is $19.99. However, the DNDBeyond version is a whole lot more than what you get with the physical book.
I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
And you are right, the Licensing isn't the whole book amount, otherwise how would Curse make money? Since the Compendium Only version (which is just a digital version without all the tie in's) is only $19.99, in only my own opinion that the license fee is between $5 - $10 a book.
Go read the link you were given by Stormknight, hope it helps.
I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
I think it is really out of touch with reality to call Curse greedy when it comes to their pricing of D&D Beyond. Before they came along, everything digital for D&D was getting sold at prices equal to the MSRP of the physical books (~$50 for the more expensive products) - and Curse negotiated with Wizards of the Coast to be able to give customers pricing options that are far less expensive (~$20 for the "just the book, but digital" option, or ~$30 for the inclusion of Curse's tools for the more expensive products, plus with further chances at discounts [the sale at launch, the Critical Role discount code, and the constantly on offer discount of the Legendary Bundle) and with any bits and bobs you decide to buy counting towards the purchase of larger bundle, whether that's pieces of a book counting towards the full book, or each book counting towards the Legendary Bundle.
All of that, when they could have just charged what everyone else was already charging and not offered any kind of promotional or discount prices.
I feel like I need to repost this every time someone shows up and makes an account just to ask why they can't have a "free" digital copy because they have bought the physical books. (Honestly, though, I think Curse needs to do a WAY better job of letting people know upfront that they are NOT owned by WotC, nor is this the "official" WotC digital toolset.)
For these reasons, you cannot get a free/discounted copy of the book here, because what you paid for was a physical book from WotC, not a digital format from D&D Beyond, just like when you buy the physical copy of a novel you don't get the digital/audio version for free/discounted.
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?
Here is an interesting article on Ars about a recent court case regarding the First Sale doctrine and the bundling of digital codes. If this ruling is upheld, it would be one very good reason why you will never see a bundled digital code from WotC.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/judge-slaps-down-disney-effort-to-stop-resale-of-star-wars-download-codes/
TL;DR: First sale doctrine means you have the right to resell something you bought. Disney says that you must own the physical DVD to also use the bundled digital code for the digital version of the movie, thus according to Disney, if you resell your physical DVD you no longer have the right to keep the digital version. The Judge's ruling makes clear that the court sees the physical and digital versions as two separate things and that requiring the purchaser to give up the digital version if they resell the physical version is an abuse of copyright. The court believes that the user should be able to keep the digital download code, and even resell it as a separate thing from the physical copy. If this ruling stands (it will almost certainly be appealed) NO company will bundle any sort of digital download without jacking up the price to cover both.
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?
So... I own physical copies of PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual for 5e. My group and I moved to 5e and threw all my eggs in the DnDBeyond.com basket. Not a single regret to this day. I got the Legendary Bundle (currently have access to every official piece of 5e content). picked up 2 Master Subs (second one on a second twitch account). Now I'm sharing all the official content across 6 campaigns I play in (DMing two). That's 31 (active) characters and 5 DMs, total unique individuals is 30. So that's 30 unique people who have access to all WotC official D&D content for the price of each digital book (properly digitized which is way better than just PDF). Legendary bundle offered discounts as well for a total of $337.20 USD for content and $110/yr USD for the two Master subs. Totally worth it in my opinion given a physical Player's Handbook from Amazon.com is $40 (if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber). So just the cost of each Player getting a PHB is = 30 players * $40 = $1200 USD (which is exactly what'd you need if anyone could look up any PHB content at any time via DnDBeyond.com). + Here's the big thing, it's made it easy for new people to play. I paid once, and now new people are welcome and don't have to worry about buying anything (except their dice :P for the in person games). It's the new Golden Age of D&D in my opinion. Whatever I can do to get more people to play the better!
And yes, if we all stole PDFs of these books we all could play for free. Now full disclosure, a few people did buy their own PHB or DMG or Monster Manual in the groups I play in. So yes that's sunk cost that could be recovered by selling their books back (they won't and neither will I).
Update: Due to Critical Role coupon code and my Legendary Sub: I also pre-ordered Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for $15.48 USD. So now all them people I mentioned above will get as well on release day.
I presented real math. Not imagined.
Even for a single group, the DnDBeyond.com pricing math isn't bad. And that's how we have to look at DnDBeyond.com as a resource for a group/campaign. The individual math for a single person is "meh".
And my 2 Master Subs. I see it as investment into the product for the long-haul. There are exciting new things coming out on a regular basis. Those cost money to make. My expectation is not for anyone to do so for free. Those "what-if" scenarios about what a character could look at level 20... already pretty easy to do. But once the character copy feature is done we can do that in silly minutes and try dozens of variations easily. Old pen and paper is/was painstaking and takes forever.
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!
If I buy content for D&D Beyond, can I share it with my Wife's account? Can I have 1 account signed into multiple devices and all be playing different characters on each device? I don't think we should have to purchase these books multiple times for the same household.
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?
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?
my dm's are worried about having to repurchase resources like phb and dm's guide that they already have physical copies of to access features on here. Is there a way to register already bought books to get access?
No, there is no way to receive content at free or further discounted price with proof of physical book ownership - mostly because there isn't a means by which to genuinely prove said ownership.
However, many of the different sorts of game element contained in the books can be input as private home-brew, and most of the sorts of game elements that can't currently be home-brewed into the tools will be able to be in the future.
well, I'm sorry but that is pretty shortsighted of the developers.
No, it's not.
If you mean Curse when you say "the developers", it had literally nothing to do with them and they have no means by which to enact changes to the fact that proof-of-purchase doesn't exist for the majority of ways to buy a book, and is easily fake by almost all of them, on their own.
If you mean Wizards of the Coast when you say "the developers", you are saying it was shortsighted of them to not sink a bunch of money and man-power into establishing a proof-of-purchase system that at the time of making the decisions and doing the work would only be of benefit in the event that a 3rd party came along that wanted to produce digital tools for Wizards of the Coast (who have learned their lessons, finally, after numerous mis-steps at trying to be or act like a software developer that they should stick to what they are good at and not waste their resources on more likely-to-fail attempts at 'going digital'). And that's not "shortsighted" that's just "not being precognitive" mixed with "not burning money and hoping it comes back later."