Every time I logging or open a new portal right at the top blocking my view is the ad banner for a discount, and for what seems like every day I get emails. Today there were two.

I get you need to make money, but I'm already paying for an account, and I've purchased these books. Please just let me play this game without having to throw this stuff down my throat all the time.

This new edition has been great, the d&d beyond portal is great but please stop.

I agree 100%!!! We pay for service, not sales pitches. I understand these aren’t just “ads”, but it’s getting old.

Quote from DM_Mike >>

Every time I logging or open a new portal right at the top blocking my view is the ad banner for a discount, and for what seems like every day I get emails. Today there were two.

I get you need to make money, but I'm already paying for an account, and I've purchased these books. Please just let me play this game without having to throw this stuff down my throat all the time.

This new edition has been great, the d&d beyond portal is great but please stop.

 

I actually like the banners and be notified of any sales going on, and I want them to keep it. Before the discount code thread was shutdown, a lot of people keep asking for sales and discount codes, so there is a strong demand for such notifications.

I guess the best compromise is to have banners by default and allow individual accounts to opt out of sales notifications.

This really boils down to a risk/reward scenario; do you want zero banners/ads but the risk of missing out on codes, pre-order bonuses etc, or no chance of missing out on these things, but banners and ads appearing?

You can look at it this way; an email blast is once per new product (and can be disabled from your account settings) and a banner ad is once per device per promotion (the banner looks for a local cookies and isn't tied to your account.  This is so people not logged in don't see the banner every time). These ads cost you time in dismissing them and some amount of annoyance, usually minor.

However, without those notifications, missing a promo code is permanent, as is missing a pre-order window. These are tangible inconveniences of money savings missed out on or actual (cosmetic) digital products you cannot claim. 

When you balance the two in a 'which is worst' scenario, hopefully you can see why the team set things up as they did. I agree that a 'no banners' account toggle is a good suggestion, because then if people want to disable that (and risk not being notified of promo codes), they have that ability. As always, feedback on this kind of thing is absolutely invaluable and we appreciate it when the community helps us with the information we need to keep improving the site.

Quote from Davedamon >>

This really boils down to a risk/reward scenario; do you want zero banners/ads but the risk of missing out on codes, pre-order bonuses etc, or no chance of missing out on these things, but banners and ads appearing?

This same argument can be applied to every single piece of advertising ever though. Sure you pay for cable/streaming, but if you don't get ads, how will you make sure you don't miss out on Burger King's new 5.99 pretzel bacon triple cheeseburger? Many services offer service plans that are more costly that remove ads, both to offset the lost revenue and because they know people are willing to pay to stop the incessant bombardment of "minor annoyances" in the form of time and attention-stealing ads.

So in a "which is worst" scenario, the hand-waved "minor annoyance" of being constantly marketed to with ads or banners intrusive enough to require user input to dismiss (despite having already spent money on products and subscriptions) is discounted entirely in favor of a benefit which assumes the consumer is going to be buying everything that's marketed to them in the first place.

I don't think a good argument can be made against having an account-based toggle to turn this stuff off.

I'd rather have no blue banners, because the cookies are useless when you change the banner wording slightly and put them back up again. Knock it off with the banners and unlock the forum thread.

Quote from paugus2020 >>

 

 

Quote from Davedamon >>

This really boils down to a risk/reward scenario; do you want zero banners/ads but the risk of missing out on codes, pre-order bonuses etc, or no chance of missing out on these things, but banners and ads appearing?

This same argument can be applied to every single piece of advertising ever though. Sure you pay for cable/streaming, but if you don't get ads, how will you make sure you don't miss out on Burger King's new 5.99 pretzel bacon triple cheeseburger? Many services offer service plans that are more costly that remove ads, both to offset the lost revenue and because they know people are willing to pay to stop the incessant bombardment of "minor annoyances" in the form of time and attention-stealing ads.

So in a "which is worst" scenario, the hand-waved "minor annoyance" of being constantly marketed to with ads or banners intrusive enough to require user input to dismiss (despite having already spent money on products and subscriptions) is discounted entirely in favor of a benefit which assumes the consumer is going to be buying everything that's marketed to them in the first place.

I don't think a good argument can be made against having an account-based toggle to turn this stuff off.

 Your example is third party advertising vs advertising something this site sells which in my opinion is not the same thing. 

A toggle to turn off all banners all together isn't a bad option though. Personally I keep all ads on even while subscribed, but that's my choice. 🙂

Quote from paugus2020 >>

 

 

Quote from Davedamon >>

This really boils down to a risk/reward scenario; do you want zero banners/ads but the risk of missing out on codes, pre-order bonuses etc, or no chance of missing out on these things, but banners and ads appearing?

This same argument can be applied to every single piece of advertising ever though. Sure you pay for cable/streaming, but if you don't get ads, how will you make sure you don't miss out on Burger King's new 5.99 pretzel bacon triple cheeseburger? Many services offer service plans that are more costly that remove ads, both to offset the lost revenue and because they know people are willing to pay to stop the incessant bombardment of "minor annoyances" in the form of time and attention-stealing ads.

So in a "which is worst" scenario, the hand-waved "minor annoyance" of being constantly marketed to with ads or banners intrusive enough to require user input to dismiss (despite having already spent money on products and subscriptions) is discounted entirely in favor of a benefit which assumes the consumer is going to be buying everything that's marketed to them in the first place.

I don't think a good argument can be made against having an account-based toggle to turn this stuff off.

Sure it can, it's just not an argument in your personal favor. 

D&D Beyond as a company/business loses money.  For them as a business, this is a fantastic argument and the reality is the minority of people are talking about this.  This is something I've personally ranted about in the past, and the personal reality being it sucks and it is annoying but they need to keep going as a business.  One email isn't going to make or break you but I'm sure they've done the research to see that when they advertise things on the site that has the content, as opposed to reaching out via socials they get more traction here.  As a Master Tier Subscriber who owns everything with the exception of Tactical Maps and some of the dice, I get it.  

Flip side to that coin?  As a Master Tier Subscriber who used discount code after discount code to buy content I wouldn't have bought until it was priced appropriately?  Well, can't really complain about them offering that to others.

Quote from Spideycloned >>

Sure it can, it's just not an argument in your personal favor. 

D&D Beyond as a company/business loses money.  For them as a business, this is a fantastic argument and the reality is the minority of people are talking about this.

 Psychological reactance is a real thing. There are alternatives to DDB for getting this same content, and being irritated by advertisements is a restriction (however minor) on accessing that content (which I've already paid for, and continue to pay a subscription for). If I have alternatives that don't annoy me with ads, I get increasingly more likely to choose those alternatives instead. Now, it's likely the staff of DDB have done a risk/benefit analysis for all of their marketing, and people like me are considered acceptable losses if and when we do jump ship, but providing an option to remove the annoyance, especially for subscribed members, would be a way to reduce those losses.

So like I said, no good argument can be made for it, and certainly not a fantastic one. Yes, you can say "Is company, company need money" but I'm not one who jumps up to buy a 30 dollar book because I'm saving 3 bucks on it, and in fact I'm less likely to buy it at all because I'm grouchy and really don't like being advertised to. Am I saying DDB has no right to advertise? No. Am I giving feedback that this advertisement is annoying, in the hopes that maybe they can find a compromise between cutthroat customer-preference-be-damned profit seeking and good customer service so as to retain my membership? Yes.

I don't mind the banner. As long as I only have to dismiss it once.

The previous two or three banners kept coming back over and over to the point of insanity - logged in, cookies enabled, but nope the damn things kept appearing no matter how much I clicked dismiss. I haven't had that problem with this latest one, though, so yay.

And now that Gifting is a thing, the discounts can be relevant even if you've already bought stuff.

There were indeed some hiccoughs implementing the banners initially, as well as some errors that required them to be put up with corrections. As such, things were a little more persistent than intended. But those have been largely resolved and so the banners should be less persistent

I don't mind the banners either, as long as once I click it, it's gone. 

I have a master-tier subscription and all available content on D&D Beyond. I also pay for a smaller streaming service, one of the advantages of paying is that I get to see content live and days or even weeks before non-paying site members or viewers on Youtube. 

There are still some shows where I have to sit and wait for an in-stream ad read from one of the hosts. Much longer and much more intrusive than a simple banner that can be easily removed with one click.

The banners don't bother me. I read them, I close them. One and done. Emails did bother me, so I turned them off in settings. Done and none.

One banner every other month that might tell me I can save money on something I was already planning to buy isn't something I want removed. But I am always in favor of more user options (because there is no such thing as a unanimous opinion), so an option to turn off banners in settings isn't a bad idea.

Quote from Davedamon >>

This really boils down to a risk/reward scenario; do you want zero banners/ads but the risk of missing out on codes, pre-order bonuses etc, or no chance of missing out on these things, but banners and ads appearing?

 

I just feel personally flooded. I have the core sets of books I use for me and my group, and currently D&D beyond offers no way for me to filter out 'stuff not owned' in searches which pushes more of the books I don't need for my average Sunday night game of D&D, me and my group cannot burn through all the material that is out there which continues to arrive at a fast rate.

I don't know how you use D&D Beyond, but during a session I have about 6-12 tabs open up every single session which i need to close the banner on the top of each one.

In addition to the emails which yes I opted out of (but was getting daily emails) and the banner at the top blocking useful menu items, its tracked in cookies which now shows up in Facebook showing me ads for products I already own. I just feel exhausted by it.

I would gladly pay the extra 15% for the product not to deal with the advertisement. Its like buying a mattress, oh they are on sale, how convenient for me. When are the books not on sale?

I still appreciate the hard work that the authors put into this, and the great work the developers put into this website. 

You shouldn't be seeing the banner ads on every single tab, once you've dismissed it, the cookie should be saved locally to prevent it appearing again. The only thing I can think of is maybe your browser is blocking cookies, preventing the site from remembering you've dismissed the banner. 

I like seeing the banners. It lets me know when there is a special or product pre-order.

Clicking it off is not a big deal.

I get that "clicking it off" seems like a small thing. And when using DnD beyond in my browser from a PC, it doesn't interefere and I don't care.

When using it on mobile, (which is how I usually use the site) the "search" function is blocked by whatever new content/dice/thingy that they are trying to push. I feel like an idiot when I've spend this much money, mostly for duplicated content, and I'm trying to wind down at the end of the day working on the next game session, and forget that I need to opt out of an ad in order to use a search function that reads content that I've already paid for. Twice.

Is there a Game Super Master Tier that I can buy into in order to have easy mobile use? I realize that this sounds like I'm making a mountain of an ant hill, but I would seriously like a more direct interaction with a tool that I've spent this much money on...