Hi! I've been using D&D beyond for quite some time, and I know the business model it works on. I don't know if this has already been suggested, in that case I ask you politely to excuse me.
My suggestion is to create a new subscription tier, offering access to the entire library only for the duration of the subscription. Think of it like Netflix.
Don't fool around, you're just begging for free stuff!
I'm not asking for free content, nor to pay less for it! Follow me:
As of today, the legendary bundle costs $734.92. That's a steep price, even with the $150 discount that is offered from time to time. Subscriptions here cost $26 a year; $55 if you want to share your content with your players (which also means less people are actually going to pay for books).
Considering that most of the people are only going to buy what they need or want, let's scale down the expenses to a mean of $26 a year plus $60 - 150 single-time purchases for each player willing to pay for his content as a mean value.
With a monthly price of $10 per month, after 2 years a subscriber will have spent $240, which is equivalent to a sale of $190 if we subtract the annual hero tier subscription fee. Plus, after these two years, players still willing to access to that content would still need to pay full price, while under the current business model this client would now only provide $26 dollars per year plus the occasional purchase of a new sourcebook, which could add up to $60 per year if we consider how often exciting new content gets released.
With a monthly price of $15 after 2 years the subscriber will have spent $360, which is pretty much the price of a sourcebook bundle at full price. Except now the customer will still need to mantain their subscription to access his content. My personal opinion is that $15 per month is a bit too steep and a bigger customer pool would be reached at $10 per month, but why not consider every option? Offer it for $8 per month and after 2 years it will be $190, which is still around the price of the hero tier plus $150 in sourcebooks I estimated before.
The difference is that the offer of the entire DNDbeyond catalogue for $8 per month seems extremely convenient, in confront to just being the same offer we're given every day. The reason is quite easy: putting away a small amount of cash each month for a hobby is easy. Spending the exact same amount in one single payment is not.
TLDR: in the long run paying $10 per month would mean paying more for this service. But in convenient small amounts.
Yeah, but you're not being realistic here. People would just subscribe for a couple of months while they're playing, and then disappear for months.
That's a fair argument. I can simply respond with two points: first, it's convoluted. If you have fun playing dungeons and dragons, chances are you are not going to need that content only for a couple months a year. A normal campaign lasts for 5-6 sessions, and casual players will probably stick to 1 session per week. This means that a single campaign will cover an arc of two months minimum, so deleting a subscription just to adopt it again later will simply be too much of a hassle for a service that's not too expensive after all.
The second point is that you can fidelize clients offering discounts, much like subscriptions already work on DNDbeyond. Sign up for 12 months all together and pay less, if that's your piece of cake. Disney+ costs $7 per month ($84 per year) and $70 per year. A couple of months for free and people are on board for the entire year, while you're still making a reasonable amount of money.
What about people that already have bought content on DNDbeyond?
Let's not be unfair. Let's say you possess 20% of the content on this site: subscription could cost you 20% less. It can be quite easy to calculate, and this way nobody would feel threatened by the new prime subscription option. Plus, if you possess stuff on DNDbeyond, it's yours forever. Subscribed content will last only as long as you are paying the subscription. If you prefer it that way, go for it!
Should this subscription allow for content sharing?
Nah. I mean, you could consider it like an upgraded master tier, but I think this model would work better if considered like an upgraded hero tier. Shared prime subscriptions could simply be a bit more expensive, say $15-20 per month, and allow a small group of players to save some money to contribute equally to the same cause (like the master tier was probably meant to be).
Do you think more people would be willing to subscribe to DNDbeyond for such a convenient offer?
I definitely do! Most of DND players are young (my estimate from personal experience is 17 to 35 years), they like playing and don't have much money in their pockets. Sure, they might get enough to buy a sourcebook from time to time, but young people are not exactly renowned for their propensity to save money. At the same time, they do have regular access to small amounts of money, stuff that they can spend for their hobbies, candy, parties... Consider how many of them are reluctant to buy an expensive board game but have no problem in getting a MTG booster pack from time to time. The chances of them considering a subscription to DNDbeyond for a fair price and obtain access to all sourcebooks are way higher than simply paying up for a bundle in one single transaction.
Would this be a better business model for DNDbeyond?
Of course it would. Ask it to anyone: is it better a single time high value transaction or a smaller but more consistent income each month? Consistent income sources are what markets long for. The best investments are on companies that can assure you of a regular income, and this is the reason why client fidelization is extremely important, and also the reason why pretty much all of the most important software companies are switching to subscription models (adobe, autodesk, amazon... just to name some).
And these are the reasons why you should consider my suggestion. I hope I can convince you, or at least get your attention for a moment :)
Thank you for reading, and if you want, take part in the poll:
Would you be willing to subscribe to DNDbeyond for $8-10 per month to get access to the entire catalogue during the duration of your subscription?
The issue is your asking dnd beyond to buy all the books for your license from wotc then wait 2 years to break even in the hopes that you will stay on for extra time and they make an actual profit. This assumes dndbeyond has zero overhead. How about getting a sub then set aside $10 per month extra to buy content. In two years you would have bought everything but you are incredibly likely to be able to buy what you need piecemeal to play your characters until you get ahead enough to buy extra.
As to my votes i would rather they have resources to improve tools so I voted no to all of it.
I have $10 in my checking account and I want play in 2 dnd games. In one game I want to play a barbarian with a unique background $1.99 + and subclass 1.99. In the other i play a rogue with a unique subclass and background $1.99 + 1.99. Now you've spent $8. You decide to hold off getting the sub for a month and save the $2 to buy a magic item if you need to. Your playing in 2 games. 3 games in you got a couple of magic items but most of them are simple bonus items so you get a little help on the forums and homebrew them and you spend the last $2 getting the one complicated magic item you have. Next month you have $10 but you've already have everything you need for your characters for your 2 campaigns so you hold off the subscription one more month you splurge on the dmg magic items or reasonable sets if they are more than $10. Now the next month comes along (month 3) you have most of the magic items one of your campaigns ends but another one has another month so you add one more subclass and background. At this point you've spent $12 on the players handbook so next moth you decide to splurge the extra $2 and get the entire players handbook. You are still within the 5 character free limit and you are 4 months in. You decide to hold off the subscription for 4 months more and start buying the dmg and monster manual and dmg piecemeal. Now you have the big 3. You start up the hero sub so you can do unlimited characters then start buying things as you think they are cool from other books. When the book gets cheap enough you buy it.
I'm using the same general assumptions you were with the spare money but instead of dndbeyond shouldering the cost for 100 or 500 licenses the user is shouldering their personal costs. There is no functional difference in your ability to play. This assumes no one to share with, no coupons just you on the same $10 budget.
Because this way you would need to wait several months just to get started playing, but thanks for taking part in the discussion.
I'll tell you this as a DM - you can start playing DnD with just SRD which is free. If you feel like you need any books as a player then consider going this route: player's handbook (phb) -> Xanathar's Guide to Everything/Tasha's Cauldron of Everything -> Volo's Guide to Monsters. You don't really need anything else. Adventures are just official stories, you can play homebrew or check DM's Guild for free content. Other sourcebooks are more more useful to the DM but he can manage without it (maybe DM should get MM before Volo, hard to tell)
I'll tell you this as a DM - you can start playing DnD with just SRD which is free.
Totally agree with this. I do not think it is a good idea to buy anything for D&D until a new player has actually played through at least a one-shot or a short campaign first, especially when there is a free demo. That $30 could have gone to ice cream, music, videogames, or whatever else the person knows they will enjoy, if it turns out D&D is just a one time thing and not something they want to continue.
The Systems Reference Document and Basic Rules already contain a lot of information for new players to digest, and I do not think a new player needs to worry about the extra bells and whistles until they have a clear desire to be more invested in the game.
So I’d be down for it, but it terms of viability I don’t know how viable it would be for them as a business or from a player perspective.
So a master tier subscription, which is what allows content sharing is 54.99. I have to buy the books etc, but once that’s done, it’s done. Your model is that you only have access to the content if you sub, can’t share it.
Let’s assume a table of 5. 4 players, one DM. So that’s 5 subs, 50 bucks a month. 600 bucks a year. Right now, it’s 54.99 for a Master Tier Subscription if you pay for the year up front. Four things have come out this year. Theros, Wildemount, Tashas, and Rime. Each book is 50, digitally D&D Beyond has had them cheaper. So 200 + 54.99 = 254.99. Yeah, lot of money, but HALF as cheap as if each player had a reoccuring monthly sub. Even if you add the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, Xanathar and a campaign of your choice? You’re still at 504.99. It’s STILL cheaper to buy ahead of time.
I think what the discussion tends to be, which has been addressed above is that D&D has a pretty big entry level for a group to want to play, but it doesn’t have to. All a DM needs is the monster manual, phb and dmg. Not every player needs a PHB, they can share. A group can easily start with the 5E SRD and slowly build up.
To be honest I play as a DM, so I would definitely benefit from the subscription system and I would most definitely not be able to use DNDbeyond on a budget for my campaigns.
From a player point of view, since content is not readable until purchased, how is a player supposed to know what abilities a specific subclass will have before deciding what to get? My personal experience is that, even if I do have the information, my friends will simply pirate a copy of pretty much each manual they like in a split second (so they don't have to pass a manual around), and I don't like that solution as well. Especially now that we're in lockdown and books cannot be lent.
Dndbeyond is a wonderful tool that can simplify a lot of things, but I find it extremely difficult to make my players join when they can pretty much access everything for free with minimal effort.
Netflix stopped a plethora of pirates from watching movies for free in a way blockbuster never could, simply because it was easier. It's in this simplicity that people make the change. A single reasonable payment that takes care of everything.
Could I buy the manuals on this site and the master tier to share? Not quickly enough to keep up the pace. Plus it's way more difficult to convince them to split the price if I'm gonna keep the content, and this site policy clearly states that shared accounts are not valid and could be closed at any time.
Believe it or not, they would only be on board in the way I described in the OP.
So I’d be down for it, but it terms of viability I don’t know how viable it would be for them as a business or from a player perspective.
So a master tier subscription, which is what allows content sharing is 54.99. I have to buy the books etc, but once that’s done, it’s done. Your model is that you only have access to the content if you sub, can’t share it.
Let’s assume a table of 5. 4 players, one DM. So that’s 5 subs, 50 bucks a month. 600 bucks a year. Right now, it’s 54.99 for a Master Tier Subscription if you pay for the year up front. Four things have come out this year. Theros, Wildemount, Tashas, and Rime. Each book is 50, digitally D&D Beyond has had them cheaper. So 200 + 54.99 = 254.99. Yeah, lot of money, but HALF as cheap as if each player had a reoccuring monthly sub. Even if you add the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, Xanathar and a campaign of your choice? You’re still at 504.99. It’s STILL cheaper to buy ahead of time.
I think what the discussion tends to be, which has been addressed above is that D&D has a pretty big entry level for a group to want to play, but it doesn’t have to. All a DM needs is the monster manual, phb and dmg. Not every player needs a PHB, they can share. A group can easily start with the 5E SRD and slowly build up.
Well, I tackled this issue before. I think that once you reach the 300 bucks per year you could consider the prime subscription an upgrade to the master tier and allow for content sharing.
Netflix stopped a plethora of pirates from watching movies for free in a way blockbuster never could, simply because it was easier. It's in this simplicity that people make the change. A single reasonable payment that takes care of everything.
Netflix has licenses to show its users the content (and as you might not know it differs between countries). WotC and DnDBeyond are two different companies. DnDB is owned by Fandom. In order to show you the content here dndb need to "buy another instance" of the book and then you can access it. As Mehrkat said - you need to pay your "prime subscription" for two years with the price you gave for them to make any profit. Trust me, that's not gonna happen with some users.
Again - all you need for your players is PHB/Xanathar's/Volo (for races) and from 17.11 also Tasha's. Three books, they are sometimes on discount and one new. You can also find a code to buy PHB for 1/2 price, people got it with physical copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak and some don't really want to use it or have phb here already.
Yet most of the content shown on netflix isn't exactly made by netflix. Those "licenses" aren't free as well, Netflix pays a lot of money for them! I am familiar with the different content in different countries, being from Europe, but I also know DNDbeyond can afford to give for free a bunch of legendary bundles as they had been doing every Wednesday for quite a long time. I don't see them as a poor money starved company under the tyranny of WoTC, they're more or less a partner that gets their assets at quite a good discount. The only problem they have is how to reach a good amount of customers, thus the expensive advertising campaign.
You're assuming they start making profit from the moment a user has paid full price for a product, while in fact you should consider that they do not pay $30 to wizards of the coast for each book they sell you (as a matter of fact, I am fairly sure they still profit at half price, as they make discounts almost every week).
They start making profit as soon as you've covered the basics, which is probably 30% of the price of a bundle, all things considered. Then it's all money getting in, and it's probably more than what they lose from people simply homebrewing the stuff they need and downloading PDFs from the internet for free.
Yet most of the content shown on netflix isn't exactly made by netflix. I am familiar with the different content in different countries, being from Europe, but I also know DNDbeyond can afford to give for free a bunch of legendary bundles as they had been doing every Wednesday for quite a long time. I don't see them as a poor money starved company under the tyranny of WoTC, they're more or less a partner that gets their assets at quite a good discount. The only problem they have is how to reach a good amount of customers, thus the expensive advertising campaign.
You're assuming they start making profit from the moment a user has paid full price for a product, while in fact you should consider that they do not pay $30 to wizards of the coast for each book they sell you (as a matter of fact, I am fairly sure they still profit at half price, as they make discounts almost every week).
They start making profit as soon as you've covered the basics, which is probably 30% of the price of a bundle, all things considered. Then it's all money getting in, and it's probably more than what they lose from people simply homebrewing the stuff they need and downloading PDFs from the internet for free.
Unless you have access to Beyond's financial statements, please do not make assumptions about a business's financial situation. As a bookkeeper, it bugs the hell out of me when a layperson just makes wild guesses at how profitable or unprofitable companies are without even having ever read the company's financial statements. Making guesses about a company's profitability without even looking at their financial statements is the equivalent of a high schooler looking at a person's Facebook page and prescribing a drug without even asking what ailments and symptoms are plaguing the patient.
Beyond can afford to give away those Legendary Bundles because whatever cost associated with giving away those bundles are most likely allocated under some kind of marketing expense. They are not giving bundles away solely out of altruistic intentions. Similarly, discount codes are generally used to drive sales and they are relying on the quantity of customers to offset the loss in profit margins per customer. And they definitely do NOT have discount codes every other week. We had a dry spell of discount codes for several months during the height of the pandemic.
And Beyond definitely does NOT start making the type of profit you are thinking of once they have covered the "basics", i.e.: cost of goods sold. Once you have subtracted all the licenses, fees, and whatever other expenses in relation to acquiring the digital books, that only gives you gross profit, and gross profit does not factor in all the labor, rent, utilities, server costs, and myriad of other expenses that goes into running a business.
And you sincerely think that a model that encourages single time purchases is more viable when you have to spend most of your expenses in maintenance and upkeep?
Do you think I didn't take servers, personnel, development, etc. into account, under the "basics"?
Do you think I mentioned the free bundles without considering them a marketing expense?
Don't just assume people don't think. If you ever sold anything, you'll know discounts are never in red. They are designed to still be a profit income, in some way.
To put it simple: the discounted price is what you're actually aiming for, and full price is what you hope you can get if people are not too cautious. This is more true than ever in a system that does not require the customer to buy again the same asset, like a food company that can afford to lose money on a single time offer just to finalize the client on later purchases.
So yeah, I may not have access to this company business statement, but I had been exposed to their pricing and can measure it this way. If you do, please share it.
Sure, I may make better predictions with actual numbers at hand, but I do know how to make estimates. It's even part of my job! Managing natural resources is exactly like bookkeeping, except nobody gives you any financial statement and you have to figure out by yourself how much fish is in the sea and how climate, other species, a wide array of human activities and an undefined number of fishermen that may or may not follow regulations are going to affect your economy. I assure you it can be done, it shouldn't bug you just because you're not used to make these calculations with unknown numbers.
If you feel like it, we can be constructive about it and try to make a more reasonable guess if you feel like mine was unrealistic.
And you sincerely think that a model that encourages single time purchases is more viable when you have to spend most of your expenses in maintenance and upkeep?
Do you think I didn't take servers, personnel, development, etc. into account, under the "basics"?
Do you think I mentioned the free bundles without considering them a marketing expense?
Don't just assume people don't think. If you ever sold anything, you'll know discounts are never in red. They are designed to still be a profit income, in some way.
To put it simple: the discounted price is what you're actually aiming for, and full price is what you hope you can get if people are not too cautious. This is more true than ever in a system that does not require the customer to buy again the same asset, like a food company that can afford to lose money on a single time offer just to finalize the client on later purchases.
So yeah, I may not have access to this company business statement, but I had been exposed to their pricing and can measure it this way. If you do, please share it.
Sure, I may make better predictions with actual numbers at hand, but I do know how to make estimates. It's even part of my job! Managing natural resources is exactly like bookkeeping, except nobody gives you any financial statement and you have to figure out by yourself how much fish is in the sea and how climate, other species, a wide array of human activities and an undefined number of fishermen that may or may not follow regulations are going to affect your economy. I assure you it can be done, it shouldn't bug you just because you're not used to make these calculations with unknown numbers.
If you feel like it, we can be constructive about it and try to make a more reasonable guess if you feel like mine was unrealistic.
Yes, I think a model that encourages single time purchases is viable for players. Players, which the vast majority of D&D consumers are, only NEED the PHB, and if we want to get picky? PHB, DMG, Xanathar, and now Tasha. Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica and Eberron if you want all the setting books. I’m leaving out Sword Coast because its obvious Wizards doesn’t care about it.
Let’s stick to the “big three now though”, which is the PHB, Xanathar, and Tasha. That’s 90 dollars on DND Beyond BEFORE discounts. If you add the DMG, its 120. That’s one year of your sub model. So after one year, as a player you are spending money on things you might not ever use. To your point earlier, discount codes get offered all the time so lets shave 15% off that 120, so now 102 dollars for all the books. Now we’re paying MORE per year than we could if we owned all the books.
Oh, okay, so lets narrow it down even further. Books are released every 3 months give or take, so its 30 bucks to own the book.....or 30 bucks to just get the book as a monthly sub over the three months and if my sub lapses I now don’t own the content I just spent the same amount of money on in that same amount of time.
Before we even consider the outcome of the business we have to consider the viability of the consumer in terms of the cost/reward ratio and it’s just not here.
Let's see, WotC produces around 4 new books a year (quick estimate), we'll assume an average sale price of 18$ each with max discounts. And we will round down the legendary bundle to 575$ for cost with max discounts. I imagine WotC would want to make full sale equivalent profit in 2-3 years of sub costs, so 190-285 per year from existing books, 75$ per year for new books, lower to 35-40$ per year for DDB sub benefits (or 20$ per year if not shareable). And I think 285$ per year is the realistic cost that all companies involved will agree to. Maybe around 200$ per year if they decide to wait longer to profit, probably around 20-25$ for monthly. I don't think anything cheaper will even be pitched, let alone agreed to (as it will already take 4 years of continuous subs to make as much money as the current model).
So final real estimated price: 24.99 monthly, 127.99 semi-annually, and 224.99 annually. Now let me ask you: would you sub for that? Do you think it is too high? Would you be happy if it existed? And are your answers contingent on whether or not it costs more to be shared (probably around 29.99 monthly)?
The problem with your pitch is that your prices were not realistic. They were too optimistic as a consumer. A subscription as you described it doesn't currently exist (and won't) because the companies would lose revenue to do so.
And you sincerely think that a model that encourages single time purchases is more viable when you have to spend most of your expenses in maintenance and upkeep?
Do you think I didn't take servers, personnel, development, etc. into account, under the "basics"?
Do you think I mentioned the free bundles without considering them a marketing expense?
Don't just assume people don't think. If you ever sold anything, you'll know discounts are never in red. They are designed to still be a profit income, in some way.
To put it simple: the discounted price is what you're actually aiming for, and full price is what you hope you can get if people are not too cautious. This is more true than ever in a system that does not require the customer to buy again the same asset, like a food company that can afford to lose money on a single time offer just to finalize the client on later purchases.
So yeah, I may not have access to this company business statement, but I had been exposed to their pricing and can measure it this way. If you do, please share it.
Sure, I may make better predictions with actual numbers at hand, but I do know how to make estimates. It's even part of my job! Managing natural resources is exactly like bookkeeping, except nobody gives you any financial statement and you have to figure out by yourself how much fish is in the sea and how climate, other species, a wide array of human activities and an undefined number of fishermen that may or may not follow regulations are going to affect your economy. I assure you it can be done, it shouldn't bug you just because you're not used to make these calculations with unknown numbers.
If you feel like it, we can be constructive about it and try to make a more reasonable guess if you feel like mine was unrealistic.
Yes, I think a model that encourages single time purchases is viable for players. Players, which the vast majority of D&D consumers are, only NEED the PHB, and if we want to get picky? PHB, DMG, Xanathar, and now Tasha. Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica and Eberron if you want all the setting books. I’m leaving out Sword Coast because its obvious Wizards doesn’t care about it.
Let’s stick to the “big three now though”, which is the PHB, Xanathar, and Tasha. That’s 90 dollars on DND Beyond BEFORE discounts. If you add the DMG, its 120. That’s one year of your sub model. So after one year, as a player you are spending money on things you might not ever use. To your point earlier, discount codes get offered all the time so lets shave 15% off that 120, so now 102 dollars for all the books. Now we’re paying MORE per year than we could if we owned all the books.
Oh, okay, so lets narrow it down even further. Books are released every 3 months give or take, so its 30 bucks to own the book.....or 30 bucks to just get the book as a monthly sub over the three months and if my sub lapses I now don’t own the content I just spent the same amount of money on in that same amount of time.
Before we even consider the outcome of the business we have to consider the viability of the consumer in terms of the cost/reward ratio and it’s just not here.
this is a good point. If you know what you want you can just get it. It's simply like, say, buying the dvd you want to watch instead of paying for the entire netflix catalogue.
That's a completely viable option, and it's fair. I never intended to completely substitute the single purchase system anyway. If you prefer it that way it's fine. What I'm saying is that there is appeal in offering everything (more than you need, of course) for a reasonable price. Take it like all-you-can-eat vs a la carte. There must be a reason both exist.
Let's see, WotC produces around 4 new books a year (quick estimate), we'll assume an average sale price of 18$ each with max discounts. And we will round down the legendary bundle to 575$ for cost with max discounts. I imagine WotC would want to make full sale equivalent profit in 2-3 years of sub costs, so 190-285 per year from existing books, 75$ per year for new books, lower to 35-40$ per year for DDB sub benefits (or 20$ per year if not shareable). And I think 285$ per year is the realistic cost that all companies involved will agree to. Maybe around 200$ per year if they decide to wait longer to profit, probably around 20-25$ for monthly. I don't think anything cheaper will even be pitched, let alone agreed to (as it will already take 4 years of continuous subs to make as much money as the current model).
So final real estimated price: 24.99 monthly, 127.99 semi-annually, and 224.99 annually. Now let me ask you: would you sub for that? Do you think it is too high? Would you be happy if it existed? And are your answers contingent on whether or not it costs more to be shared (probably around 29.99 monthly)?
The problem with your pitch is that your prices were not realistic. They were too optimistic as a consumer. A subscription as you described it doesn't currently exist (and won't) because the companies would lose revenue to do so.
The thing here is that you need to balance on what you're offering vs what you need.
Take any video sharing company like Netflix. They offer you hundreds of movies, but ask you for the price of a couple of DVDs per month. They're not expecting you to buy the entire library, and if the way you're measuring licensing was anywhere close to the real deal they would go bankrupt in a couple of months. The thing is that you don't get to own anything, you only rent it. Plus, you are, as already stated before, only using what you need, and everyone seems to agree that amount is pretty much 100 bucks.
This is what you need to obtain in a reasonable time (1 year?): not the price of your library, but the price of what people are going to use from it. Imagine renting a car and having the company charge you enough to let them buy their entire car park in 3 years. Who does that? What is the point?
This offer is clearly not for you. You are already a fidelized client, you buy products. This offer is for people that do not pay for the product already, but could be attracted to it with a different offer. Would you save more getting the CD you like instead of paying for a spotify subscription? Probably. That's not the point.
The thing is: how do you get more people to spend those 100 dollars?
Then again, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm simply telling you people around me would rather get everything or nothing, and if they can't get anything with a simple monthly subscription they simply steal it. I'd like to put a stop to that, that's all. I don't see any way to lose revenue to that.
Let's see, WotC produces around 4 new books a year (quick estimate), we'll assume an average sale price of 18$ each with max discounts. And we will round down the legendary bundle to 575$ for cost with max discounts. I imagine WotC would want to make full sale equivalent profit in 2-3 years of sub costs, so 190-285 per year from existing books, 75$ per year for new books, lower to 35-40$ per year for DDB sub benefits (or 20$ per year if not shareable). And I think 285$ per year is the realistic cost that all companies involved will agree to. Maybe around 200$ per year if they decide to wait longer to profit, probably around 20-25$ for monthly. I don't think anything cheaper will even be pitched, let alone agreed to (as it will already take 4 years of continuous subs to make as much money as the current model).
So final real estimated price: 24.99 monthly, 127.99 semi-annually, and 224.99 annually. Now let me ask you: would you sub for that? Do you think it is too high? Would you be happy if it existed? And are your answers contingent on whether or not it costs more to be shared (probably around 29.99 monthly)?
The problem with your pitch is that your prices were not realistic. They were too optimistic as a consumer. A subscription as you described it doesn't currently exist (and won't) because the companies would lose revenue to do so.
The thing here is that you need to balance on what you're offering vs what you need.
Take any video sharing company like Netflix. They offer you hundreds of movies, but ask you for the price of a couple of DVDs per month. They're not expecting you to buy the entire library, and if the way you're measuring licensing was anywhere close to the real deal they would go bankrupt in a couple of months. The thing is that you don't get to own anything, you only rent it. Plus, you are, as already stated before, only using what you need, and everyone seems to agree that amount is pretty much 100 bucks.
This is what you need to obtain in a reasonable time (1 year?): not the price of your library, but the price of what people are going to use from it. Imagine renting a car and having the company charge you enough to let them buy their entire car park in 3 years. Who does that? What is the point?
This offer is clearly not for you. You are already a fidelized client, you buy products. This offer is for people that do not pay for the product already, but could be attracted to it with a different offer. Would you save more getting the CD you like instead of paying for a spotify subscription? Probably. That's not the point.
The thing is: how do you get more people to spend those 100 dollars?
Then again, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm simply telling you people around me would rather get everything or nothing, and if they can't get anything with a simple monthly subscription they simply steal it. I'd like to put a stop to that, that's all. I don't see any way to lose revenue to that.
I don't think comparing to Netflix or car rentals is accurate. With movies/shows, you either watch or don't. With car rentals, you only have 1 car, you don't rent a whole lot. But with D&D, you can read without playing or use only items out of a book but it is still using that book.
If your argument is that you only need 100$ worth of content and 50$ annual services, and want to pay 10$ monthly for it, I don't really know how to address that. If you play for more than a year, you will over pay so few consumers would want that. It wouldn't be worth it for the companies either.
Let's see, WotC produces around 4 new books a year (quick estimate), we'll assume an average sale price of 18$ each with max discounts. And we will round down the legendary bundle to 575$ for cost with max discounts. I imagine WotC would want to make full sale equivalent profit in 2-3 years of sub costs, so 190-285 per year from existing books, 75$ per year for new books, lower to 35-40$ per year for DDB sub benefits (or 20$ per year if not shareable). And I think 285$ per year is the realistic cost that all companies involved will agree to. Maybe around 200$ per year if they decide to wait longer to profit, probably around 20-25$ for monthly. I don't think anything cheaper will even be pitched, let alone agreed to (as it will already take 4 years of continuous subs to make as much money as the current model).
So final real estimated price: 24.99 monthly, 127.99 semi-annually, and 224.99 annually. Now let me ask you: would you sub for that? Do you think it is too high? Would you be happy if it existed? And are your answers contingent on whether or not it costs more to be shared (probably around 29.99 monthly)?
The problem with your pitch is that your prices were not realistic. They were too optimistic as a consumer. A subscription as you described it doesn't currently exist (and won't) because the companies would lose revenue to do so.
The thing here is that you need to balance on what you're offering vs what you need.
Take any video sharing company like Netflix. They offer you hundreds of movies, but ask you for the price of a couple of DVDs per month. They're not expecting you to buy the entire library, and if the way you're measuring licensing was anywhere close to the real deal they would go bankrupt in a couple of months. The thing is that you don't get to own anything, you only rent it. Plus, you are, as already stated before, only using what you need, and everyone seems to agree that amount is pretty much 100 bucks.
This is what you need to obtain in a reasonable time (1 year?): not the price of your library, but the price of what people are going to use from it. Imagine renting a car and having the company charge you enough to let them buy their entire car park in 3 years. Who does that? What is the point?
This offer is clearly not for you. You are already a fidelized client, you buy products. This offer is for people that do not pay for the product already, but could be attracted to it with a different offer. Would you save more getting the CD you like instead of paying for a spotify subscription? Probably. That's not the point.
The thing is: how do you get more people to spend those 100 dollars?
Then again, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm simply telling you people around me would rather get everything or nothing, and if they can't get anything with a simple monthly subscription they simply steal it. I'd like to put a stop to that, that's all. I don't see any way to lose revenue to that.
I don't think comparing to Netflix or car rentals is accurate. With movies/shows, you either watch or don't. With car rentals, you only have 1 car, you don't rent a whole lot. But with D&D, you can read without playing or use only items out of a book but it is still using that book.
If your argument is that you only need 100$ worth of content and 50$ annual services, and want to pay 10$ monthly for it, I don't really know how to address that. If you play for more than a year, you will over pay so few consumers would want that. It wouldn't be worth it for the companies either.
But in DNDbeyond you can indeed use only items from a book without getting the book. You just buy the class/subclass/spell/item you need a la carte. How is that different? Plus, homebrewing rules on this site allow you to straight up copy existing content for personal use, so you could put in a minimal effort and just not buy anything.
In any case, buying the entire book is more expensive than getting the rules you need for your personal character, and even that is, in some way, paying more than you need. Except, it's easier to manage, so you'll still prefer to buy the whole package instead of the single parts.
DMs may need most of a book, but then they won't need the stuff needed to create characters, so again, they're paying for stuff they don't really need.
The reasons why we buy the whole thing are completism and simple sloth. As my friend Paul would say it, we can't be bothered.
The thing is that most of the stuff we do is overpaid, but done in small instalments that are more affordable simply because you also get paid in small monthly instalments.
You could argue that DNDbeyond is a tool that lets you access content that you could either use or don't, if you start looking at books in a modular way. You may need $100 of content, but paying for more allows you for browsing for options, which is the real deal here. Take spotify: most of the time we're always listening to the same songs, so why don't we just buy them and get over with it? Why is the ability to choose what you listen to a premium feature? The reason is simple: users don't really want to use the whole catalogue. People have quite specific tastes, but they like tasting different things from time to time. You might listen to 30 seconds of a song and never return there again. Yet your money pays for that as well.
A user with access to everything will eventually still use the same amount of stuff as anyone else, the difference will simply be that he will be able to know more content and choose in a better way what to pick for his specific tastes.
Doing this without accessing to pirated content is a huge step forward, because it basically kills the need for piracy.
Netflix also was a building model. The original Netflix was a DVD club before streaming and when they first started streaming their library was much more limited and while I don't know I suspect focused on cheap licenses that had waned in popularity. Only when they got enough subscribers did they start getting more popular stuff.
Dndbeyond is a tiny company by Netflix standards who has to pay for licenses they sell. WOTC is a tiny company by Netflix standards as well. They want to make a decent profit in an industry with a limited customer base (those interested in rpg is a vastly smaller group than those interested in shows on Netflix) Dndbeyond has to pay for each license they buy and they sell their services to a smaller subset of rpg folks (those who like the tools). Generally they aren't perfect but have been a good member of the community and try to give options.
Considering this conversation comes up repeatedly I'm assuming Dndbeyond has at least considered and rejected this as an unviable option. Several parts of this conversation have mentioned ways to get what you need to game on a low budget. The subscription plan is just a way to get everything for less than its worth.
Netflix also was a building model. The original Netflix was a DVD club before streaming and when they first started streaming their library was much more limited and while I don't know I suspect focused on cheap licenses that had waned in popularity. Only when they got enough subscribers did they start getting more popular stuff.
Dndbeyond is a tiny company by Netflix standards who has to pay for licenses they sell. WOTC is a tiny company by Netflix standards as well. They want to make a decent profit in an industry with a limited customer base (those interested in rpg is a vastly smaller group than those interested in shows on Netflix) Dndbeyond has to pay for each license they buy and they sell their services to a smaller subset of rpg folks (those who like the tools). Generally they aren't perfect but have been a good member of the community and try to give options.
Considering this conversation comes up repeatedly I'm assuming Dndbeyond has at least considered and rejected this as an unviable option. Several parts of this conversation have mentioned ways to get what you need to game on a low budget. The subscription plan is just a way to get everything for less than its worth.
Oh, I didn't know this was a popular idea. Was this discussed already?
I wouldn't call it a popular idea just one that has shown up in the forums every 6 months or so. That means someone decided to post about it. Doesn't mean they shouldn't post it it just means that it seems likely that dndbeyond has almost certainly at least kicked the idea around. Especially considering all the other ways they make it possible to buy just what you need.
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Hi! I've been using D&D beyond for quite some time, and I know the business model it works on. I don't know if this has already been suggested, in that case I ask you politely to excuse me.
My suggestion is to create a new subscription tier, offering access to the entire library only for the duration of the subscription. Think of it like Netflix.
I'm not asking for free content, nor to pay less for it! Follow me:
As of today, the legendary bundle costs $734.92. That's a steep price, even with the $150 discount that is offered from time to time. Subscriptions here cost $26 a year; $55 if you want to share your content with your players (which also means less people are actually going to pay for books).
Considering that most of the people are only going to buy what they need or want, let's scale down the expenses to a mean of $26 a year plus $60 - 150 single-time purchases for each player willing to pay for his content as a mean value.
With a monthly price of $10 per month, after 2 years a subscriber will have spent $240, which is equivalent to a sale of $190 if we subtract the annual hero tier subscription fee. Plus, after these two years, players still willing to access to that content would still need to pay full price, while under the current business model this client would now only provide $26 dollars per year plus the occasional purchase of a new sourcebook, which could add up to $60 per year if we consider how often exciting new content gets released.
With a monthly price of $15 after 2 years the subscriber will have spent $360, which is pretty much the price of a sourcebook bundle at full price. Except now the customer will still need to mantain their subscription to access his content. My personal opinion is that $15 per month is a bit too steep and a bigger customer pool would be reached at $10 per month, but why not consider every option? Offer it for $8 per month and after 2 years it will be $190, which is still around the price of the hero tier plus $150 in sourcebooks I estimated before.
The difference is that the offer of the entire DNDbeyond catalogue for $8 per month seems extremely convenient, in confront to just being the same offer we're given every day. The reason is quite easy: putting away a small amount of cash each month for a hobby is easy. Spending the exact same amount in one single payment is not.
TLDR: in the long run paying $10 per month would mean paying more for this service. But in convenient small amounts.
That's a fair argument. I can simply respond with two points: first, it's convoluted. If you have fun playing dungeons and dragons, chances are you are not going to need that content only for a couple months a year. A normal campaign lasts for 5-6 sessions, and casual players will probably stick to 1 session per week. This means that a single campaign will cover an arc of two months minimum, so deleting a subscription just to adopt it again later will simply be too much of a hassle for a service that's not too expensive after all.
The second point is that you can fidelize clients offering discounts, much like subscriptions already work on DNDbeyond. Sign up for 12 months all together and pay less, if that's your piece of cake. Disney+ costs $7 per month ($84 per year) and $70 per year. A couple of months for free and people are on board for the entire year, while you're still making a reasonable amount of money.
Let's not be unfair. Let's say you possess 20% of the content on this site: subscription could cost you 20% less. It can be quite easy to calculate, and this way nobody would feel threatened by the new prime subscription option. Plus, if you possess stuff on DNDbeyond, it's yours forever. Subscribed content will last only as long as you are paying the subscription. If you prefer it that way, go for it!
Nah. I mean, you could consider it like an upgraded master tier, but I think this model would work better if considered like an upgraded hero tier. Shared prime subscriptions could simply be a bit more expensive, say $15-20 per month, and allow a small group of players to save some money to contribute equally to the same cause (like the master tier was probably meant to be).
I definitely do! Most of DND players are young (my estimate from personal experience is 17 to 35 years), they like playing and don't have much money in their pockets. Sure, they might get enough to buy a sourcebook from time to time, but young people are not exactly renowned for their propensity to save money. At the same time, they do have regular access to small amounts of money, stuff that they can spend for their hobbies, candy, parties... Consider how many of them are reluctant to buy an expensive board game but have no problem in getting a MTG booster pack from time to time. The chances of them considering a subscription to DNDbeyond for a fair price and obtain access to all sourcebooks are way higher than simply paying up for a bundle in one single transaction.
Of course it would. Ask it to anyone: is it better a single time high value transaction or a smaller but more consistent income each month? Consistent income sources are what markets long for. The best investments are on companies that can assure you of a regular income, and this is the reason why client fidelization is extremely important, and also the reason why pretty much all of the most important software companies are switching to subscription models (adobe, autodesk, amazon... just to name some).
And these are the reasons why you should consider my suggestion. I hope I can convince you, or at least get your attention for a moment :)
Thank you for reading, and if you want, take part in the poll:
Would you be willing to subscribe to DNDbeyond for $8-10 per month to get access to the entire catalogue during the duration of your subscription?
The issue is your asking dnd beyond to buy all the books for your license from wotc then wait 2 years to break even in the hopes that you will stay on for extra time and they make an actual profit. This assumes dndbeyond has zero overhead. How about getting a sub then set aside $10 per month extra to buy content. In two years you would have bought everything but you are incredibly likely to be able to buy what you need piecemeal to play your characters until you get ahead enough to buy extra.
As to my votes i would rather they have resources to improve tools so I voted no to all of it.
Because this way you would need to wait several months just to get started playing, but thanks for taking part in the discussion.
No you wouldn't.
I have $10 in my checking account and I want play in 2 dnd games. In one game I want to play a barbarian with a unique background $1.99 + and subclass 1.99. In the other i play a rogue with a unique subclass and background $1.99 + 1.99. Now you've spent $8. You decide to hold off getting the sub for a month and save the $2 to buy a magic item if you need to. Your playing in 2 games. 3 games in you got a couple of magic items but most of them are simple bonus items so you get a little help on the forums and homebrew them and you spend the last $2 getting the one complicated magic item you have. Next month you have $10 but you've already have everything you need for your characters for your 2 campaigns so you hold off the subscription one more month you splurge on the dmg magic items or reasonable sets if they are more than $10. Now the next month comes along (month 3) you have most of the magic items one of your campaigns ends but another one has another month so you add one more subclass and background. At this point you've spent $12 on the players handbook so next moth you decide to splurge the extra $2 and get the entire players handbook. You are still within the 5 character free limit and you are 4 months in. You decide to hold off the subscription for 4 months more and start buying the dmg and monster manual and dmg piecemeal. Now you have the big 3. You start up the hero sub so you can do unlimited characters then start buying things as you think they are cool from other books. When the book gets cheap enough you buy it.
I'm using the same general assumptions you were with the spare money but instead of dndbeyond shouldering the cost for 100 or 500 licenses the user is shouldering their personal costs. There is no functional difference in your ability to play. This assumes no one to share with, no coupons just you on the same $10 budget.
I'll tell you this as a DM - you can start playing DnD with just SRD which is free. If you feel like you need any books as a player then consider going this route:
player's handbook (phb) -> Xanathar's Guide to Everything/Tasha's Cauldron of Everything -> Volo's Guide to Monsters.
You don't really need anything else. Adventures are just official stories, you can play homebrew or check DM's Guild for free content. Other sourcebooks are more more useful to the DM but he can manage without it (maybe DM should get MM before Volo, hard to tell)
Totally agree with this. I do not think it is a good idea to buy anything for D&D until a new player has actually played through at least a one-shot or a short campaign first, especially when there is a free demo. That $30 could have gone to ice cream, music, videogames, or whatever else the person knows they will enjoy, if it turns out D&D is just a one time thing and not something they want to continue.
The Systems Reference Document and Basic Rules already contain a lot of information for new players to digest, and I do not think a new player needs to worry about the extra bells and whistles until they have a clear desire to be more invested in the game.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
So I’d be down for it, but it terms of viability I don’t know how viable it would be for them as a business or from a player perspective.
So a master tier subscription, which is what allows content sharing is 54.99. I have to buy the books etc, but once that’s done, it’s done. Your model is that you only have access to the content if you sub, can’t share it.
Let’s assume a table of 5. 4 players, one DM. So that’s 5 subs, 50 bucks a month. 600 bucks a year. Right now, it’s 54.99 for a Master Tier Subscription if you pay for the year up front. Four things have come out this year. Theros, Wildemount, Tashas, and Rime. Each book is 50, digitally D&D Beyond has had them cheaper. So 200 + 54.99 = 254.99. Yeah, lot of money, but HALF as cheap as if each player had a reoccuring monthly sub. Even if you add the PHB, DMG, Monster Manual, Xanathar and a campaign of your choice? You’re still at 504.99. It’s STILL cheaper to buy ahead of time.
I think what the discussion tends to be, which has been addressed above is that D&D has a pretty big entry level for a group to want to play, but it doesn’t have to. All a DM needs is the monster manual, phb and dmg. Not every player needs a PHB, they can share. A group can easily start with the 5E SRD and slowly build up.
To be honest I play as a DM, so I would definitely benefit from the subscription system and I would most definitely not be able to use DNDbeyond on a budget for my campaigns.
From a player point of view, since content is not readable until purchased, how is a player supposed to know what abilities a specific subclass will have before deciding what to get? My personal experience is that, even if I do have the information, my friends will simply pirate a copy of pretty much each manual they like in a split second (so they don't have to pass a manual around), and I don't like that solution as well. Especially now that we're in lockdown and books cannot be lent.
Dndbeyond is a wonderful tool that can simplify a lot of things, but I find it extremely difficult to make my players join when they can pretty much access everything for free with minimal effort.
Netflix stopped a plethora of pirates from watching movies for free in a way blockbuster never could, simply because it was easier. It's in this simplicity that people make the change. A single reasonable payment that takes care of everything.
Could I buy the manuals on this site and the master tier to share? Not quickly enough to keep up the pace. Plus it's way more difficult to convince them to split the price if I'm gonna keep the content, and this site policy clearly states that shared accounts are not valid and could be closed at any time.
Believe it or not, they would only be on board in the way I described in the OP.
Well, I tackled this issue before. I think that once you reach the 300 bucks per year you could consider the prime subscription an upgrade to the master tier and allow for content sharing.
Netflix has licenses to show its users the content (and as you might not know it differs between countries). WotC and DnDBeyond are two different companies. DnDB is owned by Fandom. In order to show you the content here dndb need to "buy another instance" of the book and then you can access it. As Mehrkat said - you need to pay your "prime subscription" for two years with the price you gave for them to make any profit. Trust me, that's not gonna happen with some users.
Again - all you need for your players is PHB/Xanathar's/Volo (for races) and from 17.11 also Tasha's. Three books, they are sometimes on discount and one new. You can also find a code to buy PHB for 1/2 price, people got it with physical copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak and some don't really want to use it or have phb here already.
Yet most of the content shown on netflix isn't exactly made by netflix. Those "licenses" aren't free as well, Netflix pays a lot of money for them! I am familiar with the different content in different countries, being from Europe, but I also know DNDbeyond can afford to give for free a bunch of legendary bundles as they had been doing every Wednesday for quite a long time. I don't see them as a poor money starved company under the tyranny of WoTC, they're more or less a partner that gets their assets at quite a good discount. The only problem they have is how to reach a good amount of customers, thus the expensive advertising campaign.
You're assuming they start making profit from the moment a user has paid full price for a product, while in fact you should consider that they do not pay $30 to wizards of the coast for each book they sell you (as a matter of fact, I am fairly sure they still profit at half price, as they make discounts almost every week).
They start making profit as soon as you've covered the basics, which is probably 30% of the price of a bundle, all things considered. Then it's all money getting in, and it's probably more than what they lose from people simply homebrewing the stuff they need and downloading PDFs from the internet for free.
Unless you have access to Beyond's financial statements, please do not make assumptions about a business's financial situation. As a bookkeeper, it bugs the hell out of me when a layperson just makes wild guesses at how profitable or unprofitable companies are without even having ever read the company's financial statements. Making guesses about a company's profitability without even looking at their financial statements is the equivalent of a high schooler looking at a person's Facebook page and prescribing a drug without even asking what ailments and symptoms are plaguing the patient.
Beyond can afford to give away those Legendary Bundles because whatever cost associated with giving away those bundles are most likely allocated under some kind of marketing expense. They are not giving bundles away solely out of altruistic intentions. Similarly, discount codes are generally used to drive sales and they are relying on the quantity of customers to offset the loss in profit margins per customer. And they definitely do NOT have discount codes every other week. We had a dry spell of discount codes for several months during the height of the pandemic.
And Beyond definitely does NOT start making the type of profit you are thinking of once they have covered the "basics", i.e.: cost of goods sold. Once you have subtracted all the licenses, fees, and whatever other expenses in relation to acquiring the digital books, that only gives you gross profit, and gross profit does not factor in all the labor, rent, utilities, server costs, and myriad of other expenses that goes into running a business.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
And you sincerely think that a model that encourages single time purchases is more viable when you have to spend most of your expenses in maintenance and upkeep?
Do you think I didn't take servers, personnel, development, etc. into account, under the "basics"?
Do you think I mentioned the free bundles without considering them a marketing expense?
Don't just assume people don't think. If you ever sold anything, you'll know discounts are never in red. They are designed to still be a profit income, in some way.
To put it simple: the discounted price is what you're actually aiming for, and full price is what you hope you can get if people are not too cautious. This is more true than ever in a system that does not require the customer to buy again the same asset, like a food company that can afford to lose money on a single time offer just to finalize the client on later purchases.
So yeah, I may not have access to this company business statement, but I had been exposed to their pricing and can measure it this way. If you do, please share it.
Sure, I may make better predictions with actual numbers at hand, but I do know how to make estimates. It's even part of my job! Managing natural resources is exactly like bookkeeping, except nobody gives you any financial statement and you have to figure out by yourself how much fish is in the sea and how climate, other species, a wide array of human activities and an undefined number of fishermen that may or may not follow regulations are going to affect your economy. I assure you it can be done, it shouldn't bug you just because you're not used to make these calculations with unknown numbers.
If you feel like it, we can be constructive about it and try to make a more reasonable guess if you feel like mine was unrealistic.
Yes, I think a model that encourages single time purchases is viable for players. Players, which the vast majority of D&D consumers are, only NEED the PHB, and if we want to get picky? PHB, DMG, Xanathar, and now Tasha. Wildemount, Theros, Ravnica and Eberron if you want all the setting books. I’m leaving out Sword Coast because its obvious Wizards doesn’t care about it.
Let’s stick to the “big three now though”, which is the PHB, Xanathar, and Tasha. That’s 90 dollars on DND Beyond BEFORE discounts. If you add the DMG, its 120. That’s one year of your sub model. So after one year, as a player you are spending money on things you might not ever use. To your point earlier, discount codes get offered all the time so lets shave 15% off that 120, so now 102 dollars for all the books. Now we’re paying MORE per year than we could if we owned all the books.
Oh, okay, so lets narrow it down even further. Books are released every 3 months give or take, so its 30 bucks to own the book.....or 30 bucks to just get the book as a monthly sub over the three months and if my sub lapses I now don’t own the content I just spent the same amount of money on in that same amount of time.
Before we even consider the outcome of the business we have to consider the viability of the consumer in terms of the cost/reward ratio and it’s just not here.
Let's see, WotC produces around 4 new books a year (quick estimate), we'll assume an average sale price of 18$ each with max discounts. And we will round down the legendary bundle to 575$ for cost with max discounts. I imagine WotC would want to make full sale equivalent profit in 2-3 years of sub costs, so 190-285 per year from existing books, 75$ per year for new books, lower to 35-40$ per year for DDB sub benefits (or 20$ per year if not shareable). And I think 285$ per year is the realistic cost that all companies involved will agree to. Maybe around 200$ per year if they decide to wait longer to profit, probably around 20-25$ for monthly. I don't think anything cheaper will even be pitched, let alone agreed to (as it will already take 4 years of continuous subs to make as much money as the current model).
So final real estimated price: 24.99 monthly, 127.99 semi-annually, and 224.99 annually. Now let me ask you: would you sub for that? Do you think it is too high? Would you be happy if it existed? And are your answers contingent on whether or not it costs more to be shared (probably around 29.99 monthly)?
The problem with your pitch is that your prices were not realistic. They were too optimistic as a consumer. A subscription as you described it doesn't currently exist (and won't) because the companies would lose revenue to do so.
this is a good point. If you know what you want you can just get it. It's simply like, say, buying the dvd you want to watch instead of paying for the entire netflix catalogue.
That's a completely viable option, and it's fair. I never intended to completely substitute the single purchase system anyway. If you prefer it that way it's fine. What I'm saying is that there is appeal in offering everything (more than you need, of course) for a reasonable price. Take it like all-you-can-eat vs a la carte. There must be a reason both exist.
The thing here is that you need to balance on what you're offering vs what you need.
Take any video sharing company like Netflix. They offer you hundreds of movies, but ask you for the price of a couple of DVDs per month. They're not expecting you to buy the entire library, and if the way you're measuring licensing was anywhere close to the real deal they would go bankrupt in a couple of months.
The thing is that you don't get to own anything, you only rent it. Plus, you are, as already stated before, only using what you need, and everyone seems to agree that amount is pretty much 100 bucks.
This is what you need to obtain in a reasonable time (1 year?): not the price of your library, but the price of what people are going to use from it. Imagine renting a car and having the company charge you enough to let them buy their entire car park in 3 years. Who does that? What is the point?
This offer is clearly not for you. You are already a fidelized client, you buy products. This offer is for people that do not pay for the product already, but could be attracted to it with a different offer. Would you save more getting the CD you like instead of paying for a spotify subscription? Probably. That's not the point.
The thing is: how do you get more people to spend those 100 dollars?
Then again, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm simply telling you people around me would rather get everything or nothing, and if they can't get anything with a simple monthly subscription they simply steal it. I'd like to put a stop to that, that's all. I don't see any way to lose revenue to that.
I don't think comparing to Netflix or car rentals is accurate. With movies/shows, you either watch or don't. With car rentals, you only have 1 car, you don't rent a whole lot. But with D&D, you can read without playing or use only items out of a book but it is still using that book.
If your argument is that you only need 100$ worth of content and 50$ annual services, and want to pay 10$ monthly for it, I don't really know how to address that. If you play for more than a year, you will over pay so few consumers would want that. It wouldn't be worth it for the companies either.
But in DNDbeyond you can indeed use only items from a book without getting the book. You just buy the class/subclass/spell/item you need a la carte. How is that different? Plus, homebrewing rules on this site allow you to straight up copy existing content for personal use, so you could put in a minimal effort and just not buy anything.
In any case, buying the entire book is more expensive than getting the rules you need for your personal character, and even that is, in some way, paying more than you need. Except, it's easier to manage, so you'll still prefer to buy the whole package instead of the single parts.
DMs may need most of a book, but then they won't need the stuff needed to create characters, so again, they're paying for stuff they don't really need.
The reasons why we buy the whole thing are completism and simple sloth. As my friend Paul would say it, we can't be bothered.
The thing is that most of the stuff we do is overpaid, but done in small instalments that are more affordable simply because you also get paid in small monthly instalments.
You could argue that DNDbeyond is a tool that lets you access content that you could either use or don't, if you start looking at books in a modular way. You may need $100 of content, but paying for more allows you for browsing for options, which is the real deal here.
Take spotify: most of the time we're always listening to the same songs, so why don't we just buy them and get over with it? Why is the ability to choose what you listen to a premium feature? The reason is simple: users don't really want to use the whole catalogue. People have quite specific tastes, but they like tasting different things from time to time. You might listen to 30 seconds of a song and never return there again. Yet your money pays for that as well.
A user with access to everything will eventually still use the same amount of stuff as anyone else, the difference will simply be that he will be able to know more content and choose in a better way what to pick for his specific tastes.
Doing this without accessing to pirated content is a huge step forward, because it basically kills the need for piracy.
Netflix also was a building model. The original Netflix was a DVD club before streaming and when they first started streaming their library was much more limited and while I don't know I suspect focused on cheap licenses that had waned in popularity. Only when they got enough subscribers did they start getting more popular stuff.
Dndbeyond is a tiny company by Netflix standards who has to pay for licenses they sell. WOTC is a tiny company by Netflix standards as well. They want to make a decent profit in an industry with a limited customer base (those interested in rpg is a vastly smaller group than those interested in shows on Netflix) Dndbeyond has to pay for each license they buy and they sell their services to a smaller subset of rpg folks (those who like the tools). Generally they aren't perfect but have been a good member of the community and try to give options.
Considering this conversation comes up repeatedly I'm assuming Dndbeyond has at least considered and rejected this as an unviable option. Several parts of this conversation have mentioned ways to get what you need to game on a low budget. The subscription plan is just a way to get everything for less than its worth.
Oh, I didn't know this was a popular idea. Was this discussed already?
I wouldn't call it a popular idea just one that has shown up in the forums every 6 months or so. That means someone decided to post about it. Doesn't mean they shouldn't post it it just means that it seems likely that dndbeyond has almost certainly at least kicked the idea around. Especially considering all the other ways they make it possible to buy just what you need.