All I can say is IF this is true, I hope someone will pass this up to whatever exec thinks it's a good idea.
I'm almost the exact idea of what I'm guessing the execs think they're looking for.
I'm someone who got into D&D more recently, in large part thanks to D&D beyond. I own literally one physical D&D book, and that's Dragonlance because it was bundled with the Beyond version. I'm on the site pretty much every day, rolling up different characters. I have bought pretty much all the player resource books, and even some of the digital dice.
Thanks to me wanting to spend time with my parents, who are older and deal with conditions that make recent diseases a damn near definite death sentence for them, I absolutely minimize my time going out and such. I am very much connected to online play.
If D&D Beyond were to significantly up the subscription cost for me to keep having access to all my characters, or to use homebrew. I wouldn't just be spending less money here, I wouldn't be spending money here at all.
I hope the rumors are BS, folks got sources wrong and all, but even as a newer person in the sphere, I'm aware of a saying.
No D&D is better than bad D&D.
Historically, it didn't cost a lot to get into D&D and some players would migrated into the DM tier where they would spend money on good content from D&D itself, thus increasing D&D's revenue. It appears that D&D believes they can put out content that appeals to everyone and if they get rid of their competition more people will buy less content? Well for me, its the core rule books and that's about it because WotC has set D&D down the lowest common denominator set for 8 year olds - no thank you. Now if they can put out a balanced rule book in the future I might buy it, I might not.
However, if D&D drives out 3rd party, who I buy from and then they raise the prices for D&D Beyond, including the max tier of $30 to where players aren't playing as much, well now its time to use a different game altogether.
First off, DnD shorts has a horrible track record when it comes to reporting actual news and relies on the 'I have sources but you can't know anything about my super secret sources because they are secret' trope that children use when they've made something up about someone and don't want to admit it. All he does is farm for outrage and use that to boost his numbers, good on him if it works but... it's crap?
But let's pretend he's right this time, who cares? If they offer a $30 tier with content drops that ends up being worth the price then fine, bring it on. AI DM's? Who cares? It would be a big boost for people that want to play but can't find a DM so his outrage at that is literally gatekeeping. And as far as the homebrew stuff goes, if it was true that's a policy that would get changed quickly and fast when released.
As far as... 'streamers' the D&D community was around and thriving before they came along and it will outlast them. This idea that somehow places like Critical Role have done nothing but ruin games is pretty silly. The vast majority of D&D streamers aren't worth the time and the ones that are don't get the attention they deserve so if this OGL or this release takes a few of them down then fine by me.
And I can't tell you what to do but don't trust DnD Shorts. He hasn't been trustworthy, he's not backed down on things that have been proven false, he's promoted fakes in the past, and refuses to even hint at his super-secret inside man that hasn't gotten anything remotely right so far.
First off, DnD shorts has a horrible track record when it comes to reporting actual news and relies on the 'I have sources but you can't know anything about my super secret sources because they are secret' trope that children use when they've made something up about someone and don't want to admit it. All he does is farm for outrage and use that to boost his numbers, good on him if it works but... it's crap?
But let's pretend he's right this time, who cares? If they offer a $30 tier with content drops that ends up being worth the price then fine, bring it on. AI DM's? Who cares? It would be a big boost for people that want to play but can't find a DM so his outrage at that is literally gatekeeping. And as far as the homebrew stuff goes, if it was true that's a policy that would get changed quickly and fast when released.
As far as... 'streamers' the D&D community was around and thriving before they came along and it will outlast them. This idea that somehow places like Critical Role have done nothing but ruin games is pretty silly. The vast majority of D&D streamers aren't worth the time and the ones that are don't get the attention they deserve so if this OGL or this release takes a few of them down then fine by me.
And I can't tell you what to do but don't trust DnD Shorts. He hasn't been trustworthy, he's not backed down on things that have been proven false, he's promoted fakes in the past, and refuses to even hint at his super-secret inside man that hasn't gotten anything remotely right so far.
I mean he's backed down on things at this point and has been proven wrong as the evidence for the 30 dollars thing was the slides that were proven to be a hoax last August by their creator
Historically, it didn't cost a lot to get into D&D and some players would migrated into the DM tier where they would spend money on good content from D&D itself, thus increasing D&D's revenue. It appears that D&D believes they can put out content that appeals to everyone and if they get rid of their competition more people will buy less content? Well for me, its the core rule books and that's about it because WotC has set D&D down the lowest common denominator set for 8 year olds - no thank you. Now if they can put out a balanced rule book in the future I might buy it, I might not.
However, if D&D drives out 3rd party, who I buy from and then they raise the prices for D&D Beyond, including the max tier of $30 to where players aren't playing as much, well now its time to use a different game altogether.
First off, DnD shorts has a horrible track record when it comes to reporting actual news and relies on the 'I have sources but you can't know anything about my super secret sources because they are secret' trope that children use when they've made something up about someone and don't want to admit it. All he does is farm for outrage and use that to boost his numbers, good on him if it works but... it's crap?
But let's pretend he's right this time, who cares? If they offer a $30 tier with content drops that ends up being worth the price then fine, bring it on. AI DM's? Who cares? It would be a big boost for people that want to play but can't find a DM so his outrage at that is literally gatekeeping. And as far as the homebrew stuff goes, if it was true that's a policy that would get changed quickly and fast when released.
As far as... 'streamers' the D&D community was around and thriving before they came along and it will outlast them. This idea that somehow places like Critical Role have done nothing but ruin games is pretty silly. The vast majority of D&D streamers aren't worth the time and the ones that are don't get the attention they deserve so if this OGL or this release takes a few of them down then fine by me.
And I can't tell you what to do but don't trust DnD Shorts. He hasn't been trustworthy, he's not backed down on things that have been proven false, he's promoted fakes in the past, and refuses to even hint at his super-secret inside man that hasn't gotten anything remotely right so far.
I mean he's backed down on things at this point and has been proven wrong as the evidence for the 30 dollars thing was the slides that were proven to be a hoax last August by their creator
hasbro wants to monetize more dnd. That is a fact.
a common negotiation tactic is to offer a bad high offer. When you come back with a smaller price, it passes better.
100% that something was in play.