WotC made 1.3 Billion in revenue in 2021, alone. It's working just fine, unless you're a greedy POS.
Yes, and over a billion of it was from Magic: the Gathering. D&D is worth roughly ~150M, in comparison. We're being put through all this because D&D isn't worth a quarter of what Magic is and the suits want to change that.
What can we do about that?
100% dead serious response -
Demand more, higher quality first party products.
Imagine the content schedule they could have supplied if they invested a fraction of what they're spending on a new VTT on monthly adventure modules.
They could also sell additional electronic products, like book pdfs. Refusing to sell pdfs first party barely even slows down people pirating books as pdfs - high quality scans are out almost as soon as paper hits the streets. But people like me will buy the same book twice to get a paper and digital copy, so long as I can keep the digital copy and read it how I want (as a pdf).
WotC made 1.3 Billion in revenue in 2021, alone. It's working just fine, unless you're a greedy POS.
Yes, and over a billion of it was from Magic: the Gathering. D&D is worth roughly ~150M, in comparison. We're being put through all this because D&D isn't worth a quarter of what Magic is and the suits want to change that.
What can we do about that?
100% dead serious response -
Demand more, higher quality first party products.
Imagine the content schedule they could have supplied if they invested a fraction of what they're spending on a new VTT on monthly adventure modules.
They could also sell additional electronic products, like book pdfs. Refusing to sell pdfs first party barely even slows down people pirating books as pdfs - high quality scans are out almost as soon as paper hits the streets. But people like me will buy the same book twice to get a paper and digital copy, so long as I can keep the digital copy and read it how I want (as a pdf).
None of this matters because they hired a Mobile Game Guru and sunk millions of dollars into a process that directly contradicts this, because they dismissed the “TTRPG” portion of D&D as profitable. There isn’t going to be a backward.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
Ultimately, the biggest problem is that Wizards declared DnD to be "undermonetized" without understanding how DnDs current monetization actually works at a social level, or what actually motivates people to spend money on TTRPGs.
Or in other words, they assumed that TTRPG players and Video Game players are interchangeable - when in reality, they overlap.
The same strategies that work for Video Games simply won't translate to tabletop RPGs, and that would have been apparent if they understood what makes people like TTRPGs. If they try to push additional monetization, it needs to come with additional value - because otherwise, people will reject it and just go with alternatives they won't be able to influence.
I think they also misjudged the difference between cooperative communities (tabletop) and competitive ones (most video games).
They have a whole realm of untapped potential that does not step on the toes of previously established stuff. As many have said they could do more cosmetic stuff! more borders for character sheets, different flavors of sheets, they could offer licensing for direct integration with DnDBeyond with any of the existing VTT's. They could allow 3PP to publish their works in DnDBeyond, sort of like the Steam of DnD. So. Many. Options. but they decided to go with the one that has caused over 1500 3PP & other platforms to sign on with the ORC. I understand at this point they cannot stop but they can alter it's coarse to a better outcome. At the end of the day its Hasbro/WotC not understanding the community and their own product.
I don't want this to get bogged down in the "people shouldn't have to pay if they don't want to pay" discussion. I understand the call from a lot of people that they'd pay for D&D if D&D provided things worth paying for. The problem is that the current monetization scheme isn't working. For whichever reason, it's not working. Not to the point where the suits are willing to leave it alone. If we want something other than an awful Skinner box mobile gacha steaming pile? We have to figure out another way forward. D&D is worth paying for, right? Not the way Cao is looking at, I won't tolerate that any more than any of you will, but if we demand that they don't change anything we won't have D&D anymore.
How do we know it's not working? WoTC accounts for 22% of revenue for of Hasbro, but over 70% of it's profit. I don't know the split between D&D and other WoTC prodcuts/ip. But how is WoTC under-performing in any capacity as an investment?
Edit: Someone pointed out MTG is worth about 1B and D&D makes up about 150M. Given the distinct nature between these two products, I would say that D&D might be under-monetized. I don't have a great number for community, but if we just use the worlds largest community like Reddit as an example, there are 3 million dnd redditors and 610k mtg redditors. So should D&D be making more? Probably. But the products are inherently different, since I can actually make money on mtg products and re-invest. I can't with dnd really. One is a collectible product with sometimes higher values, the other is a game product that does not have high resale value.
Edit2: Honestly if they just put content sharing behind the same $5/mo sub that would go a long way. There's the player paying their fair share. Additionally, if they were smart they would just license out VTT integration with dndbeyond. Let the VTT's sell for you instead of investing into your own but we're a little late for that.
There is a pop culture rule to every game, and it's "git gud" - in this case, it also applies to the company making the game. With the kind of maneuver OP described they might gain a quick boost in profits because "oh-so-new-and-exciting", while chasing away the customer base (and in to the camp of other RPG creators), losing the long term profit when the cash grab scheme hype dies.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
Their competition is people sitting at a table, physically sharing books at no additional subscription cost. That may offend the sensibilities of people who covet the money in the pockets of players, but its not necessarily underpriced.
They need to provide value in exchange for money, and in this case the value is mere convenience. If they push too hard on monetization, people will just... play slightly less conveniently.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
I asked you a question, no need to get testy.
So you do think that people who have purchased content should pay an additional sub to access the content they've bought? Interesting take.
Do you not think that might put people off buying products from the site in the first place?
Genuine question - is your aim just to rile people up so that they'll get even more angry at Wizards? Like a reverse psychology angle? That's the only way I can imagine that you would think that idea makes sense. That's legitimately the most charitable interpretation of what you're saying.
Personally, for me, if they want to get more of my money, start making better adventures... I've yet to put my hands (and I own several) on any of the official adventures that was worth a damn (the compilation was decent though, "Yawning Portal" and I only got that because of the Giants part (which I played back in original AD&D many, many moons ago). but the rest, yah, not impressed.
So, I find myself home brewing, or taking older (1st and 2nd ed modules) and reworking them for modern DnD.
In short, provide better content and more money would be spent. And honestly, I don't have an issue with the DM being the primary book source (though my players do buy some of them as well) because then they provide the pizza and soda for game night, which is equally important to me :)
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
I asked you a question, no need to get testy.
So you do think that people who have purchased content should pay an additional sub to access the content they've bought? Interesting take.
Do you not think that might put people off buying products from the site in the first place?
Genuine question - is your aim just to rile people up so that they'll get even more angry at Wizards? Like a reverse psychology angle? That's the only way I can imagine that you would think that idea makes sense. That's legitimately the most charitable interpretation of what you're saying.
If more than 1in 4 people were actually buying products, your point might actually be valid. They’re not, so it’s not. That’s a huge part of why this gross overreach is happening.
I genuinely don’t care if anyone’s riled up or not; It’s pretty clear to me the damage is already done. I have no faith that WoTC intends to rectify anything with the current community; Seems substantially more likely they’re going to destroy the TTRPG portion of D&D in favor of a mobile game-esque revenue stream aimed at people without prior history. The only reason I’m here is agreement with the OP that we ****ed about and found out by spraying all over the internet how gleefully we chose not to pay a fair price for the game we supposedly love.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
I asked you a question, no need to get testy.
So you do think that people who have purchased content should pay an additional sub to access the content they've bought? Interesting take.
Do you not think that might put people off buying products from the site in the first place?
Genuine question - is your aim just to rile people up so that they'll get even more angry at Wizards? Like a reverse psychology angle? That's the only way I can imagine that you would think that idea makes sense. That's legitimately the most charitable interpretation of what you're saying.
If more than 1in 4 people were actually buying products, your point might actually be valid. They’re not, so it’s not. That’s a huge part of why this gross overreach is happening.
I genuinely don’t care if anyone’s riled up or not; It’s pretty clear to me the damage is already done. I have no faith that WoTC intends to rectify anything with the current community; Seems substantially more likely they’re going to destroy the TTRPG portion of D&D in favor of a mobile game-esque revenue stream aimed at people without prior history. The only reason I’m here is agreement with the OP that we ****ed about and found out by spraying all over the internet how gleefully we chose not to pay a fair price for the game we supposedly love.
Is this actually representative though?
For comparison, I play 5e occasionally because it's what typically gets played but PF2 is my main game. When playing on Fantasy grounds as the GM, I've bought all the books in Fantasy Grounds and can share them... but even though all mechanical rules are available free online, most of my players own at least a physical core rulebook for personal reference, plus an assortment of other physical books and pdfs according to what interests them as players. It's the minority of players that actually work entirely out of the VTT or off of free online resources - both out of a desire for more convenience, and a preference for "local" rules they can take with them.
I've never actually played in a game where the GM was the only person buying books (beyond maybe the adventure itself) - generally, books may get shared but the idea of a table where only one person is spending money (again, despite freely available rules) is not something I've actually witnessed.
I know for a fact everyone in my group also has at least a physical 5e rulebook, plus an assortment of 5e supplements.
Again, despite 3 years of playing primarily on VTTs (and lots more years prior to that). I'm not convinced that the "only one person pays" tables are as common as suggested.
What's interesting about this is that he wants to make a VTT and then leverage that for a (bad) pseudo video game. It won't work. Not just because ttRPG gamers don't want a video game, but because while that D&D vtt looks amazing UE5 is not a lightweight engine.
DnD is mostly played by people who use pen and paper, or run discord on barely operating potatoes. A Unreal Engine based system is insane. Executives with knowledge from the video game world, where you can expect people would upgrade hardware or consoles to play your game, will find out that's not true here. We buy a book and then use it for a decade - we don't spend hundreds on rigs.
I play in two games a week, and DM three: Across those groups, roughly 8 out of the 35 people could even run the damn thing. Half of them can't even run roll20 if the dynamic lighting is turned on.
I actually find it oddly comforting to know that the core dnd writers aren't part of this OGL push, and the big is for a dumb video game I can ignore.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
I asked you a question, no need to get testy.
So you do think that people who have purchased content should pay an additional sub to access the content they've bought? Interesting take.
Do you not think that might put people off buying products from the site in the first place?
Genuine question - is your aim just to rile people up so that they'll get even more angry at Wizards? Like a reverse psychology angle? That's the only way I can imagine that you would think that idea makes sense. That's legitimately the most charitable interpretation of what you're saying.
If more than 1in 4 people were actually buying products, your point might actually be valid. They’re not, so it’s not. That’s a huge part of why this gross overreach is happening.
I genuinely don’t care if anyone’s riled up or not; It’s pretty clear to me the damage is already done. I have no faith that WoTC intends to rectify anything with the current community; Seems substantially more likely they’re going to destroy the TTRPG portion of D&D in favor of a mobile game-esque revenue stream aimed at people without prior history. The only reason I’m here is agreement with the OP that we ****ed about and found out by spraying all over the internet how gleefully we chose not to pay a fair price for the game we supposedly love.
Is this actually representative though?
For comparison, I play 5e occasionally because it's what typically gets played but PF2 is my main game. When playing on Fantasy grounds as the GM, I've bought all the books in Fantasy Grounds and can share them... but even though all mechanical rules are available free online, most of my players own at least a physical core rulebook for personal reference, plus an assortment of other physical books and pdfs according to what interests them as players. It's the minority of players that actually work entirely out of the VTT or off of free online resources - both out of a desire for more convenience, and a preference for "local" rules they can take with them.
I've never actually played in a game where the GM was the only person buying books (beyond maybe the adventure itself) - generally, books may get shared but the idea of a table where only one person is spending money (again, despite freely available rules) is not something I've actually witnessed.
I know for a fact everyone in my group also has at least a physical 5e rulebook, plus an assortment of 5e supplements.
Again, despite 3 years of playing primarily on VTTs (and lots more years prior to that). I'm not convinced that the "only one person pays" tables are as common as suggested.
It’s not me you have to convince. WoTC is on record stating that 20% of the current userbase are the ones who spend the money, while 80% don’t. That’s why we’re here.
If more than 1in 4 people were actually buying products, your point might actually be valid. They’re not, so it’s not. That’s a huge part of why this gross overreach is happening.
I genuinely don’t care if anyone’s riled up or not; It’s pretty clear to me the damage is already done. I have no faith that WoTC intends to rectify anything with the current community; Seems substantially more likely they’re going to destroy the TTRPG portion of D&D in favor of a mobile game-esque revenue stream aimed at people without prior history. The only reason I’m here is agreement with the OP that we ****ed about and found out by spraying all over the internet how gleefully we chose not to pay a fair price for the game we supposedly love.
Ah, so you're here in poor faith. Got it. Probably why your problem solving skills don't seem to be up to scratch here.
We want to encourage people to spend more. Taking away products people have already purchased and locking them behind pay walls isn't the way to go - that's spite driven, like your view point on this whole situation. If you actually want to see a productive resolution, then you need to think of realistic ways to increase revenue. Adding value is how you increase revenue.
Whilst I intend to keep my sub indefinitely regardless (assuming the OGL situation is resolved, in particular the VTT policy) I would absolutely take issue with my legendary bundle being held hostage behind a pay wall. At the point of sale the agreement was that I have purchased a license to use the products for as long as the servers are online; telling me I need to further rent products already bought would not be acceptable to any reasonable individual.
WotC made 1.3 Billion in revenue in 2021, alone. It's working just fine, unless you're a greedy POS.
Yes, and over a billion of it was from Magic: the Gathering. D&D is worth roughly ~150M, in comparison. We're being put through all this because D&D isn't worth a quarter of what Magic is and the suits want to change that.
What can we do about that?
100% dead serious response -
Demand more, higher quality first party products.
Imagine the content schedule they could have supplied if they invested a fraction of what they're spending on a new VTT on monthly adventure modules.
They could also sell additional electronic products, like book pdfs. Refusing to sell pdfs first party barely even slows down people pirating books as pdfs - high quality scans are out almost as soon as paper hits the streets. But people like me will buy the same book twice to get a paper and digital copy, so long as I can keep the digital copy and read it how I want (as a pdf).
None of this matters because they hired a Mobile Game Guru and sunk millions of dollars into a process that directly contradicts this, because they dismissed the “TTRPG” portion of D&D as profitable. There isn’t going to be a backward.
I still don't see why they can't do both. Have a VTT, but also have regular updates on book stuff. Honestly it seems ridiculous to think that a company that has most of its profits from books is going to stop making books and stop support for a book using forum such as D&D Beyond. It's not like it takes millions of dollars to make a book, you just need a few good writers and some playtesting, both of which are very cheap compared to the profit margin. Why would they cut THEMSELVES out of a profitable venture?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
This? All of this? This is how we got here to begin with. “Piracy is okay, if it’s selective, and if you really really really don’t want to pay for it.” What a nonsense take.
Buying one set of books for a table made sense, because the rest of the work to play the game was on you. It’s not anymore. A table of 4 with one set of books, completely digitally, across the country in real-time is an undermonetized commodity. Someone put the time and effort to make those sheets work. Someone organized spell lists and rolling dice across the screen and fun sound effects, and those people deserve to be paid for the work you’re no longer doing. Hate this situation all you want, but end of the day in no small part we brought it on ourselves.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
Their competition is people sitting at a table, physically sharing books at no additional subscription cost. That may offend the sensibilities of people who covet the money in the pockets of players, but its not necessarily underpriced.
They need to provide value in exchange for money, and in this case the value is mere convenience. If they push too hard on monetization, people will just... play slightly less conveniently.
Or more conveniently depending how you look at it! xD
Or more conveniently depending how you look at it! xD
Exactly. If it's more convenient for me to do it the "wrong" way, then I'll likely do that. If it's more convenient for me to do it the right way, then I absolutely do that. Luckily, I own all the content on ddb other than dice because I make good money and I was happy to pay for the convenience. The moment you make it less convenient for me, is the moment I replace you with something else. Either another system, or another way of doing things.
Exactly. If it's more convenient for me to do it the "wrong" way, then I'll likely do that. If it's more convenient for me to do it the right way, then I absolutely do that. Luckily, I own all the content on ddb other than dice because I make good money and I was happy to pay for the convenience. The moment you make it less convenient for me, is the moment I replace you with something else. Either another system, or another way of doing things.
I dunno man, at this stage people are advocating for taking away purchased content unless you have a high enough tier sub. Not Wizards, mind you - forum users. Consumers actively asking for themselves to pay more, to receive less. Apparently buying everything isn't good enough anymore.
I've seen people claim that the "haters" are astroturfing for Paizo or just a couple of people hopping from account to account, but the cult of "Wizards can do whatever they want, we should give them as much money as possible and thank them for the privilege" seems a bit more suspect to me to be honest.
100% dead serious response -
Demand more, higher quality first party products.
Imagine the content schedule they could have supplied if they invested a fraction of what they're spending on a new VTT on monthly adventure modules.
They could also sell additional electronic products, like book pdfs. Refusing to sell pdfs first party barely even slows down people pirating books as pdfs - high quality scans are out almost as soon as paper hits the streets. But people like me will buy the same book twice to get a paper and digital copy, so long as I can keep the digital copy and read it how I want (as a pdf).
None of this matters because they hired a Mobile Game Guru and sunk millions of dollars into a process that directly contradicts this, because they dismissed the “TTRPG” portion of D&D as profitable. There isn’t going to be a backward.
So are you advocating for the removal of shared libraries? If so, what am I subbing at master tier for if not to share my content with my players?
Do you want them to charge for the books and a sub to access the content you've bought as well?
Sounds like a great way to push people towards piracy, not away from it.
Ultimately, the biggest problem is that Wizards declared DnD to be "undermonetized" without understanding how DnDs current monetization actually works at a social level, or what actually motivates people to spend money on TTRPGs.
Or in other words, they assumed that TTRPG players and Video Game players are interchangeable - when in reality, they overlap.
The same strategies that work for Video Games simply won't translate to tabletop RPGs, and that would have been apparent if they understood what makes people like TTRPGs. If they try to push additional monetization, it needs to come with additional value - because otherwise, people will reject it and just go with alternatives they won't be able to influence.
I think they also misjudged the difference between cooperative communities (tabletop) and competitive ones (most video games).
They have a whole realm of untapped potential that does not step on the toes of previously established stuff. As many have said they could do more cosmetic stuff! more borders for character sheets, different flavors of sheets, they could offer licensing for direct integration with DnDBeyond with any of the existing VTT's. They could allow 3PP to publish their works in DnDBeyond, sort of like the Steam of DnD. So. Many. Options. but they decided to go with the one that has caused over 1500 3PP & other platforms to sign on with the ORC. I understand at this point they cannot stop but they can alter it's coarse to a better outcome. At the end of the day its Hasbro/WotC not understanding the community and their own product.
How do we know it's not working? WoTC accounts for 22% of revenue for of Hasbro, but over 70% of it's profit. I don't know the split between D&D and other WoTC prodcuts/ip. But how is WoTC under-performing in any capacity as an investment?
Edit: Someone pointed out MTG is worth about 1B and D&D makes up about 150M. Given the distinct nature between these two products, I would say that D&D might be under-monetized. I don't have a great number for community, but if we just use the worlds largest community like Reddit as an example, there are 3 million dnd redditors and 610k mtg redditors. So should D&D be making more? Probably. But the products are inherently different, since I can actually make money on mtg products and re-invest. I can't with dnd really. One is a collectible product with sometimes higher values, the other is a game product that does not have high resale value.
Edit2: Honestly if they just put content sharing behind the same $5/mo sub that would go a long way. There's the player paying their fair share. Additionally, if they were smart they would just license out VTT integration with dndbeyond. Let the VTT's sell for you instead of investing into your own but we're a little late for that.
There is a pop culture rule to every game, and it's "git gud" - in this case, it also applies to the company making the game. With the kind of maneuver OP described they might gain a quick boost in profits because "oh-so-new-and-exciting", while chasing away the customer base (and in to the camp of other RPG creators), losing the long term profit when the
cash grab schemehype dies.The Master Tier Sub is 6 dollars a month, my guy. Maybe give your gold-plated wallet a rest. I’m still not sure why this shocks you; One dude buying books and sharing for a bunch of other people is undermonetized. Full stop. Website and development team still costs the same amount if they have one sub or a million. Made sense when DDB was a 3rd-party product, it isn’t that anymore, and this is the result we ended up with, and it sucks. A lot.
Their competition is people sitting at a table, physically sharing books at no additional subscription cost. That may offend the sensibilities of people who covet the money in the pockets of players, but its not necessarily underpriced.
They need to provide value in exchange for money, and in this case the value is mere convenience. If they push too hard on monetization, people will just... play slightly less conveniently.
I asked you a question, no need to get testy.
So you do think that people who have purchased content should pay an additional sub to access the content they've bought? Interesting take.
Do you not think that might put people off buying products from the site in the first place?
Genuine question - is your aim just to rile people up so that they'll get even more angry at Wizards? Like a reverse psychology angle? That's the only way I can imagine that you would think that idea makes sense. That's legitimately the most charitable interpretation of what you're saying.
Personally, for me, if they want to get more of my money, start making better adventures... I've yet to put my hands (and I own several) on any of the official adventures that was worth a damn (the compilation was decent though, "Yawning Portal" and I only got that because of the Giants part (which I played back in original AD&D many, many moons ago). but the rest, yah, not impressed.
So, I find myself home brewing, or taking older (1st and 2nd ed modules) and reworking them for modern DnD.
In short, provide better content and more money would be spent. And honestly, I don't have an issue with the DM being the primary book source (though my players do buy some of them as well) because then they provide the pizza and soda for game night, which is equally important to me :)
If more than 1in 4 people were actually buying products, your point might actually be valid. They’re not, so it’s not. That’s a huge part of why this gross overreach is happening.
I genuinely don’t care if anyone’s riled up or not; It’s pretty clear to me the damage is already done. I have no faith that WoTC intends to rectify anything with the current community; Seems substantially more likely they’re going to destroy the TTRPG portion of D&D in favor of a mobile game-esque revenue stream aimed at people without prior history. The only reason I’m here is agreement with the OP that we ****ed about and found out by spraying all over the internet how gleefully we chose not to pay a fair price for the game we supposedly love.
Is this actually representative though?
For comparison, I play 5e occasionally because it's what typically gets played but PF2 is my main game. When playing on Fantasy grounds as the GM, I've bought all the books in Fantasy Grounds and can share them... but even though all mechanical rules are available free online, most of my players own at least a physical core rulebook for personal reference, plus an assortment of other physical books and pdfs according to what interests them as players. It's the minority of players that actually work entirely out of the VTT or off of free online resources - both out of a desire for more convenience, and a preference for "local" rules they can take with them.
I've never actually played in a game where the GM was the only person buying books (beyond maybe the adventure itself) - generally, books may get shared but the idea of a table where only one person is spending money (again, despite freely available rules) is not something I've actually witnessed.
I know for a fact everyone in my group also has at least a physical 5e rulebook, plus an assortment of 5e supplements.
Again, despite 3 years of playing primarily on VTTs (and lots more years prior to that). I'm not convinced that the "only one person pays" tables are as common as suggested.
What's interesting about this is that he wants to make a VTT and then leverage that for a (bad) pseudo video game. It won't work. Not just because ttRPG gamers don't want a video game, but because while that D&D vtt looks amazing UE5 is not a lightweight engine.
DnD is mostly played by people who use pen and paper, or run discord on barely operating potatoes. A Unreal Engine based system is insane. Executives with knowledge from the video game world, where you can expect people would upgrade hardware or consoles to play your game, will find out that's not true here. We buy a book and then use it for a decade - we don't spend hundreds on rigs.
I play in two games a week, and DM three: Across those groups, roughly 8 out of the 35 people could even run the damn thing. Half of them can't even run roll20 if the dynamic lighting is turned on.
I actually find it oddly comforting to know that the core dnd writers aren't part of this OGL push, and the big is for a dumb video game I can ignore.
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
It’s not me you have to convince. WoTC is on record stating that 20% of the current userbase are the ones who spend the money, while 80% don’t. That’s why we’re here.
Ah, so you're here in poor faith. Got it. Probably why your problem solving skills don't seem to be up to scratch here.
We want to encourage people to spend more. Taking away products people have already purchased and locking them behind pay walls isn't the way to go - that's spite driven, like your view point on this whole situation. If you actually want to see a productive resolution, then you need to think of realistic ways to increase revenue. Adding value is how you increase revenue.
Whilst I intend to keep my sub indefinitely regardless (assuming the OGL situation is resolved, in particular the VTT policy) I would absolutely take issue with my legendary bundle being held hostage behind a pay wall. At the point of sale the agreement was that I have purchased a license to use the products for as long as the servers are online; telling me I need to further rent products already bought would not be acceptable to any reasonable individual.
I still don't see why they can't do both. Have a VTT, but also have regular updates on book stuff. Honestly it seems ridiculous to think that a company that has most of its profits from books is going to stop making books and stop support for a book using forum such as D&D Beyond. It's not like it takes millions of dollars to make a book, you just need a few good writers and some playtesting, both of which are very cheap compared to the profit margin. Why would they cut THEMSELVES out of a profitable venture?
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Or more conveniently depending how you look at it! xD
Exactly. If it's more convenient for me to do it the "wrong" way, then I'll likely do that. If it's more convenient for me to do it the right way, then I absolutely do that. Luckily, I own all the content on ddb other than dice because I make good money and I was happy to pay for the convenience. The moment you make it less convenient for me, is the moment I replace you with something else. Either another system, or another way of doing things.
I dunno man, at this stage people are advocating for taking away purchased content unless you have a high enough tier sub. Not Wizards, mind you - forum users. Consumers actively asking for themselves to pay more, to receive less. Apparently buying everything isn't good enough anymore.
I've seen people claim that the "haters" are astroturfing for Paizo or just a couple of people hopping from account to account, but the cult of "Wizards can do whatever they want, we should give them as much money as possible and thank them for the privilege" seems a bit more suspect to me to be honest.