Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Do I think they did it to try and forestall 'piracy' and are gonna nuke the millions of homebrew entries on DDB, alienate the millions of players who've invested themselves in those entries, to stop something they know full well has been happening ever since the service started and which has historically never really slowed or impacted their sales? Nah. The number of people who are all of: adept enough with the homebrew tools to recreate official content, spiteful enough to do exactly that instead of pay the relative pittance required for a new book, and dumb enough to brag about doing so somewhere Wotsee has to take notice is gonna be statistical-noise low.
Is it something to be wary of? Sure. But panicked fearmongering with no real purpose isn't going to help. All you're really doing is venting how much you hate Corporate People being Corporate. Which, fair,late-stage capitalism obsessed with GROWTH AT ALL COSTS is a blight on mankind. But keep it at least plausible, ne?
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal.
every bit you purchased was credited to your final purchase if you wanted the remainder.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Completely wrong. The cost of the book was the cost of the book, there was no need to pay a "dramatically higher" cost via piecemealing. Once enough a la carte purchases were made to match the total cost of the book, it was unlocked in it's entirety. Meaning you could've made 15 individual $1.99 purchases from a $29.99 book and you still would've come out ahead. That is significantly more than "almost no purchases" if you ask me. Additionally every bit you had purchased credited the remaining cost of the book so if you had made a couple of purchases from a book and later down the road wanted the entire book, you just needed to pay the remaining balance. There was literally zero downside on the consumers end, it was everything but a "shit deal."
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Do I think they did it to try and forestall 'piracy' and are gonna nuke the millions of homebrew entries on DDB, alienate the millions of players who've invested themselves in those entries, to stop something they know full well has been happening ever since the service started and which has historically never really slowed or impacted their sales? Nah. The number of people who are all of: adept enough with the homebrew tools to recreate official content, spiteful enough to do exactly that instead of pay the relative pittance required for a new book, and dumb enough to brag about doing so somewhere Wotsee has to take notice is gonna be statistical-noise low.
Is it something to be wary of? Sure. But panicked fearmongering with no real purpose isn't going to help. All you're really doing is venting how much you hate Corporate People being Corporate. Which, fair,late-stage capitalism obsessed with GROWTH AT ALL COSTS is a blight on mankind. But keep it at least plausible, ne?
Well up until April 30, books on DDB used to be $49.99, and a-la-carte covered less than half the cost. But now, it’s $29.99 and as someone who back in the day found buying plug and play character add-ons piecemeal was a good way to ease people into the game, especially given the time and state of economic conditions.
Homebrewing isn’t a means of piracy, ( older and other industries have always had piracy issues, they still exist ), but more a way to tweak play to suit individual tastes.
No, if Hasbro /WotC were to remove Homebrew, the OGL issue would look like a walk in the park. At this point it would be in the companys best interests to open communication with the public and prevent any further escalation.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
And you didn't notice that the cost of the magic items you bought a la cart was deducted from the price of the DMG? Every a la cart purchase you made subtracted from the book's total price, you never had to pay twice and you never had to pay more than the total price of the book to unlock the whole book.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Speaking from personal experience. The benefit of a-la-carte was testing out things and for new players.
When I first came to the site, first trying out D&D, I liked the concept of the Artificer class and the Bladesinger subclass, they sounded neat, so I bought those things individually to test making characters with.
I was nowhere near invested enough that I was gonna spend $60 to get a class I want and a subclass I want.
Now, later I did buy both of the books, using the bit of discount I got.
The benefit of a-la-carte should not be compared to "Well, compared to buying the whole book it's more expensive". I'm willing to bet most of the folks who bought a-la-carte fall into either one of two categories.
1-Cannot afford (or are not willing to spend enough) to buy whole books.
or
2-Were (at the time) only interested in that specific piece of the book.
Well up until April 30, books on DDB used to be $49.99, and a-la-carte covered less than half the cost. But now, it’s $29.99 and as someone who back in the day found buying plug and play character add-ons piecemeal was a good way to ease people into the game, especially given the time and state of economic conditions.
Homebrewing isn’t a means of piracy, ( older and other industries have always had piracy issues, they still exist ), but more a way to tweak play to suit individual tastes.
No, if Hasbro /WotC were to remove Homebrew, the OGL issue would look like a walk in the park. At this point it would be in the companys best interests to open communication with the public and prevent any further escalation.
Uhm. Either I'm misunderstanding you or you're remembering things wrong.
Books were NOT regularly 49.99 on here before April 30th.
Most books were 29.99 back before April 30th. I literally checked my order history just to make sure. Strixhaven, Tashas, Wild Beyond Witchlight all cost me $29.99 before tax. Heck, Spelljammer was $35.99
The only book I know of that was $49.99 before April 30th was Planescape, and it's still $49.99 now.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Speaking from personal experience. The benefit of a-la-carte was testing out things and for new players.
When I first came to the site, first trying out D&D, I liked the concept of the Artificer class and the Bladesinger subclass, they sounded neat, so I bought those things individually to test making characters with.
I was nowhere near invested enough that I was gonna spend $60 to get a class I want and a subclass I want.
Now, later I did buy both of the books, using the bit of discount I got.
The benefit of a-la-carte should not be compared to "Well, compared to buying the whole book it's more expensive". I'm willing to bet most of the folks who bought a-la-carte fall into either one of two categories.
1-Cannot afford (or are not willing to spend enough) to buy whole books.
or
2-Were (at the time) only interested in that specific piece of the book.
Well up until April 30, books on DDB used to be $49.99, and a-la-carte covered less than half the cost. But now, it’s $29.99 and as someone who back in the day found buying plug and play character add-ons piecemeal was a good way to ease people into the game, especially given the time and state of economic conditions.
Homebrewing isn’t a means of piracy, ( older and other industries have always had piracy issues, they still exist ), but more a way to tweak play to suit individual tastes.
No, if Hasbro /WotC were to remove Homebrew, the OGL issue would look like a walk in the park. At this point it would be in the companys best interests to open communication with the public and prevent any further escalation.
Uhm. Either I'm misunderstanding you or you're remembering things wrong.
Books were NOT regularly 49.99 on here before April 30th.
Most books were 29.99 back before April 30th. I literally checked my order history just to make sure. Strixhaven, Tashas, Wild Beyond Witchlight all cost me $29.99 before tax. Heck, Spelljammer was $35.99
The only book I know of that was $49.99 before April 30th was Planescape, and it's still $49.99 now.
The core three and those that came before TCoE were same as retail B&M prices $49.95.
When they dropped a-la-carte, the prices went down.
30$ for a physical I have at least three of already ( one in physical collection storage preserved for reasons, and two that are for continued manhandling), and 10$ for digital is the current offer.
The hoops to gain $10 worth of value at this point is just not worth the effort.
why should I spend $30 on material I already spent nearly $20 of on a former $50 priced product. ( and really i don’t need the remainder, at this point it only serves to complete a collection that will at some point I will not be able to access, the money could be better spent )
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Speaking from personal experience. The benefit of a-la-carte was testing out things and for new players.
When I first came to the site, first trying out D&D, I liked the concept of the Artificer class and the Bladesinger subclass, they sounded neat, so I bought those things individually to test making characters with.
I was nowhere near invested enough that I was gonna spend $60 to get a class I want and a subclass I want.
Now, later I did buy both of the books, using the bit of discount I got.
The benefit of a-la-carte should not be compared to "Well, compared to buying the whole book it's more expensive". I'm willing to bet most of the folks who bought a-la-carte fall into either one of two categories.
1-Cannot afford (or are not willing to spend enough) to buy whole books.
or
2-Were (at the time) only interested in that specific piece of the book.
Well up until April 30, books on DDB used to be $49.99, and a-la-carte covered less than half the cost. But now, it’s $29.99 and as someone who back in the day found buying plug and play character add-ons piecemeal was a good way to ease people into the game, especially given the time and state of economic conditions.
Homebrewing isn’t a means of piracy, ( older and other industries have always had piracy issues, they still exist ), but more a way to tweak play to suit individual tastes.
No, if Hasbro /WotC were to remove Homebrew, the OGL issue would look like a walk in the park. At this point it would be in the companys best interests to open communication with the public and prevent any further escalation.
Uhm. Either I'm misunderstanding you or you're remembering things wrong.
Books were NOT regularly 49.99 on here before April 30th.
Most books were 29.99 back before April 30th. I literally checked my order history just to make sure. Strixhaven, Tashas, Wild Beyond Witchlight all cost me $29.99 before tax. Heck, Spelljammer was $35.99
The only book I know of that was $49.99 before April 30th was Planescape, and it's still $49.99 now.
The core three and those that came before TCoE were same as retail B&M prices $49.95.
When they dropped a-la-carte, the prices went down.
30$ for a physical I have at least three of already ( one in physical collection storage preserved for reasons, and two that are for continued manhandling), and 10$ for digital is the current offer.
The hoops to gain $10 worth of value at this point is just not worth the effort.
why should I spend $30 on material I already spent nearly $20 of on a former $50 priced product. ( and really i don’t need the remainder, at this point it only serves to complete a collection that will at some point I will not be able to access, the money could be better spent )
Dude, I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
I went to the internet archive and checked the snapshots of DNDBeyonds marketplace from 2020 and 2023
DMG, Monster Manual, and PHB were all 29.99.
If you can find any old snapshots of the prices on DNDBeyond being higher than that, please, let me know, but all evidence I can find supports that the prices were always the same and did not go down with them taking away a-la-carte.
Uhm. Either I'm misunderstanding you or you're remembering things wrong.
Books were NOT regularly 49.99 on here before April 30th.
Most books were 29.99 back before April 30th. I literally checked my order history just to make sure. Strixhaven, Tashas, Wild Beyond Witchlight all cost me $29.99 before tax. Heck, Spelljammer was $35.99
The only book I know of that was $49.99 before April 30th was Planescape, and it's still $49.99 now.
The core three and those that came before TCoE were same as retail B&M prices $49.95.
When they dropped a-la-carte, the prices went down.
30$ for a physical I have at least three of already ( one in physical collection storage preserved for reasons, and two that are for continued manhandling), and 10$ for digital is the current offer.
The hoops to gain $10 worth of value at this point is just not worth the effort.
why should I spend $30 on material I already spent nearly $20 of on a former $50 priced product. ( and really i don’t need the remainder, at this point it only serves to complete a collection that will at some point I will not be able to access, the money could be better spent )
You are wrong. The books always cost $29.99 on this site. As someone else already said, and as I can verify, my purchase of things like the MM and PHB all cost $29.99 years ago. This is verifiable data - no matter how much you want to insist the digital copies used to cost the same as retail, you will be wrong.
As for why you should have to buy them again for digital? Same reason buying a physical book will not give you a Kindle version. They are different products. This has been the norm of years - back in the DVD days, physical would cost X, digital would cost a bit less, and a special bundled edition would be less than the sum of the parts to encourage folks up-purchasing both versions when they probably only needed one. Really nothing weird here - other than the fact players feel entitled to something that most of society has accepted for well over a decade.
You do realize that in web programming a value is assigned a variable. if i code a link to that variable, i can at any time change the value of that variable, and all links to the variable will print the current value of that variable.
Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got a goblin infestation that needs to be cleared out.
So by your logic, every time an item goes on a sale the previous receipts of the order, made at the higher price, would change to reflect the sale value?
Seriously at this point just claim it's the Mandela effect and you just dropped in from an alternate universe where the price used to be higher.
It's still just being stubborn and refusing to admit you might possibly remember something wrong, but at least that can be funny.
Suddenly everyone is a D&D 3rd party publisher acting like children who can't have everything they point at for nearly free. It wasn't WotC who chose to use AI art (not that it matters at all to me), the OGL business might have been an issue for some 3rd party publishers but not for the vast majority of D&D players and DMs. And however nice the piecemeal deal on DDB it is not like all the other TTRPG companies has it and big evil WotC chose to cancel the deal. If there was no DDB you had to buy the whole book anyway so, to me, it is not an issue at all. I prefer to buy the books and then put together my own "menu" from those books.
Homebrew is a nice feature and something we all use to some extent. The idea that its in the works to get rid of the homebrew and in the long run DDB has no substance at all. There is simply no evidence that says so.
Ah yes defend the anti consumer practices... No people were not buying the whole books before just to get acess to a single feat or subclass, but DNDbeyond made those people actually fork up some money they normaly wouldnt have, as Lord gaben has told Piracy is for the most part a Service issue
Ah yes defend the anti consumer practices... No people were not buying the whole books before just to get acess to a single feat or subclass, but DNDbeyond made those people actually fork up some money they normaly wouldnt have, as Lord gaben has told Piracy is for the most part a Service issue
I did. I bought Fizban’s just to make a drakewarden. Maybe I’m in the minority, maybe I’m not. None of us here know. But WotC knows exactly how many people are accessing exactly how many parts of which books. They know that I have the whole book and never look at any of the other parts of it.
Like I and some other keep saying, we may not like it, but WotC knows what their sales are, and how many people actually made use of the piecemeal option. It sucks, yes. But give them some credit for knowing their customer’s buying patterns. They have years of purchase data to study. If this was a profit center, it would still be going.
You don't need a Wayback Machine when you have a purchase history. I bought the PHB May 7, 2020 on DDB for $29.99. Every D&D book put out on DDB was at that price point I believe until the Spelljammer and Planescape Box Sets (I remember being one of the people criticizing about DDB's pricing of those two when they were unveiled). From April 2020 - December 2021, my order history shows I never paid more than $29.99 for a D&D book. You may also notice Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds have their digital editions of the PHB, and I believe most other D&D books at the $29.99 price point (I haven't WayBack explored it, but I remember $29.99 being the "industry standard" for digital D&D when I was researching which platform I should buy into). The difference is DDB used to allow access to some content piecemeal, which lowered the cost of entry for new players, and those purchases could eventually be credited to buying the whole book. The lack of that is why some regular DDB users are upset with the change in the Marketplace.
Suddenly everyone is a D&D 3rd party publisher acting like children who can't have everything they point at for nearly free. It wasn't WotC who chose to use AI art (not that it matters at all to me), the OGL business might have been an issue for some 3rd party publishers but not for the vast majority of D&D players and DMs. And however nice the piecemeal deal on DDB it is not like all the other TTRPG companies has it and big evil WotC chose to cancel the deal. If there was no DDB you had to buy the whole book anyway so, to me, it is not an issue at all. I prefer to buy the books and then put together my own "menu" from those books.
Homebrew is a nice feature and something we all use to some extent. The idea that its in the works to get rid of the homebrew and in the long run DDB has no substance at all. There is simply no evidence that says so.
Ah yes defend the anti consumer practices... No people were not buying the whole books before just to get acess to a single feat or subclass, but DNDbeyond made those people actually fork up some money they normaly wouldnt have, as Lord gaben has told Piracy is for the most part a Service issue
It's not a case of anti consumer practices. I can't think of any real justification for cherry-picking, part from "I don't want to buy the book because it will cost me a few extra doolars". Just get the book and be done with it, they are not that expensive either. And remember, you can either homebrew or just live happily without that extra feat or subclass.
Its an issue because it was really the only distinguishing feature of D&D beyond (along with bundles) and it was why the site was extremely popular to the point that Wotc/Hasbro bought it 2 years ago or so.
Its a big deal when you would never actually buy the book, but would buy a subclass or some other smaller part. Thats money in the company's pocket. Now that they don't offer it...people aren't going to buy the books. And honestly, although I have a campaign and was using the tools (have a subscription) I think I may just cancel and overall go to a different system entirely. Thats more money they lose. Will they continue to gain in the future? Who knows. I do wish them all the best even though i think this was a supreme mistake.
If you are someone who wants to buy the books and support Hasbro/Wotc then that is your decision. Mine is going to be different decision going forward.
"If there was no DDB you had to buy the whole book anyway so, to me, it is not an issue at all." - no...we simply wouldn't buy the book at all. If there was no DDB Hasbro/Wotc would (will) make less money.
I don't agree with you at all here. I would buy the books and have done so, I do have a subscription enabling me to share content with my players.
Playing games, seeing movies, going on vacation, practicing sports all cost money. And in this case it is not that big of a deal moneywise.
If you want to cancel you sub is entirely up to you. If you don't like the game, don't buy the game.
You do realize that in web programming a value is assigned a variable. if i code a link to that variable, i can at any time change the value of that variable, and all links to the variable will print the current value of that variable.
Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got a goblin infestation that needs to be cleared out.
So by your logic, every time an item goes on a sale the previous receipts of the order, made at the higher price, would change to reflect the sale value?
Seriously at this point just claim it's the Mandela effect and you just dropped in from an alternate universe where the price used to be higher.
It's still just being stubborn and refusing to admit you might possibly remember something wrong, but at least that can be funny.
I know what I paid and it was $27.02 for Mosters of the Multiverse (in 2022) and the same for Vecna (mar 2024). $27.02 because I have the legendary bundle.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
What about players? What if they just need races and subclasses and have absolutely no purpose for items or monsters? I know that for me and my table we're going offline and using paper from now on because I won't be renewing my membership to this money hungry company.
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Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Do I think they did it to try and forestall 'piracy' and are gonna nuke the millions of homebrew entries on DDB, alienate the millions of players who've invested themselves in those entries, to stop something they know full well has been happening ever since the service started and which has historically never really slowed or impacted their sales? Nah. The number of people who are all of: adept enough with the homebrew tools to recreate official content, spiteful enough to do exactly that instead of pay the relative pittance required for a new book, and dumb enough to brag about doing so somewhere Wotsee has to take notice is gonna be statistical-noise low.
Is it something to be wary of? Sure. But panicked fearmongering with no real purpose isn't going to help. All you're really doing is venting how much you hate Corporate People being Corporate. Which, fair,late-stage capitalism obsessed with GROWTH AT ALL COSTS is a blight on mankind. But keep it at least plausible, ne?
Please do not contact or message me.
every bit you purchased was credited to your final purchase if you wanted the remainder.
Completely wrong. The cost of the book was the cost of the book, there was no need to pay a "dramatically higher" cost via piecemealing. Once enough a la carte purchases were made to match the total cost of the book, it was unlocked in it's entirety. Meaning you could've made 15 individual $1.99 purchases from a $29.99 book and you still would've come out ahead. That is significantly more than "almost no purchases" if you ask me. Additionally every bit you had purchased credited the remaining cost of the book so if you had made a couple of purchases from a book and later down the road wanted the entire book, you just needed to pay the remaining balance. There was literally zero downside on the consumers end, it was everything but a "shit deal."
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Phandelver],[Frozen Sick],[Acquisitions Inc.],[Vecna Dossier],[Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate], [Lightning Keep], [Stormwreck Isle], [Pinebrook], [Caverns of Tsojcanth], [The Lost Horn], [Elemental Evil].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].Well up until April 30, books on DDB used to be $49.99, and a-la-carte covered less than half the cost.
But now, it’s $29.99 and as someone who back in the day found buying plug and play character add-ons piecemeal was a good way to ease people into the game, especially given the time and state of economic conditions.
Homebrewing isn’t a means of piracy, ( older and other industries have always had piracy issues, they still exist ), but more a way to tweak play to suit individual tastes.
No, if Hasbro /WotC were to remove Homebrew, the OGL issue would look like a walk in the park. At this point it would be in the companys best interests to open communication with the public and prevent any further escalation.
And you didn't notice that the cost of the magic items you bought a la cart was deducted from the price of the DMG? Every a la cart purchase you made subtracted from the book's total price, you never had to pay twice and you never had to pay more than the total price of the book to unlock the whole book.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Speaking from personal experience. The benefit of a-la-carte was testing out things and for new players.
When I first came to the site, first trying out D&D, I liked the concept of the Artificer class and the Bladesinger subclass, they sounded neat, so I bought those things individually to test making characters with.
I was nowhere near invested enough that I was gonna spend $60 to get a class I want and a subclass I want.
Now, later I did buy both of the books, using the bit of discount I got.
The benefit of a-la-carte should not be compared to "Well, compared to buying the whole book it's more expensive".
I'm willing to bet most of the folks who bought a-la-carte fall into either one of two categories.
1-Cannot afford (or are not willing to spend enough) to buy whole books.
or
2-Were (at the time) only interested in that specific piece of the book.
-----
Uhm. Either I'm misunderstanding you or you're remembering things wrong.
Books were NOT regularly 49.99 on here before April 30th.
Most books were 29.99 back before April 30th.
I literally checked my order history just to make sure. Strixhaven, Tashas, Wild Beyond Witchlight all cost me $29.99 before tax.
Heck, Spelljammer was $35.99
The only book I know of that was $49.99 before April 30th was Planescape, and it's still $49.99 now.
The core three and those that came before TCoE were same as retail B&M prices $49.95.
When they dropped a-la-carte, the prices went down.
30$ for a physical I have at least three of already ( one in physical collection storage preserved for reasons, and two that are for continued manhandling), and 10$ for digital is the current offer.
The hoops to gain $10 worth of value at this point is just not worth the effort.
why should I spend $30 on material I already spent nearly $20 of on a former $50 priced product. ( and really i don’t need the remainder, at this point it only serves to complete a collection that will at some point I will not be able to access, the money could be better spent )
Dude, I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
I went to the internet archive and checked the snapshots of DNDBeyonds marketplace from 2020 and 2023
DMG, Monster Manual, and PHB were all 29.99.
If you can find any old snapshots of the prices on DNDBeyond being higher than that, please, let me know, but all evidence I can find supports that the prices were always the same and did not go down with them taking away a-la-carte.
You are wrong. The books always cost $29.99 on this site. As someone else already said, and as I can verify, my purchase of things like the MM and PHB all cost $29.99 years ago. This is verifiable data - no matter how much you want to insist the digital copies used to cost the same as retail, you will be wrong.
As for why you should have to buy them again for digital? Same reason buying a physical book will not give you a Kindle version. They are different products. This has been the norm of years - back in the DVD days, physical would cost X, digital would cost a bit less, and a special bundled edition would be less than the sum of the parts to encourage folks up-purchasing both versions when they probably only needed one. Really nothing weird here - other than the fact players feel entitled to something that most of society has accepted for well over a decade.
You seriously think if the actual price of those offers were that, then why was a-La-carte not axed sooner?
I know enough to believe in url redirects and even the wayback machine has holes in it.
I know and remember, as do others, why you think such a fuss has been made of it?
[REDACTED]
Receipts do not lie. Wayback Machine might have dates missing, but the actual pages are accurate archives and categorically correct.
It is okay to be wrong - which you objectively are on this issue. You made a mistake, it happens.
Seriously my man, I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Provide evidence for your claim that isn't just "That's how I remember it".
So by your logic, every time an item goes on a sale the previous receipts of the order, made at the higher price, would change to reflect the sale value?
Seriously at this point just claim it's the Mandela effect and you just dropped in from an alternate universe where the price used to be higher.
It's still just being stubborn and refusing to admit you might possibly remember something wrong, but at least that can be funny.
Ah yes defend the anti consumer practices... No people were not buying the whole books before just to get acess to a single feat or subclass, but DNDbeyond made those people actually fork up some money they normaly wouldnt have, as Lord gaben has told Piracy is for the most part a Service issue
I did. I bought Fizban’s just to make a drakewarden. Maybe I’m in the minority, maybe I’m not. None of us here know. But WotC knows exactly how many people are accessing exactly how many parts of which books. They know that I have the whole book and never look at any of the other parts of it.
Like I and some other keep saying, we may not like it, but WotC knows what their sales are, and how many people actually made use of the piecemeal option. It sucks, yes. But give them some credit for knowing their customer’s buying patterns. They have years of purchase data to study. If this was a profit center, it would still be going.
You don't need a Wayback Machine when you have a purchase history. I bought the PHB May 7, 2020 on DDB for $29.99. Every D&D book put out on DDB was at that price point I believe until the Spelljammer and Planescape Box Sets (I remember being one of the people criticizing about DDB's pricing of those two when they were unveiled). From April 2020 - December 2021, my order history shows I never paid more than $29.99 for a D&D book. You may also notice Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds have their digital editions of the PHB, and I believe most other D&D books at the $29.99 price point (I haven't WayBack explored it, but I remember $29.99 being the "industry standard" for digital D&D when I was researching which platform I should buy into). The difference is DDB used to allow access to some content piecemeal, which lowered the cost of entry for new players, and those purchases could eventually be credited to buying the whole book. The lack of that is why some regular DDB users are upset with the change in the Marketplace.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's not a case of anti consumer practices. I can't think of any real justification for cherry-picking, part from "I don't want to buy the book because it will cost me a few extra doolars". Just get the book and be done with it, they are not that expensive either. And remember, you can either homebrew or just live happily without that extra feat or subclass.
I don't agree with you at all here. I would buy the books and have done so, I do have a subscription enabling me to share content with my players.
Playing games, seeing movies, going on vacation, practicing sports all cost money. And in this case it is not that big of a deal moneywise.
If you want to cancel you sub is entirely up to you. If you don't like the game, don't buy the game.
So by your logic, every time an item goes on a sale the previous receipts of the order, made at the higher price, would change to reflect the sale value?
Seriously at this point just claim it's the Mandela effect and you just dropped in from an alternate universe where the price used to be higher.
It's still just being stubborn and refusing to admit you might possibly remember something wrong, but at least that can be funny.
I know what I paid and it was $27.02 for Mosters of the Multiverse (in 2022) and the same for Vecna (mar 2024). $27.02 because I have the legendary bundle.
What about players? What if they just need races and subclasses and have absolutely no purpose for items or monsters? I know that for me and my table we're going offline and using paper from now on because I won't be renewing my membership to this money hungry company.