This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
I admit, I'd forgotten they ever released these sorts of things as PDFs. (Though I think at least some of the others were done for charity, weren't they?)
That does change the equation for these books, if not their books in general. However, it's possible that the PDF versions never sold as well, and they've decided not to bother anymore. Or they're using them to push the bundle, and maybe they'll release them at a later date. Or not. (As we all know, they're not that good at communication.)
In any event, if you do want it, but DDB-only doesn't work, you can print/save as PDF the appropriate bits from your browser. Despite what others have said, they're not going to ban you for it. (For one thing, it all happens in your browser after you load the page. You can literally turn off wifi and it'll still print.)
Of course, if you want to encourage them to release the books as PDF, you shouldn't do that. (And sending them feedback on the subject won't hurt.)
Which leaves out any revenue added from people who sampled something, then made actual purchases later -- either in a different format, or by the same artist/company/whatever after they'd become a fan
It also leaves out stuff like the music industry using the piracy boogeyman to cover their asses for being very, very late to the party on digital -- and those bad decisions cost them way more "lost revenue" than Napster ever did
Also, the amount/percentage of revenue piracy represents, lost or otherwise, varies wildly by industry. Lost revenue from book piracy is a rounding error at best compared to video game piracy, for instance
And yet it is still lost revenue, which a publicly traded company is obligated to avoid when it’s a demonstrable “if X then Y” scenario.
Even under the wildest interpretation of "maximize shareholder value" (which is not the same as "maximize revenue"), this doesn't follow. Publicly traded companies release things in trivially copyable formats all the time. It's all about cost-benefit analysis. There will be some lost sales to copying (and, while they talk about "one piracy == one sale", that's not going to be how their accountants measure it), but if that's the format that they believe will maximize sales, that's the format they're gonna use. (And that's before you get into weird political maneuvers, like the music companies letting Amazon sell music as mp3s at a lower price in order to break the Apple monopoly they'd created by mandating DRM in the first place.)
Does WOTC lose some effectively meaningless amount of revenue to piracy of D&D books in 2025? Sure, I suppose. Have they taken the best approach to addressing the "issue"? I doubt it
WotC certainly loses money to piracy. The exactly amount of money they use is hard to calculate and debatable, because you don't know what portion of pirates would buy anything if unable to pirate. As for whether they've chosen the best option: we don't know, and I doubt they know, but I will note that making games always-online (even when there's no reason it should be necessary) is a popular solution in the video game space, so it's not like D&D Beyond is doing anything all that unusual, and comparing D&D to other RPGs is just like comparing AA and AAA games to indie games -- they don't really have the same issues.
I admit, I'd forgotten they ever released these sorts of things as PDFs. (Though I think at least some of the others were done for charity, weren't they?)
The only pdf 5e products I know of were Extra Live charity projects (which is an entire complicated side issue because they weren't even provided by the regular D&D product team), and it should be obvious that piracy of charity products does not impact Wizards' bottom line.
And yet it is still lost revenue, which a publicly traded company is obligated to avoid when it’s a demonstrable “if X then Y” scenario.
You're missing the point here completely, which is that publicly traded companies spin all sorts of nonsense as 'fiduciary duty' to justify the things they want to do
Does WOTC lose some effectively meaningless amount of revenue to piracy of D&D books in 2025? Sure, I suppose. Have they taken the best approach to addressing the "issue"? I doubt it
Intellectual property is still property and still has owners. Furthermore, the IP in question is a luxury product. They are not holding back any lifesaving cures or anything like that.
And of course their revenue is meaningless to others. That does not mean they have no moral standing to care about theirs, any more than any of us would be in any way immoral caring about earning income, ourselves.
It is easy to be cavalier with other people's lives. I'd love a Lamborghini, but strangely, that company has not offered me any convenient copies of any of their cars (in any form actually drivable in any practical commute) at any price convenient to me. People seem to accept that and not go complain on their website.
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
Or, they noticed after that 'last time' that there were copies of the PDF's on various free distribution sites, to a wide spread enough extent that trying to shut that down was deemed impractical, so that this time, they went this way to try to avoid a repeat of that.
You mean the specific player options that are specifically limited to DDB only? You don't think people that don't use DDB might have a desire for those specific items, but not want to use DDB to do so?
Well, again, given we are in the DDB forums, yes, I expect the vast majority of people here to be people who use this site. But as for a 'desire for those specific items' again, when the demand for PDF versions is specific to them, then it begs the question, why just them? I find that question particularly significant in conjunction with the possibility I mentioned above, namely that they felt burned after the last time.
Well, again, given we are in the DDB forums, yes, I expect the vast majority of people here to be people who use this site. But as for a 'desire for those specific items' again, when the demand for PDF versions is specific to them, then it begs the question, why just them? I find that question particularly significant in conjunction with the possibility I mentioned above, namely that they felt burned after the last time.
Why just them is because these options are ONLY AVAILABLE ON DDB. If there were a PDF then they would be available to EVERYONE instead of just people on DDB.
Edit: Personally, I would never expect them to release physical copies of this type of product, but to make them exclusive to DDB is the issue I have.
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
Or, they noticed after that 'last time' that there were copies of the PDF's on various free distribution sites, to a wide spread enough extent that trying to shut that down was deemed impractical, so that this time, they went this way to try to avoid a repeat of that.
Given that these appear to be an entirely new product category in practice, since apparently all the other PDF releases have been for charity books, I think trying to place the blame on why they did it this way on any particular factor is going to be difficult. It may be as simple as "this is how we do digital distribution".
Well, again, given we are in the DDB forums, yes, I expect the vast majority of people here to be people who use this site. But as for a 'desire for those specific items' again, when the demand for PDF versions is specific to them, then it begs the question, why just them? I find that question particularly significant in conjunction with the possibility I mentioned above, namely that they felt burned after the last time.
Why just them is because these options are ONLY AVAILABLE ON DDB. If there were a PDF then they would be available to EVERYONE instead of just people on DDB.
Edit: Personally, I would never expect them to release physical copies of this type of product, but to make them exclusive to DDB is the issue I have.
If this was some sort of Steam exclusive for a game available on Steam, would you have the same issue with that?
Well, again, given we are in the DDB forums, yes, I expect the vast majority of people here to be people who use this site. But as for a 'desire for those specific items' again, when the demand for PDF versions is specific to them, then it begs the question, why just them? I find that question particularly significant in conjunction with the possibility I mentioned above, namely that they felt burned after the last time.
Why just them is because these options are ONLY AVAILABLE ON DDB. If there were a PDF then they would be available to EVERYONE instead of just people on DDB.
Edit: Personally, I would never expect them to release physical copies of this type of product, but to make them exclusive to DDB is the issue I have.
If this was some sort of Steam exclusive for a game available on Steam, would you have the same issue with that?
I don't play "what about" games. If you don't agree that everyone playing d&d at the same table should have the same access to content that is fine. I don't feel the same way.
Does WOTC lose some effectively meaningless amount of revenue to piracy of D&D books in 2025? Sure, I suppose. Have they taken the best approach to addressing the "issue"? I doubt it
WotC certainly loses money to piracy. The exactly amount of money they use is hard to calculate and debatable, because you don't know what portion of pirates would buy anything if unable to pirate. As for whether they've chosen the best option: we don't know, and I doubt they know, but I will note that making games always-online (even when there's no reason it should be necessary) is a popular solution in the video game space, so it's not like D&D Beyond is doing anything all that unusual, and comparing D&D to other RPGs is just like comparing AA and AAA games to indie games -- they don't really have the same issues.
Though always-online video games have themselves become subject to increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years: it's one thing if the game itself is an online multiplayer, but forcing always online for single player games is not popular among players after high-profile instances of games having unreliable servers or other issues that prevented people from being able to access them.
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.
Though always-online video games have themselves become subject to increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years: it's one thing if the game itself is an online multiplayer, but forcing always online for single player games is not popular among players after high-profile instances of games having unreliable servers or other issues that prevented people from being able to access them.
Sure. It's the universal problem with security (which isn't even limited to IP): the things you do to block bad actors also interfere with legitimate uses, and thus you have to balance usability and security. At the one end, you lose money to piracy; at the other end, you lose money because your product is too annoying to actually use so people don't buy it. As a customer, the primary way to voice satisfaction or dissatisfaction over the way the seller has resolved that dilemma is by choosing to buy or not buy; complaining on forums is mostly noise.
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
That's kinda missing my point. I can buy lots of copies of magazines. I can photocopy them. I can read them in a faraday cage that blocks wifi signals. As I've argued before, there's plenty of reason to suggest that the services D&D Beyond provide are likewise non-durable. The difference is that with physical copies or pdfs I have control and can take action to prevent losing the information.
I'm not saying who should receive the blame. I'm saying, again, that this is the next step in a trend towards the consumer-unfriendly paradigm in which every product is a service that you do not actually own. D&D Beyond was a great service at first because it expanded the options available to consumers. I'm upset because WotC is now reducing the options available.
I'm not denying that D&D Beyond is a service that provides utility or that people should feel bad for using it or whatever. Buy what you want, I don't care.
The fiduciary duty argument is super dubious. Nobody is going to sue WotC if they offer pdfs of their books. They certainly won't be sued for providing a physical option.
Though always-online video games have themselves become subject to increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years: it's one thing if the game itself is an online multiplayer, but forcing always online for single player games is not popular among players after high-profile instances of games having unreliable servers or other issues that prevented people from being able to access them.
Sure. It's the universal problem with security (which isn't even limited to IP): the things you do to block bad actors also interfere with legitimate uses, and thus you have to balance usability and security. At the one end, you lose money to piracy; at the other end, you lose money because your product is too annoying to actually use so people don't buy it. As a customer, the primary way to voice satisfaction or dissatisfaction over the way the seller has resolved that dilemma is by choosing to buy or not buy; complaining on forums is mostly noise.
It's kind of been known for decades at this point that extremely stringent anti-piracy practices actually increase piracy, because it makes it harder for people to legitimately access the product so they turn to illegal sources instead, many of which will remove the anti-piracy security measures from it. That's probably as far as we should go on this tangent- wouldn't want to annoy the mods too much.
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.
I admit, I'd forgotten they ever released these sorts of things as PDFs. (Though I think at least some of the others were done for charity, weren't they?)
That does change the equation for these books, if not their books in general. However, it's possible that the PDF versions never sold as well, and they've decided not to bother anymore. Or they're using them to push the bundle, and maybe they'll release them at a later date. Or not. (As we all know, they're not that good at communication.)
In any event, if you do want it, but DDB-only doesn't work, you can print/save as PDF the appropriate bits from your browser. Despite what others have said, they're not going to ban you for it. (For one thing, it all happens in your browser after you load the page. You can literally turn off wifi and it'll still print.)
Of course, if you want to encourage them to release the books as PDF, you shouldn't do that. (And sending them feedback on the subject won't hurt.)
Even under the wildest interpretation of "maximize shareholder value" (which is not the same as "maximize revenue"), this doesn't follow. Publicly traded companies release things in trivially copyable formats all the time. It's all about cost-benefit analysis. There will be some lost sales to copying (and, while they talk about "one piracy == one sale", that's not going to be how their accountants measure it), but if that's the format that they believe will maximize sales, that's the format they're gonna use. (And that's before you get into weird political maneuvers, like the music companies letting Amazon sell music as mp3s at a lower price in order to break the Apple monopoly they'd created by mandating DRM in the first place.)
WotC certainly loses money to piracy. The exactly amount of money they use is hard to calculate and debatable, because you don't know what portion of pirates would buy anything if unable to pirate. As for whether they've chosen the best option: we don't know, and I doubt they know, but I will note that making games always-online (even when there's no reason it should be necessary) is a popular solution in the video game space, so it's not like D&D Beyond is doing anything all that unusual, and comparing D&D to other RPGs is just like comparing AA and AAA games to indie games -- they don't really have the same issues.
The only pdf 5e products I know of were Extra Live charity projects (which is an entire complicated side issue because they weren't even provided by the regular D&D product team), and it should be obvious that piracy of charity products does not impact Wizards' bottom line.
Intellectual property is still property and still has owners. Furthermore, the IP in question is a luxury product. They are not holding back any lifesaving cures or anything like that.
And of course their revenue is meaningless to others. That does not mean they have no moral standing to care about theirs, any more than any of us would be in any way immoral caring about earning income, ourselves.
It is easy to be cavalier with other people's lives. I'd love a Lamborghini, but strangely, that company has not offered me any convenient copies of any of their cars (in any form actually drivable in any practical commute) at any price convenient to me. People seem to accept that and not go complain on their website.
Or, they noticed after that 'last time' that there were copies of the PDF's on various free distribution sites, to a wide spread enough extent that trying to shut that down was deemed impractical, so that this time, they went this way to try to avoid a repeat of that.
Well, again, given we are in the DDB forums, yes, I expect the vast majority of people here to be people who use this site. But as for a 'desire for those specific items' again, when the demand for PDF versions is specific to them, then it begs the question, why just them? I find that question particularly significant in conjunction with the possibility I mentioned above, namely that they felt burned after the last time.
To my remeber biggest problem with PDFs wasn't even the loss due to piracy, it was the leaks of the books before their release.
Why just them is because these options are ONLY AVAILABLE ON DDB. If there were a PDF then they would be available to EVERYONE instead of just people on DDB.
Edit: Personally, I would never expect them to release physical copies of this type of product, but to make them exclusive to DDB is the issue I have.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Given that these appear to be an entirely new product category in practice, since apparently all the other PDF releases have been for charity books, I think trying to place the blame on why they did it this way on any particular factor is going to be difficult. It may be as simple as "this is how we do digital distribution".
If this was some sort of Steam exclusive for a game available on Steam, would you have the same issue with that?
I don't play "what about" games. If you don't agree that everyone playing d&d at the same table should have the same access to content that is fine. I don't feel the same way.
Have a great day.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Though always-online video games have themselves become subject to increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years: it's one thing if the game itself is an online multiplayer, but forcing always online for single player games is not popular among players after high-profile instances of games having unreliable servers or other issues that prevented people from being able to access them.
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.
Sure. It's the universal problem with security (which isn't even limited to IP): the things you do to block bad actors also interfere with legitimate uses, and thus you have to balance usability and security. At the one end, you lose money to piracy; at the other end, you lose money because your product is too annoying to actually use so people don't buy it. As a customer, the primary way to voice satisfaction or dissatisfaction over the way the seller has resolved that dilemma is by choosing to buy or not buy; complaining on forums is mostly noise.
That's kinda missing my point. I can buy lots of copies of magazines. I can photocopy them. I can read them in a faraday cage that blocks wifi signals. As I've argued before, there's plenty of reason to suggest that the services D&D Beyond provide are likewise non-durable. The difference is that with physical copies or pdfs I have control and can take action to prevent losing the information.
I'm not saying who should receive the blame. I'm saying, again, that this is the next step in a trend towards the consumer-unfriendly paradigm in which every product is a service that you do not actually own. D&D Beyond was a great service at first because it expanded the options available to consumers. I'm upset because WotC is now reducing the options available.
I'm not denying that D&D Beyond is a service that provides utility or that people should feel bad for using it or whatever. Buy what you want, I don't care.
The fiduciary duty argument is super dubious. Nobody is going to sue WotC if they offer pdfs of their books. They certainly won't be sued for providing a physical option.
It's kind of been known for decades at this point that extremely stringent anti-piracy practices actually increase piracy, because it makes it harder for people to legitimately access the product so they turn to illegal sources instead, many of which will remove the anti-piracy security measures from it. That's probably as far as we should go on this tangent- wouldn't want to annoy the mods too much.
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.
I'm just done with attempts to shame "whales" online into playing other stuff that exists.
Especially if people do not have *fun* with OtherStuff that Exists.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.