That is true! Every company will inevitably try to milk every last penny out of its customer base, and WotC/Hasbro is proving to be no exception. Back in the day when buying physical books made of trees was the only option, the prices kinda made sense. Much of that cost was the production and the shipping of the physical object. But today, when we can simply download all that information without the need of trees or factories or trucks, the prices SHOULD be considerably lower! That's why I prefer to just make up my own stuff. I've written several campaign regions of an entire campaign world, 150 new subclasses, dozens of new spells, a dozen new species options, over 100 new magic items, and enough adventure material to last a lifetime of playing D&D. But if I publish any of that on this website, it instantly becomes the Intellectual Property of the Hasbro Corporation. So it stays between my and my players. 

Sure, I could pay for the product of someone else's imagination. And if I find something worth the price, I might buy it. But for now, I've got my own imagination and it's free to use! 

Quote from AnzioFaro >>

That is true! Every company will inevitably try to milk every last penny out of its customer base, and WotC/Hasbro is proving to be no exception. Back in the day when buying physical books made of trees was the only option, the prices kinda made sense. Much of that cost was the production and the shipping of the physical object. But today, when we can simply download all that information without the need of trees or factories or trucks, the prices SHOULD be considerably lower! That's why I prefer to just make up my own stuff. I've written several campaign regions of an entire campaign world, 150 new subclasses, dozens of new spells, a dozen new species options, over 100 new magic items, and enough adventure material to last a lifetime of playing D&D. But if I publish any of that on this website, it instantly becomes the Intellectual Property of the Hasbro Corporation. So it stays between my and my players. 

Sure, I could pay for the product of someone else's imagination. And if I find something worth the price, I might buy it. But for now, I've got my own imagination and it's free to use! 

Again, and I really do not understand why so many seem not to understand this:

1) Luxury products are luxury products. They are not necessities. You will not be harmed for not purchasing them.

2) For profit companies are for profit companies. They are not charities. They do not owe anyone their products at any given price.

3) Especially given (1), you still have full free will over whether you purchase or not. No one is threatening your life. No one is forcing you to buy any given product from such companies. 

It is in their best interest to try to develop products people are willing to buy and to set prices people are willing to spend to acquire said products. If they do not make enough sales, it is they who go without necessities, not you. (That is also not, itself, a reason to buy, again, buy only things you actually can afford and enjoy having and that is especially true with luxuries!). 

One bonus thing I really do not understand is that people will complain about the prices of things they don't have to purchase, but then donate to channels complaining about said things...

Quote from DeamonKnight >>

Counties the pages claimed by the site. For sure I understand that it's actual pages of content are less when one removes the filler pages, like cover, glossary and art.

 You do know that web pages are not the same size as print pages and are in fact variable in success l size, right?

Quote from DeamonKnight>>

14.99 for a digital supplement

micro transactions

Inigo Montoya has some questions here

I'm sure WOTC has done extensive market research on this kind of thing, but I for one actually liked the old 2e Complete handbooks and wouldn't mind more of that kind of thing rather than setting-specific books that only have a handful of new PC options that may or may not be useful

I don't hate the concept, but I would have liked it to be packaged like previous PDF's such as the Tortel Package, One Grung, and the Monster Compendiums. Then I can hand my players a nice looking copy to  work with since out of all the people I play with on the regular, only two of them use D&DBeyond, and none of them use it for character building or tracking. Just us DM's.

I hate that these are locked to D&D Beyond, meaning that I can neither hold a physical copy for in-person games nor store a local backup just in case. If D&D Beyond ever disappears, goes down, etc. we lose it all, just like with D&D Insider during 4e. This is obviously unkind to end-users. Why does WotC not distribute pdfs like every other ttrpg company?

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

I hate that these are locked to D&D Beyond, meaning that I can neither hold a physical copy for in-person games nor store a local backup just in case. If D&D Beyond ever disappears, goes down, etc. we lose it all, just like with D&D Insider during 4e. This is obviously unkind to end-users. Why does WotC not distribute pdfs like every other ttrpg company?

Mostly piracy concerns, which Wizards has been bitten by pretty badly in the past (to give an extreme example: the 4e core books were leaked, in high quality pdf form, before the books were even in the stores, presumably because of someone in the supply chain).

Now you're just being pedantic. I used the page count that wotc used. Not my page count, not a digital or printed page count but the claimed pages that WoTC published with the material. 

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

I hate that these are locked to D&D Beyond, meaning that I can neither hold a physical copy for in-person games nor store a local backup just in case. If D&D Beyond ever disappears, goes down, etc. we lose it all, just like with D&D Insider during 4e. This is obviously unkind to end-users. Why does WotC not distribute pdfs like every other ttrpg company?

Sure you can. You use the print function of any web browser to save the pages as PDFs, and print off hard copies if you want them for offline non-electronic reference.

Insert 'you didn't see anything' gif. 

I'll point out that doing so is against the ToS of the website.

Really? Pretty sure I've seen mods suggest it in response to complaints about not being able to download content.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Really? Pretty sure I've seen mods suggest it in response to complaints about not being able to download content.

I assume someone has mentioned it, but probably not a mod, as it would seem to fall under

Restrictions. You agree not to engage in any of the following with respect to our Websites, Games, or Services:

1. Data mining: Use any unauthorized means, process, or software that accesses, collects, reads, intercepts, monitors, data scrapes, including without limitation, agents, robots, scripts, or spiders; or mines information (including reverse look-up or attempted tracing of Registration Data in any way and for any reason);

Quote from DeamonKnight >>

Now you're just being pedantic. I used the page count that wotc used. Not my page count, not a digital or printed page count but the claimed pages that WoTC published with the material. 

Fair, I stand corrected. I didn't realize they had page counts on the marketplace and I apologize. I thought you were just coming up with that number yourself based on counting individual web pages.

Seems their lowballing their own content amount.

But if we're talking value propositions, let's do a comparison. The supplements are $14.99 which translates to £13.20 for me (inc VAT). That's the equivalent of:

• 1.3 sets of standard plastic dice from Forbidden Planet
• 0.5 sets of metal dice from Forbidden Planet
• 1 subway footlong meal deal
• 1 ticket for Cineworld or 0.6 tickets for Showcase cinema
• 2 train tickets from where I live to the nearest city
• 1.3 1 hour entries into an all-you-can-play arcade

IMO a 32 page D&D supplement compared to those equivalents is a pretty solid value proposition

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from DeamonKnight >>

Now you're just being pedantic. I used the page count that wotc used. Not my page count, not a digital or printed page count but the claimed pages that WoTC published with the material. 

Fair, I stand corrected. I didn't realize they had page counts on the marketplace and I apologize. I thought you were just coming up with that number yourself based on counting individual web pages.

Seems their lowballing their own content amount.

But if we're talking value propositions, let's do a comparison. The supplements are $14.99 which translates to £13.20 for me (inc VAT). That's the equivalent of:

• 1.3 sets of standard plastic dice from Forbidden Planet
• 0.5 sets of metal dice from Forbidden Planet
• 1 subway footlong meal deal
• 1 ticket for Cineworld or 0.6 tickets for Showcase cinema
• 2 train tickets from where I live to the nearest city
• 1.3 1 hour entries into an all-you-can-play arcade

IMO a 32 page D&D supplement compared to those equivalents is a pretty solid value proposition

 I'd advise running your conversion to Canadian dollars & Brazilian real for counter-comparison of how others have it worse than you.
But the thread's OP does have a bombastic statement-filled history, & they likely never lived through paper DND magazines, which you paid for for more options printed on cheap paper that doesn't preserve well, despite having the ability to "hold it in your hand", in addition to the rare full book that happened to be in your area and happened to be affordable....assuming Satanic Panic wasn't in full force in said area.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

In prior editions, the lighter-weight version of a splatbook was called a Gazetteer, and those got charged for too.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

People talking about splatbooks aren't going nearly far enough back to find the equivalent of DLC in D&D, because, well, literally everything that isn't a core book is functionally DLC, which puts the start of DLC in 1975 with the release of the Greyhawk supplement. Which was $5 (equivalent to $30 today) for 56 pages (first printing)/68 pages (subsequent printings). That was quickly followed by four more supplements for OD&D (Blackmoor - Eldritch Wizardry - Gods, Demigods, & Heroes - Swords & Spells), all at the same price point.

In any case, if Astarion's doesn't seem worth it to you, I suggest not buying it. There are many D&D products I have not bought.

Those OD&D supplements have appreciated in value.

5 dollars US then may very well be the equivalent of 30 dollars US today. But one can expect to pay between 150 to 350 today for just the Greyhawk supplement. Digital supplements like Astarion's Book of Hungers are monetarily worth nothing the moment you click beyond the checkout.

I know who I think got the better deal.

Of course the real value of any of these things lies in their use for the individual.

But I will always buy physical game books and physical game books that will appreciate and or have appreciated in value. Whether I ever intend to sell them or not.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from 7thlevelspecialist >>

A gazetteer is not just 'the lighter-weight version of a splatbook.'

Also, no-one ever actually called their product a 'splatbook'. The name comes from * (splat) being a wildcard in computer command line processing, so you could, for example, refer to all of the 'complete' handbooks in AD&D as 'complete * handbook'. A gazetteer certainly could be considered a splatbook, though it got its derogatory usage from books of character options which, if you bought them, would make your character more powerful than someone just using the base rules.

A gazetteer could be considered a splatbook. But this completely misses my point.

They are called that because of the geographical content. Not their size.