A Discussion on how WoTC can make money and not make people mad

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

One reason this forum sees little genuine engagement is that it attracts a community with entrenched biases against those who question the game's direction. Good-faith discourse is rare here, in part because dissenters, particularly those critical of WotC, are underrepresented.

I believe WotC has made both sound and questionable decisions for consumers. Their most significant positive move was releasing the 5e SRD under a creative commons license, which fostered openness and innovation.

However, I view the "Drops" initiative as a step backward for consumers. It represents a foothold for digital-only content that cannot truly be owned. Historically, nearly all 5e material was accompanied by a physical book, ensuring access even if D&D Beyond disappeared. While I personally prefer pdfs over bulky physical collections, which are cumbersome to store, transport, and vulnerable to damage, the principle of ownership remains important to me.

This concern stems from my experience when 4e ended and D&D Insider was discontinued. Despite paying for a subscription, I lost access to all the rules and resources I relied on. There is no guarantee that D&D Beyond won't face a similar fate, leaving players with nothing.

 This is pretty much where I'm at.

I'm not going to pretend that I've been a strident supporter of WotC; I've been critical of them and their stewardship of the IP because I care about it and when things are changed for broad market appeal I do indeed rankle because I feel that the flavor and style and such is being diluted. The issue, is that when I've made my concerns known... people come out of the woodwork to insist that I'm a racist or an adherent of Austrian painter or how "the evil gene doesn't exist!!!!" despite me acknowledging that there are parts of Gary's vision that absolutely belong in the dustbin of history.

To bring this back around to the topic at hand, there are times when I and others have pointed out the frustration we have with Beyond as a part of WotC's business; I personally feel that the electronic materials should be available to people who purchased the physical copies of the various modules and/or player materials at no additional cost (I have a small bookshelf full of materials that I would want to access for D&D beyond and VTTs)... but when I make this fair suggestion I instead get to hear about how this is somehow unfair or such while Beyond and WotC try to find some new and exciting way to extract money from my pocket.

Quote from ApplePaladin >>

They lose sight of the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is a corporate commodity and exists within a capitalist system. Hasbro and WotC own D&D - it only "belongs" to the community in the sense that those of us who have the physical books can keep playing even if Hasbro and WotC and D&D Beyond stopped existing tomorrow. 

Just a slight amendment to that: 2014 and 2024 base rules were released under the OGL. That means at a bare minimum, if corporate goons took over and tried to charge a million dollars per phb, everyone can at the very least revert to the free rules and pass them around freely. Those base rules dont come with all the subclasses and all the add-on features, but it has all the core game rules. you can post them on your website today if you wanted and let others download them for free.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

One reason this forum sees little genuine engagement is that it attracts a community with entrenched biases against those who question the game's direction. Good-faith discourse is rare here, in part because dissenters, particularly those critical of WotC, are underrepresented.

I believe WotC has made both sound and questionable decisions for consumers. Their most significant positive move was releasing the 5e SRD under a creative commons license, which fostered openness and innovation.

However, I view the "Drops" initiative as a step backward for consumers. It represents a foothold for digital-only content that cannot truly be owned. Historically, nearly all 5e material was accompanied by a physical book, ensuring access even if D&D Beyond disappeared. While I personally prefer pdfs over bulky physical collections, which are cumbersome to store, transport, and vulnerable to damage, the principle of ownership remains important to me.

This concern stems from my experience when 4e ended and D&D Insider was discontinued. Despite paying for a subscription, I lost access to all the rules and resources I relied on. There is no guarantee that D&D Beyond won't face a similar fate, leaving players with nothing.

 Sorry, but I'm flabbergasted by anyone thinking critics of WotC are underrepresented here. 

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

They should, at least, reduce market share to under 50%, as that constitutes a monopoly in the US & is blatantly illegal & immoral.

While the 'illegal' part has been adequately answered already, it's worth discussing the "immoral" part as well.

Fundamentally, the reason for having antitrust law is because competition encourages companies to deliver more value for the consumer's money, because if they don't, they lose market share to a competitor. This is, obviously, good for the consumer. If you're leveraging your market position to produce worse value, that's when there's a problem (current catch phrase for that: "enshittification"). There's also a problem if you're using your market position to drive out your competitors.

Is WotC immune to that sort of concern? Of course not, though it's doubtful whether they're actually in a meaningful sense a monopoly at all (are they competing with other RPGs, or are they competing with entertainment products in general? I would argue that it's the latter), but in any case, the important question is whether something is a monopoly, the question is whether it's abusing monopoly power. There's an argument for the OGL crisis being that kind of thing (though the fact WotC backed down is a sign that they probably aren't actually a monopoly), but something like Drops? That's silly. Honestly, most of D&D Beyond's subscription services are an area where not only is WotC not a monopoly, they aren't even the dominant player (which is probably roll20).

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

They should, at least, reduce market share to under 50%, as that constitutes a monopoly in the US & is blatantly illegal & immoral.

While the 'illegal' part has been adequately answered already, it's worth discussing the "immoral" part as well.

Fundamentally, the reason for having antitrust law is because competition encourages companies to deliver more value for the consumer's money, because if they don't, they lose market share to a competitor. This is, obviously, good for the consumer. If you're leveraging your market position to produce worse value, that's when there's a problem (current catch phrase for that: "enshittification"). There's also a problem if you're using your market position to drive out your competitors.

Is WotC immune to that sort of concern? Of course not, though it's doubtful whether they're actually in a meaningful sense a monopoly at all (are they competing with other RPGs, or are they competing with entertainment products in general? I would argue that it's the latter), but in any case, the important question is whether something is a monopoly, the question is whether it's abusing monopoly power. There's an argument for the OGL crisis being that kind of thing (though the fact WotC backed down is a sign that they probably aren't actually a monopoly), but something like Drops? That's silly. Honestly, most of D&D Beyond's subscription services are an area where not only is WotC not a monopoly, they aren't even the dominant player (which is probably roll20).

 I edited my post to clean up that.