Being new to D&D Beyond and thinking about getting back into D&D, as both a player and DM, and having purchased ALL D&D 5E hard bound books from WOTC, I am looking at a significant purchase to go online and mobile, unfortunately, if I wish to grab all content online and go for Master License - $500 plus recurring $55/year. As I am sure noted on this forum previously, rebuying all content - once again (as I will if I choose FB or Roll20 as well).
Paying the same money for an online book in which I own ZERO other than right to use, it appears, and not being able to get a perpetual lifetime one time cost license somewhat irks me. While I will likely bite the bullet, I would love to see a heavier discounted pricing on the electronic material to incent more purchases. I believe they could easily discount this material and still be hugely profitable. I would also like to see a one time license charge.
The onus would then be on D&D Beyond and team to continue to provide content and improve their functionality rather than simply milk profits from what they have already created.
My view, in any event, skewed as it is. This is nothing more than whining about something others have already whined about....
I have the Legendary Bundle and am grateful I have made the purchase. I also have purchased most of the core rule books (actually, several times as I have given some stuff to people as they start out and have to replace it).
The beauty of D&D Beyond is everyone in my campaign can benefit from my purchases. For example, everyone can use the Player’s Handbook, all at the same time, and each at home or during the game. How nice is that? One purchase of the book and 6 people can use it? Then that stretches over all the books I have bought. We all have laptops, iPads, or phones at the table now, but the great thing is that it doesn’t distract from the game.
I want to keep my physical books and hope they last a long time. I don’t have to load all the heavy books up when I go to a game, but can peruse them if I want at home I also like that I can save the books all the wear and tear. Honestly, I do most of my reading on my iPad though. It is just easier with D&D Beyond.
I have the Legendary Bundle and am grateful I have made the purchase. I also have purchased most of the core rule books (actually, several times as I have given some stuff to people as they start out and have to replace it).
The beauty of D&D Beyond is everyone in my campaign can benefit from my purchases. For example, everyone can use the Player’s Handbook, all at the same time, and each at home or during the game. How nice is that? One purchase of the book and 6 people can use it? Then that stretches over all the books I have bought. We all have laptops, iPads, or phones at the table now, but the great thing is that it doesn’t distract from the game.
I want to keep my physical books and hope they last a long time. I don’t have to load all the heavy books up when I go to a game, but can peruse them if I want at home I also like that I can save the books all the wear and tear. Honestly, I do most of my reading on my iPad though. It is just easier with D&D Beyond.
And, that is why I will be purchasing them all in the end, I am fairly certain. I am simply whining about it here.
Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if they found it in their model to discount them? After all, the content, once created, is pretty much all margin when distributed electronically. The model they have must be working well for them and there must be little to no incentive to either attract anyone further or reward those of us who will buy them several times over. I am reminded of why I got away from collecting comics. Once the publishers figured out we would buy multiple copies to collect the variant covers of the same content they readily took advantage of that. Once the publishers knew hold slots could be 'all number 1's', the number of new #1's published sky-rocketed. Strictly taking advantage of the situation, which I chose not to condone.
But, hey, I get it...,strictly a business decision on distribution and pricing as it as a purchase decision on our part.
I do not have to be happy about it, though...!
Cool enough. But, c'mon man! Especially during the biggest sales quarter of the year......nothing? Oh well, ... sigh..,,.,.
I have the Legendary Bundle and am grateful I have made the purchase. I also have purchased most of the core rule books (actually, several times as I have given some stuff to people as they start out and have to replace it).
The beauty of D&D Beyond is everyone in my campaign can benefit from my purchases. For example, everyone can use the Player’s Handbook, all at the same time, and each at home or during the game. How nice is that? One purchase of the book and 6 people can use it? Then that stretches over all the books I have bought. We all have laptops, iPads, or phones at the table now, but the great thing is that it doesn’t distract from the game.
I want to keep my physical books and hope they last a long time. I don’t have to load all the heavy books up when I go to a game, but can peruse them if I want at home I also like that I can save the books all the wear and tear. Honestly, I do most of my reading on my iPad though. It is just easier with D&D Beyond.
And, that is why I will be purchasing them all in the end, I am fairly certain. I am simply whining about it here.
Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if they found it in their model to discount them? After all, the content, once created, is pretty much all margin when distributed electronically. The model they have must be working well for them and there must be little to no incentive to either attract anyone further or reward those of us who will buy them several times over. I am reminded of why I got away from collecting comics. Once the publishers figured out we would buy multiple copies to collect the variant covers of the same content they readily took advantage of that. Once the publishers knew hold slots could be 'all number 1's', the number of new #1's published sky-rocketed. Strictly taking advantage of the situation, which I chose not to condone.
But, hey, I get it...,strictly a business decision on distribution and pricing as it as a purchase decision on our part.
I do not have to be happy about it, though...!
Cool enough. But, c'mon man! Especially during the biggest sales quarter of the year......nothing? Oh well, ... sigh..,,.,.
Wizards of the Coast and dndbeyond are 2 separate companies Wizards has licensed the content to dndbeyond which means Wizards get a fee for every item you purchase here. I am not sure of how much it is, but it still has to be paid. Then all the work has to be done on the character builder, the offline app which isn't finished, and not to mention ongoing maintenance of the website and forums. i bet there is even more stuff I am not even thinking of as the dndbeyond project/business has to do a lot of stuff.
I have the Legendary Bundle and am grateful I have made the purchase. I also have purchased most of the core rule books (actually, several times as I have given some stuff to people as they start out and have to replace it).
The beauty of D&D Beyond is everyone in my campaign can benefit from my purchases. For example, everyone can use the Player’s Handbook, all at the same time, and each at home or during the game. How nice is that? One purchase of the book and 6 people can use it? Then that stretches over all the books I have bought. We all have laptops, iPads, or phones at the table now, but the great thing is that it doesn’t distract from the game.
I want to keep my physical books and hope they last a long time. I don’t have to load all the heavy books up when I go to a game, but can peruse them if I want at home I also like that I can save the books all the wear and tear. Honestly, I do most of my reading on my iPad though. It is just easier with D&D Beyond.
And, that is why I will be purchasing them all in the end, I am fairly certain. I am simply whining about it here.
Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if they found it in their model to discount them? After all, the content, once created, is pretty much all margin when distributed electronically. The model they have must be working well for them and there must be little to no incentive to either attract anyone further or reward those of us who will buy them several times over. I am reminded of why I got away from collecting comics. Once the publishers figured out we would buy multiple copies to collect the variant covers of the same content they readily took advantage of that. Once the publishers knew hold slots could be 'all number 1's', the number of new #1's published sky-rocketed. Strictly taking advantage of the situation, which I chose not to condone.
But, hey, I get it...,strictly a business decision on distribution and pricing as it as a purchase decision on our part.
I do not have to be happy about it, though...!
Cool enough. But, c'mon man! Especially during the biggest sales quarter of the year......nothing? Oh well, ... sigh..,,.,.
Wizards of the Coast and dndbeyond are 2 separate companies Wizards has licensed the content to dndbeyond which means Wizards get a fee for every item you purchase here. I am not sure of how much it is, but it still has to be paid. Then all the work has to be done on the character builder, the offline app which isn't finished, and not to mention ongoing maintenance of the website and forums. i bet there is even more stuff I am not even thinking of as the dndbeyond project/business has to do a lot of stuff.
Fully understand. My company is in the software development and licensing business as well. Still, others, like Fantasy Grounds, are doing similar. Yet, their content pricing is much more competitive. Having said that, DDB’s character generator and character sheet is awesome.
D&D Beyond sets the books base price around 10$ less than the physical book (which is probably close to as low as they are allowed to set it by WotC). If you buy the legendary bundle books are discounted 15%. And there is occasionally a discount code for 25% off the bundle (almost always one for individual books).
So a 60$ book would cost less than 32$.
The 55$ annual subscription is only needed to share your purchases with your campaign (in other words only 1 person in a play group needs to have bought anything).
While this is quite an old Thread, and everything being said is reasonable:
Consider splitting the Subscription cost with your table.
$6.49 monthly (in my region) would be about $1.30 per Person in a DM+4 group, or about $1.10 for DM+5 group.
Even when the table profiting from the content is willing to carry it fully for the DM: $55/yr with 20 sessions (2 week schedule with some leftouts) would be $2.75 per session. For 4 or 5 players respectively, this would equal roughly $0.70 or $0.55 per player per session… Let's call it $1 per session per player for good measure.
Order and share some Family or Party sized Pizzas occasionally, split the bill, leave the change at the DM and DnD-Beyond is being almost fully payed for.
Printing out Character Sheets, Maps, occasional supplement content for player reference, Clues, etc. will be pretty much as expensive as the entire DnDBeyond subscription, even without the table contributing. If not more.
Being new to D&D Beyond and thinking about getting back into D&D, as both a player and DM, and having purchased ALL D&D 5E hard bound books from WOTC, I am looking at a significant purchase to go online and mobile, unfortunately, if I wish to grab all content online and go for Master License - $500 plus recurring $55/year. As I am sure noted on this forum previously, rebuying all content - once again (as I will if I choose FB or Roll20 as well).
Paying the same money for an online book in which I own ZERO other than right to use, it appears, and not being able to get a perpetual lifetime one time cost license somewhat irks me. While I will likely bite the bullet, I would love to see a heavier discounted pricing on the electronic material to incent more purchases. I believe they could easily discount this material and still be hugely profitable. I would also like to see a one time license charge.
The onus would then be on D&D Beyond and team to continue to provide content and improve their functionality rather than simply milk profits from what they have already created.
My view, in any event, skewed as it is. This is nothing more than whining about something others have already whined about....
Gray Mouser
Just a small correction: you do not need any subscription to purchase and keep the content.
I have the Legendary Bundle and am grateful I have made the purchase. I also have purchased most of the core rule books (actually, several times as I have given some stuff to people as they start out and have to replace it).
The beauty of D&D Beyond is everyone in my campaign can benefit from my purchases. For example, everyone can use the Player’s Handbook, all at the same time, and each at home or during the game. How nice is that? One purchase of the book and 6 people can use it? Then that stretches over all the books I have bought. We all have laptops, iPads, or phones at the table now, but the great thing is that it doesn’t distract from the game.
I want to keep my physical books and hope they last a long time. I don’t have to load all the heavy books up when I go to a game, but can peruse them if I want at home I also like that I can save the books all the wear and tear. Honestly, I do most of my reading on my iPad though. It is just easier with D&D Beyond.
And, that is why I will be purchasing them all in the end, I am fairly certain. I am simply whining about it here.
Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if they found it in their model to discount them? After all, the content, once created, is pretty much all margin when distributed electronically. The model they have must be working well for them and there must be little to no incentive to either attract anyone further or reward those of us who will buy them several times over. I am reminded of why I got away from collecting comics. Once the publishers figured out we would buy multiple copies to collect the variant covers of the same content they readily took advantage of that. Once the publishers knew hold slots could be 'all number 1's', the number of new #1's published sky-rocketed. Strictly taking advantage of the situation, which I chose not to condone.
But, hey, I get it...,strictly a business decision on distribution and pricing as it as a purchase decision on our part.
I do not have to be happy about it, though...!
Cool enough. But, c'mon man! Especially during the biggest sales quarter of the year......nothing? Oh well, ... sigh..,,.,.
Gray Mouser
Wizards of the Coast and dndbeyond are 2 separate companies Wizards has licensed the content to dndbeyond which means Wizards get a fee for every item you purchase here. I am not sure of how much it is, but it still has to be paid. Then all the work has to be done on the character builder, the offline app which isn't finished, and not to mention ongoing maintenance of the website and forums. i bet there is even more stuff I am not even thinking of as the dndbeyond project/business has to do a lot of stuff.
Fully understand. My company is in the software development and licensing business as well. Still, others, like Fantasy Grounds, are doing similar. Yet, their content pricing is much more competitive. Having said that, DDB’s character generator and character sheet is awesome.
Gray Mouser
D&D Beyond sets the books base price around 10$ less than the physical book (which is probably close to as low as they are allowed to set it by WotC). If you buy the legendary bundle books are discounted 15%. And there is occasionally a discount code for 25% off the bundle (almost always one for individual books).
So a 60$ book would cost less than 32$.
The 55$ annual subscription is only needed to share your purchases with your campaign (in other words only 1 person in a play group needs to have bought anything).
While this is quite an old Thread, and everything being said is reasonable:
Consider splitting the Subscription cost with your table.
$6.49 monthly (in my region) would be about $1.30 per Person in a DM+4 group, or about $1.10 for DM+5 group.
Even when the table profiting from the content is willing to carry it fully for the DM: $55/yr with 20 sessions (2 week schedule with some leftouts) would be $2.75 per session. For 4 or 5 players respectively, this would equal roughly $0.70 or $0.55 per player per session… Let's call it $1 per session per player for good measure.
Order and share some Family or Party sized Pizzas occasionally, split the bill, leave the change at the DM and DnD-Beyond is being almost fully payed for.
Printing out Character Sheets, Maps, occasional supplement content for player reference, Clues, etc. will be pretty much as expensive as the entire DnDBeyond subscription, even without the table contributing. If not more.