Wizards of the Coast was on the right track during the 4e era when they were creating their own digital content and VT's. I suspect they will come back to that concept in the future. As it stands they are doing very unnecessary profit sharing.
How did Wizards of the Coast's VTT turn out?
There are certainly downsides to having multiple digital options out there, but there are upsides as well - like actually finished products. ;) One person's "unnecessary profit sharing" is another person's "not losing millions of dollars getting into an industry you have no experience in."
Wizards of the Coast was on the right track during the 4e era when they were creating their own digital content and VT's. I suspect they will come back to that concept in the future. As it stands they are doing very unnecessary profit sharing.
How did Wizards of the Coast's VTT turn out?
We don't talk about that.... >_>
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
As it stands they are doing very unnecessary profit sharing.
if they sold it themselves they would probably have to lower the price and/or give discounts to those who bought the physical books.
but this way they can force DDB/Roll20 to sell their content (which costs nothing to produce) at full price. Who knows how much they get per sale, probably 50% of the sale.
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a phisical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
I never saw this with videogames, movies or books, where the phisical copy and the digital one is the exact same product. Somehow they handled people to comply, nobody writes posts of "I bought this PS4 game long time ago, I want the digital copy for convenience. Why I have to pay for it again?"
WotC was only ok with it if 1) it abided by the OGL, which most major ones did, or 2) WotC didn’t see them. Also a common #3 where they were definitely not ok with it, but the website was hosted in a foreign country that was less than cooperative about copyright claims.
Believe me, they have been sending out cease and desist letters for the past 23 years they’ve owned D&D, but the OGL opened up many legal means of sharing D&D content. In fact, they even cut off one of their own revenue streams of selling PDFs of books for no other reason than to try (naively) to slow the illegally sharing of them.
So to claim that only because D&D Beyond came along, NOW WotC has changed their mind and are against copyright infringement after ignoring it for 25 years is 100% false.
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a physical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
Paizo...
Definitely a factor - but it’s also funny that those people who claim that overlook how Paizo only does that with subscriptions because the benefit to the company of having reliable and steady monthly pre-purchase numbers is worth the cost of providing the PDF for free with it. Plus, consumers sometimes wind up paying more because they often wind up buying a few books here and there they might not have otherwise because it’s easier to let the subscription run than to constantly cancel and restart it. It is a deliberate decision not to just offer free PDFs because It’s low cost to them but to solely to drive subscriptions and even out sales of books that wind up less popular.
Also, the same people who argue that other companies offer free PDFs so D&D Beyond should be free also boggle my mind because what DDB offers is so much further from a PDF that they aren’t even comparable! :)
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a physical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
Paizo...
Definitely a factor - but it’s also funny that those people who claim that overlook how Paizo only does that with subscriptions because the benefit to the company of having reliable and steady monthly pre-purchase numbers is worth the cost of providing the PDF for free with it.
I haven't purchased a .pdf from Paizo in over a year (Starfinder books) , but the last time I did, I wasn't required to purchase a subscription.
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a phisical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
I never saw this with videogames, movies or books, where the phisical copy and the digital one is the exact same product. Somehow they handled people to comply, nobody writes posts of "I bought this PS4 game long time ago, I want the digital copy for convenience. Why I have to pay for it again?"
It's been around. I worked at two large electronics retailers for years, and people have been trying to get content on multiple media types for as far back as I remember. When DVDs first came out, I had customers throw fits because we wouldn't give them a free copy because they had the VHS. (Repeated each time a new format came out like laserdisk, divx, Blu-ray, HDdvd, etc) For customers that bought Microsoft office for windows then switched to apple, they wanted the apple version for free "Because I already bought a copy". But the worst was when Apple music came out, along with all the other music content providers. All the different DRM and copy protections (which were pretty strict in the beginning) led to customers coming in and demanding free iTunes cards because "They already bought the CD and couldn't get it to copy over". Don't get me wrong, it was maybe 1 or 2 customers a week out of thousands, but getting every format for free because one format was purchased has been around since at least 95. (Probably earlier, but that's as far back as I can confirm from personal experience.)
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a physical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
Paizo...
Definitely a factor - but it’s also funny that those people who claim that overlook how Paizo only does that with subscriptions because the benefit to the company of having reliable and steady monthly pre-purchase numbers is worth the cost of providing the PDF for free with it.
I haven't purchased a .pdf from Paizo in over a year (Starfinder books) , but the last time I did, I wasn't required to purchase a subscription.
Sorry for the confusion. To get a free PDF with a physical book requires a subscription. You can buy either one separately, just the free PDFs only come with subscriptions for the physical books.
So to claim that only because D&D Beyond came along, NOW WotC has changed their mind and are against copyright infringement after ignoring it for 25 years is 100% false.
To be clear, I at no time claimed that "only because D&D beyond came along, NOW wotC has changed their mind". I simply pointed out that until DnD Beyond the rules where a lot more relaxed.
I also pointed out that everyone was well aware of the copyright infringement, but you are wrong, Wizards of the Coast let a lot of stuff slide in the name supporting the D&D community and no not everyone got cease letters as you claim, quite to the contrary, it was extremely rare usually only in the cases of direct distribution of books. Their were many sites that were very obvious copyrights that were allowed knowingly to exist for decades. They weren't secret or tucked away in some foreign country, Wizards of the Coast simply didn't care.
Our memories of the past 20 something years is quite a bit different then. I recall a lot more OGL-compliant tools out there that people did as pet projects because there weren’t any official ones, but I also recall the infringing sites were taken down or ignored just as frequently then as they are now. *shrug*
Keep the books as a back-up: there are power outages, ya know.
And also you can take a physical book over to an armchair or the bathroom easier than hauling your computer around.
Yes! Plus, even if I'm here on D&D Beyond, I still love researching in a book. Turning paper pages, made familiar with dog-ears and marked passages...it's too fun to give up and go all digital.
Keep the books as a back-up: there are power outages, ya know.
And also you can take a physical book over to an armchair or the bathroom easier than hauling your computer around.
That's what tablets and phones are for.
Neither one is quite as convenient as just grabbing a physical book and opening it to a random page. Also, phones especially give me eyestrain if I try to read a lot of text on 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.
Someone said earlier to just do the homebrew on D&D beyond and copy it from the books. I know it takes time but it is better than buying the book twice. If you buy the book a second time that is fine just don't complain about it when it was your choice. Again just copy it from the book it is very simple.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What did Tennessee? The same thing as Arkansas. Too cheesy? I wil make you a new one without as much cheese.
Also please don't use dog-ears it is disrespectful to the book and ruins it. I know it is like a book mark but please just go get a book mark for free from the library instead of ruining a book.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What did Tennessee? The same thing as Arkansas. Too cheesy? I wil make you a new one without as much cheese.
Also please don't use dog-ears it is disrespectful to the book and ruins it. I know it is like a book mark but please just go get a book mark for free from the library instead of ruining a book.
A book isn't alive, it cannot be disrespected and the authors aren't going to care.
Let people do what they want with stuff they own.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Also please don't use dog-ears it is disrespectful to the book and ruins it. I know it is like a book mark but please just go get a book mark for free from the library instead of ruining a book.
Heck, I actually write in them, cross things out, write replacement bits, etc., kinda like a pastor’s bible. Dog earing a few pages is the least of it.
How did Wizards of the Coast's VTT turn out?
There are certainly downsides to having multiple digital options out there, but there are upsides as well - like actually finished products. ;) One person's "unnecessary profit sharing" is another person's "not losing millions of dollars getting into an industry you have no experience in."
We don't talk about that.... >_>
Keep the books as a back-up: there are power outages, ya know.
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
if they sold it themselves they would probably have to lower the price and/or give discounts to those who bought the physical books.
but this way they can force DDB/Roll20 to sell their content (which costs nothing to produce) at full price. Who knows how much they get per sale, probably 50% of the sale.
Why D&D books is the only product people expect (or even demand) that buying a phisical copy will give you a free digital copy too?
I never saw this with videogames, movies or books, where the phisical copy and the digital one is the exact same product. Somehow they handled people to comply, nobody writes posts of "I bought this PS4 game long time ago, I want the digital copy for convenience. Why I have to pay for it again?"
Paizo...
This is rewriting history and is false.
WotC was only ok with it if 1) it abided by the OGL, which most major ones did, or 2) WotC didn’t see them. Also a common #3 where they were definitely not ok with it, but the website was hosted in a foreign country that was less than cooperative about copyright claims.
Believe me, they have been sending out cease and desist letters for the past 23 years they’ve owned D&D, but the OGL opened up many legal means of sharing D&D content. In fact, they even cut off one of their own revenue streams of selling PDFs of books for no other reason than to try (naively) to slow the illegally sharing of them.
So to claim that only because D&D Beyond came along, NOW WotC has changed their mind and are against copyright infringement after ignoring it for 25 years is 100% false.
Definitely a factor - but it’s also funny that those people who claim that overlook how Paizo only does that with subscriptions because the benefit to the company of having reliable and steady monthly pre-purchase numbers is worth the cost of providing the PDF for free with it. Plus, consumers sometimes wind up paying more because they often wind up buying a few books here and there they might not have otherwise because it’s easier to let the subscription run than to constantly cancel and restart it. It is a deliberate decision not to just offer free PDFs because It’s low cost to them but to solely to drive subscriptions and even out sales of books that wind up less popular.
Also, the same people who argue that other companies offer free PDFs so D&D Beyond should be free also boggle my mind because what DDB offers is so much further from a PDF that they aren’t even comparable! :)
I haven't purchased a .pdf from Paizo in over a year (Starfinder books) , but the last time I did, I wasn't required to purchase a subscription.
It's been around. I worked at two large electronics retailers for years, and people have been trying to get content on multiple media types for as far back as I remember. When DVDs first came out, I had customers throw fits because we wouldn't give them a free copy because they had the VHS. (Repeated each time a new format came out like laserdisk, divx, Blu-ray, HDdvd, etc) For customers that bought Microsoft office for windows then switched to apple, they wanted the apple version for free "Because I already bought a copy". But the worst was when Apple music came out, along with all the other music content providers. All the different DRM and copy protections (which were pretty strict in the beginning) led to customers coming in and demanding free iTunes cards because "They already bought the CD and couldn't get it to copy over". Don't get me wrong, it was maybe 1 or 2 customers a week out of thousands, but getting every format for free because one format was purchased has been around since at least 95. (Probably earlier, but that's as far back as I can confirm from personal experience.)
Sorry for the confusion. To get a free PDF with a physical book requires a subscription. You can buy either one separately, just the free PDFs only come with subscriptions for the physical books.
Our memories of the past 20 something years is quite a bit different then. I recall a lot more OGL-compliant tools out there that people did as pet projects because there weren’t any official ones, but I also recall the infringing sites were taken down or ignored just as frequently then as they are now. *shrug*
And also you can take a physical book over to an armchair or the bathroom easier than hauling your computer around.
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.
That's what tablets and phones are for.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Yes! Plus, even if I'm here on D&D Beyond, I still love researching in a book. Turning paper pages, made familiar with dog-ears and marked passages...it's too fun to give up and go all digital.
💙🤍~*Ravenclaw*~ 🔮
Neither one is quite as convenient as just grabbing a physical book and opening it to a random page. Also, phones especially give me eyestrain if I try to read a lot of text on 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.
Someone said earlier to just do the homebrew on D&D beyond and copy it from the books. I know it takes time but it is better than buying the book twice. If you buy the book a second time that is fine just don't complain about it when it was your choice. Again just copy it from the book it is very simple.
What did Tennessee? The same thing as Arkansas. Too cheesy? I wil make you a new one without as much cheese.
Also please don't use dog-ears it is disrespectful to the book and ruins it. I know it is like a book mark but please just go get a book mark for free from the library instead of ruining a book.
What did Tennessee? The same thing as Arkansas. Too cheesy? I wil make you a new one without as much cheese.
A book isn't alive, it cannot be disrespected and the authors aren't going to care.
Let people do what they want with stuff they own.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Heck, I actually write in them, cross things out, write replacement bits, etc., kinda like a pastor’s bible. Dog earing a few pages is the least of it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting