It is clear to me that the majority of Curse's revenue for dndb is supposed to be via subscriptions, as I expect most of the content revenue goes to wotc.
Are people buying the subscriptions? How long do you think dndb will last if few people buy the subscriptions?
I personally see no benefit (to me) at the moment, of any tier of subscription, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything they could add to make me want to shell out $$/mo
So, I wanted to ask what you think dndb could offer to you in terms of services to add value to the content? (because I want to see dndb succeed)
I have a master tier subscription. This is for several reasons. 1) I hate ads, 2) I like making concept characters and having unlimited slots is useful to me, 3) I am generally my groups GM and so being able to share my content with my group makes it easier for me to get games running.
I would like to believe the DDB will be around for a while with or without a heavy subscription load. The fact that a twitch account is needed to use DDB has already increased twitches presence, which makes DDB a valuable asset. Additionally, users who do not buy a sub are still sources of revenue via in-page ads.
While It is not my place to tell you what is or is not your benefit I feel that you would not have started this conversation if you did not want to understand the reason and motivation for people who have subbed. Which I choose to believe means you are open to the idea.
Any added value would be appreciated though. As I said I am my groups primary GM and I know that DDB does not want to become a VTT resource I would love to see some features that would help me prep for a game like an encounter designer, a initiative tracker and if possible a dungeon generator, perhaps using the tables out of the DMG.
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GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links. https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole @BonusRole
I see: as a player that generally plays in games offline, it is more of a glorified character creation tool, it is good to get the viewpoint of someone who managers their campaigns online.
I see: as a player that generally plays in games offline, it is more of a glorified character creation tool, it is good to get the viewpoint of someone who managers their campaigns online.
When they publish the first run of the native mobile app that might change for you. It'll become an indexed, searchable, filterable and cross-linked offline sourcebook.
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~Never cruel nor cowardly; never give up, never give in.
I see: as a player that generally plays in games offline, it is more of a glorified character creation tool, it is good to get the viewpoint of someone who managers their campaigns online.
For players or DMs it is more than simply a glorified character creator. It is also a source reference resource. This site makes it much quicker and easier to look up spells, feats, equipment, monsters, etc. This will probably replace Fantasy Grounds for me, as it is much easier to look up information in D&D Beyond than it is in FG. The only features missing that I use in FG are the combat tracker and fog of war for maps. Combat tracker is not necessary for me, as I can use a text editor or just a post it for that... Fog of war would be nice, but I can live without that too, given the other benefits of D&D Beyond.
Agreed, but I don't see how curse will ramp up revenue
Books for one, XGE is dropping soon and they will be making $26-30 a pop on that from people on here buying it to unlock fully, then there are the smaller transactions of people just unlocking subs, feats, what have you. Then there is growth, by bringing in new users they increase the potential point of sales for both books and subscriptions. It really is kinda basic business and market economics. With twitch and stream integration coming soon they will be making their product and services known to a wider range of people. and again just browsing the site, even if you don't have a subscription or unlocked books makes them revenue via ads.
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links. https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole @BonusRole
I'm willimg to bet most of that goes to licensing, to wotc
In all likely hood (I haven't seen the contract so cant be sure) Curse, via Twitch, Via Amazon pays a nominal fee yearly to WoTC for licensing rights, and then, in addition, a secondary price per book sold to WoTC. I would say likely a percentile depending upon the markup of the total revenue generated by each individual sale.
Keep in mind your FLGS probably pays like $10-30 to WoTC for each book they have in stock. WoTC already has their money so what you are paying your FLGS goes to pay salary, lease, utilities, and replenish stock. A single sale can't-do all that but all the sales in the aggregate can, the same is to be said for DDB.
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GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links. https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole @BonusRole
It is clear to me that the majority of Curse's revenue for dndb is supposed to be via subscriptions, as I expect most of the content revenue goes to wotc.
Can your crystal ball also reveal to me the lotto numbers?
It is clear to me that the majority of Curse's revenue for dndb is supposed to be via subscriptions, as I expect most of the content revenue goes to wotc.
Are people buying the subscriptions? How long do you think dndb will last if few people buy the subscriptions?
I personally see no benefit (to me) at the moment, of any tier of subscription, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything they could add to make me want to shell out $$/mo
So, I wanted to ask what you think dndb could offer to you in terms of services to add value to the content? (because I want to see dndb succeed)
Tons of people are buying subscriptions, when you a group of four or five players it allows everyone to have access to the books for pennies on the dollar. I can't imagine any group not doing that.
Agreed, but I don't see how curse will ramp up revenue
Have you seen how much Amazon is able to discount some of the physical D&D books? It appears that there is some leeway on pricing. I would bet that there is even more leeway on digital products.
Also, maybe they'll offer some advanced features that will only be available to subscribers. I am not sure what their plan is, but am not too worried about them.
I cancelled my sub. Right now, DDB is simply not a good fit for me or my group.
Here are the issues for me:
Lack of homebrewing classes
Lack of uses spell points for casters
Lack of rule modification support
Searching is usually much slower on DDB than the books or the Discord bot I use
No 3rd party integration APIs to help my VTT usage (basically just screen sharing and Discord, so super low bar)
Book navigation is simply not very good
Book and table layouts are not great and waste a lot of screen space
Complete lack of campaign management tools
Complete lack of integrating homebrew campaigns
It's clear to me that how I play D&D and DDB allows me to play D&D are simply incompatible. Everyone I know and interact with heavily homebrew elements of D&D to fit their game style, and DDB is all about WotC product and rule support. So, unfortunately, this is not the tool for me.
Hopefully it will become better over time and have complete flexibility.
I cancelled my sub. Right now, DDB is simply not a good fit for me or my group.
Here are the issues for me:
Lack of homebrewing classes
Lack of uses spell points for casters
Lack of rule modification support
Searching is usually much slower on DDB than the books or the Discord bot I use
No 3rd party integration APIs to help my VTT usage (basically just screen sharing and Discord, so super low bar)
Book navigation is simply not very good
Book and table layouts are not great and waste a lot of screen space
Complete lack of campaign management tools
Complete lack of integrating homebrew campaigns
It's clear to me that how I play D&D and DDB allows me to play D&D are simply incompatible. Everyone I know and interact with heavily homebrew elements of D&D to fit their game style, and DDB is all about WotC product and rule support. So, unfortunately, this is not the tool for me.
Hopefully it will become better over time and have complete flexibility.
No, I still have my books I own here that I'll reference when I don't have my physical books with me. I may still purchase some of the adventures and other items. But as a subscription service and a tool for actually running my games with, it's just not where I need it to be.
I cancelled my sub. Right now, DDB is simply not a good fit for me or my group.
Here are the issues for me:
Lack of homebrewing classes
Classes or subclasses? They've promised us subclasses.
Lack of uses spell points for casters
That's probably coming with the deluxe character sheet revamp.
Lack of rule modification support
That'd be nice, but do you have even the least glimmering of an idea of how hard it would be to program for that?
No 3rd party integration APIs to help my VTT usage (basically just screen sharing and Discord, so super low bar)
3rd-party integration is being negotiated. Discord, unfortunately, isn't very likely, because the company that owns the company that makes D&D Beyond owns a competitor to Discord, if you can compete with something that's dedicated to being completely free.
Complete lack of campaign management tools
Campaign management tools are coming.
Complete lack of integrating homebrew campaigns
What, exactly, does that even mean?
It's clear to me that how I play D&D and DDB allows me to play D&D are simply incompatible. Everyone I know and interact with heavily homebrew elements of D&D to fit their game style, and DDB is all about WotC product and rule support. So, unfortunately, this is not the tool for me.
Hopefully it will become better over time and have complete flexibility.
Look, official has to come first, okay? It's still new, really.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
No, I still have my books I own here that I'll reference when I don't have my physical books with me. I may still purchase some of the adventures and other items. But as a subscription service and a tool for actually running my games with, it's just not where I need it to be.
This tool was released about a month ago. It is very new and was released with "minimal" functionality. I say "minimal" because it already has a lot of super useful functionality. I rarely subscribe to anything, because I do not like the subscription model. But, I subscribed at the master level for a year already. Does it have every feature I want? No. Will it ever support every feature that I want? Maybe not. But, it already provides enough that they have my money and my support.
I think everyone has their own wish list of features for this product. Hopefully, they are furiously coding away to add those (but, not too furiously that the features are buggy or unintuitive to use). I think they have done a great job on what they have released and look forward to seeing what they add going forward.
However, you didn't explain many of your issues very well. Navigation is not very good? Layouts are not good? Those are some of the things that I think they have done a great job with. I find it very easy to navigate content and I find the layout quite well done. I am not sure what you are looking for in those areas. If you have ideas that could improve the site in those areas, I think you would need to explain them in more detail.
@DDaley, perfect! If it provides you value, then by all means subscribe. I'm simply stating why it provides very little value to me.
@Matthias
I have a mixture of class modifications and subclasses. Some things I could hack together here with custom homebrew items, but others I could not. Nothing on their roadmap suggest that I will be able to re-create my player's characters here.
Rule modification support - the problem is how they went about codifying the rules. Maybe the big character sheet revamp will fix a majority of it. However, I've had no issue creating my players characters with dicecloud.com and using Avrae with Discord. If DDB made their character sheet as flexible as that here, oh man, then this site would start providing a lot more value. The problem with Avrae and dicecloud.com is that only the SRD is usable, so spell lookup with Avrae is going to miss stuff, and dicecloud simply can't have any of the rules encoded so all character creation stuff must be hand-done each time.
3rd-part integration: I simply want an API to expose stuff here. DDB has mentioned this might be a possibility, but alas, who knows when.
Homebrew campaign integration: I can't create a campaign and adventure set in any remote fashion like the adventure modules here. Some of this starts to enter VTT space, and maybe they just don't want to go that direction. Fine, but without an API as above, it starts to create a really disjoint set of tools to use for gameplay time.
It is still new... however, "official" comes first is the problem. Each time they have to code up new stuff for each module/book. We can't create similar stuff for our uses, and that's the problem with how DDB is designed. For many, that's probably fine. All I'm saying, is without it, DDB is basically just an online reference system for D&D. I was hoping for more, and that's why I can't justify a subscription fee. Others can, great. If that's how you want to play, great.
It is clear to me that the majority of Curse's revenue for dndb is supposed to be via subscriptions, as I expect most of the content revenue goes to wotc.
Are people buying the subscriptions? How long do you think dndb will last if few people buy the subscriptions?
I personally see no benefit (to me) at the moment, of any tier of subscription, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything they could add to make me want to shell out $$/mo
So, I wanted to ask what you think dndb could offer to you in terms of services to add value to the content? (because I want to see dndb succeed)
I have a master tier subscription. This is for several reasons. 1) I hate ads, 2) I like making concept characters and having unlimited slots is useful to me, 3) I am generally my groups GM and so being able to share my content with my group makes it easier for me to get games running.
I would like to believe the DDB will be around for a while with or without a heavy subscription load. The fact that a twitch account is needed to use DDB has already increased twitches presence, which makes DDB a valuable asset. Additionally, users who do not buy a sub are still sources of revenue via in-page ads.
While It is not my place to tell you what is or is not your benefit I feel that you would not have started this conversation if you did not want to understand the reason and motivation for people who have subbed. Which I choose to believe means you are open to the idea.
Any added value would be appreciated though. As I said I am my groups primary GM and I know that DDB does not want to become a VTT resource I would love to see some features that would help me prep for a game like an encounter designer, a initiative tracker and if possible a dungeon generator, perhaps using the tables out of the DMG.
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links.
https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole
@BonusRole
I see: as a player that generally plays in games offline, it is more of a glorified character creation tool, it is good to get the viewpoint of someone who managers their campaigns online.
~Never cruel nor cowardly; never give up, never give in.
Agreed, but I don't see how curse will ramp up revenue
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links.
https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole
@BonusRole
I'm willimg to bet most of that goes to licensing, to wotc
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links.
https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole
@BonusRole
Curse = Twitch = Amazon
Need you know more?
I cancelled my sub. Right now, DDB is simply not a good fit for me or my group.
Here are the issues for me:
It's clear to me that how I play D&D and DDB allows me to play D&D are simply incompatible. Everyone I know and interact with heavily homebrew elements of D&D to fit their game style, and DDB is all about WotC product and rule support. So, unfortunately, this is not the tool for me.
Hopefully it will become better over time and have complete flexibility.
Classes or subclasses? They've promised us subclasses.
That's probably coming with the deluxe character sheet revamp.
That'd be nice, but do you have even the least glimmering of an idea of how hard it would be to program for that?
3rd-party integration is being negotiated. Discord, unfortunately, isn't very likely, because the company that owns the company that makes D&D Beyond owns a competitor to Discord, if you can compete with something that's dedicated to being completely free.
Campaign management tools are coming.
What, exactly, does that even mean?
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
@DDaley, perfect! If it provides you value, then by all means subscribe. I'm simply stating why it provides very little value to me.
@Matthias
It is still new... however, "official" comes first is the problem. Each time they have to code up new stuff for each module/book. We can't create similar stuff for our uses, and that's the problem with how DDB is designed. For many, that's probably fine. All I'm saying, is without it, DDB is basically just an online reference system for D&D. I was hoping for more, and that's why I can't justify a subscription fee. Others can, great. If that's how you want to play, great.
My wife & I have a sub for the unlimited characters, primarily.