Quote from WhyDragonsWhy >>

UUUUHHHHHHH!!!! I spent $100 on D&D books I didn't need, just to find out I should have used that money on buying the digital copies because I thought there would be codes.

 Go speak to the store where you bought the books from. If they told you that there would be DDB codes inside the books then that's on them. They should either buy you the books on DDB or give you a refund.

Ok thank you.

I bought them online and just didn't put the facts that the only ones with codes are the shrink wrapped ones and the ones that didn't have codes aren't shrink wrapped together and the fact that DnD beyond isn't owned by Wizards of the Coast in my mind.

You can return books to an online retailer too, even Amazon.

The only D&D products with codes are The Essentials Kit and some really high end versions that cost hundreds. 

You should be able to return your books if you don't want them, so long as they're not damaged. D&DBeyond tends to be cheaper for a book.

I got over it I mostly just wanted a short cut for character creation.

This seems doable now that they are the same company

Quote from ToastyHippo >>

This seems doable now that they are the same company

Just because something is doable does not mean they should do it. It still costs money to build and maintain all that infrastructure, and I am skeptical it is worth the expense if they have not expanded that model beyond the Essentials Kit.

Quote from ToastyHippo >>

This seems doable now that they are the same company

 To be blunt, WotC doesn't exist to provide D&D, it exists to make some rich people even richer. They have simply decided that the best way to get your money is in exchange for D&D. The only way they'll provide free copies on DDB is if they perceive that it will end up with more money in their pocket because of it.

I say perceive, and I chose that word carefully. It's quite possible that it would get them more money overall. We can come up with several models ib which it would. However, WotC have to be convinced of it. They refuse to even allow PDFs to be sold, most likely because they think it will reduce profits overall - I doubt that they'll be persuaded into using DDB resources as freebies to bait people into handing more money over.

Still, it's possible. I just wouldn't bet on it.

I think it's funny that everyone seems to think they are owed something here. The goal of a business is to make money, plain and simple, not give away free stuff.

My hope with WotC purchasing DDB is that they will allow them more people to help develop tools and such faster for us to benefit from. 

I agree with you. I am new to this game and I do not want to paid twice for a book because of copyright problems.

If you go to a bookstore and buy two copies of the PHB, you pay for both. It is no different here. 

All i can say is now this will be a fun discussion since WOTC does own DDB. i do not expect to see anything different though. You pay for the digital integration, not so much the digial "book"

They do sell digital only copies for way cheaper, fyi, never bought one as I wanted all the features.

What I would like to see is something along the lines as a digital bundle where the book is sealed so you can include a code inside. It could be $10 more to cover the increased packing and add a little profit. Heck even doing it for free has a potential to increase profits long term.  It would lead more people to use DnDBeyond which is what they want. It doesn't hurt profitability since the marginal cost of digital item is 0.

So the physical book side of the process gets paid for the book and the packaging and the DDB side makes no money on their end? 

WoTC didn't buy DDB to pay the extra employees with the profit they were already making on physical books. That's just bad business. 

Quote from Dalagante >>

What I would like to see is something along the lines as a digital bundle where the book is sealed so you can include a code inside. 

Sealing a book is undesirable, because customers can't look through it on the shelf of the bookstore to see if they like it.

I think you are missing how money can be made off the site. Wizard has made it clear they want us to play DnD on their site. If they want to achieve this they are going to want to bring more people to the site. If you included coded in physical book it would bring more player to the site which would increase the numbers. The profits to pay the more workers would be made up in subs and other extras beings sold. Besides I am pretty sure the end goal is to move as much of sales to digital vs physical.  Codes in a physical book could so this, also.

This is basic business 101 giving way something that cost you almost nothing on the margin to sell more things that cost you almost nothing on the margin is a great marketing move. That is especially true when you giving away a one time purchase (a book) with a great chance to sell a monthly purchase(a sub). If I can give away a digital copy of a book I already made some money to get that DM to spend $6/month on my site and may be even get a few players to pay $3/month. It is a win for wizards.  It makes for a more stable and better bottom line.

The alternative actually has a chance to make the less money. If you keep requiring the purchase of digital copies for people who have bought the physical it ends up decreasing the numbers of people that play DnD on the site. This decrease the number of people you can sell the other stuff to because they never be tempted to try your product. Buying something twice can be a huge barrier to entry for people.

Besides you are forgetting in all of this we aren't the customer in the new economy we are the product.  Wizards has stated this many times when talking about Arena. They said it is more important to keep people playing Arena than make profit. It doesn't many they aren't making a profit or trying to but they would rather break even and greatly increase your time on the site than make more profits of selling things with you spend less time.

If anything I could see them actually stop charging for books and just up the sub. This is the move that kind of scares me is restricting all the content behind a sub wall.

Quote from Dalagante >>

This is basic business 101 giving way something that cost you almost nothing on the margin to sell more things that cost you almost nothing on the margin is a great marketing move.

As a person who has worked in the accounting and bookkeeping field, lay people often have little idea on how much it costs to run a business. People keep suggesting ideas that they think costs little to no money when in reality it costs a lot. Slapping codes on to books have been suggested multitudes of times, and despite repeated responses saying that it costs a ton of money to do so, people still keep suggesting codes-in-book constantly anyways as if ignoring those responses will somehow make Hasbro reconsider their decision. A good business 101 tip is to assume something costs more than you think it does, and be prepared for the actual price quote to be even more than that. Hell, a good accounting 101 tip is to assume nothing at all, and let the evidence (financial reports, inventory counts, reciepts, price quotes, etc.) speak for itself.

You can put codes into shrink wrapped box sets to help deter theft. However, shrink wrapping books is tough sell for brick-and-mortar stores since they rely on potential customers being able to open and read the book, essentially relying on the book to help sell itself. If you do not shrink wrap the book, it is extremely easy for theives to just steal the codes. And then there are more elaborate suggestions based off of that like putting it on reciepts (not every mom and pop stores cannot handle a new fancy point of sale system) or leaving a copy of a book sample out while keeping the rest shrink wrapped (takes too much inventory space and a hassle to organize).

Hasbro wants to maximize profit. Maximizing profits sometimes means lowering prices. However, often times it also means keeping prices steady or even increasing prices. Sometimes it means trying a new sales model, and if it works out, they will continue with it, and if not, they will not continue. For example, they have implemented codes for the Essentials Kit box set, but they do not seem to be in a hurry to use the same sales model for books. The Essentials Kit is also harder to find, and when found, they are often more expensive than the Starter Kit (which does not have any codes). Whatever idea you can think of, I am pretty sure Hasbro and Wizards has already thought about it (and probably tried it themselves too or watch another company do it) and had their financial department run the cost-benefit analysis. If they do not do something that you want them to do, it is mostly likely because doing what you want them to do is going to earn them less profit at best or lose them money at worst.

Quote from XXXGammaRay >>

...The Essentials Kit is more expensive than the Starter Kit (which does not have any codes)...

 The Essentials Kit comes with a lot more than the Starters Kit. It has more dice, a DM screen and a longer adventure. Above that, it also comes with three further adventures that makes it more than twice as long as the Starter Set. In fact, it has more to it than most of the published adventures, being tied for second longest, to my recall, the only drawback is that it's paperback (and given than it comes in a boxset, I'm not convinced that it's much cheaper to make). The other adventures are instead about 50% more expensive - even the DDB ones cost more. According to your logic, does that mean that the codes make the Essentials Kit cheaper? 

The price difference with the Essentials Kit and Starter Set is not because of the D&D codes - which were most likely a giveaway by DDB, not WotC - but because you're getting substantially more.