Hey everyone. So I am considering getting back into 5e and Beyond so far looks pretty cool. But, my question is this- If I buy the books through Beyond, are they mine forever? Is there a way to actually back this up? I ask because let's say this stops being supported or worst case, they whole thing crumbles. Did I just throw away my money? At least with a PDF, what I buy is mine and I can use it anywhere.
So, from what I read, it looks like the short answer is yes, I can loose all material
This is how most digital content works, such as music bought from itunes, movies bought from Amazon, etc. You're buying them, but there is nothing stopping the content provider from revoking/removing/losing that material. For example, I bought a movie on Amazon a few years back and Amazon actually lost the rights to having that movie. The name and image of the movie remained in my gallery, but it had text over it saying "Currently Unavailable." It ended up returning eventually (presumably after they worked out whatever legal issues) and it returned to my collection.
Basically with most digital content you aren't actually buying anything. You are paying for the privileged to view/use the digital content until such a time as the company decides to revoke that privilege, which could be at any time for any reason. It's a matter of deciding if that risk is worth the benefits of being able to access digital content on any internet connected device anywhere, or not.
I will add that D&D Beyond are the toolset officially supported by Wizards of the Coast, they are the best and most successful D&D 5th Edition toolset available by a huge margin and owned by Curse which is part of Twitch - a very successful self-streaming service and Twitch, in turn, is owned and supported by Amazon the biggest, most successful, 234 billion dollars (us) per year online retailer in the world that is advancing at speeds that leaves all competitors in the dust in both service and technology.
It is going to take something pretty huge to force D&D Beyond to stop or fail. The risk is small. Present, yes, but small.
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.
Yeah. It's like Steam. Back in 2003, I had people telling me I was dumb to redeem my Half-Life 2 code on a service that could go away at any time, but if I feel like playing it right now 15 years later I can click a button and get my crowbar on. If I'd had that game on a disc, I guarantee you it would've disappeared or broken at some point during the interim.
I have a feeling DDB's going to be around long enough that even if it does eventually shut down, I will have gotten my money's worth.
Steam is a good example of a similar product, which as it stands is a divergence from most RPGs in that you can get PDFs but those others also don't provide an accessible toolset to go with it.
Can it go away, Sure. Though I'd suspect its not likely to go away unless D&D streams on twitch do (a big draw card for D&D Beyond marketing) or the corporate heads of Amazon/Twitch send down a mandate to Curse to shut it down due to not being profitable enough.
All in all it is hard to say whether at the end of it all Wizards would also let the stuff be converted to PDF (or whatever the tech is at the time) and give it to purchasers as a consolation to it going away too, given many older versions of D&D are available as PDFs now.
Hey everyone. So I am considering getting back into 5e and Beyond so far looks pretty cool. But, my question is this- If I buy the books through Beyond, are they mine forever? Is there a way to actually back this up? I ask because let's say this stops being supported or worst case, they whole thing crumbles. Did I just throw away my money? At least with a PDF, what I buy is mine and I can use it anywhere.
Thanks all!
The answer is reported in the Terms of Sale.
So, from what I read, it looks like the short answer is yes, I can loose all material
This is how most digital content works, such as music bought from itunes, movies bought from Amazon, etc. You're buying them, but there is nothing stopping the content provider from revoking/removing/losing that material. For example, I bought a movie on Amazon a few years back and Amazon actually lost the rights to having that movie. The name and image of the movie remained in my gallery, but it had text over it saying "Currently Unavailable." It ended up returning eventually (presumably after they worked out whatever legal issues) and it returned to my collection.
Basically with most digital content you aren't actually buying anything. You are paying for the privileged to view/use the digital content until such a time as the company decides to revoke that privilege, which could be at any time for any reason. It's a matter of deciding if that risk is worth the benefits of being able to access digital content on any internet connected device anywhere, or not.
I will add that D&D Beyond are the toolset officially supported by Wizards of the Coast, they are the best and most successful D&D 5th Edition toolset available by a huge margin and owned by Curse which is part of Twitch - a very successful self-streaming service and Twitch, in turn, is owned and supported by Amazon the biggest, most successful, 234 billion dollars (us) per year online retailer in the world that is advancing at speeds that leaves all competitors in the dust in both service and technology.
It is going to take something pretty huge to force D&D Beyond to stop or fail. The risk is small. Present, yes, but small.
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.
Yeah. It's like Steam. Back in 2003, I had people telling me I was dumb to redeem my Half-Life 2 code on a service that could go away at any time, but if I feel like playing it right now 15 years later I can click a button and get my crowbar on. If I'd had that game on a disc, I guarantee you it would've disappeared or broken at some point during the interim.
I have a feeling DDB's going to be around long enough that even if it does eventually shut down, I will have gotten my money's worth.
Steam is a good example of a similar product, which as it stands is a divergence from most RPGs in that you can get PDFs but those others also don't provide an accessible toolset to go with it.
Can it go away, Sure. Though I'd suspect its not likely to go away unless D&D streams on twitch do (a big draw card for D&D Beyond marketing) or the corporate heads of Amazon/Twitch send down a mandate to Curse to shut it down due to not being profitable enough.
All in all it is hard to say whether at the end of it all Wizards would also let the stuff be converted to PDF (or whatever the tech is at the time) and give it to purchasers as a consolation to it going away too, given many older versions of D&D are available as PDFs now.
- Loswaith