wait was it not already

Quote from KylerShearer1 >>

wait was it not already

Would be a strange thing to announce otherwise. 😂

yay!

so more homebrew!

yes. homebrew classes would be cool

people cant seem to realize that DDB isn't just a "digital copy" its an entirely different product. A product that takes its own time and labor to develop. Its not just an upload of the data. there are thousands of hours of programing and formatting to make it work the way it is supposed to work. You are paying for an entirely different experience with DDB. and you are also getting the product at a discounted price as well over the physical product.

Yes it would be great if they would give those that buy the physical copies the DDB content as well, but it just is not something that can be done without increasing the price of the physical product. At the end of the day this is a busines. They are in business to make money. To continue making the game that we all love, they have to make money. If a venture doesn't do that then the powers that be will not let them make said product.

Welp, I hope WotC reads these comments and gets the hint that paying for the same thing 4 times is a bit much. Don't be like bethesda lol.

Quote from OctopusDevotee >>

Now can you guys PLEASE publish the stats of Vox Machina and Mighty Nein?

 Those stats are all easily available online 

Quote from GWP >>

Given how hard it would be to prevent fraud, etc with tacking on a key to a physical book sale, I think they other way might make sense. Buy a digital book using your online identity - then get a coupon to get a free / discount on a physical copy. WOTC also has the problem of multichannel sales (amazon, game stores) that they also have to factor so no channel feels slighted. Managing partner expectations is challenging as well.

 So your saying buy the book on here then get a coupon for Amazon which WOTC then pays? That means the digital copy will cost significantly more or else Wizards will sell every copy at a loss. 

For example, book costs £40 so you go and buy it on DDB and get given a £40 voucher to go and spend at Amazon meaning Wizards has to pay Amazon £40? So you have had the book, Amazon have made a profit and wizards have made an overall loss because they have paid out to make the book. 

Quote from vallhundfadewalker >>

sellouts

 How are they sellouts exactly. Had fandom (who own the product) not sold it then wizards would have made there own version and cancelled the license anyway. The staff that work on DDB have no say in this, it wasn’t a little independent startup owned by the staff, it is a product owned by shareholders and a venture capitalist (fandom is owned by a investment firm). 

Quote from TomAllen >>

Please PLEASE have some sort of deal that lets us buy physical books and use them on DDB - it's what everyone wants.

 Please don’t, let’s look at this the other way. If wizards do this it means that the price of the physical books will have to go up; those of us that use the books and only use specific parts of DDB will be over paying for something we don’t want or use. All I have paid for on DDB are the monsters, so I can use them to build encounters, the specific non standard races my players use and some magic items, I have paid out maybe a total of £50. Our games are physical around a table and using the rulebooks that I decide for things like spells etc. I do not want to see book prices increasing just so I can have access to a bunch of stuff I will never use on DDB. I own every physical DND source book and most of the campaign or adventures, I don’t want or care about having access to all that online. 

If wizards do this there will be a cost involved and so it will mean some of us having to pay more just so those of you who want 2 copies of each can. 

Quote from Warrior_for_hire >>

download codes with books? Just as likely, "now you have the book get the online additional material for a discount", or some such, followed by modules littered with asterisks and "see <online only material>" notes. 

I reserve judgement... 

 So the price of the books goes up what 30%, 50% because that won’t be given away for free. So what about those who want the books but don’t want to use DDB? They have to pay more for a product they won’t use? 

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Quote from OctopusDevotee >>

Now can you guys PLEASE publish the stats of Vox Machina and Mighty Nein?

 Those stats are all easily available online 

 And also not remotely official D&D content.

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Quote from TomAllen >>

Please PLEASE have some sort of deal that lets us buy physical books and use them on DDB - it's what everyone wants.

 Please don’t, let’s look at this the other way. If wizards do this it means that the price of the physical books will have to go up; those of us that use the books and only use specific parts of DDB will be over paying for something we don’t want or use.

It's not a zero sum game; giving a discount on one doesn't have to mean paying more for the other. Indeed, the goal is to encourage people who will use DDB to join DDB because a discount doesn't mean money lost if people who wouldn't normally buy the digital content start doing so, likewise if they subscribe.

That may not be for your group, and that's fine, but there will be plenty of groups who may be tempted to integrate some digital content into their games, whether it's the DM building encounters, players loading character sheets on their phones/tablets, or even groups going fully online just so they can play regularly even when some of them are away for work etc.

Like it or not digital has become a big part of the game for some people, and I expect a huge number of the new players over the past two years are very much digital focused. In my own case when the pandemic started I hadn't played in a while thanks to members of my group being in different cities, so meeting up was difficult, but with everyone at home in lockdown we gave video chat + Discord (Avrae) a try and it worked pretty well. I still crave a proper in-person game, but those are most likely to be at Christmas or something when most of us are in the same place (and the rest can get through for the day). So digital has become a huge part of my games.

But there are still those who don't use it, and those who don't buy books; the win of Wizards is to get people buying both, or some mixture of both, as much as possible. I doubt they'd have bothered to buy D&D Beyond if their plan was business as usual.

Quote from Haravikk >>

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Quote from TomAllen >>

Please PLEASE have some sort of deal that lets us buy physical books and use them on DDB - it's what everyone wants.

 Please don’t, let’s look at this the other way. If wizards do this it means that the price of the physical books will have to go up; those of us that use the books and only use specific parts of DDB will be over paying for something we don’t want or use.

It's not a zero sum game; giving a discount on one doesn't have to mean paying more for the other. Indeed, the goal is to encourage people who will use DDB to join DDB because a discount doesn't mean money lost if people who wouldn't normally buy the digital content start doing so, likewise if they subscribe.

That may not be for your group, and that's fine, but there will be plenty of groups who may be tempted to integrate some digital content into their games, whether it's the DM building encounters, players loading character sheets on their phones/tablets, or even groups going fully online just so they can play regularly even when some of them are away for work etc.

Like it or not digital has become a big part of the game for some people, and I expect a huge number of the new players over the past two years are very much digital focused. In my own case when the pandemic started I hadn't played in a while thanks to members of my group being in different cities, so meeting up was difficult, but with everyone at home in lockdown we gave video chat + Discord (Avrae) a try and it worked pretty well. I still crave a proper in-person game, but those are most likely to be at Christmas or something when most of us are in the same place (and the rest can get through for the day). So digital has become a huge part of my games.

But there are still those who don't use it, and those who don't buy books; the win of Wizards is to get people buying both, or some mixture of both, as much as possible. I doubt they'd have bothered to buy D&D Beyond if their plan was business as usual.

 Offering a discount is one thing (although the digital is already cheaper then the physical book so there is already a discount). People however seem to expect to get the digital content free if they buy the books, that would mean the physical books going up in price to cover the lost revenue of the digital content. 

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Offering a discount is one thing (although the digital is already cheaper then the physical book so there is already a discount). People however seem to expect to get the digital content free if they buy the books, that would mean the physical books going up in price to cover the lost revenue of the digital content.

I doubt they'll offer anything like that; more likely they'll offer, at most, a full unlock of the non-compendium content (i.e- the functional content, sub-classes, spells etc.). They might even do the opposite (compendium content only, since that's basically what you already have in book form). So you'll effectively be getting the interactive stuff for $15 or so, same as a digital only customer who doesn't buy the compendium content.

Even so, a full "free" unlock isn't necessarily a net loss; we'd need to ask DDB and/or WotC staff for actual stats, but I expect a lot of people on DDB have bought more digital content than they own as books, so the amount "lost" to "free" book unlocks is dependent on how much extra people might buy (which is a net gain).

Also keep in mind that by buying D&D Beyond WotC now gets 100% of the profit, rather than just whatever cut the licensing agreement set; while they've obviously paid a hefty sum up front to get that, even if they cut into part of it to offer discounts it's still making them more money. For example, if WotC got 70% of digital sales, and DDB got 30% (could be the other way around, I have no idea) then they could over 15% discounts and still be getting an extra 15% for themselves.

Basically it's a lot more complicated than "free stuff means money lost", because as a rule you don't offer free stuff unless you expect to make gains elsewhere to (more than) compensate.

I would love to see more about Eberron, like make more books from Eberron official and have them here, it's an amazing setting.

Quote from The_Traveling_Cleric >>

I would love to see more about Eberron, like make more books from Eberron official and have them here, it's an amazing setting.

 I get a sense that the approach they are taking is more varied source books, they have one official eberon book I would like to see an approach of 1 source book and at least 1 long adventure per setting, so we have COS and the campaign book for that sertting, more of that to help show a DM a way they can tell a story in that world and then the source material to tell their own story. 

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Quote from The_Traveling_Cleric >>

I would love to see more about Eberron, like make more books from Eberron official and have them here, it's an amazing setting.

 I get a sense that the approach they are taking is more varied source books, they have one official eberon book I would like to see an approach of 1 source book and at least 1 long adventure per setting, so we have COS and the campaign book for that sertting, more of that to help show a DM a way they can tell a story in that world and then the source material to tell their own story. 

 That would be even better for those who got the experience and those who lack it to cover more information and possible guide in the setting.

Quote from SordidEuphemism >>

Let's say I pay 40 bucks for the physical BOOK_OF_STUFF. DDB also has B_O_S available online - I can buy the text, or I can buy the text AND integration into the toolset. If I've bought the physical book, I'm suggesting the text be free, and the integration be a small fee.

 This is probably the smartest explanation of why the digital can't be free unless a subsidiary of a publicly traded company that has to answer to the shareholders want to take an L on their digital stuff...which...in this world won't happen.