We’ve just leveled up in a big way.
Dungeons & Dragons and D&D Beyond have always felt like a part of the same family. That’s why we’re excited to announce that D&D Beyond is formally joining Wizards of the Coast, bringing together two teams that eat, breathe, and sweat for this game and continue to strive to make D&D easy to run, exciting, and accessible to all.
You (and by you, we mean the 10 million users that have been on this adventure with us since 2017!) are probably wondering what kind of change might happen as a result of these two teams coming together, so let’s make this clear: Wizards of the Coast has no plans to stop supporting D&D Beyond. Ever. The purchases you’ve made, the characters you’ve created, and the campaigns you’ve run aren’t going anywhere.
You’ve probably got a million questions about what comes next. What we can say for sure is that we’re excited for what the future holds as we dig in with our new partners. We wish you could see the big stupid grins we’ve all been walking around with. This is truly an incredible time for all of us, and it really feels like there’s no limit to what we can accomplish for our players. Remember, the key factor that makes this partnership perfect is that these teams want one thing: to make your experience playing the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game even better.
If you’ve been on this journey with us for a while, we’re so glad you’re here. If you’re brand new and clicked on the site today to figure out what the big news was all about, welcome! Remember to register for a free account! (Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves.) We’ll have more to share with you throughout the year, so tune in to the Dev Update, which airs on Twitch on Thursdays at 10 a.m. PT, and check out new content right here on dndbeyond.com.
To read Hasbro's press release on the acquisition, click here.
This has been a request since Dndbeyond first started, so I am sure the team is aware. Now that they have officially merged with Wizards, it might actually become a reality! Fingers Crossed.
So, this is entirely hypothetical and based on pure assumptions, but..
Pros:
-hardbook-digital coupling is now more likely.
-UA may come back?
-more investment in the platform means better tools
Cons:
-fusions mean someone could potentially lose their job (I hope this is not the case)
-Hasbro could make some changes to the economy and site rules, and not necessarily for the better
-could WoTC be pondering the possibility of making some products digital only?
This is interesting news with good and bad aspects.
1. My opinion there is practically no chance they won't require you to buy the tool access for each book. This would be a gigantic dis to all the other digital toolsets who sell products tweaked for their system. They might tweak the prices in some way for the toolset access and the digital copy of the text of the book but I suspect the overall price will remain approximately the same. Honestly, I remain unbothered by this. Amazon doesn't include a free kindle copy of a physical book when you buy it. This is essentially the same thing. Market and sales change over time this is just the way its changed. Digital and physical are mostly considered separate products with a few companies choosing to combine them.
2. I suspect since DnDBeyond will presumably get data for changes faster its likely they can prep for updates and be ready by release. Its also likely that some technical support to assist with this will be available.
I suspect most of the changes won't save us money but will better serve us.
Fears:
1. Make the data sharing either lower or more expensive. The master tier is really a great deal and I worry that Hasbro will see this as egregious money that could be being made. This will increase the cost to us or reduce the number of people we can share with mainly "tiers of sharing" want to share with one campaign of 3 players 6.99 want to add an extra person $2 per person. Want to add another 3 person campaign 5.99/campaign. etc. Its likely that a lot of customers are only running or playing one campaign. this one I'm bothered by and might make me drop my subscription entirely as currently I don't have any campaigns I'm actively playing and I've mostly kept my subscription live as support for the platform.
Does this mean that we will be able to virtually access any books we purchased hardback?
Sounds like great news to me!
I see them doing the exact some thing, too much money lost if they dont get those 2 bites lol
Fantastic news, and really long overdue.
I hope this will mean faster site updates in future, with more advance warning of what new content contains. I'm also interested to see if we'll finally get some kind of discounts/unlocks between physical and digital copies of books.
Potentially great news! Here's hoping we can now have (more) funds directed toward the technical side of things, including features and tools, rather than shows consisting of other people playing.
Nice! I wonder whether there'll be an option to get the content unlocked once you purchased physical copy of one of WoTC books. Something like a code in the books that unlocks respective content on D&DB.
I know I'm echoing a lot of other comments, but I really hope this means that our physical copies can somehow earns us the digital ones as well. Having to buy everything a second time is the only reason I haven't subbed to DNDB yet.
I think the only reason 3rd party content wasn't being made available on DDB is because WotC couldn't get a cut. Now they can. I think a 3rd party marketplace built into DDB makes perfect sense as it will generate revenues for all involved. It would be even better if they integrated Patreon supported 3rd party content as well. Provide 3rd party (for a fee) APIs to bring content over and into DDB for sale.
This is fantastic news! Congrats on the hard work to the people at D&D Beyond!
Yesssss! Finally! Ok, everyone invest in Hasbro Stock (Because they own wizards of the coast) because they will probably have like a 10 point rise, if not more, because of this in the upcoming months. Plus, maybe now we'll finally be able to get all the content in our physical books into our dndbeyond accounts!
I'm so psyched right now.
A digital version of the books is one thing, but there's till time and money that goes into integrating those sources into DNDBeyond's gaming framework.
Only is a big word…
There’s copyright issues, ownership issues, fees issues, and I can only imagine what else legally that would be needed to be settled with each individual 3rd party.
Then there’s also Quality Control. WotC wants to be sure everything is up to their standards if it’s being so closely associated with their product. If they let it become like DMs Guild their reputation would take a hit ‘cause they’d be blamed for anything people didn’t think was up to snuff. DMs Guild gets away with it because you basically know you’re going to a flea market where quality isn’t guaranteed. If it was sold under the D&D banner then the masses will assume it’s D&D approved…
WOTC just paid out $146 million and took on DDB's 80 employees. After doing this, you guys think that Hasbro (a FOR PROFIT company) will now start giving away all of the digital content for free? LOL.
...You mean you weren't already part of WOTC?
you can unsubscribe from those
...no. This comes up every time someone complains about not getting digital free with purchase of print books or the new Mordenkainen Multiverse book duplicating content at full new-book cost, as well as with the deprecation of UA implementation and sometimes long delays in new mechanics from new books being added to character sheets and other tools.
Plus there's a big logo at the bottom of the page that says they're a part of Fandom, which is a different company.
Great news! Congrats D&D Beyond team. So... does this mean Todd has gone full circle ?