WotC Vecna: Nest of the Evil Eye--Deets On The Prequel Adventure

[UngeheuerLich]

Still you can get it after a while as video game companies mostly get that its looks ludicrous trying to limit sale of digital goods. Those things never run out. It is one thing when in a crowdfunding there is a limited run of lets say miniatures that are only available as physical goods during that crowdfunding. Its is another thing if as companies lets say tries to say: Oh you can only get this PDF during a limited crowdfunding time period.

If a company tries this there will always be a sizeable number of their customers who are angered of by stuff like this.

In this case well WotC reaps what the sowed themselves. A part of their customer base now have way less trust in the company and assume now the worst of them. Trust is build slowly slowly and can get lost in an instant.

I really don't see why there is outrage about a bonus for people buying early.

Right now I hesitate to buy new things, because of the edition change. That offer might swing the pendulum for me towards buying it before the new books come out or waiting for a discount.

Before they just offered useless backgrounds for the character builder.

The only thing I see is FLGS gaining some further difficulty. I still think every physical book should come with a digital code if you buy it in a store. But those are two different subjects.

 

[Rabulias]

This might be a pilot product for just that. But I'm expecting to see this become the norm for WotC by next year.

Physical books are still the lion's share of D&D sales, and will be for some time. Digital exclusives will become more commonplace as we go forward, yes, but I do not expect digital to totally supplant physical for decades, if ever. Folks have been pronouncing the demise of print for some time:

Print is dead.

 

[Barantor]

Physical books are still the lion's share of D&D sales, and will be for some time. Digital exclusives will become more commonplace as we go forward, yes, but I do not expect digital to totally supplant physical for decades, if ever. Folks have been pronouncing the demise of print for some time:

We'll see I suppose, but I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future we see physical books as a collectors item and more of a novelty. My theory is they get more and more folks onboard their digital services by offering the rules "now" in digital and then the physical books down the road once both they've sold the digital a while and to finalize print versions through testing online and getting feedback. It's similar to how MMOs would gain money via preorders and beta access, or normal video games having extended early access.

With MS gaming execs at the helm this is closer than ever and if they put so much money into the VTT, they literally want to try and force us to use it, so they'll do a lot of exclusives on that and Beyond in this new edition/not-edition. At least that's my theory on it all, lot of money aimed in that direction at least and might be part of why they wanted the OGL changed so badly.

 

[Distracted DM]

This might be a pilot product for just that. But I'm expecting to see this become the norm for WotC by next year.

This is not the first time that they have done digital-only content. They did such things many years ago.
This is not the first time that they have done DDB-only content.

This is the first time that they've done preorder-exclusive DDB-only stuff.

I don't like it, it's very video game FOMO-ey, I stopped buying stuff on DDB a while ago due to several issues; until then I'd purchased everything on there plus physical stuff- BUT let's be accurate about what it is and what it isn't.

It's pre-order bonus exclusive content. It's essentially the same thing you get for pre-ordering many AAA video games.

I believe folk object to pre-ordering video games because you're paying money for a product before knowing if it's going to be good. Video game companies add these incentives to get people to pre-order, hoping Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) will do its work. I think they do this because pre-orders are viewed as one of the most important indicator of a game's success to the money-people.
Do you object to video game pre-orders and their exclusive bonuses? Then you might object to this.

This is an exclusive pre-order bonus which is only on DDB.
Do you object to content being exclusive to DDB and unavailable elsewhere physically or digitally (FLGS, Amazon, DMsGuild, etc.)? Then you might object to this.

I believe this sums up the situation and why folk might feel whichever way they do.

And to be clear, there have been other digital-only releases. More recently there have been other DDB-only releases. So if you only buy physical stuff, this isn't the first time you can't get something.

I believe that this is the first pre-order exclusive that's of any consequence, as opposed to digital DDB stuff like character sheet background art.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They tried that. I remember getting a DDB discount code for the Theros book when I bought the physical copy from my FLGS. That's the only time I got one, though, so maybe they decided it wasn't worth it or something?

Weird. I never saw any way of ever being able to participate in anything like that. Maybe they tried it with a few limited stores? I have no idea.

 

[darjr]

Don’t you also get this if you pre order the digital version only?

 

[darjr]

Don’t you also get this if you pre order the digital version only?

Yea. Digital only gets this too.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yea. Digital only gets this too.

View attachment 349038

Glad they clarified that. I usually get the D&D digital version but get the alt version at my gaming store. I was assuming that they would be giving it to the digital only version preorders, and I'm glad to see that's the case.

 

[darjr]

Glad they clarified that. I usually get the D&D digital version but get the alt version at my gaming store. I was assuming that they would be giving it to the digital only version preorders, and I'm glad to see that's the case.

It's what I've done. Not so much lately though.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is not the first time that they have done digital-only content. They did such things many years ago.
This is not the first time that they have done DDB-only content.

This is the first time that they've done preorder-exclusive DDB-only stuff.

I don't like it, it's very video game FOMO-ey, I stopped buying stuff on DDB a while ago due to several issues; until then I'd purchased everything on there plus physical stuff- BUT let's be accurate about what it is and what it isn't.

You seem to be part of the reason why such offers exist. You stopped buying on DnDBeyond. So now they offer freebies if you do. Either you come back or you miss out. That is what it is. They want people to use their digital platform.

So thank you.