D&D 5E D&D Beyond: No More À La Carte Purchases But US Customers Can Buy Physical Books

WotC has announced some changes to D&D Beyond's marketplace. These include physical products (for US customers), the removal of à la carte purchases, and various navigational changes.

You can no longer buy individual feats, subclasses, etc. -- you'll need to buy the whole book. The full list of changes includes:

• US shoppers can now buy physical books
• More info on product listings, including previews
• UI improvements to makee finding your purchased content and redeeming keys easier
• No more à la carte purchases (though your previous ones still count)

 

[Clint_L]

Given that every other publicly traded company does what's good for stockholders, and not anyone else, I'm not sure why you'd exempt WotC.

That's not malicious reasons. That's a profit-driven reason. I define "malicious," per the Oxford dictionary, as "having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone : given to, marked by, or arising from malice." I don't want to get into a pedantic argument about the nature of capitalism; I think my point was clear: WotC didn't make this change to be jerks, but because they saw it as in their interests. They may be right or wrong; I'm in no position to judge. At a personal level, I liked the feature and would prefer it be kept.

 

[Umbran]

I guess it's time to reset the clock again. I'm genuinely surprised by this because it's going to mean less money for WotC. Why do I say that? Because people normally purchase an entire product. They only get one-offs when they're looking for something very specific.

As several folks have noted - while yes, WotC was likely selling some product a la carte, we must note that this doesn't happen for free. There is going to be a cost associated with setting up and selling those small bits and pieces of content. It was written as a single document, and has to be broken up and reformatted for this form of sale.

And, it isn't whether they make some profit on a la cate sales. If they can make even more if they put those resources to other work, then they should do that.

 

[Umbran]

Given that every other publicly traded company does what's good for stockholders, and not anyone else, I'm not sure why you'd exempt WotC.

You have an odd definition of "malicious."

 

[mamba]

That doesn't follow at all. I think you're projecting how you would have made the decision, not how WotC, based on what we've seen of their past behavior, made the decision.

All it takes is for someone senior inside WotC/Hasbro having the gut feeling that most of the a la carte folks would purchase entire products if that was all that was available and having the seniority to make it so.

except that they know how well the parts sell and how much effort it is to make them available separately…

Could they just have flipped a coin whether removing them results in WotC making overall more revenue or not, theoretically yes, I just do not think that is a feasible scenario

To me the actual scenario looks like this

1) WotC is aware that selling parts is not making a lot of money (and possibly causes a disproportionate amount of work relative to that)
2) they test the waters by not releasing BoMT in parts and get little to no negative reaction
3) they pull the plug on selling pieces individually

The existence of 2) pretty much ensures that it was not just some gut reaction, and don’t forget that they do have the data from 1), so making the case that they have it but ignore it in their decision making is a heavy lift

We know that WotC doesn't market-test their ideas or do research on some of their sweeping decisions, because less than 18 months ago, they got themselves into mainstream news around the world by trying to revoke the OGL,

Much easier to market test something and keep it under wraps when you own the marketplace, so I would not compare the two

which even if they'd talked to their lawyers about first, they would have known was impossible.

it ended up being market tested and they retreated

as to a lawyer telling you it is impossible / possible, you can find one for either position, plenty of posts from lawyers here ended up on both sides of this

 

[SteveC]

As several folks have noted - while yes, WotC was likely selling some product a la carte, we must note that this doesn't happen for free. There is going to be a cost associated with setting up and selling those small bits and pieces of content. It was written as a single document, and has to be broken up and reformatted for this form of sale.

That's an excellent reason to not do it in the first place, I'll agree. The cost of doing that is negligible, however. How do I know that? Because I did something similar to this for a job unrelated to gaming. I made a generic template and then created a macro to extract the information from a document.

But, that said, even a negligible cost is a cost and it really depends on how many of them you sell. As I wrote, one of the guys who DMs for me bought a bunch of that stuff, but he may have been the only one. It may be that the people (person?) doing that for WotC can do more profitable stuff. Don't know.

What is just downright silly is the timing. Did WotC need some new negative press? Well, they've got some. I will not be surprised to see several Youtube videos about this in the next few days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As several folks have noted - while yes, WotC was likely selling some product a la carte, we must note that this doesn't happen for free. There is going to be a cost associated with setting up and selling those small bits and pieces of content. It was written as a single document, and has to be broken up and reformatted for this form of sale.

And, it isn't whether they make some profit on a la cate sales. If they can make even more if they put those resources to other work, then they should do that.

I don't know if you can unequivocally say WotC should pursue the most profitable course at all times like you say here. Always maximizing profit isn't a corporate necessity, just an unfortunate choice.

 

[Umbran]

I don't know if you can unequivocally say WotC should pursue the most profitable course at all times like you say here. Always maximizing profit isn't a corporate necessity, just an unfortunate choice.

sigh.
The words "always" or "at all times" do not appear in my post.
It was intended as a broad statement, not an absolute one.

 

[mamba]

The cost of doing that is negligible, however. How do I know that? Because I did something similar to this for a job unrelated to gaming. I made a generic template and then created a macro to extract the information from a document.

there is a lot more that goes into this. They have to set up the 100 or so individual parts in the system, they need to keep track of which user owns which part (and that someone who owns to book owns all parts), and they then have to restrict access at this level of granularity

It’s not just a matter of taking a piece of text and splitting it into parts

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's not malicious reasons. That's a profit-driven reason. I define "malicious," per the Oxford dictionary, as "having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone : given to, marked by, or arising from malice." I don't want to get into a pedantic argument about the nature of capitalism; I think my point was clear: WotC didn't make this change to be jerks, but because they saw it as in their interests. They may be right or wrong; I'm in no position to judge. At a personal level, I liked the feature and would prefer it be kept.

OK, but are many people seriously arguing that WotC is rubbing their hands and cackling "that'll screw over gamers?"

You're arguing against a very silly strawman* here.

* And even if we can find one or two weirdos on Twitter or YouTube insisting that WotC eats babies, I posit those people are too silly to take seriously.

 

[Micah Sweet]

sigh.
The words "always" or "at all times" do not appear in my post.
It was intended as a broad statement, not an absolute one.

Apologies. Broad statements IMO often lead to confusion, as there are always exceptions that can be avoided (at least somewhat) with more precision.