D&D General Adam Bradford, Lauren Urban, Todd Kenrick Leave D&D Beyond

They join lead writer James Haeck, who left a couple of weeks ago. Adam Bradford is the D&D Beyond co-founder, and VP of Tabletop Gaming at its owner, Fandom. Lauren Urban is DDB's Community Manager. Todd Kenrick is the company's Creative Manager.

D&D Beyond, launched in 2017, is currently owned by Fandom (previously known as Wikia), after it acquired the company in 2018 from previous owner Curse, a Twitch subsidiary.

According to Cam Banks, creator of DDB owner Fandom's Cortex, all three received offers elsewhere which they could not turn down.

 

[Aldarc]

Odd. Do disgruntled almost ex-employees usually cheer on said ex-employers products? It’s almost as if...

...Cam Banks is an awesome guy to work with.

 

[darjr]

...Cam Banks is an awesome guy to work with.

He certainly seems so. I’d love to meet him, run a game for him.
Now to find a way to New Zealand!

 

[darjr]

Hmmm I wonder if he ever goes to Hawaii Con?

 

[Dausuul]

I feel like you've not actually read Cortex Prime if you think we're talking about small ad hoc changes or tweaking monsters' hit points. It's more akin to the ability to gut D&D's vancian magic spell system and replace it with a blood magic system, while also introducing a mechanically game-able high stakes horse racing sub-game because for some reason 4 of your 5 player characters decided to take back stories that revolved around racing horses for money, and D&D doesn't really have deep systems for running such a thing besides slapping movement rates on mounts.

That is what you're talking about. It is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is exactly what I said: The occasional tweak to a monster's stats. Maybe a custom magic item now and then. That's all.

The stuff you describe above is light-years beyond what the typical GM--at least in my experience--wants to bother with. They have zero interest in modding and customizing the system. If they change anything, it's an ad hoc response to a specific thing that bothers them: "These monsters are tougher than I feel like they should be. I'll cut their hit points from 30 to 20."

That's why it is absurd to say that anyone who has ever GMed is a game designer, or that the moddability of Cortex Prime is some kind of huge selling point that could make "100% of Cortex Prime revenue" exceed "D&D Beyond revenue minus licensing fees." (Which was the claim that started this whole debate.)

 

[Michael Linke]

Depends why they don't want to bother with it. I agree most GMs don't want to bother with it. I'm confident that if the system made it easy for them to do so, they might consider taking advantage.

Do we even know what D&D Beyond's revenue is? I asked previously, how/what does one pay for it? Is there a per player subscription fee? Do DMs pay? How does Fandom even get payed from D&D Beyond?

Edit: I just signed up to assuage my curiousity. The hero tier subscription price is really cheap. I'd be shocked if Fandom was rolling in D&D Beyond cash as profit. There is no golden goose in this equation.

 

[Dire Bare]

Depends why they don't want to bother with it. I agree most GMs don't want to bother with it. I'm confident that if the system made it easy for them to do so, they might consider taking advantage. Do we even know what D&D Beyond's revenue is? I asked previously, how/what does one pay for it? Is there a per player subscription fee? Do DMs pay? How does Fandom even get payed from D&D Beyond?

Does Fandom get paid for D&D Beyond? Yes. Not from WotC, but from us, the users.

You pay to access each title, usually something like $30 to unlock a book on D&D Beyond. You can also unlock additional features with a monthly subscription, here's a link: Subscribe - D&D Beyond. They also sell cosmetics like fancy digital dice.

What is their total revenue? Only Fandom knows, they aren't going to be sharing that data with anyone other than perhaps WotC. But, you can assume they are making money, otherwise they would cancel the service.

How does the revenue for D&D Beyond compare to the upcoming Cortex RPG and supporting digital tools? Again, all we can do is speculate, Fandom won't (nor should) share that data with us. It's a safe assumption that they'll get a higher user base with D&D Beyond than they will with Cortex, even if Cortex is a great RPG with fantastic digital tools.

 

[Michael Linke]

Does Fandom get paid for D&D Beyond? Yes. Not from WotC, but from us, the users.

You pay to access each title, usually something like $30 to unlock a book on D&D Beyond. You can also unlock additional features with a monthly subscription, here's a link: Subscribe - D&D Beyond. They also sell cosmetics like fancy digital dice.

What is their total revenue? Only Fandom knows, they aren't going to be sharing that data with anyone other than perhaps WotC. But, you can assume they are making money, otherwise they would cancel the service.

How does the revenue for D&D Beyond compare to the upcoming Cortex RPG and supporting digital tools? Again, all we can do is speculate, Fandom won't (nor should) share that data with us. It's a safe assumption that they'll get a higher user base with D&D Beyond than they will with Cortex, even if Cortex is a great RPG with fantastic digital tools.

Wizards gets most of the price of the digital books, and at least a piece of the subscription fees

Where does the D&D Beyond subscription money go? - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Dire Bare]

Wizards gets most of the price of the digital books, and at least a piece of the subscription fees

Where does the D&D Beyond subscription money go? - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

Yup. There would be no reason for WotC to give Fandom the license if it were otherwise. Or, well, Curse at the time, who were bought out by Twitch, who was bought out by Amazon, and then sold to Fandom . . . .

 

[lkj]

Wizards gets most of the price of the digital books, and at least a piece of the subscription fees

Where does the D&D Beyond subscription money go? - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

So, eh, as far as I can tell no one in that thread works for the company. I don't know why they are so confident about how the revenues are split, but I'd be stunned if DDB had ever shared the details of their licensing agreement. I'm pretty sure that's just speculation. Sure, it's reasonable to assume that WotC is taking a cut of everything-- why on earth would they not? But I don't think it gives us much insight into how much of a cut or how much money DDB are making. What probably does is that DDB has been expanding quite a bit over the last year, and, even as recently as a month or so ago, Adam was lamenting they were having trouble hiring all the people they want to hire.

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[Oofta]

So, eh, as far as I can tell no one in that thread works for the company. I don't know why they are so confident about how the revenues are split, but I'd be stunned if DDB had ever shared the details of their licensing agreement. I'm pretty sure that's just speculation. Sure, it's reasonable to assume that WotC is taking a cut of everything-- why on earth would they not? But I don't think it gives us much insight into how much of a cut or how much money DDB are making. What probably does is that DDB has been expanding quite a bit over the last year, and, even as recently as a month or so ago, Adam was lamenting they were having trouble hiring all the people they want to hire.

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Not being able to hire enough people is frequently an issue, especially with fast growing tech companies. It doesn't really mean much one way or another.