D&D (2024) How will WOTC monetize One D&D?

[MonsterEnvy]

I’m game. Name another possibility that aligns with those statements.

What other ways can d&d one monetize the 80% other than micro transactions or paid subscription or some combination of the 2?

A subscription for the VTT is probably what will happen. I don’t really have any issues with that.

 

[Zardnaar]

I never paid for the paid ammo, I do not know if anyone does. (Expect by accident once or twice). You can buy it for silver.

I was playing the first time in years the other day on a free account. I know the tricks to make the most of it.

It's always neen pay to reduce grind but they have gone into pay to win and loot boxes. Used to pay monthly subscription.

Gotta be very careful on free account with gold shells and consumables.

The only thing that makes it tolerable is the Christmas special. The game is kinda fun then.

They also nerfed srtu which was s poor man's go to. The gold shells deal more damage and the power creep on the armor is insane combined with tunnel maps.

WoT is less a game vs pay to have fun.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I was playing the first time in years the other day on a free account. I know the tricks to make the most of it.

It's always neen pay to reduce grind but they have gone into pay to win and loot boxes. Used to pay monthly subscription.

Gotta be very careful on free account with gold shells and consumables.

The only thing that makes it tolerable is the Christmas special. The game is kinda fun then.

They also nerfed srtu which was s poor man's go to. The gold shells deal more damage and the power creep on the armor is insane combined with tunnel maps.

WoT is less a game vs pay to have fun.

I did fire up the game on console ( I was a console player and that game drifted from the PC version a lot) recently but did not play for long enough to figure out the changes.
Loot boxes were a thing before I stopped but I never considered them worth it. But is is "SRTU"?

 

[Velderan]

Good thing WotC expressly said that they don't want the VTT to become like a digital game. That's one of the first things they stated in the reveal, is that they need it to keep the focus on the live gameplay of D&D and not feel like a video game.

The VTT obviously is intended to make money by giving players something that they want. I don't see a problem with that. I like when companies make something that I want to buy. I have a ton of terrain from Dwarven Forge and miniatures from Wizkids, Reaper, and many others. Were they exploiting me? WotC wants to make a digital version of that stuff and if I am interested I will buy some of it (I might be; depends on cost, ease of use, and how much virtual play I see myself doing).

Maybe I am misreading it, but your post seems to suggest a sort of conspiratorial mind-set on the part of WotC. I haven't really encountered much from WotC over the years that has made me view them in that way. I equate them with great value for my entertainment dollar.

I think the comparison you could make for the new VTT to a video game is the large sums of money video game companies have made selling optional cosmetic stuff as microtransactions. They're 100% optional so I don't see them as problematic. They're easy to avoid if you don't like them.

As others have mentioned in this and other threads, I'm sure the new VTT will have a few subscription levels from a free tier that I'd guess would allow you access to the stuff contained in the free core rule set that's currently available to a player focused tier and a more expensive DM focused tier. The current pricing model for DDB seems about right if you want to keep it priced low enough to encourage usage ($3/month for a player, $6/month for a DM). Buying an adventure likely gives you the associated maps and monsters you'd need to play them. Making the subscriptions seem like a good value to encourage more players to pay and offering a lot of cosmetic items for players to make their 3D model look like they want are all good reasonable ways to monetize the new VTT and fit the recurring spending they're looking to achieve IMO.

The fearmongering about WotC selling advantage rolls and unlocking feats through microtransactions is pretty ridiculous from my perspective.

 

[Clint_L]

So, my worry about the VTT isn't that it will force deceptive micro-transactions like Fortnite or anything like that. And I think the "pay to win" alarm is ridiculous; D&D just doesn't work like that and if they implemented something like "pay $$$ so your fireball does extra damage" they would be destroying their own game. WotC are not idiots, nor have they ever been malevolent. So the fear them suddenly becoming malevolent idiots does not keep me awake at night.

My one concern, and it may not even be a concern, is that the VTT is likely to put more of the financial burden on DMs who, as WotC acknowledge, already provide the overwhelming majority of purchases for the game. Take, well, me for example. I spend a freaking fortune on terrain and miniatures. And I am not complaining - it's a hobby that I am passionate about, and I love painting the stuff, building sets, etc. But the VTT has the potential to create a lot more "me-s."

Imagine being able to purchase all the maps in digital form and populate them with digital characters and monsters, similar to what we saw in the preview. And imagine that it was easy to use, and you could then use those resources to make your own maps. Maybe you've always wanted to do that the old school way, like many of us did, but the cost was prohibitive. But for, say, $50, you can get all the digital terrain tiles and creatures to run Tomb of Annihilation, or anything else you want to build with those resources. And then adding all the Rime of the Frostmaiden stuff for another $50 starts to look pretty good...

And that is exactly what WotC is proposing, though they haven't come close to announcing any price schemes yet.

This actually sounds pretty great to me. But my concern is that this does not remotely address the issue that WotC raised: that the game primarily monetizes DMs. I think the VTT is another thing that DMs will mostly pay for - cosmetic upgrades to character avatars will be a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of digital terrain and miniatures collections.

 

[MockingBird]

I might have already said this but ima say it again. I'd happily pay a subscription for official D&D STL files for 3d printing. I'm already doing it with Loot Studios.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

To be honest I would make a paid subscription to D&DBeyond to get info from D&DBeyond into other VTTs. If they were doing that.

 

[Zardnaar]

I did fire up the game on console ( I was a console player and that game drifted from the PC version a lot) recently but did not play for long enough to figure out the changes.
Loot boxes were a thing before I stopped but I never considered them worth it. But is is "SRTU"?

That's my fat thumbs on phones. I meant arty. Arty was decent to play on a free account.

 

[MNblockhead]

Ummm… cannot play on the VTT together and account share. Everyone would need an account for that.

Why?

I can't remember a VTT I've used that required my players to pay for their own accounts. I'm sure that WotC's VTT with have a DM's tier that allows content sharing for at least a certain number of players for a certain number of campaigns.

 

[MNblockhead]

It is hard to get more money out of players. If they got rid of the generous content sharing they currently offer in DDB, I think it would harm their efforts to make DDB the hub for all things D&D.

Where they really seem to be leaving money on the table in terms of player spend is with for-pay games. If they build into their VTT to make it possible for DMs to advertise and charge for games, with WotC taking a small cut, that would be the best way to get money from players. I know that there would be howls of sacrilege from many in the community, but the existence of sites like startplaying.games and Roll20's Find a Game feature show that their is demand for this.

They could also create services for streamers. Not sure it makes sense to try to compete with Twitch, but perhaps they could offer a tier that would more seamlessly integrate their VTT with Twitch and would help market and boost streams on DnD Beyonds site, WotC's YouTube sites, etc.

There is a very limited amount of custom dice, character skins, character sheet backgrounds, and other eye candy that players are going to buy.