WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”

[Vaalingrade]

I think it is funny that the company that is still scared to sell PDFs of their new books is going "all in on digital."

People can own PDFs. But if you're yoked into DDB, you have to pay forever. That's the point.

 

[Parmandur]

WotC DOES sell PDFs. And from reports makes good money on them. Just not for select things.

It’s a strategy that doesn’t make much sense to me anymore.

Except as a way to make people go to DnDBeyond.

I mean...that last part is the sum total of the matter.

 

[Reynard]

Which means that the majority of the market doesn't sell PDFs.

Yet they still have a more modern digital version strategy.

It's neat how they were able to wring their hands long enough for their fear to finally become a "modern digital strategy."

 

[darjr]

I mean...that last part is the sum total of the matter.

At one time the reason was piracy.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am one who really does think that if they keep pushing on with the books and efforts to bring in new DMs and players they can reach very lofty goals without “digital”

I am not so convinced, I am even a little sceptical about pushing the TTRPG online, I wonder if it will just cannibalise the offline version. Of course, that might have added value to the company than the traditional at the table version.
DM is intimidating, even to the initiated. Matt Mercer has done more, I think, to bring new players and groups to the game than any amount of books or electronic doodads.
Of course for everyone that looked Critical Role and said "I can do that" there are probably a dozen more that when "Oh! No! I could never match that".

But the video games already are a magnitude bigger in scale that it really is a must do.

Agreed.

 

[Reynard]

DM is intimidating, the initiated. Matt Mercer has done more, I think, to bring new players and groups to the game than any amount of books or electronic doodads.

I wonder how true that remains. i think it is undoubtable that there was time that CR was a major driver of new players to D&D, but is that still the case?

 

[Parmandur]

At one time the reason was piracy.

Yea, but now it's that they want people on Beyond.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It's tangential now, but I'm of the opinion that WotC was being extremely disingenuous with that particular clause. They cited it repeatedly, to the point of making it sound like they felt like they had a moral responsibility to eliminate the OGL 1.0a in order to keep the hobby diverse and inclusive, refusing to countenance that what they were proposing was a solution in search of a problem...all while putting most of their focus into VTT-related aspects of the license ("no spell animations!").

While there might very well have been a few individuals at WotC who felt strongly that they had a duty to eliminate the possibility of racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. products being made under the OGL regardless of the fact that the proposed solution was worse than the problem (there were certainly people who felt that way on these forums), their corporate messaging in that regard came off as being wholly insincere.

They were being disingenuous, the real terror was Disney coming in and using the OGL to create a D&D type property. Particularly in the digital space. They are not concerned about Disney in the actual tabletop space. It is too small for Disney to be interested. But in the digital space that is a real concern.

 

[Parmandur]

It's neat how they were able to wring their hands long enough for their fear to finally become a "modern digital strategy."

I mean, that matches my experience of corporate business decisions.

 

[Reynard]

They were being disingenuous, the real terror was Disney coming in and using the OGL to create a D&D type property. Particularly in the digital space. They are not concerned about Disney in the actual tabletop space. It is too small for Disney to be interested. But in the digital space that is a real concern.

I don't believe that for a simple reason: if Disney wanted to do that, they would just buy D&D.