D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

[doctorbadwolf]

For now. My bet is that as the VTT customer base grows, micro transactions will be back.

Good. It sucks that they took away the ability to buy just the magic items from a book.

 

[Scribe]

If the "vast vast vast majority" of gamers are not on the internet, they are not going to buy DLC or early access or be cajoled into paying for the "evils" alluded in the OP. Further if the vast majority of gamers (and money) are not on the internet then the majority of profit will not come from these things and exercising such a strategy will not effectively monetize the content.

Either most gamers use the internet and could be victimized by these predatory practices or they don't use the internet and therefore can't be victimized. You can't have it both ways.

I'm not sure that most are on the internet actually, certainly a tiny fraction are engaged to the degree this forum would imply.

Is Wizards wish that more would be online? Engaging in digital only content on a platform they control completely?

Without a doubt, the profit margins become to good to ignore.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Okay... but D&D has had an official digital component to it since at least the early days of 4e. A complaint about digitalization is 16 years behind the times.

There hasn't been a digital component that WotC clearly are spending major money on like the VTT. The 3D VTT has likely been in development for years with a bunch of highly paid programmers and graphics artists and will need continued development when new books and modules release. WotC are going to expect major financial returns and squeeze people for as much money as they can with it.

 

[ECMO3]

I'm not sure that most are on the internet actually, certainly a tiny fraction are engaged to the degree this forum would imply.

Is Wizards wish that more would be online? Engaging in digital only content on a platform they control completely?

Without a doubt, the profit margins become to good to ignore.

Fair enough. I don't know the portion honestly, I would think a majority of gamers are on the internet and play on the internet, but I don't have data for that it is just a gut feel.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Damn. I meanr kickstarter.

No worries. Kickstarter is riskier, but I haven't had one fail on me yet.

 

[Sulicius]

Wake up people! They have been doing bleeding us dry for decades! They are locking spells and subclasses behind a paywall. We all want Silvery Barbs, and WotC knows this! So they only put it in one book that you have to buy separate!

/s

But for real, these preorder bonuses don’t have any effect on how the game is played.

I am going to go to my FLGS, preorder the alt covers and read them when I get them. Nothing had changed.

Don’t be dependent on digital platforms!

 

[mamba]

Think of this way - will you make more money selling your own game that you designed and that you bear the burden of marketing, or would you make more money selling D&D PHBs that are EXACTLY like WOTC's PHB with the exact same wording, the exact same art, the exact same text?

whatever happened to

People would make D&D content because they want to advance the game.

now all they do is leech off WotC’s investment in D&D content

 

[mamba]

There are countries with weak IP laws/enforcement and we don't see what you are saying will happen in those countries. We generally see the opposite of what you predict will happen.

we are not seeing companies stopping their investments because there are enough places that protect them to make the investment worthwhile, even if they get stolen in some places. If this were the norm, you would absolutely see that.

 

[overchord]

In the washup after the OGL debacle, and the cost increase of bboks, WoTC affirmed that they were still going to produce physical print books as long as it was financially viable.
These are only the beginning step in turning a supertanker, but the mimicry of the games industry observed by a OP does indeed set a direction of travel - one that will eventually likely end up with no books - or more likely, limited run, collector's edition books at double or tripple cost - with the rest being available with the WoTC season pass.
Speculative? Yes. Unlikely? No
For some this is fine - they want to play the current version and have no issue. For others, the lack of ownership and accessibility to the content is an issue. It is also an issue if your campaign happens to span over a change in version/non-version like the current one, especially if access to earlier content is withdrawn or surpressed.
TTRPG rules are not quite like software, although there are similarities. There are less dependencies that force you to a new version, so it has to be driven by fomo, or making access to previous version more difficult.
Personally, I am one of those with campaigns spanning versions, and will continue with the 2014 ruleset before probably jumping ship altogether. Thankfully not reliant on their digital distribution platform, and have always enjoyed browsing the books and the artwork, and there's a twinge of sadness if that eventually goes away (it's a tactile thing for me at least)

 

[Oofta]

They are more efficient at making physical products do to economies of scale, you could call that better or one aspect of better, but regardless of how you define "better" it does make it difficult for individuals to compete.

It appears you are getting into this late, my position is there should be no such thing as intellectual property. No one should "own" that. You own the paper you write it on, the computer it is saved on but you shouldn't own the words, code ideas etc and when you sell that book, sell that computer or transmit those ideas to someone else, that buyer/person should be able to do what they want with it to include copying and reselling for a profit.



No. Software is not a physical product, words are not a physical product. But yes, no one should be able to control the content they create and keep other people from using it. This is the very thing that enables megacorporations.

We don't have to theorize here. There are many countries where what we would call piracy is legal or where piracy laws are not enforced even if they exist, and in those countries you have small mom and pop shops selling copied goods and surviving or even thriving locally. They sell copied software or sell Dooney and Burke or Versace knock off purses or whatever. Those little companies do make money in those more free countries and the megacorporations have much less influence and much less penetration into those markets than they do into markets with stronger intellectual property laws.

The reason the market is dominated by megacorporations in the USA and by and large the West is because we have and rigorously enforce laws to protect the intellectual property of megacorporations.

People tried the "everything is free" model, especially at the start of the internet. For a few niche products, it works. But for the vast majority of what people create that is not physical? Nah. Why would someone spend countless hours writing something that can just be copied for free? Why is their labor less valued, less profitable than a guy that makes horseshoes?

Because that's where these arguments fall apart for me. Unless you're talking about some utopian society, people need to be paid in order to live. By and large people are produced for the value of their labor, what it provides that someone else finds valuable. Things that are just ideas, whether that's art, software or rules for a game, still have value to others. The people who worked on it deserve recognition in terms of cash for their efforts unless for some reason they've chosen to give it away.

Our current system is far, far, far from perfect. But the underlying fundamental idea that people should not be rewarded for their labor simply because the labor does not produce a physical product is something I'll never agree with.