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

[Remathilis]

10+20 is always > 20, you do not need the last sentence for that

The question is how many people buy both, and we are yet again at you looking at today's numbers when I am very clearly saying this is 10+ years out and WotC is working towards more favorable numbers to make the change. That seems to be your biggest stumbling block, either missing that point or simply insisting on nothing changing for the next 15 years that would affect this equation

The question is far more complicated than "how do we move people from the $10 profit product to the $20 one?" You have to consider how many people would have given you $30 profit that now will give you $20, how many would have given you $10 that will now spend it on other entertainment, etc. Do you think enough people will upgrade from 10 to 20 (or zero to 20) to make up for the loss of those 10s and 30s?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Alphastream said that it could be more, but since all of it is a guess, I did not see any particular point in including that in the quote as well

Right. I corrected him back when that thread was discussed.

that was my point, and given your $25 to WotC that means they also make an absolute bigger profit per unit, as that is the price point of many adventures (or $30 for newer ones)

Per unit, of course! That's why companies like digital. Companies liking digital doesn't make digital the future.

possibly, we have no good numbers for that, but I do expect 1) WotC is working towards that share getting smaller and 2) that share actually going down (obviously, otherwise they would never get rid of books)

You're wrong. They're working toward making more and more money, however they can. Adding to digital and trying to monetize digital in new ways does not mean anything at all for what their plans for print is. As @Parmandur keeps trying to point out to you - it's not zero sum. It's not one or the other.

I am not saying it 100% has to and it cannot be avoided, but I do believe WotC would prefer it and is trying to achieve it. Whether they succeed, time will tell

Only a short-sighted suit who doesn't know what he's talking about would "prefer" one revenue stream over another in anything beyond a personal preference. Otherwise, it's just Pursue All Means to Money.

not sure who 'we' is here,

Humanity.

but I am not even saying that they will not print any more books at all. I was saying they want to get out of the mass market books (to be replaced by digital for the higher profit margin and hopefully a subscription too), but still would have small print runs for collectors and people who refuse to switch over.

Okay. I don't think anyone who's argued with you has suggested that digital won't continue to grow. Why are you arguing about it, then?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

it really isn't, they have a higher profit margin on digital. @FitzTheRuke agreed with that too, but I guess you conveniently ignored that part while believing the parts that agree with you

With the caveat that they make more profit per individual unit sold - yes, I'd agree that each PHB sold on DDB has a higher margin for WotC than each PHB sold at my FLGS.

But bigger picture? IDK. DDB cost them a HUGE amount of cash. How much does it cost them annually? I have no idea.

Edit to point out: I mean that said margin might be smaller than we think because I have no idea how much it costs to run DDB.

 

[Oofta]

With the caveat that they make more profit per individual unit sold - yes, I'd agree that each PHB sold on DDB has a higher margin for WotC than each PHB sold at my FLGS.

But bigger picture? IDK. DDB cost them a HUGE amount of cash. How much does it cost them annually? I have no idea.

DDB likely has significant ongoing costs that you simply don't have with books. Servers, electricity, site administration, security, bug fixes and patches. It all adds up. How much, I have no clue. None of us do.

 

[mamba]

The biggest question would actually be - how many books to they sell compared to how many digital subscriptions? There's no doubt that DDB rakes in the dough - they wouldn't have paid, what was it, 145M for it? (I don't remember, but it was a LOT of money). But they had the money to buy it because of selling print books, didn't they?

they also had the money from selling digital products on various VTTs, including DDB, it was not just print that got them there

Ultimately the question is how much money do they make when selling digital and print (sometimes to the same customer) vs just digital (and that includes to print customers who would switch to digital rather than stopping to buy D&D altogether).

I am not pretending that right now that would be a winning strategy, but I definitely believe that WotC wants people to go digital and applies slight pressure / gives incentives to do so and if they manage to onboard a large enough number onto digital, then they will look into that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I assume you are talking about digital books in general... because D&D is not book, it is a game, so WotC has to offer a digital experience that makes most people prefer the online version, enter the VTT.

Granted, if the VTT does not take off, then that strategy has failed, but it will not be for a lack of trying

Why do you think selling the physical books, with say an advert on the last page, is a bad way to market their digital experience and highlight why it is worth buying? Why is that not going to happen, and instead that shelf space will be empty and WoTC will... send out vibes I guess?

it does not stop them from being carried, it means there is more incentive to get the digital version instead. You always focus on what happens in the next 12 months when I am very clear that I am talking about the next 15 years...

No, I'm not focused on the next 12 months, I'm looking for the logical plan here. If in 15 years WoTCs plan is that people will buy the digital rulebooks instead of the paper rulebooks... how do they get people who are not looking to buy Dungeons and Dragons to see Dungeons and Dragons books? IF it is by them seeing really expensive books on the shelves that they don't want to buy.... congrats, you've lost a potential buyer for Dungeons and Dragons. No one is going to look at a $100 book and go "I bet they have a cheaper, more immersive and all-around better digital version of this that I can subscribe to". People would see it and go "that must be for rich people who like to waste their money."

So, the proposed action isn't leading to the proposed goal.

What percentage of games do you think is in stores vs digital downloads? About 90% are the latter. Once WotC has accomplished that ratio, they can pull the trigger, for now they have to work towards that

If it is a measly 10% that the companies could care less about.... why do they still sell the games in the stores? IF you are right, those games should not exist. So explain it, why do those games exist being sold in stores, if the end goal is to have no products sold in stores? Is World of Warcraft only on year twelve of their fifteen year plan to stop selling in physical stores?

of course not, neither can you prove the opposite. This is all speculation and a matter of probabilities, not solid proof. I have been very clear on this in several posts already. If you think anyone here has solid proof for one side or the other, you are kidding yourself. As I said, if I had to bet, I would bet on me being right, that is all there is to it

I'd say we are good here, I posted why I believe what I believe, take it or leave it. There is not much point in continuing to argue about it

I don't need evidence that someone isn't planning on doing something, because that evidence by definition wouldn't exist. And yes, you have been forced to admit multiple times that you have no evidence, that you are just speculating, and that there is nothing but essentially bad vibes leading to your conclusion. Oh, and that video games are currently suffering from bad video game industry practices, which will of course naturally affect other markets the exact same way, or more specifically, they will only affect DnD specifically in the exact same way. No other TTRPG, no board games, specifically and only this trend seen in the entire video game industry will only hit DnD. Because you speculate it is possible. Eventually.

 

[WanderingMystic]

Thanks for the elaboration.

So to use basic math:

10+20 > 20

is what your last sentence means. Correct?

So since they are not selling the book to a distributer the profit on the bundle is probably closer to $40-$45 so even with the $20 discount since they are the ones selling the book to you direct there profit margin is much higher.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DDB already is a subscription model and pretty successful, the VTT will further push it in that direction (if WotC succeeds with it, they would not spend 10s of millions if this were not their goal)

DnD Beyond is a subscription. But DnD is not. And even people who have DnD Beyond accounts (like myself) are often not paying anything, while still accessing content.

 

[mamba]

The question is far more complicated than "how do we move people from the $10 profit product to the $20 one?" You have to consider how many people would have given you $30 profit that now will give you $20, how many would have given you $10 that will now spend it on other entertainment, etc. Do you think enough people will upgrade from 10 to 20 (or zero to 20) to make up for the loss of those 10s and 30s?

agreed, that is the question. I basically asked the same one right before answering your post (but my post is below this one)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

they also had the money from selling digital products on various VTTs, including DDB, it was not just print that got them there

Also - who are we kidding, this is American Big Business: They used someone else's money to buy DDB.

Ultimately the question is how much money do they make when selling digital and print (sometimes to the same customer) vs just digital (and that includes to print customers who would switch to digital rather than stopping to buy D&D altogether).

I am not pretending that right now that would be a winning strategy, but I definitely believe that WotC wants people to go digital and applies slight pressure / gives incentives to do so and if they manage to onboard a large enough number onto digital, then they will look into that.

I think it LOOKS like that, because they absolutely want people to buy Digital, to justify its expense, and to enjoy its profits, but I doubt that it indicates that they prefer their digital profits to their print ones, I think they like to have both.

Will their attempts to grow digital cannibalize print? Inevitably it will, somewhat, but time has shown that customers move in both directions and THAT is something that they'll want to encourage for as long as possible.