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

[Hussar]

The profit margin on razor blades is much larger than on razors.

Yet they keep selling razors year after year.

 

[Oofta]

Many companies, especially publicly traded ones, may eventually decide the opportunity costs of working on something new or putting additional resources on something that’s more profitable is a better way to use those resources than using those resources on something that’s not very profitable.

I see this in my day job. I personally work with many small ISPs across the US and over the past few years a number have decided to stop offering TV service to customers. They made money on it but it’s wasn’t a lot and they’re often tired of dealing with the headaches that come it, like all the truck rolls related to it and the ever increasing cost of licensing channels. Just because they’re making some money off of it doesn’t mean it makes sense to continue to offer it.

I’m not saying that physical D&D books are anywhere near that point, especially since Hasbro and WotC have a lot of physical products but they will get to the point they start to think about it. If say it becomes a 20% physical and 80% digital split Hasbro execs may start to question if it would be better to spend the money spent on the physical side of things on something else that can generate higher profit than the low margin books, especially if they believe many physical book only holdouts would migrate to digital.

Those are vastly different scenarios though. An ISP offering TV services is offering a completely different product line from their more profitable business. With D&D it's just different, complementary, formats. Most of the cost of the books is sunk into design, development and art.

Maybe books become just a small add-on, a way to make a little bit of extra profit for development work they've already done. With other add-on benefits like drawing in new customers.

That's why I don't see them ever getting rid of books. The additional cost of printing only adds a small amount to their expenses, they don't need to make much profit.

Plus, well, all the other stuff that has been repeated a dozen times.

 

[mamba]

Thing is, the technology has been there for digital books and the market has evolved. But there is just a limit to folks wanting digital instead of print.

agreed, that is a hurdle WotC has to overcome. The VTT might get them there, they are certainly not building it to just compete with Roll20

 

[mamba]

And how will you buy their product digitally from the beginning if you don't know about the product in the first place?

as I said, the same way you learn about the game today or new video games. WotC does not rely on people walking into a bookstore and becoming curious enough about D&D to buy it right then and there. That is not their strategy to attract new customers

Heck, as someone pointed out earlier, FLGS and Big Box stores like Wal-MArt buy the Core Books from WoTC to sell. So they are actually replacing guaranteed sales of their product with uncertain sales of their product.

I am not sure why you consider one certain and the other not. If the books don’t sell, Walmart will not order new ones, neither will the FLGSs, so at best they get a certain number into the channel before it gets clogged, but that is not enough to make this a reliable approach

Solely? Sure they don't rely solely on it. But they do happen and they do plan for them, and your solution seems to be thinking that they simply will stop caring about that potential revenue.

digital does not preclude impulse buys

 

[Parmandur]

agreed, that is a hurdle WotC has to overcome. The VTT might get them there, they are certainly not building it to just compete with Roll20

They are building the VTT to make money surely, but that is not necessarily in competition with the book revenue stream at all, any more than selling minis competes with selling dice.

 

[mamba]

The profit margin on razor blades is much larger than on razors.

Yet they keep selling razors year after year.

not sure how the digital book does not serve as a razor but the printed one does

 

[Parmandur]

not sure how the digital book does not serve as a razor but the printed one does

Razor sales drive the sale of razor blades. The sale of physical game products drive the sale of virtual minis in a digital environment.

 

[Hussar]

agreed, that is a hurdle WotC has to overcome. The VTT might get them there, they are certainly not building it to just compete with Roll20

No. That’s true.

They’re building it because they realize the market for an in house vtt has grown large enough that it is worth their time to get into.

That, however, is completely orthogonal to whether or not print will be ending.

 

[mamba]

They are building the VTT to make money surely, but that is not necessarily in competition with the book revenue stream at all, any more than selling minis competes with selling dice.

sure, it does not have to ‘wipe out print’ to be successful, I do however believe that getting closer to that is one of WotC’s goals for it

 

[mamba]

Razor sales drive the sale of razor blades. The sale of physical game products drive the sale of virtual minis in a digital environment.

and so do digital books, that was why I said I am not seeing that difference between the two here