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

[mamba]

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.

they could go much smaller if that were all they are after with it

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

it is and it isn’t, it can be a success and print keeps chugging along happily, or it can become a major point of entry into D&D and a big step towards unseating printed books (or it can fail altogether)

 

[Parmandur]

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

I do believe that it is not. Two sources of income are better than one.

 

[Parmandur]

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

Print books sell better than digital books: that has stabilized and crystallized even with ebook tech being excellent. Hasbro ia not going to stop printing and leave money on the table.

 

[mamba]

Print books sell better than digital books: that has stabilized and crystallized even with ebook tech being excellent.

D&D is a game, not a novel, so VTT integration and links within the 'book' help improve the experience

Hasbro ia not going to stop printing and leave money on the table.

by the time I envision them dropping print, continuing to print would not really be leaving money on the table. My premise is that they get most people onto digital before making such a move

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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

That's all about "New Money" and more akin to trying to break into the Video Game market (using the game) than it has anything to do with what will happen to print over time.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

by the time I envision them dropping print, continuing to print would not really be leaving money on the table. My premise is that they get most people onto digital before making such a move

How do you expect them to do that? (I'm sure that if you have a plan that would actually work, WotC would like to hear from you).

 

[mamba]

How do you expect them to do that? (I'm sure that if you have a plan that would actually work, WotC would like to hear from you).

basically how I laid it out.

Slowly increase the ‘pressure’ by having more digital exclusive content (beyond adventures and monsters, have some subclasses, have some tie ins like with Vecna), and keep increasing the price gap between print and digital. Further down the line have some APs in digital only. That is all fully in WotC’s control.

The part that is less in their control but equally relevant is to offer a superior experience over print in DDB and a VTT that is so ahead of the rest that it itself draws people away from print and into the VTT as the D&D platform of choice for a large majority of their customers.

Keep at it until demand for printed books is small enough to consider phasing them out and then decide whether to and how to go about it.

Will it work? Not sure. To me it can and I do not really see them getting there any other way.

You can argue they won’t succeed, you can argue they will not even try. My bet is on them trying and I believe they also have a decent chance at succeeding

 

[MonsterEnvy]

basically how I laid it out.

Slowly increase the ‘pressure’ by having more digital exclusive content (beyond adventures and monsters, have some subclasses, have some tie ins like with Vecna), and keep increasing the price gap between print and digital. Further down the line have some APs in digital only. That is all fully in WotC’s control.

The part that is less in their control but equally relevant is to offer a superior experience over print in DDB and a VTT that is so ahead of the rest that it itself draws people away from print and into the VTT as the D&D platform of choice for a large majority of their customers.

Keep at it until demand for printed books is small enough to consider phasing them out and then decide whether to and how to go about it.

Will it work? Not sure. To me it can and I do not really see them getting there any other way.

You can argue they won’t succeed, you can argue they will not even try. My bet is on them trying and I believe they also have a decent chance at succeeding

Honestly the only thing I disagree with you about this is that WotC execs want to get rid of print. Cause they don't want to do that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

But those sales DO happen. That Revenue DOES come in. It may not be their primary method of spreading the game, but it does exist. You are claiming they will cut it off... for no discernible reason except that eventually, maybe that will increase profits. Somehow.

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

Firstly, why are you assuming that they won't sell? You've continuously made it sound like WoTC will choose to stop selling them, not that they are having problems selling them.

Secondly, there are 4,600 wal-marts in the US alone. That means just selling five sets, just five, of the core books to Wal-Mart to gather dust on shelves is 69,000 book sales. And Wal-Mart likely buys more than five per store in aggregate. And this doesn't count the FLGS at all. Or Amazon.

digital does not preclude impulse buys

But it does make it a lot harder. Especially since you keep arguing it will be a walled garden, meaning the ONLY place you would be able to buy them is DnD Beyond. And it is far less of an impulse buy to go to DnD Beyond to shop for DnD products than it is to go to Wal-Mart, decide to peruse the shelves for a romance novel, and see a DnD rulebook on the shelf.

 

[Chaosmancer]

basically how I laid it out.

Slowly increase the ‘pressure’ by having more digital exclusive content (beyond adventures and monsters, have some subclasses, have some tie ins like with Vecna), and keep increasing the price gap between print and digital. Further down the line have some APs in digital only. That is all fully in WotC’s control.

The part that is less in their control but equally relevant is to offer a superior experience over print in DDB and a VTT that is so ahead of the rest that it itself draws people away from print and into the VTT as the D&D platform of choice for a large majority of their customers.

Keep at it until demand for printed books is small enough to consider phasing them out and then decide whether to and how to go about it.

Will it work? Not sure. To me it can and I do not really see them getting there any other way.

You can argue they won’t succeed, you can argue they will not even try. My bet is on them trying and I believe they also have a decent chance at succeeding

So sell only some of their product to some of their customers instead of more of it to more of their customers, then make a product so amazing that everyone will be clamoring to use it because it is so amazingly good and popular that people will stop caring whether or not they can sit down at a table in real life with their real life friends.

Sure Mamba, if they make a product that is so amazingly popular and good that the entire DnD community completely abandons the wooden the table to play exclusively digitally then they might stop printing physical books for people to buy.