D&D General Interview with D&D VP Jess Lanzillo on Comicbook.com

[Oofta]

Or, you know, she could have just said that:

"We're committed to continue to publish physical books".

I think she said something just like that at Gencon but not in the interview.

I too expect them to continue to publish physical books.

The app phones home and requires you connect back regularly. I found this out the hard way at a convention with terrible WiFi and cell signal.

If you consider it a temporary tool that can go away later and still use it, I think that’s a reasonable decision to make.

But it is different than the resilience we have owning physical books and knowing we or others can build digital tools based on the open licenses for 5e.

I just put my phone in airplane mode and looked at a PC I haven't viewed in months. Not sure what your issue was, I've also been in situations where I didn't have service for days and it worked just fine.

In any case the issues you raise are all about the online tools. I don't see anything that's a serious issue, in the worst case scenario the site shuts down and I'd have to buy books that I only had online.

Books are not risk free either. My house could flood, burn down or I could have my books in a backpack which gets stolen like happened to a friend. There are no guarantees in life.

 

[LordEntrails]

Right now we're in the honeymoon phase of D&D Beyond. Profits are up. Attention on the brand is great. Executives love to charge rent. What happens when things go down? How will they behave then? What will they do with the platform?

Good thing you have 3 other digital platforms you can use besides DDB. Some of which work offline and are perpetual and irrevocable.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Assuming that books still turn a profit, and I don't see why they won't, why would they leave that money on the table?

Agreed. Even if books just make a small profit why would they want to leave a space and let their competitor say Paizo gobble up market share.

 

[Zaukrie]

My point is that the tumbnail is almost never the actual conclusion. They are attention grabbers and click-bait. But the content is usually less dire. Usually.

In other words, I think far fewer people actually believe WotC will eliminate print than you think.

I'm not even going to watch these click bait videos anymore. I can't stand the constant harping on fears that have no basis in reality.

 

[Demetrios1453]

What does being a big fan of that have anything to do with reality? I'm a big fan of being young and thin with a full bushy head of hair! Being a fan doesn't make it so!

Jess has the ability and agency to use that fandom to make substantive changes, or not, in the subject on which we are speaking, unlike your example.

 

[Nikosandros]

NVM

 

[Nikosandros]

The app phones home and requires you connect back regularly. I found this out the hard way at a convention with terrible WiFi and cell signal.

From the screenshot, it seems that you can't access books that were shared with you. Is that correct?

I've just checked with my phone and I can access downloaded books while disconnected. Of course, I still think it is lousy because the books are locked within a proprietary app and I do really wish that WotC also offered PDF like basically everyone else.

 

[Reynard]

Agreed. Even if books just make a small profit why would they want to leave a space and let their competitor say Paizo gobble up market share.

If that were true, WotC would still be selling slim adventures, magazines and splatbooks. All of those could make "a small profit."

 

[Oofta]

If that were true, WotC would still be selling slim adventures, magazines and splatbooks. All of those could make "a small profit."

The magazines and slim adventures were all TSR products. weren't they? So who knows if they were ever profitable. That and all the content that goes into a magazine needs to be created for each issue. For books, all the content is already needed for online tools anyway. Magazines are one and done, books can be sold with minimal changes for years on end.

 

[jerryrice4949]

If that were true, WotC would still be selling slim adventures, magazines and splatbooks. All of those could make "a small profit."

Streamlining their offerings is not the same as eliminating all physical books and doesn’t leave them vulnerable in the market place like abandoning written material altogether would. And many of the splat books and magazines lost money for TSR. Part of the reason they are gone.