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

[occam]

This is a really good question. What are the actual practical fears?

First, they could abandon it when it's no longer popular like they did with all the 4th edition material. You could spend a lot of money on it, both as purchases and subscriptions and they could take it away. This isn't hypothetical. They did so with all the 4e tools. They did so with Dragon+. They killed all the articles they had posted on dnd.wizards.com. Granted you didn't pay for that stuff but clearly WOTC doesn't care very much about preserving old material.

The rest of your post raises several reasonable concerns, but I just wanted to address one point, regarding D&D Insider (for 4e). No one bought anything on DDI; you paid for access. When DDI went away, did it suck for people who might've wanted to continue playing 4e? Absolutely. But you didn't lose anything you had paid to own. (Any characters you had made could be exported to PDF, so those could be retained.)

D&D Beyond is a whole different story. I've actually purchased things on DDB. If WotC ever discontinues paid content on DDB without allowing a way to keep an offline digital copy (which isn't available today), there'd be hell to pay.

 

[Lazybones]

Could WotC/Hasbro decide to someday no longer license its D&D material to other VTT companies, in favor of its own product? Sure. But as others noted they'd have to have a real strong competitor with major market share first. From the various past attempts I've seen from the various iterations of the company in the past, they have a long way to go before that happens. At the moment, they're basically printing free money by licensing their books to Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and Foundry (since those companies do all the work of converting them to work on their systems), and often collecting a double-dip as well from fans who also buy the physical books.

But let's say that they capture lightning in a bottle and create the perfect VTT in five, ten, or fifteen years, which is so awesome that everyone wants to use it. Then they decide to charge $10/month, or whatever. So what? If it's so awesome that it's worth it, fine, I can afford it. If not, well, I can still play 5e/24 on my VTT of choice (since they can't take my content back once purchased), or even gasp open my tabletop books and play with friends in person. Even if they were to somehow decide in 2034 to make 6th edition digital only, it's not like they're going to come and collect my current books.

I guess I just don't see any of the worst-case scenarios being discussed here as that calamitous. D&D belongs to WotC/Hasbro, and of course they can do what they want with it, but I just don't see even them as being stupid enough to throw the game on a bonfire if it's making money.

 

[Dire Bare]

So they're going to provide digital tools for those that want them as long as the tools make them a profit. How is this a bad thing? As long as they continue to sell physical books, why does anyone who doesn't want digital tools care?

I think folks convinced WotC is heading down the path to digital gaming dystopia are those who assume that "corporation" combined with "digital product" will inevitably lead to enshittification.

WotC certainly has shown they are a corporation that is willing to make consumer unfriendly and short-sighted decisions over the past few years . . . . that is not itself evidence of inevitable digital dystopia, but it influences folks opinions.

I am not worried in the slightest. Could D&D Beyond become enshittified and lock the core books behind a digital paywall at sometime in the future? Well, sure. But all actual current evidence is to the contrary.

The D&D Beyond experience is far from perfect. I have my criticisms, several in line with @SlyFlourish's. But the available digital books and tools are pretty damn cool and useful, (IMO) superior to what came before and to the current competition.

The biggest issue that concerns me is D&D Beyond eventually disappearing along with all of the digital books I've purchased there. It sort of happened with 4th Edition (although the model was different, you didn't purchase content by the book) and sort of happened with 2nd and 3rd Edition . . . although I'm not sure there is anyone who misses the tools created for those editions. And the same is true of Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and other digital marketplaces. If they disappear, and you can't download a PDF, then your books go poof.

But still, I'm not super worried about this happening anytime in the near future. I'll worry about it, if and when it happens. When the sky falls, I'll duck.

 

[Dire Bare]

Well, the question to me is what are they "allowed" to publish online before it somehow crosses this imagined line? I know they do articles on DDB that are free but basically the equivalent of blogs. They may have posted a few encounters here and there from what I remember, again free. So what's so terrible?

If they started publishing book-equivalent products online I could maybe see an issue if and when that happens. It's not happening now, there's no indication they will and it doesn't seem like it would make sense from a profitability standpoint.

There have been several actual D&D products released digital only, D&D Beyond exclusive. They are small products like a short adventure or a slim monster manual. In the grand scheme of things, not much to worry about, but it is one of the trends I do feel is consumer unfriendly and short-sighted.

One thing I do agree with @SlyFlourish about is that WotC should offer multiple digital formats for their 5E products. The D&D Beyond web format, but also PDF and maybe EPUB for titles where that makes sense. This would allay a lot of folks fears of their books going "poof" someday. And some folks just plain prefer PDF.

 

[Dire Bare]

This is a really good question. What are the actual practical fears?

First, they could abandon it when it's no longer popular like they did with all the 4th edition material. You could spend a lot of money on it, both as purchases and subscriptions and they could take it away. This isn't hypothetical. They did so with all the 4e tools. They did so with Dragon+. They killed all the articles they had posted on dnd.wizards.com. Granted you didn't pay for that stuff but clearly WOTC doesn't care very much about preserving old material.

The whole system can degrade as more sources get added. I argue it's doing so now. You can't, for example, filter out sources in the character builder if you have access to those sources. Everything shows up. Yes, I know it has those checkboxes to allow certain content in a campaign but they don't prevent options from showing up in the builder. This got worse and worse over the years leading to the huge criticism of Silvery Barbs, a spell that otherwise should only matter if you're playing Strixhaven yet everyone seems to have it and it's the bane of many a GM just because its in Beyond and unfilterable.

The whole system can degrade in other ways too. Search becomes harder to use because you're searching everything – including things you don't have. There's no way to search on just a single source. The more you add new products, the worse it gets and yet adding products brings in revenue so its likely prioritized over fixing core features.

We have no idea how they're going to make 2024 and 2014 material work side by side in the character builder. Are they going to abandon 2014? Are all 2024 options going to be listed alongside 2014? Will there be two different character builders? Whatever they choose, you're stuck with it whether it's your preferred way or not.

They can change their business model – moving from purchases to subscriptions. If that's profitable enough, maybe they stop selling sourcebooks on DDB and only rent them to you.

They could remove ways to pay for content like they did for buying individual class features instead of a whole book.

They could downsize the staff which means the platform you've invested your time and money begins to degrade even further. Bugs keep popping up. New bugs show up. No new features get added. Old features break.

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?

Whatever they decide to do, you're along for the ride.

They could . . . yeah.

When there is evidence that they will, that's when I'll start to worry.

Lots of things could happen.

 

[Lazybones]

The biggest issue that concerns me is D&D Beyond eventually disappearing along with all of the digital books I've purchased there. It sort of happened with 4th Edition (although the model was different, you didn't purchase content by the book) and sort of happened with 2nd and 3rd Edition . . . although I'm not sure there is anyone who misses the tools created for those editions. And the same is true of Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and other digital marketplaces. If they disappear, and you can't download a PDF, then your books go poof.

While I think this is true for D&D Beyond, the owners of Fantasy Grounds, at least, have explicitly said that it's not true for content that you buy on their platform. If you buy a D&D book from them, you can download it freely and redownload whenever needed, even if they were to lose the D&D license at some point in the future. If SmiteWorks were to go out of business you'd be limited to what you have on your machine when the servers went down, but it's quite easy to make backups (I keep backup copies of my FG campaigns on multiple PCs, just in case).

 

[Dire Bare]

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.

Many of my friends have lost troves of gaming products in flooded basements, lost during moves, or thrown out by angry partners or parents. Poof. I almost lost my classroom D&D collection when my classroom flooded, but luckily my gaming bookshelf survived the disaster, lots of other books did not.

I used to have a large collection of digital PDFs of classic D&D titles purchased in the ancient days when WotC first started offering them (before DriveThru), and foolishly neglected to back up the hard drive they were stored on. Poof.

And . . . . even today I have more digital content that I can realistically use, or even read fully. I'm not sure I'd notice if most of my current digital collection went poof, outside of my core books on D&D Beyond.

Still, WotC should offer multiple formats, including PDF, for current titles.

 

[Dire Bare]

While I think this is true for D&D Beyond, the owners of Fantasy Grounds, at least, have explicitly said that it's not true for content that you buy on their platform. If you buy a D&D book from them, you can download it freely and redownload whenever needed, even if they were to lose the D&D license at some point in the future. If SmiteWorks were to go out of business you'd be limited to what you have on your machine when the servers went down, but it's quite easy to make backups (I keep backup copies of my FG campaigns on multiple PCs, just in case).

Not if Fantasy Grounds itself goes poof. Then so does your digital collection purchased there.

Yes, you can painstakingly back them up (to a format that doesn't require their app), you can do that on D&D Beyond too . . . but most of us don't have the time or focus (or forethought) for that.

SmiteWorks is a pretty cool company that I trust, but eventually they may go away and eventually their app will stop working as Microsoft moves to Windows 2050. It's not something I worry about, or that I think is likely to happen anytime soon, just as I'm not worried about D&D Beyond going poof and taking all my books with it.

 

[Dire Bare]

So here’s the thing about walled gardens. You have to have a very successful product first. Once you have a very successful product that has drawn in a majority of users, then you can start putting up the walls, and increasing the prices, and squeezing competitors and partners. Until then, it doesn’t benefit WotC to admit anything.

Okay.

When WotC finally reveals their secret, evil plan . . . I'll worry about it then.

 

[LordEntrails]

D&D Beyond is a whole different story. I've actually purchased things on DDB. If WotC ever discontinues paid content on DDB without allowing a way to keep an offline digital copy (which isn't available today), there'd be hell to pay.

No you didn't. You licensed access to content they own. You should read that license agreement you agreed to.

Not if Fantasy Grounds itself goes poof. Then so does your digital collection purchased there.

If SmiteWorks goes Poof, nothing happens to all those FG products you bought that are on your computer. You still have them.

Just like that hard copy book you might buy instead. Except it's much easier to secure your digital FG book than it will ever be to secure a print copy. I can backup my digital copies free to various online systems like Drive etc. Can give my backup to a family member who lives in a different house. Then if my house ever burns down, is flooded, or caught in a tornado I have 2 places to recover from. If I want to do the same with a physical book, I have to buy three copies of it.