D&D General Is D&D Beyond Exclusivity Bad for D&D?

[Ruin Explorer]

It wasn't an either or situation, but both. In the act of removing problematic content, they shifted from giving world-specific lore to a more game-wide style.

5E gave game-wide lore from day 1, so claiming this was a "change" later on seems completely unsupportable.

In fact one of the earliest complaints about the first three monster books (including the MM), before the problematic elements came to the fore, discussion-wise, was that they were giving out "generic" lore that often clashed with more specific portrayals of beings in certain settings, and/or didn't match with 3E/4E portrayals.

I doubt physical books are the most profitable thing in D&D for WotC. Books bought on beyond probably are. That suggests that the toe-dipping they are doing to Beyond exclusivity may eventually lead to a shift in format where books are just premium items and D&D as a game and brand is something that lives mostly on your phone/tablet.

I mean that was the plan in 2008, and the only reason they changed course temporarily is because 4E got into rough waters largely due to other factors (though part of that was the 2007 or 2008 interview where the WotC CEO outlined this plan!), so I guess we shouldn't be surprised that WotC seem to have circled back to this plan.

To be fair though, WotC remain the consumate masters of screwing themselves over in the digital sphere, in new and almost accursed-seeming ways. It's very hard to predict how their digital product is going to end in tears, but... it usually does. Even stuff that succeeded massively, like BG3, WotC still contrived a way to make it end in tears ("snatched defeat from the jaws of victory").

So I suspect they'll manage something new and exotically bonkers, like, I dunno, bizarrely shutting down Beyond instead of keeping it going. Oh, or a classic - they'll "upgrade" Beyond in such a way that it becomes painful to use for anyone without a very recent phone/tablet (or possible even them too), with a lot of swishy unnecessary stuff.

As far as the whole 6E thing... if DDB becomes WotC's personally-owned hardcover book version of DMs Guild-- selling other companies' products for them on their online storefront and taking some cash off the top-- I don't foresee any true change into a 6th Edition (one that truly changes most of the foundational mechanics of the game). Because at that point whatever new monies they would get from a Core Three book new edition book sale would be offset by the loss of monies that they would no longer receive for all the 5E product they were selling on DDB as the bottom would drop out of that market.

So I think that'd be a reasonable thought if the 3PP stuff in Beyond made up a huge part of what makes Beyond profitable.

But will it? I doubt it. DM's Guild could close tomorrow and I doubt WotC would notice.

And I think you underestimate the appeal to brands of forcing people to buy stuff again. The most cunning plan is one I predicted long before 2024 and which they did with 2024 and which I expect they'd do with a 6E, which is to include access to the core books as part of the subscription.

 

[AlViking]

So you think 2024 will do like 10 years? Because that's what you're saying. I mean I think a lot of people here are not doing the math. Are not looking at 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 5E and how long those lasted. But like, I guess I'll get to be very smug for a while lol.

I don't know how long it will be. There's no way it's going to be a year from now, I suspect there will be at least a 2 years warning like we had with the 2024 releases. While I enjoyed the 5e version, there were some significant issues with the core math and balance. There is never a perfect game and there are certainly things I wish they had done differently but they learned a lot over nearly a decade what the biggest issues were from a gameplay perspective and largely fixed them*.

If we do see a revision it will be relatively minor like the changes from 5 to 5.5 and if we do it will be sometime in the 2030s. They smoothed off the rough spots of 5e and they now have a well established different business model. There's far less incentive to create a new version and the significant investment in DDB means they have a more reason to not change than they ever had before.

If you're wrong about your prediction will you wear the hat of shame? Please?

*Of course you can never please everyone. You had widespread "Fighters don't have enough to do and are too simple!" which has now changed to "Fighters are too complicated and do too much!"

 

[DEFCON 1]

So I think that'd be a reasonable thought if the 3PP stuff in Beyond made up a huge part of what makes Beyond profitable.

But will it? I doubt it. DM's Guild could close tomorrow and I doubt WotC would notice.

And I think you underestimate the appeal to brands of forcing people to buy stuff again. The most cunning plan is one I predicted long before 2024 and which they did with 2024 and which I expect they'd do with a 6E, which is to include access to the core books as part of the subscription.

That'll certainly be where the rubber meets the road. We've got probably at least 2 years of current 5E24-only action on WotC's part because they just did a full reset of their D&D staff and design department and will need a bit of time acclimating to the production culture (and wrap up the stuff already in their design pipeline) before they could really start diving into a "new edition". Which means two years of seeing just how widespread the DDB storefront becomes. And if it does blow up and they start selling anything and everything-- especially if the new Character Builder re-build of their code allows for homebrewed and 3PP player-facing material to be brought into the Character Builder-- I don't see them giving up that golden goose.

I have no idea if that is indeed on the DDB design team's docket for the re-code... but if it was-- if the new version would indeed allow for new classes to be made and incorporated into the Builder-- especially ones that were 3PP-produced and purchaseable through DDB-- that would keep the cash flowing on 5E for a long time in my opinion. Third-party material in the Builder would be a cash cow for WotC in the long run.

 

[Remathilis]

I think the real question is what aspect of D&D is most profitable? If we know that, we can make some guesses about future editions and future formats. But even then they are still just guesses.

I doubt physical books are the most profitable thing in D&D for WotC. Books bought on beyond probably are. That suggests that the toe-dipping they are doing to Beyond exclusivity may eventually lead to a shift in format where books are just premium items and D&D as a game and brand is something that lives mostly on your phone/tablet.

I think it's wise to look at Wizards OTHER big game and cash cow for suggestions.

There are lots of different ways to play Magic. Magic Online, Arena, and paper. Each are separate ecosystems; your cards don't carry over from one to another (outside a few exceptions) and the types of games you can pay differ. It would be exceptionally cheaper for Magic to pick one of the digital versions and quit printing basic cards. But they haven't. Partially this is because neither Arena or MTGO are suitable replacements, but also that Paper Magic sells premium stuff. Borderless, full art, foil cards. Themed sleeves. Alternate arts and Secret Lair limited drops. They make a lot of bank on these things, but they also make it on the regular draft packs too. Enough to justify the printing of billions of cards per year.

D&D obviously doesn't have the same demands as MTG, but look at the recent Online Play video. See the hardcover books? The premium dice, map packs and tokens, Wiz Kids official minis? The thing they don't emphasize? The ipads with character sheets on them. They're there, but the players aren't staring at their ipads, using virtual dice, or using the maps feature on Beyond. They are playing with physical products. Products that they would like to sell you.

WotC is dipping their toes back into supporting the game at a more physical prop level. We card getting three physical products for Ravenloft, and more for Arcana Unleashed. Spell cards, map packs, etc. They already both sell blind bag dice and premium ones. The alt art Hobby Shop bookcovers are high demand items. Book may be more expensive to produce, but like Magic cards, they push the hobby forward with the sale of both supplemental materials and collector versions. I expect D&D will lean heavier into that rather than towards exclusively online only.

Unless paper becomes so prohibitively expensive that all types of publishing collapse. But I think we'll have bigger problems to worry about than the latest D&D book being Beyond only...

 

[TwoSix]

As far as the whole 6E thing... if DDB becomes WotC's personally-owned hardcover book version of DMs Guild-- selling other companies' products for them on their online storefront and taking some cash off the top-- I don't foresee any true change into a 6th Edition (one that truly changes most of the foundational mechanics of the game). Because at that point whatever new monies they would get from a Core Three book new edition book sale would be offset by the loss of monies that they would no longer receive for all the 5E product they were selling on DDB as the bottom would drop out of that market.

I'm not sure why the companies that were making money making products selling products for 5e wouldn't simply pivot to making products for a 6e on Beyond.

They can make money selling revised versions of their 5e products just like WotC makes money on 5.5 with products heavily driven by "updates".

 

[saviirkad]

Why on do you think that specifically? I don't think you have any basis for that assumption.

They can't really do another "backwards compatible" iteration that meaningfully improves 5E and sells copies, I'd suggest.

Assumption based on their current investments, past practices of their current and former decision-makers, and the continuing to grow success of the D&D Beyond platform.

Given the continued growth during and after such controversies as the OGL crisis, I highly doubt it'll suddenly dive with such a speed as to happen within five years. It'll begin taper of course, but that means a longer timeline and allows for intermediate course corrections.

Whatever their current plan for remaking D&D Beyond's character builder ends up being on its release will give a significant clue as to what the next rendition of the ruleset will be limited to. Heck, maybe the next one will actually deserve to be called a 5.5e.

 

[Reynard]

I would love to see the growth curve of D&D from 2014 to present. I am curious how many new players D&D is still adding, and if the 5.5 edition affected it in any way.

 

[Remathilis]

I would love to see the growth curve of D&D from 2014 to present. I am curious how many new players D&D is still adding, and if the 5.5 edition affected it in any way.

That's a billion dollar question only WotC knows and isn't gonna tell us.

 

[Professor Murder]

My only real concern is archival, long term. Digital only products are bad overall on longer time scale, but at the very least one can print out PDFs while they have access to them now. However, DnDBeyond and 5/5.5e wont be forever. Hell, they wont even be for decades. All of the purely DnDBeyond digital content produced will be very hard to access once these formats are abandoned unless steps are taken to preserve them. We need only look at how hardware advancement has made preserving old video games challenging to see where things are likely to go in the case of any propitiatory locked media content.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm not sure why the companies that were making money making products selling products for 5e wouldn't simply pivot to making products for a 6e on Beyond.

They can make money selling revised versions of their 5e products just like WotC makes money on 5.5 with products heavily driven by "updates".

I'm sure they would. But that would take time to make their own product lines for 6E and get them accepted and loaded up on DDB. All the while all their previous products lay fallow because no one will buy new 5E material for not only the 2 years or so that 6E has been announced and is in playtesting and development, plus however long it would take for those companies to get their new material designed, printed, and then posted up to DDB.

Why go through all that if WotC finds that a new refresh on 5E would be just as viable, and it keeps all the product the 3PP have made and are up on DDB still worth purchasing? Personally, I don't see any definitive advantage to moving onto a 6E economically speaking in the next 5+ years (unless the new refresh of the DDB code crashes and burns for some reason.)

Now if the current D&D production team wants to design a 6E to put their mark on the D&D game and they can get WotC/Hasbro and all their 3PP DDB partners on board with that... then sure, maybe they will make 6E in the next handful of years. But I don't personally think it's necessary. Especially considering it seems like most people who are actively looking or wishing for 6E are those for whom they have never liked/played 5E in the first place, or have grown bored with 5E and just want "new for the sake of new". Which is fine if people feel that way... but to me I just don't see it as a good enough reason to do it. Especially if it reduces the financial levels WotC has been and will be achieving with DDB and their 3PP partners (plus of course Maps now that I think about it).