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

[DEFCON 1]

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.

Yeah, but how much of that stuff is actually going to be worth keeping?

That's the thing... yes, there's a chance a lot of this stuff will "go away" as advances come and go. But don't we all expect that and have accepted it as a fait accompli? Especially considering who knows if any of that stuff will actually still be wanted and viable in the next 5, 10, 25 years?

I mean back in the early '80s I owned an Atari 2600 and whole bunch of games. And they were good for the time I had them... but eventually I got rid of the system (or it broke or whatever it was that resulted in me no longer using/owning a 2600). Does that bother me? Not at all. I had them at one point, don't have them now, oh well! And that was fine, because I moved onto the Nintendo NES, then the XBox, then the XBox One, etc. And again... almost everything I owned for those systems also lay fallow because I now game on my PC. I pretty much "lost" all those systems and all those games. And that doesn't bother me one bit.

Likewise, a long time ago I owned the Basic D&D rulebooks, the AD&D rulebooks, and the 2E rulebooks, (plus all the acoutrement that came with those games) and I don't own them now. Because I moved on and gave them away. And I've never once felt like it has been an issue that I don't own that material anymore. Which means that if my situation is not unique and in fact is pretty typical-- that people just "move on" to new product and new games etc. etc. every couple of years and they just get rid of the stuff they don't use-- the fact that we can't access some older product anymore for whatever reason (got rid of it, lost it, the system it used was too old, no interest in it anymore) is just not a big deal.

And thus likewise, if that means some random 5E adventure that was written exclusively for D&D Beyond never gets published and eventually it "disappears" if/when DDB eventually goes away (for whatever reason)... I just have zero feelings on the matter. I just don't care. After all... I have lost dozens upon dozens of adventures when I tossed away all my saved Dungeon Magazines from the '80s, so what's another couple from DDB? It's just not a big loss.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

Even if that's planned and succeeds, which is two pretty big ifs (esp. the latter), it's still a death spiral.

That doesn't mean you're wrong re: it being temporarily convincing to the sort of corporate types who are in charge of WotC, note! If both the "ifs" succeed, whilst the income will probably peak pretty early on, it'll likely be 1-3 years from now, and they won't go "Huh this is a death spiral" for a year or two past that (so 3-5 years). So I can see a narrow path to it being delayed that long, if they have a double success there (which is largely reliant on them both embracing 3PP content more than they currently, and allowing more people to use it, and as you say, letting it integrate a lot better).

However at that point, what I don't think is plausible is the suggestion that they'll just do another 5.5E.

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 year.

This is my reasoning, note. I think it's very unlikely a whole bunch of new people with new ideas and very different backgrounds to the previous leadership are going to go "Oh yeah, the old plan was great, we should just stick with that!". I mean, that basically never happens, and further, you don't hire a bunch of new people and completely reorganise the departments if you want that to happen (i.e. if you want to stick with the old plan), you hold on to the old people and you keep the old org structure.

Given WotC both hired a bunch of new people and reorganised significantly, I don't think WotC is thinking "Oh yeah let's just roll with 5.5E forever" as some posters here seem to (convinced that not only with 5.5E last for a full decade, but then they'll just do 5.5E again!). How long 5.5E has got, I dunno, but I'm pretty WotC wants there to be a clock on it, and the only way that clock slows is the scenario you outline, which I think is a narrow one and not currently likely. So my suggestion is WotC clearly are on board with significant change, indeed, they want it.

As for "their 3PP DDB partners", that's the one part I find risible. WotC corporate have never cared about those guys, and don't respect them. They are not part of the equation, and unless they were already, right now, this second, not in the future, making WotC big, big, big money, they won't be part of the equation. So that's not a serious thing to consider.

Also you seem to be under the strange idea that WotC will instantly lose all their income from Beyond the second they announce 6E. Otherwise several of your points make no sense. I don't know why you think that and it seems like you're assuming WotC are so profoundly dumb they'll blow their own foot off, and there's only limited evidence for WotC being that dumb! Limited! Being real, people will keep playing 5.5E long after any 6E, no matter how good/bad comes out. If your Beyond sub covers 5.5E and 6E, as it should if WotC are basically sane, there's no reason that income would stop. It'll just transition - the month someone stops buying 5E they probably starting going big into 6E. This is what Blizzard realized with Classic WoW and why they released it - Classic WoW doesn't compete with Retail WoW, it supports it. Likewise 5E could happily support 6E (or vice-versa).

Like, your point re: maps, why wouldn't maps work with 6E? It seems like it would be utterly trivial to make it work with 6E unless they did something bananas like change to 10ft hexes or something, which obviously won't happen. So they'll keep getting 100% of the current 5.5E money from things like maps, but also be able to get new money in, and get returning players who have stopped playing or moved to other systems or the like.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

That seems more of an argument to not do a 2 year long playtest cycle where they leave the product line dormant, rather than an argument to not put a new edition out.

If I were doing it, I would be playtesting and designing a new version within the next year, have the core parts ready to go by '28, and flesh out with artwork, layout, and the design for a Beyond refresh to start the marketing push as soon as we saw Beyond subscriptions reach a steady-state or a dip.

I'm sure 5e revenue will be fine for quite a while, but it's very uncommon for a publicly traded company to accept steady but not growing revenue from a product without having some kind of plan for growth in the near future. And it makes sense to have the digital platform subscription be the lever for that growth.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And thus likewise, if that means some random 5E adventure that was written exclusively for D&D Beyond never gets published and eventually it "disappears" if/when DDB eventually goes away (for whatever reason)... I just have zero feelings on the matter. I just don't care. After all... I have lost dozens upon dozens of adventures when I tossed away all my saved Dungeon Magazines from the '80s, so what's another couple from DDB? It's just not a big loss.

To you.

Your entire post is a statement of feelings with argumentation or no apparent point beyond your feelings. It's kind of just "IDGAF" written out over three paragraphs. It's not relevant to the discussion or the point re: archiving beyond saying "@DEFCON 1, a poster from ENworld, does not personally care about archiving content". If you think your views on this are broadly held, well, all evidence I'm aware of is to the contrary. People in fact tend to get very upset when that sort of thing happens!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That seems more of an argument to not do a 2 year long playtest cycle where they leave the product line dormant, rather than an argument to not put a new edition out.

Yup.

The mistake isn't one people have to make. It isn't one WotC should be making, if they're remotely competent. You keep 5.5E going until pretty close to 6E's release, hell you can keep going past that. No-one says you can't put out 5.5E material after you release 6E. That's not a rule. That's not how anyone does it in other industries! Videogames increasingly often keep supporting an "old edition" of a game when a sequel is out - not always, and not forever, but for some time.

Hell sometimes the original outlasts the sequel, look at Dungeon Defenders. Dungeon Defenders got a sequel years ago, but Dungeon Defenders is still getting new content, and the sequel isn't!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Also you seem to be under the strange idea that WotC will instantly lose all their income from Beyond the second they announce 6E. Otherwise several of your points make no sense. I don't know what you think that. People will keep playing 5.5E long after 6E comes out. If your Beyond sub covers 5.5E and 6E, as it should if WotC are sane, there's no reason that would stop. It'll just transition. This is what Blizzard realized with Classic WoW and why they released it.

I do not have your faith that there will still be a viable 5.5 audience once 6E gets announced/released... nor do I think WotC would "maintain" a 5.5 character builder and Maps functionality (mainly because I don't think they would be "sane" to use your parlance, LOL!) They might keep the 5.5 DDB servers up for a little while, but I would not foresee them using any resources to updating it with new material. They would throw all their resources in keeping a 6E DDB and Maps combo working (as that is what most people would be playing.

Now granted, this is entirely just personal speculation and I could be way off. We won't actually know until it eventually possibly comes up. And while I think your Classic WoW analogy is a good one... my rebuttal (as it is) would be that Activision- Blizzard is a much, much, much larger company fiscally-speaking than Wizards of the Coast, so they have the petty cash on hand to make all the Classic games and keep those realms up without much issue. I don't see WotC being able to match that myself.

 

[TwoSix]

Yup.

The mistake isn't one people have to make. It isn't one WotC should be making, if they're remotely competent. You keep 5.5E going until pretty close to 6E's release, hell you can keep going past that. No-one says you can't put out 5.5E material after you release 6E. That's not a rule. That's not how anyone does it in other industries! Videogames increasingly often keep supporting an "old edition" of a game when a sequel is out - not always, and not forever, but for some time.

Hell sometimes the original outlasts the sequel, look at Dungeon Defenders. Dungeon Defenders got a sequel years ago, but Dungeon Defenders is still getting new content, and the sequel isn't!

And very crucially, they can make big adjustments to their corporate mindset around product releases when they focus on being a digital/subscription platform first, and the print products are a happy addition.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To you.

Your entire post is a statement of feelings with argumentation or no apparent point beyond your feelings. It's kind of just "IDGAF" written out over three paragraphs. It's not relevant to the discussion or the point re: archiving beyond saying "@DEFCON 1, a poster from ENworld, does not personally care about archiving content". If you think your views on this are broadly held, well, all evidence I'm aware of is to the contrary. People in fact tend to get very upset when that sort of thing happens!

Uh... yeah? Why do you think I kept putting "in my opinion" and "personally speaking" in my posts? To make it clear that these are just my opinions.

Do I think my opinions are also widely-held? Sure. Do I have "proof" of that? No. Just gut feeling and making educated guesses based upon how things have played out in the past. But I could be wrong! Freely admit that. And if you disagree with me, that's cool! I don't mind people having opposing takes (even if I think they're wrong, LOL!)

 

[TwoSix]

I do not have your faith that there will still be a viable 5.5 audience once 6E gets announced/released... nor do I think WotC would "maintain" a 5.5 character builder and Maps functionality (mainly because I don't think they would be "sane" to use your parlance, LOL!) They might keep the 5.5 DDB servers up for a little while, but I would not foresee them using any resources to updating it with new material. They would throw all their resources in keeping a 6E DDB and Maps combo working (as that is what most people would be playing.

Now granted, this is entirely just personal speculation and I could be way off. We won't actually know until it eventually possibly comes up. And while I think your Classic WoW analogy is a good one... my rebuttal (as it is) would be that Activision- Blizzard is a much, much, much larger company fiscally-speaking than Wizards of the Coast, so they have the petty cash on hand to make all the Classic games and keep those realms up without much issue. I don't see WotC being able to match that myself.

The server load for something like Beyond is incredibly less than what is required for a MMO like WoW. Multiple orders of magnitude less.

Despite how WotC has made it look, it's not that hard to make a character builder. Hosting two versions is just a toggle switch on the page. Hell, I could code pretty large chunks of a 5e character builder, and I'm a crap developer.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I do not have your faith that there will still be a viable 5.5 audience once 6E gets announced/released...

But why not? To me that seems obviously ahistorical. People didn't abandon 3.5E when 4E appeared. Quite the contrary in fact - indeed the problem was WotC stopped supporting 3.5E leading people who wanted to keep going with it into the arms of Paizo.

Nor did people abandon 1E when 2E came out, and 4E seemed to have adherents for a number of years past 2014.

If we look at the DDI, it only got shut down in 2020. That was making them way, way, way less money and they kept it going for 6 years after 5E was released. Why would they be more suicidal this time?

nor do I think WotC would "maintain" a 5.5 character builder and Maps functionality (mainly because I don't think they would be "sane" to use your parlance, LOL!) They might keep the 5.5 DDB servers up for a little while, but I would not foresee them using any resources to updating it with new material. They would throw all their resources in keeping a 6E DDB and Maps combo working (as that is what most people would be playing.

Okay so your whole thing here is to assume WotC are (in my words) absolute morons who don't know how to run a business successfully.

Now, you can point to some evidence to support that conclusion I will admit! But mostly they've been pretty successful! I don't think they're dumber than Blizzard, say, and I don't think Blizzard are special super-smart guys.

They would throw all their resources in keeping a 6E DDB and Maps combo working (as that is what most people would be playing.

I don't think you understand how cheap it is to support stuff like this. It's really cheap. Like you would be astonished cheap. But fine, you think they're basically incompetent and so poor they can't do this, okay at least that explains things!

Again, I cannot 100% refute "incompetent" when they dropped at least several and perhaps tens of millions on the disaster that was the 3D VTT/Sigil. I guess I'm assuming they're less incompetent.

The trouble with your incompetence theory (again, cannot 100% refute it lol) is that if it's right, incompetent people never know they're incompetent nor understand how they're about screw themselves, so I don't think them being incompetent actually makes 6E any less likely. On a certain level it might even make it more likely!