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

[AlViking]

What? Archiving has squat-all to do with continuing sales.

This is an area in which the digital world has failed to keep up with the implications of its own development.

With print works, archival libraries could purchase or receive donation of a copy of a work, and preserve it for future cultural reference, without the publisher's involvement.

When you don't sell physical media, the archivists of the world need your cooperation to save your cultural legacy.

I suppose it is possible that there is an archive of Dragon and Dungeon magazines out there somewhere, that doesn't mean it's accessible to much of anyone or that it has any significant value. I was also able to find old articles from those magazines on an archive site with a minute or so of searching, although admittedly I have no way of knowing they're comprehensive.

It doesn't change anything. The company that produced the publication is not responsible for archiving old copies and the amount of information generated on the internet that will be available in 10 years is a tiny percentage of what's produced. Meanwhile 99% of what WOTC is producing now is still available in print for that someday archivist to look at. Even if it is an issue it is in no way limited to WOTC and I don't see why they should be held to a higher standard than anyone else.

 

[AlViking]

I suspect the Internet will somehow survive getting suck into this black hole of the D&D Beyond website and program.

But ... but ... DDB could be sending out nanobots to annihilate my PHB gathering dust on my shelf right now as we speak! I'll be forced to use a resource that's significantly more convenient, flexible and time saving! How will I ever survive!

 

[Distracted DM]

You also have to corner the market otherwise when the enshitification happens they just go to a competitor.

This is just incorrect. There can be alternatives, but if you're one of the go-to's for the industry (which is one of the steps of enshittification; making yourself a standard for the industry) you can absolutely enshittify- see: Amazon, Uber/Eats, Google search, Reddit, Unity.

Perhaps we just disagree on what "cornering the market" means. I took you to mean it somewhat seriously, as in acquiring enough weight to control the market, but you may use a looser version of it.

 

[AlViking]

This isn't about WotC's obligations, it's about the net effect of their choices. Those items would be easier to archive, etc. if the content wasn't DDB-exclusive and locked behind the terms of service.

Or is this another attempt to assert that no one should care to do that archival effort because you don't? Because, again, preservationists care about it all. Everything they can get their hands on. They're the ones that care about Licensed Sports Shovelware Jank '98 ROMs, or scanning every newspaper clipping from the 1900s to create a historical record of the residents of a town of 1,000 people. To suggest something that reads like "well I think the content is worthless to history, everyone should just accept that" is to shut your opinion out of the discussion.

If it's not an obligation of WOTC to maintain the archive, why is it a problem if they do not?

 

[Maxperson]

But if something is labeled pre-release then it's kind of right there in the label. It's kind of like saying I don't have the book I originally purchased because errata was applied - technically true but not really a bad thing.

Without a single example I'm not going to speculate on whether or not I'd change my mind because it feels like a trick question just setting up a gotcha.

They did it in 2009 with PDFs, and tried again just a year or two ago when 5.5e came out. They announced that they were going to eliminate 5e stuff paid for on DDB, but the backlash was huge and they had to walk it back and allow legacy stuff.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

I suspect the Internet will somehow survive getting suck into this black hole of the D&D Beyond website and program.

Lol, did you miss the point being made on purpose?

 

[bsss]

If it's not an obligation of WOTC to maintain the archive, why is it a problem if they do not?

Because entities other than WotC exist? This goes right back to my "bad for D&D, the brand/product" vs. "bad for the community around D&D" post.

 

[mamba]

No... not right now. Once 6E gets released. At that point... a huge number of people are going to stop using most of (if not all) of their 5E stuff

right now 99% already do not care, that number will go slightly up from there with 6e. Not sure that an increase of less than 1% pushes it over the threshold

Do you disagree with that? What makes you think most people are feeling any sense of loss that there were any number of black and white silent films lost to the sands of time?

I disagree with the premise that 99% not caring is a good metric to use

 

[saviirkad]

DDB is not only bad for D&D, but bad for the Internet as a whole. It is a horribly run site with zero care for the users and how the site actually is used. I have quit play D&D because of DDB it takes far more from the game than it adds and every one wants to use it but it just stalls the game. I want to play D&D, not DDB.

I can empathize if that's been your experience with D&D Beyond, but for me it's been the opposite. D&D Beyond lets me play D&D, not "guess what the hell this smudge means." It's sped up play by making abilities and actions more accessible and orderly. Searching for what to do on D&D Beyond has been faster than on paper, with outliers that can be more easily explained as D&D Beyond reminds me of what I would have forgotten on paper.

I haven't had a single aspect worsened by D&D Beyond, up to and including personal archival. I've got younger character sheets on paper than on D&D Beyond that are beyond repair or legibility, for some reason or another. I've also got older sheets that are still legible; not making a blanket statement about the failings of paper, just an observation about some.

 

[TheSword]

This is just incorrect. There can be alternatives, but if you're one of the go-to's for the industry (which is one of the steps of enshittification; making yourself a standard for the industry) you can absolutely enshittify- see: Amazon, Uber/Eats, Google search, Reddit, Unity.

Perhaps we just disagree on what "cornering the market" means. I took you to mean it somewhat seriously, as in acquiring enough weight to control the market, but you may use a looser version of it.

I do mean it that way. I just don’t think Beyond is anywhere near cornering the market in the way you have described those other companies, when there is also Foundry, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Owlbear Rodeo, hard copy books and character sheets and by all accounts millions of home users.