Chris Cocks says it makes sense to move D&D to a "live service" model, but Hasbro will always make physical books

Chris Cocks isn't shy about plans to move Dungeons & Dragons to a more live service model of gaming. In a recent interview with GamesRadar, Cocks explicitly said that "it makes sense" for players to shift their mindset towards a live service due to the high amount of players using digital services, but assured the interviewer that books will still be produced by Hasbro. When asked if Wizards was moving away from books in favor of a more piecemeal release schedule, following the announcement of D&D Beyond's new Drops service. "Books will always be an important part of D&D," Cocks said. "It will always be kind of like a special totem that you can collect. I have a big bookshelf of D&D books myself."

"But we see what's happening – almost everyone who plays D&D uses D&D Beyond, like a super high percentage uses it," Cocks continued. "A very high percentage use Foundry VTT or Roll20, and so it just makes sense that you should start to migrate your thinking about the way you play to more of a live service where you don't have to wait 18 months for us to build a book. We can start to release components or aspects of that book over time, and you don't have to buy everything all at once. You can buy chapters or segments of it over time. That makes a ton of sense to me. That said we will still have big moments. We will still have like, 'hey, ta da, here's a huge campaign.' You can expect there'll be more around that, both from us and from all the creators in the world that can leverage a platform like D&D Beyond to share their content as well."

Broadly speaking, Dungeons & Dragons has always been a "live service" game, as the game's core business model involves continuously releasing new content in the form of new rulebooks or campaigns. However, it seems that Cocks is principally interested in shifting this model around more frequent releases. We'll note that the business model suggested by Cocks was already rolled out in a manner of speaking. The Dhampir species rules were released as a "digital DLC" for D&D Beyond subscribers who digitally ordered a Forgotten Realms book bundle, but a physical version of the rules are being released via the upcoming Ravenloft: The Horrors Within book. However, a la carte purchases were removed from D&D Beyond several years ago in order to force users to purchase entire books instead.

 

[Lazybones]

If smiteworks goes under, and you share the content of your privately backed up books that you bought with anyone, including your players, that's piracy.

I disagree. I reviewed the Smiteworks EULA (which is mercifully short), and there is nothing there that indicates your statement is true.

As for "sharing" WotC content on the service, the license explicitly permits a DM to share their purchased content with players, otherwise you would not be able to play at all (heck, even the DDB license allows that). I see nothing that says that permission only extends for as long as Smiteworks is a company. I know some companies put in mandatory software checks that go to the Internet to ask permission before running, but this software does not do that.

I suspect your next move might be to dig into the intricacies of copyright law to prove me wrong, but you can save your time; I don't care, and I have no desire to head down that road. If it makes you feel better, you can say you won this argument.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I suspect your next move might be to dig into the intricacies of copyright law to prove me wrong, but you can save your time; I don't care, and I have no desire to head down that road. If it makes you feel better, you can say you won this argument.

We are actually in agreement; neither of us care about the intricacies of copyright law, and do what we are comfortable with.

 

[mamba]

We have no way of knowing how many people own physical books and also have a DDB subscription. We also have no way of knowing how many people are subscribing primarily for DDB's character builder options rather than because they want all their content in DDB's format.

since subscribing does not get you content in DDB format (other than Drops), I assume most people either subscribe for the char builder (probably a few) or so they can share their separately purchased DDB content with others (probably most of the subscribers)

 

[Belen]

My dude you know you can literally highlight everything on DDB and save it locally as a word doc, right? To say nothing of the robust piracy network that automatically scrapes from their website. You don't have a problem with subscriptions, you have a problem with DRM in the abstract. But WotC is just straight up not using DRM and they seemingly don't care if you pirate. So your argument, that you can't get the information you want in the format you want on the schedule you want for the price you want is just straight up specious. I don't pay for DDB drops but I managed to get all them onto my harddrive and it took like, a minute.

This is illegal per their ToS. They could prosecute you for it.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

This is illegal per their ToS. They could prosecute you for it.

They would have to prove I agreed to their ToS first.

If I'm walking down the street and a guy hands me a printout of DDB spells, what liability do I have for reading them?

 

[abazaba]

They would have to prove I agreed to their ToS first.

If I'm walking down the street and a guy hands me a printout of DDB spells, what liability do I have for reading them?

Perhaps I'm wildly mistaken here, but: I don't think it works that way. The way I understand it, you do not first have to agree to the law before you can be held to it ?

But please correct me if I am misinterpreting or otherwise fail to understand the law here.

 

[Belen]

They would have to prove I agreed to their ToS first.

If I'm walking down the street and a guy hands me a printout of DDB spells, what liability do I have for reading them?

You agree to the ToS every time you purchase content, subscribe, or access the DDB site.

 

[Clint_L]

Is speeding not illegal if I don't agree with the posted limits? Excellent!

 

[bsss]

If your dislike of subscription models are based on practical considerations instead of ideology, and those practical considerations can be easily bypassed... yeah, that's a specious argument. If your argument is not based on practical considerations, I apologize for misinterpreting you... but then I have to ask what is actually bothering you if it's not "real"?

EDIT: I guess my argument is more "you know just because a corporation gives you a limited set of options, you're actually under no obligation to pick from them, right?" If you want D&D material, get some D&D material, don't let a corporation tell you how to use the data if they can't enforce it.

I firmly believe the gains of first-sale doctrine outcomes --- lending, libraries, secondary/second hand markets --- are practical good (and legal) beyond ideology, and that's what I dislike of subscription services (or, at least, digital subscription services, in that they don't produce a physical copy for you to lend/etc.). I can let my friends' kid borrow a bunch of D&D books (did it just 6-ish months ago) without jumping through any hoops or doing anything other than saying "sure, take the books", and I can pick up Super New Hotness Turbo from a used game store when it hits the price I want to pay for it after it's gone through a couple sets of hands. These are absolutely good things, I feel, and until the law catches up or the rights holders acquiesce and allow those activities across the board, digital subscriptions are a step down in consumer rights.

I agree with you on the "just because a corporation ..." part, though, absolutely --- I will just keep advocating for what I think is better, even if personally I'm thumbing my nose at the corp.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

You agree to the ToS every time you purchase content, subscribe, or access the DDB site.

Yeah, and what if I've never used DDB?