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.

 

[AlViking]

that they do not do PDFs is not my problem, it is theirs (in that it is fast becoming the reason why I will not buy anything from them any more).

Reprinting it in books could be an option, up to them to decide

I hope they take a look at how often the options are used and add it to a book someday, similar to what they did with some of the stuff in Dragon magazine.

As far as the PDF for whatever reason it's not an option for WOTC so ... not an option. But whatever, I don't want to argue about it. I was just curious if people could explain what they thought would be a better option other than the ubiquitous "PDFs solve all problems."

 

[jayoungr]

DDB is not pushed as the default. WotC is putting more resources into it to make it a more attractive option, which makes sense as it is a very popular service for them.

But there is no default, in reality or perception.

I don't know how else to read "move to a 'live service' model."

 

[saviirkad]

Proof? I followed it closely at the time and that never surfaced in my sphere.

It was part of the original story as it broke that very quickly got lost in the reactions. I even remember the article writer fighting a losing battle correcting people about that on Twitter, but Twitter is an impossible site to search without having an account, and I no longer do. Which sucks, because one of the more clear examples was when someone at KS talked on Twitter about how KS itself was portrayed in the OGL. It was pointed out that while they were approached prior to the leaked draft, they were also aware of later revisions.

First example I could find is this Gizmodo article, where it's pointed out that one, it was a draft and not a final document, and two, that this draft was aiming for an acceptance and go live date that at the time of the article's posting had already passed.

Wizards had already moved on from it and had another draft. However, public perception had fixated on the leaked draft being final, and so it was assumed the draft actually current at the time was a course correction from the public reaction. The later shift to Creative Commons was, but that hadn't happened yet.

There was that awkward stage where Wizards first reacted to and addressed the news before where the public outcry had shifted towards. Hence the comments of you won and so did we and saying it's now the public's responsibility to protect D&D, since part of their intended OGL update was to address other recent public demands that they take a stronger hand at that.

 

[FrogReaver]

It was part of the original story as it broke that very quickly got lost in the reactions. I even remember the article writer fighting a losing battle correcting people about that on Twitter, but Twitter is an impossible site to search without having an account, and I no longer do. Which sucks, because one of the more clear examples was when someone at KS talked on Twitter about how KS itself was portrayed in the OGL. It was pointed out that while they were approached prior to the leaked draft, they were also aware of later revisions.

First example I could find is this Gizmodo article, where it's pointed out that one, it was a draft and not a final document, and two, that this draft was aiming for an acceptance and go live date that at the time of the article's posting had already passed.

Wizards had already moved on from it and had another draft. However, public perception had fixated on the leaked draft being final, and so it was assumed the draft actually current at the time was a course correction from the public reaction. The later shift to Creative Commons was, but that hadn't happened yet.

There was that awkward stage where Wizards first reacted to and addressed the news before where the public outcry had shifted towards. Hence the comments of you won and so did we and saying it's now the public's responsibility to protect D&D, since part of their intended OGL update was to address other recent public demands that they take a stronger hand at that.

The only concrete evidence you’ve provided here is the Gizmodo article, which was the original story as I recall. That article was written on Jan 5, 2023 and describes a leaked OGL draft dated mid‑December 2022, with an intended go‑live date of Jan 4, 2023 and terms fully in effect Jan 13, 2023.

Given that timeline, the article doesn’t show that the draft was already abandoned or that Wizards had moved on from it before the leak. The simplest explanation is that they were simply late, especially given how tight the release window already was. If you have a source that directly supports the claim that they had already abandoned this draft for another having substantially different terms - I’d be interested in seeing it, especially one available publicly at the time, given the concern you mentioned about public perception fixating on the leaked draft.

The Gizmodo article itself says: "io9’s source indicated that the final version of the document was originally intended for release on January 4, which would have given companies and creators seven business days to agree and comply." That line supports the idea that Wizards missed their intended release date, not that they had moved on to a different draft.

To me, the biggest textual indicator that they hadn’t already abandoned it is that Wizards never publicly said so. If they had already moved on, that would have been PR 101 to mention, and it’s completely absent from their messaging.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't know how else to read "move to a 'live service' model."

It already was for decades. They are just trying to offer more content for a sub set of customers. Even if you use Beyond a sub is not required for a good deal of it’s content, like using the books.

 

[mamba]

It already was for decades. They are just trying to offer more content for a sub set of customers. Even if you use Beyond a sub is not required for a good deal of it’s content, like using the books.

they offered one for a few years now, but ‘move to’ clearly means to go further in that direction and not to keep things as they are

 

[Alzrius]

Right. Same old "they disagree with me, so I'm going to mischaracterize their position".

And yet you made no objection to this post which did the same thing. Funny, it's almost as if your opposition to mischaracterization is based on which position is being mischaracterized, rather than being a blanket commitment to the truth.

WotC can do wrong, and has done wrong, and will likely do wrong again. It's an organization run by humans, after all, rather than our lizard-people overlords.

You make it sound as if "wrong" is a blunder, something they didn't mean to do. I suppose you could look at things that way, but there's a point where the consistency of it seems to suggest that those aren't blunders, but reflection of (upper management's) corporate culture. You don't seem to think they've hit the point of things being that telling? Fair enough; I (and others) do.

Could they do better with DDB? I think so.

But better for who?

Is the current news about DDB and online D&D products "wrong"? Well you think so. I don't. Here we are.

Which doesn't speak to what my post that you quoted was noting, which is that there's an air of toxic defensiveness around the group of people who reliably object to other people taking issue with WotC's actions, one which is all the more ironic (to be charitable) by the fact that they claim the people who don't like those actions are the toxic ones.

 

[SothFan]

It already was for decades

How?

 

[jayoungr]

PDFs, collecting them into a book every once in a while

They don't do PDFs.

WotC does do PDF-only releases of short supplements (mostly adventures). They just don't release PDFs of their hardback books.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

How?

You only need the core books to play. Every other supplementary book is just extra, and fills the same purpose as live service updates