D&D Beyond Cancellations Changed WotCs Plans

Gizmodo has revealed that the partial OGL v1.1 walkback yesterday was in response to the fan campaign to cancel D&D Beyond subscriptions, with "five digits" worth of cancellations. However, the site also reveals that management at the company believed that fans were overreating and that it would all be forgotten in a few months.

In order to delete a D&D Beyond account entirely, users are funneled into a support system that asks them to submit tickets to be handled by customer service: Sources from inside Wizards of the Coast confirm that earlier this week there were “five digits” worth of complaining tickets in the system. Both moderation and internal management of the issues have been “a mess,” they said, partially due to the fact that WotC has recently downsized the D&D Beyond support team.

Yesterday's walkback removed the royalties from the license, but still 'de-authorized' the OGL v1.0a, something which may or may not be legally possible, depending on who you ask.

Cancelled D&D Beyond Subscriptions Forced Hasbro's Hand

Swift consumer action prompted Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast to to scrap licensing updates. The players aren't done yet.

gizmodo.com

 

[Haplo781]

They need to bite the bullet and just make 6e different enough to wall off.

4e:

 

[Haplo781]

D&D is absolutley a brand - it had brand recognition, the most important aspect of it.

A friend of mine used to work for GE Capital back in the 90s or early 200os. There was a poll about which brands you trusted for gas stoves, and GE did fairly well. The interesting point - they didn't make gas stoves. But the brand was so strong for kitchen that they scored well regardless of literally having nothing.

D&D has brand out the wazoo. Perhaps more than anything else - if any of the D&D rulesets under WotC had come out as a different RPG, it would likely have done well as a solid ruleset, but wouldn't be the undisputed market leader that most of the editions have been.

Is it a brand or is it a community?

During the 4e years "D&D" was Pathfinder for a lot of people.

 

[Maxperson]

They should rename this thread "what does 5 digits mean".

Isn't it how many fingers you have on one hand?

 

[Maxperson]

No, it’s the only reasonable one, a casual player is one who plays casually, isn’t too invested, could just stop participating in the hobby whenever. Someone getting a bunch of third party stuff is almost certainly beyond that point. Whether it’s third party stuff you would like or think is serious is kind of irrelevant. They’re invested in the game.

I’m sure there’s exceptions of a casual player just getting a book but still not being that invested, and there’s definitely serious players who buy little. But in general, this is what the suits are talking about when they say D&D is under-monetized. Bunch of people playing but not paying.

I'm with @Ruin Explorer on this one. Your definition of casual is too narrow. A casual player who buys Tasha's and/or Xanathar's, or even a few 3PP products to get some more PC options is not suddenly a hardcore player.

As an example, I was a casual bowlers, but I thought the personal bowling balls looked a lot neater than the ones at the lanes, so I bought one and had it sized for me. I still didn't bowl more than once every two or three months, but when I did I took my bowling ball to the lane and used it. I was still a casual bowler, despite having my own bowling ball.

 

[raniE]

I'm with @Ruin Explorer on this one. Your definition of casual is too narrow. A casual player who buys Tasha's and/or Xanathar's, or even a few 3PP products to get some more PC options is not suddenly a hardcore player.

As an example, I was a casual bowlers, but I thought the personal bowling balls looked a lot neater than the ones at the lanes, so I bought one and had it sized for me. I still didn't bowl more than once every two or three months, but when I did I took my bowling ball to the lane and used it. I was still a casual bowler, despite having my own bowling ball.

Buying your own bowling ball seems more equivalent to buying a PHB to me.

 

[Maxperson]

Buying your own bowling ball seems more equivalent to buying a PHB to me.

You should go bowling sometime and see how many people(casual bowlers) own a bowling ball. You'll be lucky if you can find a single one. The vast majority of casual people, myself included having lost the ball years ago, use balls off the shelf that the bowling alley provides. It's the serious bowlers who buy them.

 

[MockingBird]

and what happens when they take the servers off line someday?

Isn't that the risk with any digital content? I rarely buy digital, I buy physical things (games, books etc)mostly when I can cause I like to collect.

 

[raniE]

Isn't that the risk with any digital content? I rarely buy digital, I buy physical things (games, books etc)mostly when I can cause I like to collect.

Not really. Anything digital you can store locally is more secure than a physical book. I have my game PDFs on my hard drive and backed up to dropbox and many of them sitting on my drivethru account. Ok, drivethru closes. Doesn't matter, I still have the files on dropbox and stored locally. Dropbox suffers a huge catastrophic failure, that's ok, I still have the files locally and on Drivethru. My computer crashes and everything is wiped. Doesn't matter, I still have the files on Drivethru and Dropbox. So three things have to go down at the same time for me to lose my digital files (otherwise I can just re-back them up). On the other hand, if I spill a glass of water on a book it's ruined, and if my apartment burns down that's all my physical books gone.

 

[Imaro]

and what happens when they take the servers off line someday?

I think the plan is for this to be an evergreen edition, thus the servers wouldn't go down someday. How long has WoW been up and running, I think about 20 years... the question is what level of monetization does it take to sustain D&D to the point where it (and its tools) can become truly evergreen...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Isn't that the risk with any digital content? I rarely buy digital, I buy physical things (games, books etc)mostly when I can cause I like to collect.

Yeah, it is the risk with anything digital.