D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

[Argyle King]

I'm not anti-playing online when need be.
I simply prefer in-person and spending actual time with my friends.

I've never had DDB because (for me personally,) I didn't feel it offered the experience that I wanted.

Plenty of people do want it. For those people, I hope that what it offers makes them happy.

Hypothetically, if I were working for an evil corporation and trying to monetize physical product while pushing digital, I might consider some way of scanning physical product so that a purchaser then gets the digital version of the product on their DDB. I might also make some content rare, like how some Magic cards are.

So, perhaps you buy a pack of minis, cards, or whatever. In the case of minis, you can scan the minis and get digital versions. Maybe there is a special mini in 1 out of 100 booster packs of minis; scanning that mini unlocks the digital version as well as whatever special magic item the mini has.

I'm not saying that's an idea that should happen. Also, I just thought of that while typing this response, so take that for whatever little it may be worth. However, I could see something similar being a starting point from which a company builds digital sales while also creating a reason that people would still want to seek out and purchase physical product.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

for now it does not make sense, I am not saying they will do so in 2025

It doesn’t make even slight sense considering their actions since buying Beyond. Introducing the physical digital bundles and earlier this year bring back early access for game stores.

 

[Oofta]

I'd be interested in seeing how physical books have increased/deceased over the years. Amazon pulling weight?

...

There's a whole thread on sales. Basically it's been selling very well and continues to sell well, it's currently #290 out of all books they sell. So an estimated 5,000 copies in a month. It varies but it's often been around 200 or even higher when on sale.

So it's selling quite well for a 10 year old book.

 

[mamba]

It doesn’t make even slight sense considering their actions since buying Beyond. Introducing the physical digital bundles and earlier this year bring back early access for game stores.

eh, milk it while you can... as I said, this is not something they will do in 2025

 

[MonsterEnvy]

eh, milk it while you can... as I said, this is not something they will do in 2025

Or in this decade I am pretty sure.

 

[Oofta]

Or in this decade I am pretty sure.

Likely not ever. At least not as long as physical books are being sold and D&D is a thing. I just don't see the logic behind it.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Physical media is how WotC makes most of their money, you are assuming too hard. Nothing is even suggesting they want to get rid of their physical books.

DND Beyond has way, way higher margins than physical books. WotC would love it if everyone would stop buying physical books (plus they can basically become like Steam by selling more and more 3rd party content).
I imagine DND will slowly continue to transition more towards digital only. They'll probably offer more and more digital exclusives or goodies over time to push things in that direction. Eventually books will probably become more of a collectors edition type of thing. That's still probably a ways off though.

 

[Oofta]

DND Beyond has way, way higher margins than physical books. WotC would love it if everyone would stop buying physical books (plus they can basically become like Steam by selling more and more 3rd party content).
I imagine DND will slowly continue to transition more towards digital only. They'll probably offer more and more digital exclusives or goodies over time to push things in that direction. Eventually books will probably become more of a collectors edition type of thing. That's still probably a ways off though.

Gotta love these assertions. Servers and infrastructure are not free. Maintenance is not free, just translating rules into the database that drives DDB has a cost.

Meanwhile once it's set up, printing is fairly cheap and shipping is the biggest cost. All the rules, the art, the text in either format? Those costs are shared.

Just because DDB is (presumably) profitable we have no reason to believe the books are not also profitable.

There's zero evidence that they will stop printing books.

 

[mamba]

Gotta love these assertions. Servers and infrastructure are not free. Maintenance is not free, just translating rules into the database that drives DDB has a cost.

sure, it still results in a higher profit margin than books do

Meanwhile once it's set up, printing is fairly cheap and shipping is the biggest cost. All the rules, the art, the text in either format? Those costs are shared.

printing may be fairly cheap, but the $50 at the FLGS or bookstore, how much of that goes to the store and how much to WotC. The part going to WotC probably is already less than they get from digital

Just because DDB is (presumably) profitable we have no reason to believe the books are not also profitable.

no one said the books are not profitable

Do you think WotC would rather sell you the PHB as a book or on DDB? If your answer is DDB, you know the direction WotC wants to steer customers in

 

[Remathilis]

Or in this decade I am pretty sure.

There is going to have to be a major change in how digital media is consumed across the whole spectrum before such a change comes to D&D.