D&D General DDB/WOTC Price Increases

[AlViking]

price increases vary, not everything increases in lockstep with the overall inflation rate. If printing got cheaper then it makes sense for books to not get more expensive at the same rate.

In any case, we were talking about DDB I believe, and that just had a 33% price hike for the new book when chances are hosting stuff is not exactly getting more expensive and the cost goes down with volume, so if this price had anything to do with cost to WotC, it would be going down, not up.


they just increased the price by 33% yesterday, that is new


yes, and if I got a proper PDF along with the DDB access then the $10 price hike might even be fine, but right now it is just a price hike for providing the exact same service as they did before.

I know WotC won’t provide PDFs, I still will complain about that, just being quiet and accepting it never improved anything.


it looks nothing like the printed book, it looks like printing out a website, which basically is what you did

Not sure where you're getting a "33% increase", perhaps we're looking at different things. Because what I saw was more than just a book - and not all books are going to be priced the same depending on page count and other factors.

 

[Belen]

you just took it to a sad place, but it's the truth. The odds that my kids want my books - TTRPG or not - are pretty low. However, to protect against losing access to books (this has happened to me twice - once with books and once with music) - I've mostly gone to buying DRM-free books published by Tor or Humble Bundle. Sure, my hard drive could die. And my backups could die, too. And the servers I would need to access to get the books coudl be down....but that's a lot of things going wrong at once vs the whims of one company.

I only buy DRM-free books or books that allow me to download and store locally.

Kindle no longer allows you to access your books outside your Kindle or Kindle for PC app. Even your DRM-free books are locked away although I heard they made a small change there after a major uproar.

I never share my books with people outside my family. I still use my Kindle but I can never connect it to Wifi ever again (Amazon erases them now) and I use Calibre to manage my library.

 

[djotaku]

There are several books from previous editions I should still have but no longer do. No clue if they were loaned out and never returned, just lost in the shuffle of moving or accidentally tossed.

That does get us back on topic - with ddb, Roll20, etc - you can loan them without losing them!

 

[djotaku]

I only buy DRM-free books or books that allow me to download and store locally.

Kindle no longer allows you to access your books outside your Kindle or Kindle for PC app. Even your DRM-free books are locked away although I heard they made a small change there after a major uproar.

I never share my books with people outside my family. I still use my Kindle but I can never connect it to Wifi ever again (Amazon erases them now) and I use Calibre to manage my library.

Calibre is awesome. I added some extra columns for "fixed metadata" and "read" so that I can easily find books I haven't read (or that need the metadata to be fixed - different publishers are better or worse at that)

It's also great to convert between filetypes

 

[Clint_L]

Getting right back to the OP, the bundles are aimed at a particular subset of people: those who want both physical books and DDB access, so obviously place value in both. I am wondering how those folks see the offer.

DDB is obviously a considerable investment and expense for WotC, so I don't think expecting to get your books there for free is likely to happen; the question is whether they have correctly pegged the value.

 

[mamba]

Not sure where you're getting a "33% increase", perhaps we're looking at different things.

DDB ‘books’ cost $30, the new one costs $40, so $10 more, which is a 33% increase

 

[AlViking]

DDB ‘books’ cost $30, the new one costs $40, so $10 more, which is a 33% increase

I'm not seeing an across the board increase in prices in the marketplace, the core books are still $30 with several older books even lower. The only other digital book I see above $30 that WOTC publishes is Spelljammer. Was the Ravenloft book initially priced lower? The cost of development will also affect their expenses and even if it's didn't take more time to develop, there's still no reason to think they'd be immune to inflation.

I'm trying to understand the issue because I just don't see it based on looking through the marketplace.

edit - maybe it's because of my subscription, but my Ravenloft: The Horrors Within book lists for $34 so it's possible some of the other books are a tad over $30 because I'm seeing my discounted price

 

[mamba]

I'm not seeing an across the board increase in prices in the marketplace, the core books are still $30 with several older books even lower.

the new one costs $40, if you do not believe that this is the new baseline for books going forward I don’t know what to tell you

 

[djotaku]

Getting right back to the OP, the bundles are aimed at a particular subset of people: those who want both physical books and DDB access, so obviously place value in both. I am wondering how those folks see the offer.

DDB is obviously a considerable investment and expense for WotC, so I don't think expecting to get your books there for free is likely to happen; the question is whether they have correctly pegged the value.

Whether we're talking about ddb, Kobold Press, or Paizo, for me, the key is whether they price it to where I feel like I'm being dumb for not getting both. Back when I got the D&D 5e 2024 rules, I think it was $15 extra to get the combo, but each was ~$30ish on their own. So it felt dumb not to get both. Even now that I'm not using DDB anymore (I've moved on to Foundry since I'm a multi-system GM), I still got Keys from the Golden Vault as a combo because it felt dumb to not spend that little extra on the digital.

If nothing else, it's at least insurance if I ever go back to ddb - I got it at a deal. Plus there's Mr. Primate's ddb->Foundry conversion tool, so that helps. Although it's not as nice as a module developed directly for Foundry, it at least gets you the maps.

 

[Belen]

I'm not seeing an across the board increase in prices in the marketplace, the core books are still $30 with several older books even lower. The only other digital book I see above $30 that WOTC publishes is Spelljammer. Was the Ravenloft book initially priced lower? The cost of development will also affect their expenses and even if it's didn't take more time to develop, there's still no reason to think they'd be immune to inflation.

I'm trying to understand the issue because I just don't see it based on looking through the marketplace.

edit - maybe it's because of my subscription, but my Ravenloft: The Horrors Within book lists for $34 so it's possible some of the other books are a tad over $30 because I'm seeing my discounted price

The old physical + digital would have been book price + 10 for DDB. It is now + $15. That is a big increase.

Personally, it makes a difference since I am not likely to use a lot of 5.5 content.

I own everything on DDB and now I do not think I will keep it up any longer.

Hasbro has been raising prices and lowering quality across the board so I may also just be getting to the point where I am getting pushed too far.