D&D General Interview with D&D VP Jess Lanzillo on Comicbook.com

[Dire Bare]

No you didn't. You licensed access to content they own. You should read that license agreement you agreed to.

If SmiteWorks goes Poof, nothing happens to all those FG products you bought that are on your computer. You still have them.

Just like that hard copy book you might buy instead. Except it's much easier to secure your digital FG book than it will ever be to secure a print copy. I can backup my digital copies free to various online systems like Drive etc. Can give my backup to a family member who lives in a different house. Then if my house ever burns down, is flooded, or caught in a tornado I have 2 places to recover from. If I want to do the same with a physical book, I have to buy three copies of it.

While I do have some Fantasy Grounds titles, I've never really used the app. It's my understanding that the digital format of the books on Fantasy Grounds requires the app. Unlike, say a PDF.

If Fantasy Grounds the company goes poof, and they still have a downloadable version of their app . . . then yes, you still have those books. Until eventually the app no longer works with future computers. I'm pretty sure I can't get Master Tools (the official 3E app) to work on my Windows 11 device . . . that sort of thing.

Again, not worried about it, and SmiteWorks has pledged to honor book purchases after a future, hypothetical, demise of their company . . . but the Fantasy Grounds format doesn't travel like a PDF or EPUB.

 

[Reynard]

I appreciate false equivalency as much as anyone so well done.

So, just to be clear, you are backpedaling from your original statement?

 

[TiQuinn]

Okay.

When WotC finally reveals their secret, evil plan . . . I'll worry about it then.

You don’t have to worry about it at all. Just maybe stop telling other people who do care to stop caring.

 

[SlyFlourish]

They could . . . yeah.

When there is evidence that they will, that's when I'll start to worry.

Lots of things could happen.

Some of those things are happening right now or already did happen

 

[Distracted DM]

This feels like misdirection.

Never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.

 

[mamba]

"I'm a big fan of being able to provide play experiences to people any way they want to play them," Lanzillo continued. […]

"I just think it's all part of the same ecosystem”

sounds pretty ok to me

 

[mamba]

I have recently had a change of heart and am trying to embrace WotC and 5E and be super positive and not sarcastic as all, so that others won't be so negative in response to my perceived negativity. 2+2=5.

sounds like you need to work on it some more

 

[mamba]

You know what's funny is I probably would use DDB more if they gave me a digital copy for free with a physical purchase. Get me in the door WotC and I might spend money on your storefront. Heck just do it for the Core 3.

they almost do, you get the book at full price and the digital for $10 instead of $30

 

[Mistwell]

D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

From the original post:


And there were other participants in that lengthy thread making the case that WotC's secret plan was to do away with physical books within the next X years.

We've had a few folks in this thread claim that "no one is saying" WotC will stop publishing physical books, so countering that argument is setting up a "strawman to defend WotC". The thing is, people have made that exact argument, multiple times, on these very boards!

The RPG Pundit, who was a consultant on 5e 2014, released a video earlier this week where he directly alleges not just that he thinks WOTC will eliminate books, but that this prediction has already been proven 100% right and that WOTC admitted to eliminating books. I believe he thinks the "admission" is is WOTC saying they are going "all-in" on digital and assigning tons more money specifically for digital.

The RPG Pundit is wrong of course. Like he usually is. But his voice received quite the list of agreement from some OSR fans of his. So yeah, it's not a strawman, there is a distinct crowd making these claims right now.

 

[Mistwell]

The rest of your post raises several reasonable concerns, but I just wanted to address one point, regarding D&D Insider (for 4e). No one bought anything on DDI; you paid for access. When DDI went away, did it suck for people who might've wanted to continue playing 4e? Absolutely. But you didn't lose anything you had paid to own. (Any characters you had made could be exported to PDF, so those could be retained.)

D&D Beyond is a whole different story. I've actually purchased things on DDB. If WotC ever discontinues paid content on DDB without allowing a way to keep an offline digital copy (which isn't available today), there'd be hell to pay.

You can print books on D&D Beyond to PDF. It's one chapter at a time so you then need to use a free tool to combine all chapters into one PDF, but you can currently make PDFs from your D&D Beyond content with print to PDF.