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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 9435976" data-attributes="member: 2525">That was sort of a clever linguistic shift there. I didn't say you complained about ala-carte purchases. I said you complained about the microtransactions.I think you and some others view ala-carte purchases of that sort as "not microtransactions." I think however WOTC views them as microtransactions, I think they fit most common definitions of microtransactions, I think many people did view them as such and described them as such here and elsewhere. If we can assume, for the sake of argument, that both WOTC and a meaningful number of people (but not all) viewed those ala-carte purchases as microtransactions, does my argument that I think the people complaining about microtransactions didn't help the cause to keep those things at DNDBeyond make sense? I think the argument about PDFs is sometimes specious and based frequently (but not always) on a several false premises. First I see people compare WOTC to other TTRPG companies that use PDFs. Those other companies are tiny compared to D&D though in terms of quantity of sales and revenue. I think a primary reason those companies use PDFs is because they literally cannot conceive of being able to afford to build the kind of digital access system that is DNDBeyond. Even WOTC had to buy an entire company to make it happen, and had struggled for years trying to do it before that. Those smaller companies use PDFs because that's what they can afford to provide their consumers, and then make the best of it in their marketing pitches to consumers.Second, you can create a legal PDF of the books you buy on DNDBeyond, though it takes some extra steps, so it's not really about "losing the books I've bought if they ever pull it!" If that were truly the biggest barrier to a DNDBeyond account those people making such an argument would have overcome it long ago if they really wanted a digital version of those books at that price. Heck, if that were the real barrier someone would have put together software to print to PDF each chapter of a book and then combine it all back together again with a single click - something that's not all that hard to program if there were serious demand for that service.WOTC responds with real change to people complain about something when it's 1) a frequent complaint, AND, 2) they can see money isn't being spent by consumers on that thing. But DNDBeyond is seeing massive revenue for WOTC. So they're not seeing #2, and I don't think they ever will. However, I think they did see the ala-carte purchases were relatively small and decreasing over time, pared with microtransaction complaints. And they were seeing DNDBeyond subscriptions go down, pared with complaints about what was being threatened with the OGL. So they responded to those later complaints with change.I think the reason WOTC isn't responding to the PDF complaints is DNDBeyond provides a better service than a PDF. PDFs are old technology (32 years old now). It's outdated relative to the more modern presentations of digital information. It doesn't present well on a phone and most uses of digital information go through a phone now. It doesn't allow the high levels and ease of interconnectedness of information and searching that modern consumers are used to these days when consuming text based information. PDFs are the equivalent to a DVD in a world dominated by Streaming. Sure, some subset of consumers like PDFs like they like DVDs, but most modern audiences prefer what DNDBeyond offers in flexibility and immediacy and interconnected data and presentation on their phone or other devices, like they prefer the on-demand nature and presentation on any device (even lacking a DVD player) and overall ease of Streaming.And it shows in the purchasing behavior of WOTCs consumer base. People like DNDBeyond. If I had to guess, there is more money-motivated consumer pressure on WOTC to make a 3e version of DNDBeyond, than there is money-motivated consumer pressure on WOTC to make PDFs of 5e. Indeed, I don't know this for a fact it's purely speculation, but I would not be at all surprised if Paizo raised the question internally of what would happen if WOTC started to use the OGL to support Pathfinder core rules on DNDBeyond. And further, what would happen if WOTC started to convert their 5e adventures to Pathfinder on DNDBeyond as well. I cannot say for certain this was one motivating factor behind Paizo first moving to 2e, and then moving to the ORC license version of 2e. But I can say that the ORC license version of 2e is less open than 1e Pathfinder was, and less vulnerable to what I just described.</blockquote>

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