D&D General Is D&D Beyond Exclusivity Bad for D&D?

[Echohawk]

All I remember is approximately 2 dozen printer pages of errata people would talk about having stuck in their books because of how often WotC did make errata.

Two dozen and then some! The final compiled "Rules Update" document for 4e, publish in August 2012, is 140 pages. (The Player's Handbook accounted for 27 of those pages, which is probably where the "two dozen" comes from.)

 

[Reynard]

Speculative conspiracy theories serve no value. They haven't. You can argue they might one day, but they might not and unless you access to reliable time travel or precognition, both outcomes have equal chances of happening.

If you want to argue about the value of D&D Exclusivity NOW, you should probably keep the situation as it currently is rather than speculate on worst case scenarios...

Are you suggesting that WotC has never removed items that folks have paid for. @SlyFlourish had a whole post upthread detailing the stuff they already have eliminated.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I find that I am bothered by the potential of it - where I fear that it might lead - but I'm not bothered by the reality of it - where it actually is.

As a FLGS Retailer, it naturally annoys me when content is made exclusive for DDB (they're cutting me out) but that part isn't quite as bad as, say, the digital-physical bundles (they're cutting me out) which are much more common.

However, as long as they continue to produce product that I can sell, they are doing more good than harm. IF that changes, well...

(And they have been insisting that they plan to, if anything, do better with supporting us FLGSes, so it also depends on what that ends up looking like).

 

[Umbran]

Speculative conspiracy theories serve no value. They haven't. You can argue they might one day, but they might not and unless you access to reliable time travel or precognition, both outcomes have equal chances of happening.

Please see Marvel Comics' "Civil War 2" (2016) or Phillip K. Dick's "The Minority Report" (1956) for more information.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

mostly likely 6E is like, 1-4 years away at this point.

I'd have "liked" your post, because I agree with much of it, but this... This is absolutely left field.

 

[Stalker0]

I can sum up this thread pretty simply.


1) Streaming brings a lot of concerns. The idea of ongoing payments and "owning your stuff", etc. Not a new problem, but a sentiment the consumers across many products have been wrestling with for a while.

2) WOTC would be an idiot not to do this. All the big names are going streaming, from a business standpoint its just a slam dunk. Getting a nice consistent cash revenue is literally business gold.

If WOTC is serious about making 5e the evergreen edition, and getting off the treadmill of mandatory editions every X years to stay profitable...this is how you do that.

 

[AlViking]

Are you suggesting that WotC has never removed items that folks have paid for. @SlyFlourish had a whole post upthread detailing the stuff they already have eliminated.

Have things that people paid for been removed? The old D&D site was closed* and of course the Silverlight site was shut down when Silverlight was no longer supported but in that case they sold the service not the books.

I reread the post but I don't see where paid content went away other than a service built on unsupported software.

*the files are still available elsewhere.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Have things that people paid for been removed?

Yes.

 

[ART!]

I will not obscure my opinion: Beyond exclusitvity is bad, full stop. It is a crass bludgeon meant to drive people to that platform, and it stinks of the enshittification of D&D.

It is definitely part of your basic enshittification process.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I am of the opinion that anything online that someone spends money on is something that person knows they are "renting" not "buying". So if (general) you spend money on a subscription to DDB and spend money to access D&D books through DDB... you are doing so knowing that at some point in the future there is a possibility that you will lose access to it. But that's part of the cost of doing business wanting to use DDB, and people do it because the money they spend for the time they DO have access to all of it will have been worth it in the end. And for those that don't want to... (general) you don't HAVE to use DDB if the idea of "renting" things bothers you, which is exactly why a lot of (general) you don't. And that's great! You have chosen not to go into this particular line of product acquisition.

But that means that yes... there will thus be D&D things you will not be able to get for yourself. But that's already true, because as I said upthread, you are already not getting all manner of D&D material. Now yes... there is the difference in that (general) you aren't getting most of that D&D material because you have made the choice not to get it (in book form, from DMs Guild, or whatever/wherever), and in the case of these exclusives it because you don't have access to them (and thus don't have a choice in the matter.) But I still think nobody is actually losing out... because the material being released would have to be of such a high quality that missing out on it actually was a problem or hardship. But it's not. It's all just another piece of product. No different than the others thousands of pieces of product (general) you also aren't getting. So I personally do not feel you are being kicked in the shins about this or anything, and I venture WotC doesn't either.

If (general) you want new D&D material... buy any of the thousands of pieces you don't have yet that you can easily pick up. You don't have to have these specific pieces and they aren't so great or important that it's an issue that you can't.