D&D 5E (2014) Monsters of the Multiverse as Piecemeal content?

[Professor Murder]

So yeah,

Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

A bestiary of wondrous friends and foes for the world’s greatest roleplaying game

www.dndbeyond.com

Offering the features purely as individual downloads. Every Race. Every monster. Everything.

I'm taken aback by such a blundering cash grab. Thankful people can still just buy the whole book.

 

[LordEntrails]

DDB has always done this. Go look at the PHB, MM, etc.
FG did this with the core 3 books years ago at the beginning, but found that it wasn't used much by the community and was annoying to maintain so they gave it up long ago. (It's easier to maintain in DDB due to architecture.)

From a player perspective it is nice; I only want the stuff for a 'firblog twilight cleric' so I only have to buy those parts. Agree that for a DM, it makes no sense.

 

[Professor Murder]

Well wow. Pardon my ignorance. I'm gobsmacked.

 

[Jer]

Offering the features purely as individual downloads. Every Race. Every monster. Everything.

I'm taken aback by such a blundering cash grab. Thankful people can still just buy the whole book.

I'm confused. How is offering the book both as a whole book and as collections of similar things and as individual items a "cash grab"? It seems more like it's breaking out the offerings to maximize options for the folks who literally only want 1 or 2 things out of the book but don't want to pay $30 to get access to that one thing.

(I mean I guess it's a cash grab in the same way that a movie theater offering cheaper seats on Sunday mornings is a cash grab, but it seems weird to characterize either of those that way...)

 

[Professor Murder]

I'm confused. How is offering the book both as a whole book and as collections of similar things and as individual items a "cash grab"? It seems more like it's breaking out the offerings to maximize options for the folks who literally only want 1 or 2 things out of the book but don't want to pay $30 to get access to that one thing.

(I mean I guess it's a cash grab in the same way that a movie theater offering cheaper seats on Sunday mornings is a cash grab, but it seems weird to characterize either of those that way...)

A more apt analogy is if the theatre, instead of charging $15 for a full, two hour movie, was willing to charge you "just" $5 for the most exciting 15 minutes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So yeah,

Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

A bestiary of wondrous friends and foes for the world’s greatest roleplaying game

www.dndbeyond.com

Offering the features purely as individual downloads. Every Race. Every monster. Everything.

I'm taken aback by such a blundering cash grab. Thankful people can still just buy the whole book.

So, not only has this always been how DDB works, and not only is it no more of a cash grab than selling the whole book, if you buy 10$ worth of individual bits from a book, and then later buy the whole book, you only pay the difference.

So...definitely not any kind of cash grab. Just a good deal for people who don't want the whole book.

 

[Jer]

A more apt analogy is if the theatre, instead of charging $15 for a full, two hour movie, was willing to charge you "just" $5 for the most exciting 15 minutes.

Ok, if you want to go that way they're still selling you the whole movie for $15 if you want to see it.

So it's really just a service for the folks who only want to watch the action scenes and don't want to spend the 2 hours watching the whole movie for them? If you don't like the price they're charging piecemeal you can still buy the whole book and if you don't want to spend that much you can buy it piecemeal. That seems like the opposite of a "cash grab" by any definition I'm familiar with.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A more apt analogy is if the theatre, instead of charging $15 for a full, two hour movie, was willing to charge you "just" $5 for the most exciting 15 minutes.

Not even remotely comparable. No one actually wants just the most exciting 15 minutes. People do want just 1 or 2 things, without having to purchase the whole thing.

The closest I can imagine with a movie theater is if you could pay 100$ to get a "series ticket" that lets you see the next 10 marvel movies, but you could also just pay the normal price per ticket to see individual marvel movies.

Or maybe charge $2 to see a short clip, and take that 2$ off if you then buy a ticket to see the show, but even then the value of that short clip is vastly less than the value of getting the one race you care about from the book on DDB.

 

[Professor Murder]

Pardon if my experiences with Video Games selling features piecemeal makes me very warry of such practices.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not even remotely comparable. No one actually wants just the most exciting 15 minutes. People do want just 1 or 2 things, without having to purchase the whole thing.

maybe not for ther first watch but I know people who "skip the boaring part" on rewacth even if that means skipping to 1 fight then the final