New leak looks real bad

TerraDave

5ever, or until 2024
By way of comparison, a pro subscription on roll20 (which is one better then what I have) is 100 per year. The DM bundle plus curse of strahd is 80, and permanent. This is all per table, and half the cost.
 

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Mercurius

Legend
are we just making up numbers for subscribers here, or are these supposed to be realistic? Because I doubt anything past the first two is, not even sure about the second
I'm just providing a range, depending upon how many people subscribe. I have no idea what is realistic, but obviously WotC will be going for as many as possible. I'm not sure 5 million is unrealistic, as far as long-term plans. Again, there are supposedly 50 million players - so that's 10%. What if a few years from now there are 100 million?
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Locking out homebrew content at the lower (lowest?) tiers just seems stupid to me. I mean, I get it; they want to incentivize people signing up for the more expensive plans, but you should do that via "here's some great stuff you get"-style options (which I suppose is what the monthly content drops are supposed to be) rather than "at this price plan, it stops sucking so much!"

Between the standardization via no homebrew content, and the AI DM, it's basically a video game. At least this time the WoW comparisons won't draw so much pushback (I hope).
 

Remathilis

Legend
$30 per month seem like max subscriber 6th level diamond patreon tier.

No way they expect to get more that 1% of base that high. Or I want some of the drugs passed out at Hasbro.
Thirty is more than every major MMO out there. It's more than subs to any streaming service except for Amazon Prime (and Prime gets you a boatload of other features). These are some Diablo Immortal-level prices.

I don't doubt this price point was floated at one point, but I seriously doubt that it will be offered up now.
 


Haplo781

Legend
You don't know that. For example, my DnDBeyond Master Tier subscription is insanely good value. At $7/month I can share access to all the materials with all my players, and I run four campaigns right now, plus sponsor two more through D&D Club, so that is almost 30 players getting access to a ton of material for my $7/month. So I pay $7/month and they all have free accounts. How do you know $30/month isn't the same thing but for the VTT?

Context is everything. I can't assess any number without seeing exactly what the offer is.
Bruh why you stealing Hasbro's money like that
 

eyeheartawk

#1 Enworld Jerk™
I think the reason all this monetization feels so gross, grosser than in video games or even MtG is the basic fact of our particular hobby.

One of MtG's most basic truths underpinning it is artifical scarcity and blind buy randomization. I think if you start from there and you get to where you are today, you'll have unhappy people sure, but it's not quite the same "step too far" as it were.

With RPGs all you need is a book (not even your own!), a set of dice, paper and pencil and you can literally play forever without ever spending a red cent ever again.

Going from that to this? Yeah, I get all the reactions. Just shows their contempt for us and their complete lack of knowledge on what they actually make.
 

J.Quondam

CR 1/8
I'm skeptical* at that number, except maybe as a premium group tier or something? But if they can pull in gamers willing to pay that, good for them, I guess. They're free to run their online business however they want, without me, no harm no foul.

I'm still much more interested in their final stance regarding the creation of new OGL1.0 materials going forward. That is the key issue that impacts the industry beyond their own office walls.


* Of course, I was also "skeptical" several weeks ago when that very first leak came out, and look where we are. So there's that.
 

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Yeah, $30/year actually is reasonable. $360/year... that'd be a hard no from me.

And homebrew banned at base tiers? You have to pay extra to homebrew? WTF?

I was planning to boycott Wizards until they quit trying to kill the OGL. If this is where Wizards-D&D is headed... I guess that'd be the end of my boycott. It isn't boycotting if you weren't going to buy it anyway.

Homebrew banned at the Free Tier seem 10% fine to me.

You don't get server memory space to create stuff for fee.

I'm sorry. At a certain point, D&D fans have to spend money. Everything can be free. Not just for WOTC but 3rd party publishers. I mean this whole disaster happened because Hasbro finally looked at D&D, realized at a table of 5 people only 2 of them were spending money, and went "how do I snatch money out the other 3?"
 

mamba

Hero
I'm just providing a range, depending upon how many people subscribe. I have no idea what is realistic, but obviously WotC will be going for as many as possible.
no they are not, and this is not how this works anyway. You would go for maximum profit, not maximum number of sales, and price accordingly.

As to your numbers, I have no idea where you get the 50M players from. DDB has 13M registered users, no idea how many play D&D, from what I hear about double that. No idea how many of those are active, no idea how many of those pay for any subscription level now. I’d wager it is no more than 3-4M though.

If 2% of 4M go for the highest tier, you are at 80k. Your 100k already feels like the maximum possible for that tier

I'm not sure 5 million is unrealistic, as far as long-term plans.
well, I am

Again, there are supposedly 50 million players - so that's 10%. What if a few years from now there are 100 million?
15-20M, at the rate things are going
 
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Clint_L

Hero
I don't think there is any point in discussing numbers without a lot more information. Like any other purchase, folks will wait to see what is being offered. If it is a terrible deal, then uptake will be terrible. If it is a great deal, then uptake will be great. Right now we don't know:

1. What is being offered
2. What the different tiers will offer and what each tier will cost
3. Whether it is possible to share, as with the current master tier

Let alone anything about their customer base and the projected numbers of subscribers being offered for each tier.

Right now, I am most interested in:

1. The VTT. For me to buy into that it would have to be both a good deal and super easy to use; way easier than Roll 20.

2. An AI Dungeon Master. For those who think this is far-fetched, I suggest you spend some time seeing what ChatGPT can already do. Comparisons to Zork are not even remotely apt (also, Zork was amazing).
 


eyeheartawk

#1 Enworld Jerk™
Twice the monthly charge for Warcraft or HBO. A third more than the most expensive Netflix tier.

Does that really sound credible to you?
No, but just because the leak didn't state that you'd have to pay extra to display the VTT in 4K. Because, without that the comparison can't really be valid right?

This is just a reminder that in the year of our lord 2023 Netflix is still out here charging extra to stream 4K.
 

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Thirty is more than every major MMO out there. It's more than subs to any streaming service except for Amazon Prime (and Prime gets you a boatload of other features). These are some Diablo Immortal-level prices.

I don't doubt this price point was floated at one point, but I seriously doubt that it will be offered up now.

Thirty is high. But it seems okay for an "All things unlocked" tier if One D&D actually offers a ton of variant rules and does new monthly VTT models.
 

tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Locking out homebrew content at the lower (lowest?) tiers just seems stupid to me. I mean, I get it; they want to incentivize people signing up for the more expensive plans, but you should do that via "here's some great stuff you get"-style options (which I suppose is what the monthly content drops are supposed to be) rather than "at this price plan, it stops sucking so much!"

Between the standardization via no homebrew content, and the AI DM, it's basically a video game. At least this time the WoW comparisons won't draw so much pushback (I hope).
Agreed in that it's incredibly short sighted & reeks of a failure to understand the market. As a GM I ban DDB sheets for my players* because it's such a disruption dealing with players trying to interact with it from their phone or being forced to GM around things it doesn't dolike containers till very recently"no homebrew content" would make it super easy to ban, just give custom magic items and shrug when the foot dragging & wheedling starts.

* Even for ones who pay for it
 


mamba

Hero
I'm sorry. At a certain point, D&D fans have to spend money. Everything can be free. Not just for WOTC but 3rd party publishers. I mean this whole disaster happened because Hasbro finally looked at D&D, realized at a table of 5 people only 2 of them were spending money, and went "how do I snatch money out the other 3?"
more like ‘what, that is two more than acceptable’ ;)
 

Yaarel

Mind Mage
Turning D&D into a MMO feels silly, as… we already have MMOs.
Apparently MMOs are their way to try monetize the under-monetized "players". Hasbro-WotC views the DMs as the main customers but a minority, and want to suck money from the players who are the majority.
 


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