Roll for Combat reveals the terms of the "sweetheart deal" offered to 3pp

[Parmandur]

Note that Steam charges 30 percent to sell stuff on there. However, the products are directly uploaded on Steam's servers, people buy it on Steam, and then Steam sends the other 70 percent back to the devopler.

WOTC wanted 15 percent in exchange for some advertising. If a person saw a 3PP product on D&D Beyond, they would have to then buy it somewhere else. That would be a step too far for many. Assuming of course the people on D&D Beyond arn't those "3PP is gross" types.

Yeah, based on a bunch of other stuff, one rather suspects that Beyond is going to be turned into a marketplace soon. That is an unstated piece of information that makes sense of a lot of this.

 

[Haplo781]

"Exposure."

"Hang on let me call the bank. Hello Chase? Yes, I'd like to pay this month's mortgage in 'exposure.' Why are you laughing?"

 

[Argyle King]

It's marginal like taxes. So if you make $750,001, WizBro gets 25¢.

Out of curiosity, what stops a TTRPG Company from doing what some corporations do to avoid taxes: creating puppet/dummy companies under which they do some of their work so they can under-report their revenue?

 

[Haplo781]

Out of curiosity, what stops a TTRPG Company from doing what some corporations do to avoid taxes: creating puppet/dummy companies under which they do some of their work so they can under-report their revenue?

You really think a company that could be strong armed into this contract could afford to do that?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, that's a lot of corporate shenanigans for what is likely a couple running a company off of their dinner table to be engaged in. The only reason big corporations get away with what is, at best, legalized tax fraud is because they can afford an army of lawyers and accountants. Who is a mom and pop company going to hire? Their labradoodle?

 

[Haplo781]

Yeah, that's a lot of corporate shenanigans for what is likely a couple running a company off of their dinner table to be engaged in. The only reason big corporations get away with what is, at best, legalized tax fraud is because they can afford an army of lawyers and accountants. Who is a mom and pop company going to hire? Their labradoodle?

That's Chadley P. Labradoodle III, Esquire to you.

 

[Argyle King]

Yeah, that's a lot of corporate shenanigans for what is likely a couple running a company off of their dinner table to be engaged in. The only reason big corporations get away with what is, at best, legalized tax fraud is because they can afford an army of lawyers and accountants. Who is a mom and pop company going to hire? Their labradoodle?

It's a tough economy for small publishers.

By day, Jack and Jill work for Buttered Rules when they're writing modules at the dinner table; at night, they work for Little Timmy's Refrigerator Drawings LLC as liaisons to small publishers looking for artwork.

The laberdoodle is only part-time, as head of security.

 

[ValamirCleaver]

View attachment 273490

 

[Argyle King]

I think this has already been covered by others, but basing everything on "revenue" will likely be a rough ride for a lot of 3PP.

 

[MNblockhead]

The third party publishers are acting like retention specialists for the brand.

This. I still buy a lot of D&D stuff, but I have only run one official 5e adventure. I'm running third-party or homemade stuff. But I'm comfortable with and like the 5e rules and mine adventures and other content for ideas. I subscribe to DDB because it is convenient and because I can import monsters, character sheets, spells, items, etc. into Foundry saving me a GREAT deal of time on manually entering in the information. But if it were not for the great ecosystem of third-party content creators for 5e, I'm not sure I would have stayed with 5e.