WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

[mamba]

This is new!

I have definitely seen this over a year ago already

 

[mamba]

Planescape is 49.99 integrated into Beyond, but 29.99 without integration

if only it came as a PDF

 

[FrogReaver]

I don’t know what that means. If it means WOtC is big enough to get away with ignoring what many customers prefer, I agree with you.

All companies ignore what customers prefer. Customers prefer you to freely give them product in every medium and fully integrated with every digital tool previously in existence, currently in existence and that will ever be in existence, or at the very least to do so at extremely low cost, as a one time payment instead of a never ending reoccuring payment.

What I mean is that digital piracy can ultimately lead to more profits for many great quality but less popular products as it serves a function similar to advertising. Not everyone will digitally pirate even if they can, whether that’s morality or potential risk, or etc. So that free advertising of making your product more popular and desirable does increase sales, but if your product is already extremely desirable, then those benefits associated with piracy doesn’t increase sales by much, but it does greatly decrease how many potential customers that might otherwise have bought the product but instead pirated it.

There’s also generally more goodwill toward smaller companies, such that people are more likely to want to compensate them for their work.

Finally, the value proposition of selling pdfs gives the smaller companies a competitive niche in terms of price point to customer and convenience. Whereas larger companies may view that price point as conflicting with their higher price points in other mediums and then the convenience of the pdf may make selling the product in both physical print and a digital walled garden like dndbeyond or roll20 (or both) less likely.

There’s more, but I think you get the picture.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yea. Dynamics are different.

What does that mean? What are "dynamics" here?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Of the top of my head? They have more volume so get better deals with publisers and distributors. The economics of scale are different. Many companies are forced to release PDFs because that has been a major source of sales and profits, selling books I'd less profitable for them. Last, but not least because they are the biggest, practically any store that supports TTRPGs will have a D&D section. Having books in stores drives sales.

Now of course WOTC has even less motivation because they have DDB. There's just not much upside to them selling PDFs.

Except customer satisfaction. And people complain when I point out that maximizing profits is all they care about.

 

[Echohawk]

Except customer satisfaction. And people complain when I point out that maximizing profits is all they care about.

I think the complaints may relate to the frequency with which you point that out, rather than the fact that you point that out.

 

[Nikosandros]

I have definitely seen this over a year ago already

This has been the case since very early (if not from the beginning) in the life of DDB.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the complaints may relate to the frequency with which you point that out, rather than the fact that you point that out.

Point taken.

 

[Nylanfs]

This is the first time in my life I've heard an API called anti-competitive.

Is the Weather Channel anti-competitive?

The Weather Channel (ie Accuweather) is a REALLY bad example here. The only thing they are doing is offering up the info that the NWS is making freely available.
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[bedir than]

The Weather Channel (ie Accuweather) is a REALLY bad example here. The only thing they are doing is offering up the info that the NWS is making freely available.
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Sure!
That also doesn't mean the API they offer is anti-competitive.