WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

[darjr]

@SlyFlourish I think, like you said, they practically have monopoly power already.

Also I think the platform isn't on the enshitification path. It didn't start that way. We are paying customers for both the access to content and the subscription (well those that are now). The free stuff is more a loss leader not a process to acquire eyeballs and user data to sell.

I suppose they could be on the path of slowly turning up the dial later, but really they could do that now.

Also while I love your proposals I have another set.

Third party creators should absolutely take advantage of DNDBeyond if they are offered a chance, at least one like Ghostfire Games and Darrington Press seems to be happy with, or even a close version of it.

Then take that capitol and invest in third party platforms, open source ones if possible.

Keep the pressure up on WotC but take their money, buy their products if you like them (i mostly do), and then work toward a more open technology future.

WotC will do what they will do, but they are also providing a chance to help fuel third parties and so help them fuel and build an alternate solution(s).

 

[Shardstone]

I do wonder how massive it would be by the time we all get to publish our material there. Every product pushes down every other product any of us produces.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see very few publishers actually allowed to publish products there.

I think you're right, and that only a very few publishers will make it to DnD Beyond. That's why I'm hoping Demiplane picks up momentum with the market.

 

[SlyFlourish]

@SlyFlourish I think, like you said, they practically have monopoly power already.

Also I think the platform isn't on the enshitification path. It didn't start that way. We are paying customers for both the access to content and the subscription (well those that are now). The free stuff is more a loss leader not a process to acquire eyeballs and user data to sell.

I suppose they could be on the path of slowly turning up the dial later, but really they could do that now.

Also while I love your proposals I have another set.

Third party creators should absolutely take advantage of DNDBeyond if they are offered a chance, at least one like Ghostfire Games and Darrington Press seems to be happy with, or even a close version of it.

Then take that capitol and invest in third party platforms, open source ones if possible.

Keep the pressure up on WotC but take their money, buy their products if you like them (i mostly do), and then work toward a more open technology future.

WotC will do what they will do, but they are also providing a chance to help fuel third parties and so help them fuel and build an alternate solution(s).

I didn't say enshittification...

But I'll ask you this, how's all that material you had in the 4th edition character builder holding up?

WOTC is notorious for abandoning former projects. D&D Beyond is huge now, and hugely expensive, so it's probably the safest place to buy your 5e material that isn't in a downloadable format. But they can change stuff all the time. They are already lagging in what I consider to be critical features (like filtering out content we're not using for a campaign).

They could absolutely make decisions or abandon parts of the platform and we'd have to suffer with it the more dependent on that platform we are.

TTRPGs are wonderful because they're different than video games. When I played Everquest and World of Warcraft, we had to live with any changes the development team ever made. If they tuned a spell or changed the drop rate on a piece of gear – we had to suffer with that.

TTRPGs don't have to be like that but now I hear DMs lamenting how their players always use spells like Silvery Barbs even though it's in an optional MtG sourcebook because everyone assumes "if it's on D&D Beyond, it's golden. If it's not, it doesn't exist."

That's not hypothetical. That's happening right now.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I think you're right, and that only a very few publishers will make it to DnD Beyond. That's why I'm hoping Demiplane picks up momentum with the market.

Me too! I want several awesome character builders to choose from!

 

[darjr]

I didn't say enshittification...

But I'll ask you this, how's all that material you had in the 4th edition character builder holding up?

WOTC is notorious for abandoning former projects. D&D Beyond is huge now, and hugely expensive, so it's probably the safest place to buy your 5e material that isn't in a downloadable format. But they can change stuff all the time. They are already lagging in what I consider to be critical features (like filtering out content we're not using for a campaign).

They could absolutely make decisions or abandon parts of the platform and we'd have to suffer with it the more dependent on that platform we are.

TTRPGs are wonderful because they're different than video games. When I played Everquest and World of Warcraft, we had to live with any changes the development team ever made. If they tuned a spell or changed the drop rate on a piece of gear – we had to suffer with that.

TTRPGs don't have to be like that but now I hear DMs lamenting how their players always use spells like Silvery Barbs even though it's in an optional MtG sourcebook because everyone assumes "if it's on D&D Beyond, it's golden. If it's not, it doesn't exist."

That's not hypothetical. That's happening right now.

Ouch.

Yea it's not well. If I wanted it back I'd have to pirate it.

Still I think the PDF thing is a non-starter, I can hope, and I agree we need to push wotc on it. However at the same time I do think a third party strategy is a good one. Especially since third parties could deliver PDFs in a 4e EOL type disaster. Maybe that's too much to ask.

 

[nevin]

@SlyFlourish posted a comment in another thread and I think it's worth discussing in a separate thread.

Copying the message over from his post so it’s more accessible.

SlyFlourish
I have controversial thoughts on this.

Adding other 5e publishers' material to D&D Beyond increases WOTC's dominance in the overall TTRPG hobby and they've proven they cannot be trusted to act in the overall hobby's best interests.

During the last (only?) D&D Community Summit I heard community members lobbying for WOTC to include third party publishers into D&D Beyond as though it was good for the 5e TTRPG community. I don't think it is.

It's good for those publishers blessed by WOTC to be accepted into D&D Beyond. They get access to a WOTC's large D&D Beyond customer set (that they bought for $145 million) with an excellent non-exclusive license deal.

It's good for WOTC who gets a taste of products they didn't have to write. They also get to look like good guys: "Hey, we're supporting scrappy independent publishers like Darrington Press and Ghostfire Gaming".

Maybe it's good for GMs who prefer to have all their stuff under D&D Beyond and don't mind letting WOTC vet which 5e published material they can buy there.

But it certainly increases WOTCs dominance in the 5e TTRPG hobby, and we know they can't be trusted to always act in the best interests of the hobby overall.

And what about those benefits for other 5e publishers publishing on Beyond? WOTC is both the owner of the platform and a direct competitor publishing on the same platform. Consider WOTC's advantages:

• Other 5e publishers have to pay a fee to WOTC. WOTC's own products don't have to pay that fee.
• WOTC gets to see all the data for sales for all products. Publishers only likely get to see their own.
• I doubt publishers get access to direct customer data like the opportunity to subscribe them to the publisher's newsletter.
• WOTC gets to decide who to allow to publish and who not to. They probably get to choose which products are published.
• WOTC gets to advertise their own stuff for free. If they advertise products from other publishers, they're either being extraordinarily nice or charging them.

Publishing other 5e publishers' products on D&D Beyond makes D&D Beyond an even stronger gravity well for the 5e hobby overall. It hurts other publishers like EN World and Kobold Press whose variants of 5e almost certainly won't be available on D&D Beyond. The more dominant D&D Beyond becomes in the overall 5e hobby, the more we must trust one company to do what's right for the hobby. That's a dangerous place to be.

All of the control WOTC hoped to achieve by deauthorizing the OGL, they seem to be gaining with D&D Beyond.

you just layed out why Amazon should be controversial as well. They allow thier competitors to rent thier web space and warehouse space and charge them for using thier superior infrastructure. I don't like it, think it's probably bad overall for competition but I can't blame the small companies that do it. If the price isn't prohibitive they get to use a world class infrastructure for a fee to a bigger competitor that they don't have much chance of beating and they get to potentially grow thier sales if they play it right.

 

[overgeeked]

I think the one thing they can't now get is absolute coercion via the law or courts. Not with the CCBY.

I do think it's the one final thing the architects of that horrible OGL 2 wanted, control over the brand. In essence get every one off the OGL, they've effectively done that.

The financial items and "profit" sharing were sweeteners, probably to get others within wotc to go along. I think you can tell because they quickly abandoned those things.

Ruining the OGL community and getting people not to use it but use the CCBY I think clears up the brand confusion that they were most worried about.

That's my take anyway.

This other stuff can be bad too. Don't get me wrong. But I think it's now all besides the point with respect to the OGL fiasco.

If you can’t get what you want with a stick, you use a carrot.

OGL2 was the stick. This is the carrot.

 

[nevin]

I'm not sure why they'd do that full last list.....and we don't demand it of anyone else. I get your concerns, I really do, but some of this is just no realistic for a business to do. I mean, if they sold stuff on Foundry and there was a full character builder there, why would anyone use the WotC tools ever again?

They'd probably screw it up if they bought it but I don't understand why they don't just buy foundry or D20 and add it to the DND beyond site as a subscription service. I think a lot more people would spend a lot more money on books if they knew they could use them at the table or in a D&D foundry or D20 site.

 

[SlyFlourish]

you just layed out why Amazon should be controversial as well. They allow thier competitors to rent thier web space and warehouse space and charge them for using thier superior infrastructure. I don't like it, think it's probably bad overall for competition but I can't blame the small companies that do it. If the price isn't prohibitive they get to use a world class infrastructure for a fee to a bigger competitor that they don't have much chance of beating and they get to potentially grow thier sales if they play it right.

Absolutely. Isn’t it?

 

[darjr]

you just layed out why Amazon should be controversial as well. They allow thier competitors to rent thier web space and warehouse space and charge them for using thier superior infrastructure. I don't like it, think it's probably bad overall for competition but I can't blame the small companies that do it. If the price isn't prohibitive they get to use a world class infrastructure for a fee to a bigger competitor that they don't have much chance of beating and they get to potentially grow thier sales if they play it right.

Yes. But also my big issue with Amazon is their employment policies. But I also know that grinder is what fuels thier efficiency.