Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="darjr" data-source="post: 9207400" data-attributes="member: 52905">Mike put his thoughts into one of his podcasts [USER=54840]@SlyFlourish[/USER] 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.SlyFlourishI 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:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Other 5e publishers have to pay a fee to WOTC. WOTC's own products don't have to pay that fee.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">WOTC gets to see all the data for sales for all products. Publishers only likely get to see their own.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I doubt publishers get access to direct customer data like the opportunity to subscribe them to the publisher's newsletter.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">WOTC gets to decide who to allow to publish and who not to. They probably get to choose which products are published.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> </ul>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.</blockquote>

Verification