D&D 5E D&D Beyond: No More À La Carte Purchases But US Customers Can Buy Physical Books

WotC has announced some changes to D&D Beyond's marketplace. These include physical products (for US customers), the removal of à la carte purchases, and various navigational changes.

You can no longer buy individual feats, subclasses, etc. -- you'll need to buy the whole book. The full list of changes includes:

• US shoppers can now buy physical books
• More info on product listings, including previews
• UI improvements to makee finding your purchased content and redeeming keys easier
• No more à la carte purchases (though your previous ones still count)

 

[Mistwell]

Can you accept that no one concerned about micro transactions was concerned with this particular thing?

Don’t the people complaining get a say in what they are actually complaining about?

The complainers didn't specify at the time. The accusation was made about Hasbro in a broad manner (much like it's made about AI and "squeezing the brand for ever last dime" and "trying to make things all digital" and a host of other things).

Others at the time pointed out they already had microtransactions players liked, and that went mostly ignored. The broad general accusations continued to be made over and over again.

If you don't believe me, go back through the accusations about microtransactions here at ENWorld. You will see there was no such specificity about "good" vs "bad" microtransactions (just as there is no acknowledgement of any "good" paths for those other topics I mentioned). It was all vague claims about corporate greed and making the entire game digital and cutting out third parties and broad brushing the entire concept of microtransactions. This article was linked to in the OP of the thread here about the topic: all extreme over the top speculative negativity ending with a pitch for everyone to not play D&D.

WOTC then canceled the microtransactions they had. And predictably we got a resounding "not those microtransactions!" response.

This is going to keep happening as long as people go into this automatic instinctive attack anything WOTC says or does mode because they have a general level of anger about WOTC.

The time to be thoughtful and have a rational discourse and recognize nuance is when you have the reaction to the issue to begin with. If you think there are "good" and "bad" methods of doing something, the time to recognize the "good" things you want to see about that topic is when it comes up. Not just emotional angry doom and gloom and assuming always the worst possible motives whenever WOTC says anything at all, all while your passionate negativity is fed by clickbait people on YouTube and elsewhere who have an incentive to spin things as bad as possible and then move on to the next outrage.

 

[Clint_L]

Or get foundry, sync everything you own using one of the DDB-integration mods.

That seems a lot more complicated but sure. There are plenty of options for downloading almost everything you buy from DDB.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is the problem with these pages and pages of arguments. It comes down to language being a weird and fluid thing.

Would I consider Dawnguard a micro-transaction? Technically, it is. Sure. It's additional content, offered in addition to the base product, at a lower price. Technically, I can't say "No that's not a micro-transaction".

Colloquially however, I wouldn't call it that. To me, and to many gamers I know and talk to, it's an expansion.. Or would more likely be called DLC, or downloadable content today. (Which adds another sticky layer to this doesn't it.. Is all DLC Micro-transactions? Are all Micro-Transactions DLC?)

While yes, I have to concede that it's technically a micro-transaction, it's really more than that. It's more, additional content. It's more game. To continue the fast food metaphor others have used in this thread.. It's like you go and have combo meal for dinner, and you really enjoyed it, and are still hungry, so you go back up and get another order of french-fries.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are tiers to micro-transactions. These are usually considered "Good" micro-transactions. The next tier down is cosmetic. These are small things that really offer no benefit to the actual gameplay, but are just little niceties. Skins in a game, or different dice in DDB. Gamers typically accept these as one of those "Cost of Doing Business things". We know game companies want to increase revenue, and we're okay with them offering these things as non-invasive methods. These get less acceptable as they start to provide game-play benefits. Like the ability to purchase level-ups, or stronger equipment.

I don't think D&D can have this problem due to how the game actually works. Like as a player I'm allowed to make a level five character instead of a level one character if I want. There's nothing stopping me from doing so. On the flip side DMs/Groups get to police their own tables. Just because I show up with my level twenty character decked out in all the cool gear, doesn't mean you have to let me play it. I don't think you can really sell these things.

The only reason I worry about micro-transactions is because they(The general "They" as in corporations..) only ever take things away, and then sell them back. Even looking at the non-invasive Micro-Transactions like skins that we consider normal these days.. That used to just be part of a game. Halo 3 had all the cool spartan armor in the base game, and you unlocked it through play. In modern halo you have to swipe your card for it.

In DDB you're currently allowed what, 10 characters for free? In a few more years is that going to go down? What if they lock the character builder behind a paywall?

Those are the things I worry about. Like other's have mentioned, they have no obligation to provide these things to use free of charge. We're lucky to have them as options. But that doesn't make it not-suck when those options are taken away.

I think word meanings (aka semantics) is about how we use words. So when you say you wouldn’t use the word that way then I think that’s indicative of your understanding of its meaning. That despite whatever simplified definition is appealing to us (and we humans love to latch on to the simple) that intuitively you know the way to actually use the word/phrase in question is far more complex and nuanced. That actual complex and nuanced way in which you use the word/phrase is the true definition even if we currently aren’t good at writing out a definition that captures that complexity and nuance.

Then there may very well may be the case where the word has 2 different meanings based on context.

The good/bad designstions for microtransactions are totally true but seem to be a bit unrelated to the main discussion point of what is a micro transaction, as in I don’t think anyone is trying to argue that good things cannot be micro transactions or bad ones must always be.

 

[FrogReaver]

The complainers didn't specify at the time. The accusation was made about Hasbro in a broad manner (much like it's made about AI and "squeezing the brand for ever last dime" and "trying to make things all digital" and a host of other things).

Others at the time pointed out they already had microtransactions players liked, and that went mostly ignored. The broad general accusations continued to be made over and over again.

If you don't believe me, go back through the accusations about microtransactions here at ENWorld. You will see there was no such specificity about "good" vs "bad" microtransactions (just as there is no acknowledgement of any "good" paths for those other topics I mentioned). It was all vague claims about corporate greed and making the entire game digital and cutting out third parties and broad brushing the entire concept of microtransactions.

WOTC then canceled the microtransactions they had. And predictably we got a resounding "not those microtransactions!" response.

This is going to keep happening as long as people go into this automatic instinctive attack anything WOTC says or does mode because they have a general level of anger about WOTC.

The time to be thoughtful and have a rational discourse and recognize nuance is when you have the reaction to the issue to begin with. If you think there are "good" and "bad" methods of doing something, the time to recognize the "good" things you want to see about that topic is when it comes up. Not just emotional angry doom and gloom and assuming always the worst possible motives whenever WOTC says anything at all, all while your passionate negativity is fed by clickbait people on YouTube and elsewhere who have an incentive to spin things as bad as possible and then move on to the next outrage.

I don’t think Wotc was too dumb/ignorant/whatever to know what people meant. I think we all do.

 

[Echohawk]

It is a 100% non-cresible source: he lied so egregiously in the OGL furor that juat about every former WotC chimed in on social media to say that he was lying.

Thanks, that's good to know. I'm now glad I didn't waste 17+ minutes watching that video!

 

[Mistwell]

I don’t think Wotc was too dumb/ignorant/whatever to know what people meant. I think we all do.

Several of us at the time of the "D&D is under monetized" comment came out which started all this said WPTC had microtransactions already, and there were good forms of micro transactions. People continued to broad brush the topic anyway - the generalized complaint is what gets through. So no, I don't think most people were sending the message to them that any form of microtransactions could be good or any attempt at nuanced look at the topic. The message was pretty clearly "No Microtransactions you greedy gits!"

 

[FrogReaver]

Several of us at the time of the "D&D is under monetized" comment came out which started all this said WPTC had microtransactions already, and there were good forms of micro transactions. People continued to broad brush the topic anyway - the generalized complaint is what gets through. So no, I don't think most people were sending the message to them that any form of microtransactions could be good or any attempt at nuanced look at the topic. The message was pretty clearly "No Microtransactions you greedy gits!"

IMO. The fact they hadn’t and weren’t complaining about the current ones sent that message.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Thanks, that's good to know. I'm now glad I didn't waste 17+ minutes watching that video!

What is most ironic, is that those bemoaning WotC corporal greed have ads before you can even watch their video. So it is in their monetary interes to generate as much hate as possible, to get money into their own pockets.

If they would really do it for information sake, they would not put ads before their videos.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If they would really do it for information sake, they would not put ads before their videos.

Unless they physically appear in the ads, they're not responsible for those. That's YouTube.

 

[Jadeite]

Why would I buy single pieces of rules when I can get them for free from a site supported by the publisher?
WotC's relationship with the fans of its games is increasingly toxic, yet those fans keep crawling back, celebrating minor concessions as major victories. At this point people should just accept that they won't be able to fix WotC and just look for other companies to support.