WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

occam

Hero
Except customer satisfaction. And people complain when I point out that maximizing profits is all they care about.
They can care about both; indeed, every company selling to customers has to care about both. It's just that sometimes those concerns align in terms of action, and sometimes they don't.

The corporate world isn't composed of those who think only of the their customers with no concern for money vs. evil and greedy grifters who'd screw over their customers if there was a cent to be made. I assume you must understand that things are more complex than that, but your commentary often doesn't reflect that understanding, at least when it comes to WotC/Hasbro.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

TheSword

Legend
Well I suppose technically they do—it’s just that they take 35% of zero.

I imagine their calculation is that KS creators will fulfil wherever charges nothing. And this way every KS pretty much ends up on their platform and not another one and sold there going forward.

If they started charging for that, KS creators would likely simply fulfil elsewhere, and some other platform would be the one selling all those big fancy books and PDFs.

All speculation of course. I have omission to their decision making processes.
Fair play to them. If its obviously working so well I can’t even think of another pdf fulfillment company other than DriveThru. Which I guess is the point.

The question I guess will be if DDB try to emulate that or not. I suspect WotC will see anything fulfilled through them as having their blessing which I’m sure they will put some value on. I’d be really surprised if the do fulfillment for free even if others are.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Fair play to them. If its obviously working so well I can’t even think of another pdf fulfillment company other than DriveThru. Which I guess is the point.

The question I guess will be if DDB try to emulate that or not. I suspect WotC will see anything fulfilled through them as having their blessing which I’m sure they will put some value on. I’d be really surprised if the do fulfillment for free even if others are.
Then nobody will fulfil through them.

Not that I expect them to offer KS fulfilment.
 


Caephros

COVID-era DM - DM at least once weekly
My job isn't to help WOTC run their business. My job is to help GMs run great games. WOTC could do a better job at that but they're letting their business needs get in the way and it can definitely get worse.
Just wanted to first say when I first started GMing three years ago, your videos and articles were really helpful. Thanks!

My D&D players are on Roll20 (so I’m wary of what may come in 2024) but they are new to the hobby so I haven’t really had to struggle against preconceptions.

It’s a little harder with my Pathfinder players, who are established in the hobby and really familiar with Foundry, so they kind of forced my hand into using that, but one of them hosts the server and they have been very helpful in me learning the platform.

So I definitely get the concern, we had a conversation and really decided on using Paizo material as a starting point, and we have discussions on any 3PP, but we are open to it, but I think their familiarity with customizing in Foundry helps with that. Less savvy players probably wouldn’t be interested, so I could see that. I’ve heard custom stuff on DDB is harder than Foundry or Roll20, but I don’t really know myself.

I had to tell my D&D players about the OGL crisis earlier in the year to let them know it may affect our game on Roll20. Fortunately so far, it hasn’t. I tried to move that game to PF2 and they did not stick with it, so we moved back to D&D. Since I’m not in the DDB ecosystem, I’m definitely wary of supporting it. But I can see how others who are using it would have the same issue I had trying to move to something people weren’t familiar with/comfortable with. So I think we can advocate for what works best for our tables and that’s just the best we can do. Hopefully that preserves a sort of balance.
 


Clint_L

Legend
If you are going to spam this forum with an ad for your VPN, at least get your facts straight. DDB is not a third party provider.
 

Remove ads

Top