I am sure they will monetize it aggressively when the time comes, but given that they are actively avoiding direct rules integration I think AI DMs are not a present danger.
This is interesting because they were very clear that they did want direct rules integration in earlier press about, and even the very first faux-demo showed direct rules integration.
I guess they ran into the same wall that other VTTs have, that being that direct rules integration is hard, really hard. Even if you can get it working technically (which is the easier part), the interface to control it, and the ability for DMs to override it or the like just really to design well. Especially in game which has Reactions and so on.
I mean, in my experience "imagine this Lizardman (or quarter) is an Elven Peoncess" works fine for minis.
I think you'll find people have very different standards for minis at the table and digital representations in a game, especially one that's generally flashy visually, as the VTT seems to be aiming to be. So this may be an issue.
On the other hand,
if the DM can just use the character designer freely for NPCs, it probably don't be a huge one. Especially if there's some kind of "palette swap" option to differentiate monsters. If they try and over-monetize that (charging for palette swaps, for example) I think people may become somewhat unhappy with them. We shall see.
It seems pretty clear that they aim to sell minis (and likely terrain as well).
The initial announcement made it very clear that they were intending to sell minis to both the players and DM, and also that they really wanted to find a way to monetize terrain (though they seemed to be suggesting buying adventures would come with terrain - not buying them via Beyond at that point though note, so I'd expect an extra charge above Beyond (lol).
It wasn't a VTT was it? I can't remember, but my recollection is a character builder?
It started out as purely a character builder, then the Kickstarter added a ton of DM tools and allowed dice-rolling and stuff, but they never called it a VTT, and I'd say what they were aiming at was a lot more like Beyond's gameplay stuff, just done a bit better/more ambitiously (in theory), than an actual VTT.
They also have the people from DDB and hired significant staff. So it's more likely to be successful.
At least as of late 2023, the Beyond team was completely and totally separate from the VTT team. Not only did people working on them say this, but you could see it in the titles for hiring for each. Indeed, we've heard that the 3D VTT leadership strongly opposed even buying Beyond, though one supposes that beef got squashed at some point when WotC realized cross-marketing = $$$ and that "internal competition" is dumb.
But hiring significant staff is the big difference. Cynthia Williams, whilst she was there, said they had 250 people working directly on the 3D VTT. That's a crazy low-mid AAA videogame number of people, several times more than work on D&D (probably more than work on MtG, though I don't know). That huge investment is really what means success is more likely. For once WotC seems to be serious about it. I do wonder if they'll stay serious, but I think a lot of that depends on how many people they can attract and how quickly they can get them microtransacting.
All other official WotC attempts at digital products were utterly tepid and pathetic, with tiny teams and little investment. Even WotC partnerships/outsourcing they tended to select very small teams. It's honestly a miracle Beyond got made and that Larian got BG3 (I honestly think, had WotC execs had fully understood Larian were small but growing incredibly rapidly when they gave them BG3, they wouldn't have done it, that they only did it because they thought they were a little tiny AA).
