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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: [Wargamer] Oh god, the new DnD books have a DLC chart
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2024 10:43:01 +0200
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Source: https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/pre-orders-dlc-chart


Oh god, the new DnD books have a DLC chart

Wizards of the Coast’s pre-orders for the OneDnD core books come with a 
confusing DLC chart that’s straight out of videogame marketing.



Timothy Linward


Wizards of the Coast has revealed a videogame DLC-style pre-order chart 
to explain the bundle options fans have when pre-ordering the new 
Dungeons and Dragons core books, and to emphasise the “savings” 
available from buying the bigger bundles. But to find the actual price 
of the bundles, you have to go to the DnD Beyond storefront.

This is going to be a snarky one, reader. While we’re eagerly awaiting 
the new DnD books on the DnD release schedule, seeing this kind of chart 
immediately makes us skeptical about the value of the pre-orders, both 
as consumer advocates, and as industry observers.

While tabletop roleplaying games are usually a haven away from the 
digital world, there’s no denying that digital DnD is a big part of the 
game for many players. Wargamer’s DnD expert Mollie Russell is actually 
increasingly upbeat about the official DnD virtual tabletop that is 
supposed to be such a big part of One DnD. But we’re irked that nonsense 
from the world of videogames has come along with it.

The three pre-order tiers are, in ascending order of content (and cost), 
a digital only version of the Player’s Handbook ($29.99), a digital and 
print bundle ($79.98), and a bundle of all three physical and digital 
books ($179.97). All of them come with some number of digital doodads, 
like digital DnD dice sets, frames, and backdrops, and early access to 
content online.

There’s a $20 discount between the digital-only and digital-and-print 
bundle – or to look at it another way, if you buy the print edition, you 
can pay a $10 top up to get the digital edition as well. We’re not going 
to argue that digital goods should be free – they take effort to design, 
even if they’re almost free to reproduce – but it’s crummy that fans who 
miss the pre-order window won’t get the same discount.

The bundle of all three core books and digital editions has a $60 
discount – so again, you’re paying $10 per digital edition in this 
bundle. For locking in a $180 pre-order, you’ll also receive three 
additional digital dice sets, 24 extra frames, 10 extra backdrops, the 
‘Dragons of D&D’ digital artbook, and a gold dragon digital mini for the 
upcoming official DnD virtual tabletop.

If you were going to pre-order anyway, cool, you get some extra stuff. 
But is this supposed to be tempting? Would you buy these extras on their 
own? Or are they more like the digital knicknacks and cheap resin 
statuettes bolted on to videogames, there partly to inflate the 
perceived value of the core product, and partly to ensure that the 
customer cannot determine what the core of the product actually is from 
the matrix of multiple different launch editions.

This DLC chart for the Player’s Handbook isn’t particularly obnoxious, 
but as DnD is only going to get more digital, we have to wonder – is 
this just the start? Will multiple editions and optional extras proliferate?

“Marketing”, in the big sense, means determining a market group of 
potential customers, producing something that meets their desires or 
needs, and ensuring they can buy it. It’s a long-term strategy that 
requires you clarify the value of a product, not hide it, and 
understands that a customer tricked into buying something won’t stay a 
customer forever.

The digital shift could be a brilliant thing. The feature in DnD Beyond 
that allowed you to purchase only those parts of a book that were 
relevant to your character’s DnD class or DnD race, used digital 
technology to provide unique a benefit to consumers. But since that 
feature was removed without explanation by a recent update, permit us a 
little skepticism about how this is all going to turn out.