D&D Beyond Changes

[Psyren]

I should clarify: I have, in the past, said, "Man, why would I ever use this product?" only to eventually find that I genuinely like it and would, in fact, pay for it. A minor example: when I bought my current car, the one I wanted also happened to have a remote start feature. I thought that was a weird gimmick that I would never use, but I have found that I actually really do like it.

I am not above learning that WotC does come up with some service that I actually would pay $30/month for; they may have some genius innovate a thing I never imagined that I nevertheless agree is really worth it. Or you may have a thought as to some thing they could provide that I might, upon hearing about it, agree is something I, too, would pay that much for. But so far, I haven't heard of any such ideas. The thing I am willing to be proven wrong on is, "I don't think there's anything that relates to my playing of D&D that D&D Beyond could offer that would make it worth $30/month to me."

Fair enough, that makes sense and thanks for clarifying - but no, I can't think of anything; only you truly know what you might value at that price point. I've listed several potential features they could roll out that I thought of, that's about all I can do.

Perhaps. The biggest trouble I foresee is that I have zero faith in WotC's ability to make those actually functional and worth that price point. Especially when their first move is to try to eliminate competition by making theirs the only service you possibly CAN go to.

I don't think they will be worth it at launch - because pretty much everything software-related is launching as an early access/beta these days, whether they label them that way or not, especially live services - but the real test is what kind of support they end up getting post-launch.

Streaming services compete, today, based on exclusive content more than on anything else, leaving Netflix and Youtube as the only two with actually reasonably pleasant streaming interfaces / software. Most of the others are adequate at best, with lots of clunky design choices that make it hard to navigate them, and some even have really, really bad programming that makes it slow to respond and/or otherwise very difficult to navigate within a given episode or movie. And they don't have any competition forcing them to do better, there, because what they feel they're competing on is content, not on quality of their actual streaming service, itself, as a streaming video tool.

WotC has never shown themselves to be a leader in digital tool design. And if they were planning to make something that was that head-and-shoulders better than everything else in terms of tool design, there'd be no need to hedge out competition based on content. They still could, of course, but they wouldn't need to take draconian steps; the 3D VTT would stand on its own, for example.

Sure, but (a) I don't necessarily think they're wrong to feel that way - in this industry, "best content" often means "first-party content that works for the game the most people around you are playing" rather than being a pure quality consideration - and (b) an "adequate" interface might be all they need to hit in terms of the bar, especially initially. Something like roll20 or Foundry that has dozens if not hundreds of intricate power features beneath the surface may sound attractive, but for the majority of their users many of those features may as well not exist.