Wizards of the Coast has revealed a video game DLC-style pre-order table to explain the bundle options fans have when they pre-order the new Dungeons and Dragons core books and to highlight the “savings” available from purchasing the larger packages. But to find the actual price of the packs, you have to go to the DnD Beyond storefront.
This is going to be creepy, reader. While we look forward to the new DnD books on the DnD release schedule, seeing this kind of chart immediately makes us skeptical of the value of pre-orders, both as consumer advocates and industry watchers.
While tabletop RPGs are usually a refuge away from the digital world, there’s no denying that digital DnD is a big part of multiplayer gaming. Wargamer’s DnD expert Molly Russell is actually increasingly optimistic about the official DnD virtual tabletop that is supposed to be such a big part of One DnD. But we’re bummed that the crap from the video game world came along with it.
The three pre-order levels are, in ascending order of content (and price), 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 a number of digital goodies, such as digital DnD dice sets, frames and backgrounds, as well as early access to content online.
There’s a $20 discount between the digital-only and digital-and-print bundles—or to put it another way, if you buy the print edition, you can pay an extra $10 to get the digital edition as well. We’re not going to argue that digital goods should be free – their design requires effort, even if they’re almost free to play – but it’s a bummer that fans who miss the pre-order window won’t get the same discount.
The bundle of the three core books and digital editions is $60 off – so again you’re paying $10 per digital edition in this bundle. To lock in a $180 pre-order, you’ll also receive three additional digital dice sets, 24 additional frames, 10 additional backgrounds, the Dragons of D&D digital art book, and a digital mini gold dragon for the upcoming official DnD virtual tabletop.
If you were going to pre-order anyway, great, you get some extra stuff. But does that have to be tempting? Would you buy these extras yourself? Or are they more like digital trinkets and cheap plastic figurines attached to video games, there partly to inflate the perceived value of the core product and partly to ensure that the customer can’t tell what the core product really is from the matrix of multiples various startup releases.
This DLC diagram for the Player’s Handbook isn’t too bad, but since DnD is only going to get more digital, we have to wonder – is this just the beginning? Will the multiple editions and extras multiply?
“Marketing” in the broadest sense means defining a market group of potential customers, producing something that meets their wants or needs, and ensuring that they can buy it. It’s a long-term strategy that requires you to make the value of a product clear, not hide it, and understands that a customer tricked into buying something won’t stay a customer forever.
Digital change can be a brilliant thing. The feature in DnD Beyond that allows you to purchase only those parts of a book that are appropriate for your character’s DnD class or DnD race uses digital technology to provide a unique benefit to users. But since this feature was removed without explanation from a recent update, allow us some skepticism about how this will all play out.
