You want to buy the compendium on here for both the character builder and the digital version of the compendium? That will be $30... Perfectly reasonable price...
You want to buy just a digital version of the compendium but have non of the access to its contents on the character builder? That will be $20.... Another perfectly reasonable price...
You want to just buy the content from the compendium for the character builder but have no digital version of the compendium? That will cost you $27.95.... I am sorry what? You are saying that the flags in the database to allow us to use that content without the actual digital version of the compendium is going to cost me almost as much as buying the digital version of the compendium ALONG WITH the ability to use the content in the character creator? I am sorry, but that is just simply asinine and does not make any sense whatsoever.
Can somebody please explain how this would make any sense to anybody?
Volo's Guide: Both about equal (29.99 and 29.96 respectfully)
Tortle: Compendium + builder = $9.99
Builder = $6.98
Compendium = $4.99
Sword Coast: Compendium + Builder = $29.99
Builder = $23.95
Compendium = $19.99
Grung:
Package = $4.99
separate = $2.99/each
It's the same for each compendium. The content for the builder is more expensive than the digital version of the book itself... Something seriously makes no sense here... Can somebody please explain this? Because its just asinine. I know dndbeyond/twitch/amazon/ect need to make the money back from buying the licenses from from WotC for access to the books and having the database like this, however, the digital formats of the books is where those licensing fees and such come into play, not the use for it in the builder. So can somebody please explain how the access via a flag in the database for the builder is more expensive than the actual digital copy of the book?
Are you aware that the combo price is reduce by the price.of whatever y nhave already purchased? So if it's 20 each and 30 for the bundle, you can buy one for 20 and the price of the remaining stuff will be reduced to 10.
It actually makes sense to me, next to zero work has to be put into taking the information form the book and transposing it into a digital "book" it more or less a "copy and Paste" job. On this site you are buying a program, hard work put in by the designers, programmers, research and development teams. You can already find places to purchase the "words" of the book for a cheaper price in other places, its the integration of the information into the many features that Beyond offers and works hard to improve on.
I'm not trying to undercut any kind of frustration you may feel in the pricing, but I think it actually stems from the fact that deep down you want to unlock all of the content and unleash the sites full potential. I use to do the same math as you to see what I should buy, then I decided to do that math against the bundles (especially when they are discounted with codes) and decided the best way to get the most "free" content is to buckle down and get the legendary bundle. Because as the site grows and makes money the programmers design even more features that all of my already unlocked content is integrated into for no additional charge.
But Keeroth, in the end, that is the exact same thing as buying the compendium and character builder content together. So there is no point. I already have all the books. It shouldn't cost more than the book itself (because of licensing fees because dndbeyond pays WotC fees to be able to sell the digital copies) just to use the content in the character builder, since I am not buying the compendium there is no licensing fees to cover, so why is it that the contents are priced more than the book itself?
Crosstrooper, I understand paying for the time and energy it took for the creators of the site to code the book. But what I am not ok with is being forced to basically buy the book without actually any of the book content, ie no lookup options, no actual book content, no being able to see the compendium, no nothing. Because all it is is a flag, once the info has been put into the system. And if I am being completely honest, its not that hard copying and pasting things into a database for future lookup by programs, thats my day to day job... I wish I only had to input things once and be done with it.... If I could charge every person that wanted access to that information that I put into the system, I honestly would, however, I wouldn't do it for such extortionate pricing. They have to decide, is the character builder content and all worth, for the most part, $10 or the more than the price of the compendium alone without the character builder.
I use dndbeyond for the character builder. As I have already said in my other reply, I already have all the books, I have no need for them on dndbeyond, I just want somewhere I can have the content in a simple place where making characters and building campaigns is ok. And if I have to pay a little bit of a premium to do that? So be it, but there is no way in hell that the character builder flags alone are worth more than what they are charging for the "license fee included" compendium alone.
There's probably a few things to clear up that might make this all make sense;
Firstly, D&D Beyond's marketplace has a $1.99 minimum price on all transactions. This is why each a la carte option is $1.99 and thus why totalling all the individual options can come to more than the full book
Every a la carte or compendium purchase you make is credited towards the full book price. This means that if you buy 10 spells ($19.90), the full book price will be reduced to $10.09
D&D Beyond does everything it can to make purchasing content as easy and as good value as it can; discount codes, bundle discounts, credit towards future purchases. They've recently even added improvements to cart validation to try and make any changes more visible to better help customers.
You're not paying to 'toggle a flag on some data', that's a disingenuous argument. That's like saying your groceries should be cheaper because you're just paying for someone to scan them at the checkout and put them in a bag for you. You're paying for all the work that's done entering both the compendium and the individual listings (two entirely different systems by the way, the compendium has a lot of formatting work that goes into it, while the listings have all the backend work to make them function in the tools). You're paying for the development, the server hosting, the bandwidth and countless other things that go into putting that data there so the flag can be enabled at purchase.
Licensing fees and agreements are more complex and far reaching than just applying to the compendium. They apply to every part of how D&D Beyond uses the content created by Wizards of the Coast
If none of this convinces you that nothing underhand is going on with pricing, then you said it yourself "its not that hard copying and pasting things into a database". D&D Beyond provides the homebrew tools and allows users who don't want to purchase the content to enter it in themselves for personal use, copying it from the books they may already own.
Your first point is correct, if you are totaling the individual contents. I am not totaling those, I am totaling the bundle options for the content. IE Xanathar's for example has 31 subclasses with it, totaling all thos individual subclasses comes to 61.69, or their bundle option for the subclasses is $9.99. These bundle options are what I am totaling, not the individual pieces themselves.
Second point, you are again going off of individual buying instead of the bundle buying of all the spells/classes/ect.
3rd point only applies to the individual compendium bundles or the 3 big bundles that they do. Again, as I have stated, I already have the books so I have no need for digital copies. Thus point 3 is being thrown out.
Point 4 (and going into Point 5), I was boiling the argument down to the bare minimum. Thats what it boils down to, in the very end. True that the backend stuff is important to take into consideration, however, what they are charging is astronomical, because as I have stated, the content just for the builder alone is more than the compendium itself. Also true licensing fees entail more than what I originally stated, however, the big thing about the licensing fees is being able to host and sell the digital versions of the compendiums, that is the biggest portion of any licensing fees when it comes to books, for digital and print. The licensing fees for the books include the use of any information in the books. For all intents and purposes, and for simplicity sake, dndbeyond is like a licensee franchise of WotC. Not fully, but for simplicity sake, and for easier comparisons thats what I am going with for right now. With those types of agreements between the 3rd party and the 1st party typically involves the ability to sell and do what they want with the content as they want, as long as it is within WotC's scope of approval, ie why they can't just be giving books away for free ect. That includes the ability to take the information out of the books and put the individual components for sale. This is the case, because if it wasn't dndbeyond wouldn't be able to sell the individual components. The licensing fee for the book already covers everything else for sell...
So long argument short, the prices for the character builder content is still asinine, because the content for the builder itself is not worth more than the digital copies of the compendiums themselves.
Your first point is correct, if you are totaling the individual contents. I am not totaling those, I am totaling the bundle options for the content. IE Xanathar's for example has 31 subclasses with it, totaling all thos individual subclasses comes to 61.69, or their bundle option for the subclasses is $9.99. These bundle options are what I am totaling, not the individual pieces themselves.
I do not see how that is a problem. When you buy something in smaller quantities, whether that is in smaller bundles or individual pieces, the price is almost always going to be more expensive when you add them up compared to buying the bigger packaged deal.
Buying a single can of cat food costs around a $0.50 to $1.00 at the grocery store depending on the brand. If I buy in bulk, each can can go as low as $0.30 to $0.40, or even less for the really cheap brands that come in big cans. Similarly, instead of spending $20.00 on a box of canned cat food, I can go to a wholesaler and buy a big pack of boxes for less than $20.00 per box.
At least in Beyond, after you spend a certain amount of money, you will get the rest of the book/bundle for free. If I buy a $20 box of cat food from the wholesaler every week and they offer a pack of 6 boxes for $100, after I spent $100 on individual boxes, I cannot go back to them and ask them to give me the sixth box of cat food for free.
Point 4 (and going into Point 5), I was boiling the argument down to the bare minimum. Thats what it boils down to, in the very end. True that the backend stuff is important to take into consideration, however, what they are charging is astronomical, because as I have stated, the content just for the builder alone is more than the compendium itself. Also true licensing fees entail more than what I originally stated, however, the big thing about the licensing fees is being able to host and sell the digital versions of the compendiums, that is the biggest portion of any licensing fees when it comes to books, for digital and print. The licensing fees for the books include the use of any information in the books. For all intents and purposes, and for simplicity sake, dndbeyond is like a licensee franchise of WotC. Not fully, but for simplicity sake, and for easier comparisons thats what I am going with for right now. With those types of agreements between the 3rd party and the 1st party typically involves the ability to sell and do what they want with the content as they want, as long as it is within WotC's scope of approval, ie why they can't just be giving books away for free ect. That includes the ability to take the information out of the books and put the individual components for sale. This is the case, because if it wasn't dndbeyond wouldn't be able to sell the individual components. The licensing fee for the book already covers everything else for sell...
So long argument short, the prices for the character builder content is still asinine, because the content for the builder itself is not worth more than the digital copies of the compendiums themselves.
As a bookkeeper/accountant, I get really annoyed when people who are not in finance or marketing argue about how certain things should cost less, be at a lower price point, accusing companies of price gouging, etc. without even bothering to look at the company's (or a similar company's) financial statements to get an idea of where expenses go. There is a difference between wanting things to be cheaper and saying things should be cheaper. I have no issue with people wanting things to be cheaper, as it is pretty natural for people to want the most bang for their hard earned buck after all. What I do have an issue with is people devaluing other's work, such as claiming they can make better financial decisions (e.g.: product pricing) better than the company can without any significant substantiation. Unless you have enough financial information on the company or industry, accusing a company of price gouging is inconsiderate at best and rude at worst, as it shows a lack of appreciation and understanding for the work that the employees put in, not to mention the capital investment that owners put in and the financial risk that they face. Imagine a customer just barges into your workplace saying that the business you work for charges too much for its product, and they say they can hire another company who is great at cost cutting charging their products cheaper by paying their workers less or some other bunk reasoning.
The cost of the character builder is not just flagging information and doing data entry onto a spreadsheet. There are also constant updates and minor improvements being made (they are rolling out a new version of the character sheet right now), not to mention server costs, equipment costs, and a whole bunch of other expenses that I have no idea about. And the license fee should absolutely be priced into the character options. That information is Wizard's intellectual property, not Beyond's. You are allowed to enter in Wizard's information for your own private use, but you are absolutely not allowed to publish it here on Beyond since you do not have a license to do that.
If you feel that the character builder options are not worth the price being offered, and you think you can do their job cheaper than they can, you are more than welcome to enter in all the information yourself as unpublished homebrew for your own private use. You can use the character builder options completely free of monetary charge, but you will have pay up in the form of time and effort entering all the information in.
Your first point is correct, if you are totaling the individual contents. I am not totaling those, I am totaling the bundle options for the content. IE Xanathar's for example has 31 subclasses with it, totaling all thos individual subclasses comes to 61.69, or their bundle option for the subclasses is $9.99. These bundle options are what I am totaling, not the individual pieces themselves.
Second point, you are again going off of individual buying instead of the bundle buying of all the spells/classes/ect.
3rd point only applies to the individual compendium bundles or the 3 big bundles that they do. Again, as I have stated, I already have the books so I have no need for digital copies. Thus point 3 is being thrown out.
I'm still somewhat perplexed about your argument; all individual items are more expensive than the whole. Bundles are cheaper than buying all the individual items in that group (say spells), but buying the whole book is cheaper than buying all the bundles. It's pretty consistent; the bigger a bundle you buy, the more you save.
Is your argument that you want all the listings content, but for the price of the whole book minus the compendium content as you don't want the latter? I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, nor does it ever really work that way. That's like when a $400 console comes with $100 of free games; you can't ask for them to remove the free games and knock $100 off. This is the same. Ultimately the most you should ever have to pay is the price of the full book, so think of it this way; you're buying all the listing content cheaper that the sum of the bundles, and getting the compendium for free?
Point 4 (and going into Point 5), I was boiling the argument down to the bare minimum. Thats what it boils down to, in the very end. True that the backend stuff is important to take into consideration, however, what they are charging is astronomical, because as I have stated, the content just for the builder alone is more than the compendium itself. Also true licensing fees entail more than what I originally stated, however, the big thing about the licensing fees is being able to host and sell the digital versions of the compendiums, that is the biggest portion of any licensing fees when it comes to books, for digital and print. The licensing fees for the books include the use of any information in the books. For all intents and purposes, and for simplicity sake, dndbeyond is like a licensee franchise of WotC. Not fully, but for simplicity sake, and for easier comparisons thats what I am going with for right now. With those types of agreements between the 3rd party and the 1st party typically involves the ability to sell and do what they want with the content as they want, as long as it is within WotC's scope of approval, ie why they can't just be giving books away for free ect. That includes the ability to take the information out of the books and put the individual components for sale. This is the case, because if it wasn't dndbeyond wouldn't be able to sell the individual components. The licensing fee for the book already covers everything else for sell...
You're assuming that the prices listed are direction proportional to just the money it costs to type something into the system, which is not true. Business is much more complex than that and, when you say you're "boiling it down to the bare minimum", you may be boiling it down a bit too far.
So long argument short, the prices for the character builder content is still asinine, because the content for the builder itself is not worth more than the digital copies of the compendiums themselves.
Assuming you're using asinine to mean "stupid or foolish", I'd have to disagree strongly. DDB's pricing model is serving them and the community very well. To quote Adam Bradford for another thread a while back:
in just a bit over two years, we've caught up to the amount of accounts the biggest VTT has, and we have far more subscribers and purchasers
I get that maybe the price points aren't to your liking, they're often not. But it seems a little unfair to imply that there's something 'off' or foolish about the pricing seems a little harsh. And it certainly seems unfair to minimise the work the dev team puts in to just data entry.
You want to buy the compendium on here for both the character builder and the digital version of the compendium? That will be $30... Perfectly reasonable price...
You want to buy just a digital version of the compendium but have non of the access to its contents on the character builder? That will be $20.... Another perfectly reasonable price...
You want to just buy the content from the compendium for the character builder but have no digital version of the compendium? That will cost you $27.95.... I am sorry what? You are saying that the flags in the database to allow us to use that content without the actual digital version of the compendium is going to cost me almost as much as buying the digital version of the compendium ALONG WITH the ability to use the content in the character creator? I am sorry, but that is just simply asinine and does not make any sense whatsoever.
Can somebody please explain how this would make any sense to anybody?
When you buy the $30 version with all those extremely useful toggles (the real value of this particular website), it basically includes the $20 compendium for free. When you buy all of those individual pieces for $28, that last $2 is for the compendium basically, because they have to charge a minimum of $1.99. My somewhat educated guess is that comes from an outside source in som way. Either the card processing company that handles their transactions set that minimum, or they have to charge something by legal contract with WotC, and because of the fees the card processing company charges DDB for the service (probably in the neighborhood of 3%-5%/transaction) have to be covered too, it just works out to that. And they HAVE TO charge $20 for the compendium because that’s the price WotC has set.
I would also point out that when one purchases individual items for the builder, one also gets what essentially amounts to the compendium page(s) for that item. If you buy a subclasses bundle, for example, not only can you add that subclass to one or more characters you build, you can also see the entire write up for that subclass under Game Rules>Classes.
Additionally, Psuedolatry, I am surprised by your claims about the licensing deal. Why are you so certain you know what the terms are? While Adam/Badeye (VP of Fandom and in charge of DDB) has aluded to some restrictions brought on by the agreement between WOTC and DDB, the specifics of that licensing deal are private. Why would you think licensing only applies to the compendium purchases and not to the individual item/item bundle purchases?
Lets take Xanathar's Guide for example...
You want to buy the compendium on here for both the character builder and the digital version of the compendium? That will be $30... Perfectly reasonable price...
You want to buy just a digital version of the compendium but have non of the access to its contents on the character builder? That will be $20.... Another perfectly reasonable price...
You want to just buy the content from the compendium for the character builder but have no digital version of the compendium? That will cost you $27.95.... I am sorry what? You are saying that the flags in the database to allow us to use that content without the actual digital version of the compendium is going to cost me almost as much as buying the digital version of the compendium ALONG WITH the ability to use the content in the character creator? I am sorry, but that is just simply asinine and does not make any sense whatsoever.
Can somebody please explain how this would make any sense to anybody?
I found its actually even worse than that:
Wayfinder's Guide:
Compendium + Builder = $20
Just Builder = $23.95
Volo's Guide:
Both about equal (29.99 and 29.96 respectfully)
Tortle:
Compendium + builder = $9.99
Builder = $6.98
Compendium = $4.99
Sword Coast:
Compendium + Builder = $29.99
Builder = $23.95
Compendium = $19.99
Grung:
Package = $4.99
separate = $2.99/each
It's the same for each compendium. The content for the builder is more expensive than the digital version of the book itself... Something seriously makes no sense here... Can somebody please explain this? Because its just asinine. I know dndbeyond/twitch/amazon/ect need to make the money back from buying the licenses from from WotC for access to the books and having the database like this, however, the digital formats of the books is where those licensing fees and such come into play, not the use for it in the builder. So can somebody please explain how the access via a flag in the database for the builder is more expensive than the actual digital copy of the book?
Are you aware that the combo price is reduce by the price.of whatever y nhave already purchased? So if it's 20 each and 30 for the bundle, you can buy one for 20 and the price of the remaining stuff will be reduced to 10.
It actually makes sense to me, next to zero work has to be put into taking the information form the book and transposing it into a digital "book" it more or less a "copy and Paste" job. On this site you are buying a program, hard work put in by the designers, programmers, research and development teams. You can already find places to purchase the "words" of the book for a cheaper price in other places, its the integration of the information into the many features that Beyond offers and works hard to improve on.
I'm not trying to undercut any kind of frustration you may feel in the pricing, but I think it actually stems from the fact that deep down you want to unlock all of the content and unleash the sites full potential. I use to do the same math as you to see what I should buy, then I decided to do that math against the bundles (especially when they are discounted with codes) and decided the best way to get the most "free" content is to buckle down and get the legendary bundle. Because as the site grows and makes money the programmers design even more features that all of my already unlocked content is integrated into for no additional charge.
DE OPRESSO LIBRE
But Keeroth, in the end, that is the exact same thing as buying the compendium and character builder content together. So there is no point. I already have all the books. It shouldn't cost more than the book itself (because of licensing fees because dndbeyond pays WotC fees to be able to sell the digital copies) just to use the content in the character builder, since I am not buying the compendium there is no licensing fees to cover, so why is it that the contents are priced more than the book itself?
Crosstrooper, I understand paying for the time and energy it took for the creators of the site to code the book. But what I am not ok with is being forced to basically buy the book without actually any of the book content, ie no lookup options, no actual book content, no being able to see the compendium, no nothing. Because all it is is a flag, once the info has been put into the system. And if I am being completely honest, its not that hard copying and pasting things into a database for future lookup by programs, thats my day to day job... I wish I only had to input things once and be done with it.... If I could charge every person that wanted access to that information that I put into the system, I honestly would, however, I wouldn't do it for such extortionate pricing. They have to decide, is the character builder content and all worth, for the most part, $10 or the more than the price of the compendium alone without the character builder.
I use dndbeyond for the character builder. As I have already said in my other reply, I already have all the books, I have no need for them on dndbeyond, I just want somewhere I can have the content in a simple place where making characters and building campaigns is ok. And if I have to pay a little bit of a premium to do that? So be it, but there is no way in hell that the character builder flags alone are worth more than what they are charging for the "license fee included" compendium alone.
There's probably a few things to clear up that might make this all make sense;
If none of this convinces you that nothing underhand is going on with pricing, then you said it yourself "its not that hard copying and pasting things into a database". D&D Beyond provides the homebrew tools and allows users who don't want to purchase the content to enter it in themselves for personal use, copying it from the books they may already own.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Dave,
Your first point is correct, if you are totaling the individual contents. I am not totaling those, I am totaling the bundle options for the content. IE Xanathar's for example has 31 subclasses with it, totaling all thos individual subclasses comes to 61.69, or their bundle option for the subclasses is $9.99. These bundle options are what I am totaling, not the individual pieces themselves.
Second point, you are again going off of individual buying instead of the bundle buying of all the spells/classes/ect.
3rd point only applies to the individual compendium bundles or the 3 big bundles that they do. Again, as I have stated, I already have the books so I have no need for digital copies. Thus point 3 is being thrown out.
Point 4 (and going into Point 5), I was boiling the argument down to the bare minimum. Thats what it boils down to, in the very end. True that the backend stuff is important to take into consideration, however, what they are charging is astronomical, because as I have stated, the content just for the builder alone is more than the compendium itself. Also true licensing fees entail more than what I originally stated, however, the big thing about the licensing fees is being able to host and sell the digital versions of the compendiums, that is the biggest portion of any licensing fees when it comes to books, for digital and print. The licensing fees for the books include the use of any information in the books. For all intents and purposes, and for simplicity sake, dndbeyond is like a licensee franchise of WotC. Not fully, but for simplicity sake, and for easier comparisons thats what I am going with for right now. With those types of agreements between the 3rd party and the 1st party typically involves the ability to sell and do what they want with the content as they want, as long as it is within WotC's scope of approval, ie why they can't just be giving books away for free ect. That includes the ability to take the information out of the books and put the individual components for sale. This is the case, because if it wasn't dndbeyond wouldn't be able to sell the individual components. The licensing fee for the book already covers everything else for sell...
So long argument short, the prices for the character builder content is still asinine, because the content for the builder itself is not worth more than the digital copies of the compendiums themselves.
I do not see how that is a problem. When you buy something in smaller quantities, whether that is in smaller bundles or individual pieces, the price is almost always going to be more expensive when you add them up compared to buying the bigger packaged deal.
Buying a single can of cat food costs around a $0.50 to $1.00 at the grocery store depending on the brand. If I buy in bulk, each can can go as low as $0.30 to $0.40, or even less for the really cheap brands that come in big cans. Similarly, instead of spending $20.00 on a box of canned cat food, I can go to a wholesaler and buy a big pack of boxes for less than $20.00 per box.
At least in Beyond, after you spend a certain amount of money, you will get the rest of the book/bundle for free. If I buy a $20 box of cat food from the wholesaler every week and they offer a pack of 6 boxes for $100, after I spent $100 on individual boxes, I cannot go back to them and ask them to give me the sixth box of cat food for free.
As a bookkeeper/accountant, I get really annoyed when people who are not in finance or marketing argue about how certain things should cost less, be at a lower price point, accusing companies of price gouging, etc. without even bothering to look at the company's (or a similar company's) financial statements to get an idea of where expenses go. There is a difference between wanting things to be cheaper and saying things should be cheaper. I have no issue with people wanting things to be cheaper, as it is pretty natural for people to want the most bang for their hard earned buck after all. What I do have an issue with is people devaluing other's work, such as claiming they can make better financial decisions (e.g.: product pricing) better than the company can without any significant substantiation. Unless you have enough financial information on the company or industry, accusing a company of price gouging is inconsiderate at best and rude at worst, as it shows a lack of appreciation and understanding for the work that the employees put in, not to mention the capital investment that owners put in and the financial risk that they face. Imagine a customer just barges into your workplace saying that the business you work for charges too much for its product, and they say they can hire another company who is great at cost cutting charging their products cheaper by paying their workers less or some other bunk reasoning.
The cost of the character builder is not just flagging information and doing data entry onto a spreadsheet. There are also constant updates and minor improvements being made (they are rolling out a new version of the character sheet right now), not to mention server costs, equipment costs, and a whole bunch of other expenses that I have no idea about. And the license fee should absolutely be priced into the character options. That information is Wizard's intellectual property, not Beyond's. You are allowed to enter in Wizard's information for your own private use, but you are absolutely not allowed to publish it here on Beyond since you do not have a license to do that.
If you feel that the character builder options are not worth the price being offered, and you think you can do their job cheaper than they can, you are more than welcome to enter in all the information yourself as unpublished homebrew for your own private use. You can use the character builder options completely free of monetary charge, but you will have pay up in the form of time and effort entering all the information in.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I'm still somewhat perplexed about your argument; all individual items are more expensive than the whole. Bundles are cheaper than buying all the individual items in that group (say spells), but buying the whole book is cheaper than buying all the bundles. It's pretty consistent; the bigger a bundle you buy, the more you save.
Is your argument that you want all the listings content, but for the price of the whole book minus the compendium content as you don't want the latter? I'm afraid it doesn't work that way, nor does it ever really work that way. That's like when a $400 console comes with $100 of free games; you can't ask for them to remove the free games and knock $100 off. This is the same. Ultimately the most you should ever have to pay is the price of the full book, so think of it this way; you're buying all the listing content cheaper that the sum of the bundles, and getting the compendium for free?
You're assuming that the prices listed are direction proportional to just the money it costs to type something into the system, which is not true. Business is much more complex than that and, when you say you're "boiling it down to the bare minimum", you may be boiling it down a bit too far.
Assuming you're using asinine to mean "stupid or foolish", I'd have to disagree strongly. DDB's pricing model is serving them and the community very well. To quote Adam Bradford for another thread a while back:
I get that maybe the price points aren't to your liking, they're often not. But it seems a little unfair to imply that there's something 'off' or foolish about the pricing seems a little harsh. And it certainly seems unfair to minimise the work the dev team puts in to just data entry.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
When you buy the $30 version with all those extremely useful toggles (the real value of this particular website), it basically includes the $20 compendium for free. When you buy all of those individual pieces for $28, that last $2 is for the compendium basically, because they have to charge a minimum of $1.99. My somewhat educated guess is that comes from an outside source in som way. Either the card processing company that handles their transactions set that minimum, or they have to charge something by legal contract with WotC, and because of the fees the card processing company charges DDB for the service (probably in the neighborhood of 3%-5%/transaction) have to be covered too, it just works out to that. And they HAVE TO charge $20 for the compendium because that’s the price WotC has set.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I would also point out that when one purchases individual items for the builder, one also gets what essentially amounts to the compendium page(s) for that item. If you buy a subclasses bundle, for example, not only can you add that subclass to one or more characters you build, you can also see the entire write up for that subclass under Game Rules>Classes.
Additionally, Psuedolatry, I am surprised by your claims about the licensing deal. Why are you so certain you know what the terms are? While Adam/Badeye (VP of Fandom and in charge of DDB) has aluded to some restrictions brought on by the agreement between WOTC and DDB, the specifics of that licensing deal are private. Why would you think licensing only applies to the compendium purchases and not to the individual item/item bundle purchases?
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk