Is D&D Beyond Enshittified?
What Enshittification Stage is it At?
- Stage 1: First, it was good for its users. Reasonable price, good features, excellent character builder.
- Stage 2: Next it was good for (some of) its partners. MCDM, Ghostfire,
- Stage 3: Good for its investors and shareholders. Not yet here but we’re seeing the character builder degrade as they hammer more stuff in.
The Asymmetric Business of D&D Beyond
- WOTC / Hasbro are in a different position than any other online RPG system. They are both the owners of the platform and the number one producer of products for that platform by like two orders of magnitude. This gives them an advantage so unfair, other publishers and customers don’t even acknowledge it. They’re just happy to be considered at all.
Good News — Limited Network Effect
- You have other places you can go: Foundry, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds. Even more if you’re just looking for SRD material.
- Other 5e systems on other platforms like Tales of the Valiant on Shard and Alchemy and Level Up Advanced 5e with Level Up Gateway
- We always have the books.
- Publishers, so far, have no exclusivity in their license with D&D Beyond. We have yet to see a publisher only publish there except for WOTC.
