D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

UngeheuerLich · Jul 8, 2024

mamba said:
If you consider a print sale something that either happens or does not happen, then I agree, why would they ever stop printing.

mamba said:
If however WotC stopping printing would get most of those buying print onto digital, then stopping print could result in a bigger overall profit for WotC because the increased margin of those switching more than compensates for the lost profit from those not switching.

I think you know, I reject that assumption.

mamba said:
If WotC were at that point today, they would stop printing. They are not. That does not mean they cannot work towards getting there, esp. since doing so already aligns with their digital strategy.

Yeah. I agree. If they are there at some point they will stop. I just don't think that it is anywhere a priority for them. And I won't see this in my lifetime. But I have been wrong before.
And to be clear: I don't see evidence for your conclusions. But absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. So your assumption could end up being spot on.

I go into popcorn mode again.

mamba · Jul 8, 2024

Oofta said:
But those improved experiences beyond just an ebook don't come for free. Which changes the calculation.

you were just now saying that we do not know what the cost for putting a book on DDB are vs printing one.... it could still be cheaper to provide then hyperlinked version with Maps support over printing it

I agree that in the end more goes into this, as WotC also has subscriptions and once they have their VTT they might also have microtransactions in addition. Both things that given them new ways to generate ongoing revenue compared to books.

I guess we can all agree that WotC would not have bought DDB for $150M and hired 350+ developers for DDB and the VTT if they did not expect a good return on their investment, and the more people that go digital, the better for them.

Will they phase out books, I do not know for sure and neither do you know for sure that they will not. But their entire strategy is to make books less and digital more important. It is in their interest to get people off books. If too many people refuse to budge, they will keep them around, the question is how many will

Ok, I am done with this topic, no one has anything new at this point, we just will have to wait and see

Parmandur · Jul 8, 2024

mamba said:
you said that before, and I replied before that D&D is not an ebook. WotC can provide an improved experience for playing D&D digitally, a novel cannot do anything remotely similar. That is why the ebook is stuck there and D&D already is past that point

But is it...?

mamba · Jul 8, 2024

Parmandur said:
But is it...?

is D&D digital > 12% of all sales? WotC is not good at providing any useful data in their financial statements, so yet again this will remain a matter of opinion, but supposedly about 50% of D&D players have an account. I would be very surprised if this did not translate into more than 12% of unit sales

Didn't you say they had already recouped their $150M investment into DDB a while ago? Going by the profit WotC makes from D&D in a year, that would mean that much more than 12% of their profit was generated from DDB. So either their profit margins are significantly higher to account for that when unit sales are only around 10%, or unit sales are significantly above 10%, your choice

BTW is that 12% ebook number unit sales or $?

Parmandur · Jul 8, 2024

mamba said:
BTW is that 12% ebook number unit sales or $?

Unit sales, not dollars.

occam · Tuesday at 12:45 AM

mamba said:
I guess then you simply do not understand what you are even talking about...

You started with

if you actually agreed that x < y, then it would be simple math that $25 * x < $25 * y follows from it.

You gave the $25 as the gross that WotC makes for a print book, the gross for DDB you can look up at the site, so there is no speculation there. Digital books either cost $25 or $30. For simplicity I went with $25 above but clearly this is also true for $30.

So which is it. Because the print profit margin is smaller than the digital profit margin and WotC gets the same amount for both, it absolutely follows that the profit per unit in $ for digital is also higher, or you no longer agree that the digital profit margin is higher?

Huh. Is it possible you don't actually understand the difference between profit margin measured as a percentage of revenue, vs. absolute dollars (or other denomination)? I didn't want to assume that, but let me try to make this clear.

For the sake of an example, assume the following:

Physical book: retail price $60, gross profit $25, i.e. cost of goods sold (COGS) is $35
Digital book: retail price $30, gross profit $25, COGS is $5

In this example, there's no doubt that the digital product has a lower COGS. If you express profit margin as a ratio of gross profit to revenue (retail price), the digital product has a much higher margin: 83% vs. 42%.

But the profit margin measured in dollars for both products is the same: $25.

Now the thing is, we don't actually know COGS for either product, which means we don't know gross profit or margin as a percentage for either one. I hope it makes sense now why claiming that WotC makes more money on per-unit basis from either physical or digital books is an unsupportable statement; the unknowns place the possible gross profit numbers within a margin of error that none of us can sufficiently narrow with the information we have.

Parmandur · Tuesday at 12:46 AM

occam said:
Huh. Is it possible you don't actually understand the difference between profit margin measured as a percentage of revenue, vs. absolute dollars (or other denomination)? I didn't want to assume that, but let me try to make this clear.

For the sake of an example, assume the following:

Physical book: retail price $60, gross profit $25, i.e. cost of goods sold (COGS) is $35

Digital book: retail price $30, gross profit $25, COGS is $5

In this example, there's no doubt that the digital product has a lower COGS. If you express profit margin as a ratio of gross profit to revenue (retail price), the digital product has a much higher margin: 83% vs. 42%.

But the profit margin measured in dollars for both products is the same: $25.

Now the thing is, we don't actually know COGS for either product, which means we don't know gross profit or margin as a percentage for either one. I hope it makes sense now why claiming that WotC makes more money on per-unit basis from either physical or digital books is an unsupportable statement; the unknowns place the possible gross profit numbers within a margin of error that none of us can sufficiently narrow with the information we have.

Also, volume of sales will make a difference.

Maxperson · Tuesday at 2:52 AM

Warpiglet-7 said:
The biggest thing people have to fear is fear itself: FOMO.

I am also thinking about how to buy a case of miniatures (really like eye of ruin) without my spouse killing me.

mamba · Tuesday at 3:00 AM

occam said:
Huh. Is it possible you don't actually understand the difference between profit margin measured as a percentage of revenue, vs. absolute dollars (or other denomination)? I didn't want to assume that, but let me try to make this clear.

no need to assume it, I do,. What you seem to still fail to understand is that if the gross is the same, then whatever margin is higher also has the higher amount

occam said:
Now the thing is, we don't actually know COGS for either product, which means we don't know gross profit or margin as a percentage for either one

you mentioend $25 as the amount WotC gets for the book and said the digital margin is higher, I used these in my example to show that the $ per digital is higher than the $ per print book

mamba · Tuesday at 3:04 AM

Parmandur said:
Also, volume of sales will make a difference.

not on a per unit basis

D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

UngeheuerLich

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mamba

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Parmandur

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mamba

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Parmandur

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occam

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Parmandur

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Maxperson

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mamba

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mamba

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