Discord as a DriveThruRPG Alternative?

[Lunar Ronin]

Discord announced today that they have begun beta testing server shops, where Discord server owners can sell digital items like PDFs and channel access.





Seeing as how most tabletop RPG publishers have their own Discord server these days, this may be a viable alternative for selling PDFs directly to fans that don't care about print. Depending on the cut, of course.

Thoughts?

 

[Fenris-77]

Hmm. This seems like a great idea for publishers with an established following but pretty pants if you're looking for new customers. That said, I'm not really sure the DTRPG excels in that second task anyway.

 

[Torque2100]

I'll be honest, anything that provides a way around the OneBookShelf monopoly is good in my book.

 

[Endless Flight]

Yep, they need some real competition.

 

[Ladybird]

OBS doesn't have a monopoly. There are plenty of other storefronts, even if you don't run your own.

That said, I could see this being useful for the particularly edgelordy crowd... if it was worldwide.

 

[AsenRG]

The existence of Revolut means that I already was able to do that just by reaching for the publishers. And I could probably arrange for Print+PDF combos, too (say "hi" to Lulu).

 

[Endless Flight]

OBS doesn't have a monopoly. There are plenty of other storefronts, even if you don't run your own.

That said, I could see this being useful for the particularly edgelordy crowd... if it was worldwide.

There are true monopolies and effective monopolies. It’s the latter. OBS is Pepsi but there’s no Coke, just a bunch of Jolt Colas.

 

[chuckdee]

There are true monopolies and effective monopolies. It’s the latter. OBS is Pepsi but there’s no Coke.

Having a central place to browse is the only monopoly OBS has on the market. And I can't see that this appeals to that particular need any more than any of the other options out there do (gumroad, etc).

 

[Endless Flight]

OBS wanted to secure that too with the Roll20 merger.

 

[Ladybird]

There are true monopolies and effective monopolies. It’s the latter. OBS is Pepsi but there’s no Coke, just a bunch of Jolt Colas.

Well, other than Amazon, Itch, Lulu, Patreon, PNP Arcade, Paizo, or creating your own storefront. They don't even have to have P in the name! I'm sure there are move than just those options, too.

The only thing DTRPG really has is it's first mover advantage, but the majority of stuff on there is worthless, it's the newer stuff that people are actually interested in. Contact publishers and tell them you want their games elsewhere and, if there's genuine commercial interest, they'll move.

 

[Endless Flight]

Well, other than Amazon, Itch, Lulu, Patreon, PNP Arcade, Paizo, or creating your own storefront. They don't even have to have P in the name! I'm sure there are move than just those options, too.

The only thing DTRPG really has is it's first mover advantage, but the majority of stuff on there is worthless, it's the newer stuff that people are actually interested in. Contact publishers and tell them you want their games elsewhere and, if there's genuine commercial interest, they'll move.

Do you think they would move to somewhere like BGE?

 

[Ladybird]

Do you think they would move to somewhere like BGE?

I don't know what BGE is.

 

[Endless Flight]

I don't know what BGE is.

It was formed as an “free speech alternative” to DTRPG.

 

[Ladybird]

It was formed as an “free speech alternative” to DTRPG.

In which case, probably some will, yeah. Everyone, no - but multiple strong storefronts is better than one strongest storefront.

 

[Endless Flight]

In which case, probably some will, yeah. Everyone, no - but multiple strong storefronts is better than one strongest storefront.

If even half said no, it wouldn’t really be a equal alternative. Also, ideally, it would need to be started by somebody already well-known in the RPG industry or somebody that’s already been successful in another online enterprise. Basically someone with clout.

 

[Bunch]

I echo Ladybird . OBS doesn't have a monopoly. They have a user base. I doubt RPGs are where Discord is looking to make money but if that was the target they'd need to do a few things to win me over as a purchaser. #1) allow me to confirm an OBS purchase with the Discord publisher so my library can come over to a maximal extent. Just having one more random place to buy PDFs is no where near enough. Steve Jackson games had that for years and I almost never bought anything there. It just was a pain to have one more place to check to see what I had/wanted. Bundle of Holding using OBS is a huge plus for me vs Humble Bundle even though when a deal overlaps with both BoH and HB, HB usually has more for the money.

Their main value proposition is the users libraries which ultimately are under the control of the various RPG companies. They (in sufficient numbers) choose to make whole the OBS buyers on a different platform and OBS is not nearly as strong. Hell WotC could screw OBS fairly easily just moving their catalog to an in house system or a competitor.

Pazio has this ability if it really invested in it's digital storefront. Discord has an advantage over Paizo in that like OBS it doesn't have a house system in the horse race to favor.

 

[chuckdee]

Do you think they would move to somewhere like BGE?

I've never heard of BGE before, and that's not enough to look it up... care to link?

 

[Endless Flight]

Bunch So you would want another site to merge with OBS so you could download everything from OBS? Isn’t that a monopoly?

 

[Endless Flight]

I've never heard of BGE before, and that's not enough to look it up... care to link?

You would if you were a Site regular.

Big Geek Emporium

Find the best selection of Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop role playing games products on our platform. Browse our extensive range of PDF files, Print On Demand, and physical products, and discover new adventures today. Plus, vendors can join our community and sell their own RPG products...

biggeekemporium.com

 

[Bunch]

Bunch So you would want another site to merge with OBS so you could download everything from OBS? Isn’t that a monopoly?

I don't actually care at the moment if OBS has a monopoly at the moment. Just like legally there is actually nothing wrong with a monopoly until it starts abusing that fact to harm consumers. Right now it's strong dominance is a net benefit to me. I mean if Humble Bundle agreed to have OBS host their files I would be thrilled! One of my biggest challenges is figuring out if I already own something so consolidation helps me as long as prices stay low and accessibility remains high. Publishers I can imagine see it differently.

There just isn't much to stop me from switching if OBS becomes a bad actor so I'm not so worried about them being a strongly dominant player. I download everything I have from them and switch.
If they screw up I see little challenge to a competitor quickly coming in and at least taking over the PDF portion of their business. Print is harder.

 

[ffilz]

Yea, ultimately the advantage of OBS is that almost everybody uses it, which makes it a one stop shop to find product, and a one stop shop to see and update your library. For another service to genuinely compete, it would actually have to arrive at the same market dominance.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

OBS is most definitely a monopoly

 

[Bunch]

OBS is most definitely a monopoly

I doubt it would meet the legal definition. Paizo alone probably does the most to pull it from that status followed by Itch.io and Steve Jackson games. I mean I can see how it is financially untenable to use someone else exclusively but they don't control the ability to sell. They just have the largest user base so it's hard not to use them and stay solvent.

They are closest to a monopsony where they are a dominant buyer of lots of publishers goods.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I doubt it would meet the legal definition. Paizo alone probably does the most to pull it from that status followed by Itch.io and Steve Jackson games. I mean I can see how it is financially untenable to use someone else exclusively but they don't control the ability to sell. They just have the largest user base so it's hard not to use them and stay solvent.

They are closest to a monopsony where they are a dominant buyer of lots of publishers goods.

I am not sure whether they would legally meet it. I do think they control the PDF sector of the hobby, so they are basically the Amazon of RPGs. And it isn't like it started as drive thru alone. They bought other platforms to grow.

They also do have a powerful influence on what gets made. If you can't reliably put something up on OBS, for whatever reason, most publishers won't invest the money in making it. I think it is very naive to think OBS is just about a big user base. I use OBS. I think the people who run it are fairly good and reasonable. But I also think they have an outsized influence on the hobby and all it will take to show that is a change in whose in charge or a shift in direction where suddenly the terms really impact people in a negative way.

Look, if you want to sell RPG PDFS, you need to be on OBS. There are alternatives that can sometimes work, but for 99 percent of companies if they aren't selling not only PDFS, but print, on OBS, it is like they don't exist. Paizo is pretty meaningless in terms of PDF sales (I was up on Paizo but I don't even bother uploading PDFs there anymore). Itch.io is the only real viable alternative but I think that is still an emerging thing.

And we just saw another expansion of OBS this year into VTT

 

[Endless Flight]

Itch.io’s interface is nowhere near as good as DTRPG.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Itch.io’s interface is nowhere near as good as DTRPG.

I looked into it and might just be too ancient for the format, but I had trouble understanding the interface. And I think I am too old to jump on board. I do think it is the most viable alternative though because it is clearly producing a thriving ecosystem of content (and I hear about it all the time)

 

[Lunar Ronin]

The existence of Revolut means that I already was able to do that just by reaching for the publishers. And I could probably arrange for Print+PDF combos, too (say "hi" to Lulu).

Revolut, the European bank? Just making sure I understand.

I echo Ladybird . OBS doesn't have a monopoly. They have a user base. I doubt RPGs are where Discord is looking to make money but if that was the target they'd need to do a few things to win me over as a purchaser. #1) allow me to confirm an OBS purchase with the Discord publisher so my library can come over to a maximal extent. Just having one more random place to buy PDFs is no where near enough. Steve Jackson games had that for years and I almost never bought anything there. It just was a pain to have one more place to check to see what I had/wanted. Bundle of Holding using OBS is a huge plus for me vs Humble Bundle even though when a deal overlaps with both BoH and HB, HB usually has more for the money.

Their main value proposition is the users libraries which ultimately are under the control of the various RPG companies. They (in sufficient numbers) choose to make whole the OBS buyers on a different platform and OBS is not nearly as strong. Hell WotC could screw OBS fairly easily just moving their catalog to an in house system or a competitor.

Pazio has this ability if it really invested in it's digital storefront. Discord has an advantage over Paizo in that like OBS it doesn't have a house system in the horse race to favor.

If OBS isn't a monopoly already (and I suggest that it very much effectively is), what you're suggesting is how we get monopolies. By insisting that a new marketplace would have to interface with your DriveThru library and provide your copy there, you're effectively giving OBS a stranglehold on the tabletop RPG market. That's not a good thing for consumers in the longrun. See: Amazon.

You would if you were a Site regular.

Big Geek Emporium

Find the best selection of Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop role playing games products on our platform. Browse our extensive range of PDF files, Print On Demand, and physical products, and discover new adventures today. Plus, vendors can join our community and sell their own RPG products...

biggeekemporium.com

Now why in blazes would I want to do that?

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I mean I can see how it is financially untenable to use someone else exclusively but they don't control the ability to sell.

Every company is different obviously but I would say for the majority of RPG companies right now, it isn't very tenable to not be on OBS. I have PDFs on other platforms, but OBS is where you make the money, it is where people see your product. And they don't have any real competition IMO in terms of PDF (Paizo just isn't even close in my opinion, and Itch Io, which I think that is the most likely real competition to emerge, is still too early to really say). And increasingly it is important to have your print material there too. But I will say a thorough examination of the numbers would require a wide field of responses here.

One thing I can say for sure for myself is: I do have to consider OBS content policy when I am making RPGs. It is definitely a factor. And I would argue even the most punk rock, we don't care what anyone thinks, publisher is probably doing the same if they have an important presence on the OBS site. And I am not talking about controversial or edgy content, but rather things that might unexpectedly violate one of their rules (for example if you have a hag entry in your monster section and it says they eat babies, is that okay? will that get you taken down?). Now they can have any content policy they want. Most people find their content policy fairly reasonable. But the point is, I am deeply considering and specifically OBS's content policy and its wording whenever I am in the process of publishing a game because of how crucial that platform is (and having something go down from OBS, I can't just say, I will put it up on Paizo and everything will be fine. There just isn't a comparable platform).

 

[Bunch]

If OBS isn't a monopoly already (and I suggest that it very much effectively is), what you're suggesting is how we get monopolies. By insisting that a new marketplace would have to interface with your DriveThru library and provide your copy there, you're effectively giving OBS a stranglehold on the tabletop RPG market. That's not a good thing for consumers in the longrun. See: Amazon.

Not exactly. It's how we get defacto standards. Google Sheets uses certain methodologies that it copied from Excel to ease the transition of sheets and users. Excel got those from Lotus 123 to ease the transition of sheets and users. Those might all have been started by VisiCalc but I don't remember those that well.

Monopolies usually have a moat that keeps a user in either by strangling all competition or having a feature so expensive to duplicate you can't get past it. OBS has a userbase that values its libraries. OBS publishers value those users. Those users only cost to transition to a different service is the cost of setting up yet another account and searching multiple providers for purchased content. But the big thing is users have to want to transition. So far nothing OBS is doing is causing people to want to in large numbers.

 

[Bunch]

Every company is different obviously but I would say for the majority of RPG companies right now, it isn't very tenable to not be on OBS. I have PDFs on other platforms, but OBS is where you make the money, it is where people see your product. And they don't have any real competition IMO in terms of PDF (Paizo just isn't even close in my opinion, and Itch Io, which I think that is the most likely real competition to emerge, is still too early to really say). And increasingly it is important to have your print material there too. But I will say a thorough examination of the numbers would require a wide field of responses here.

One thing I can say for sure for myself is: I do have to consider OBS content policy when I am making RPGs. It is definitely a factor. And I would argue even the most punk rock, we don't care what anyone thinks, publisher is probably doing the same if they have an important presence on the OBS site. And I am not talking about controversial or edgy content, but rather things that might unexpectedly violate one of their rules (for example if you have a hag entry in your monster section and it says they eat babies, is that okay? will that get you taken down?). Now they can have any content policy they want. Most people find their content policy fairly reasonable. But the point is, I am deeply considering and specifically OBS's content policy and its wording whenever I am in the process of publishing a game because of how crucial that platform is (and having something go down from OBS, I can't just say, I will put it up on Paizo and everything will be fine. There just isn't a comparable platform).

Most places will have some policy limits and I suspect ones that dont will eventually lose out to ones that do. I tend to be very much a free speech person but I also know people don't want to randomly come across objectionable content. I get your fear but I doubt competition is going to remove it too much. That feature is unfortunately what more people want these days so to be competitive they will likely implement it. You can still sell at Lulu and itch.io but the freedom to do there comes with a drop in viewers and sales. That seems less like monopoly power than bulk user power.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Monopolies usually have a moat that keeps a user in either by strangling all competition or having a feature so expensive to duplicate you can't get past it. OBS has a userbase that values its libraries. OBS publishers value those users. Those users only cost to transition to a different service is the cost of setting up yet another account and searching multiple providers for purchased content. But the big thing is users have to want to transition. So far nothing OBS is doing is causing people to want to in large numbers.

But they have made key mergers. RPGnow and Drivethru used to be separate entities and merged into OBS. And OBS recently merged with Roll20 (still not fully sure what their merger with roll20 will mean, but I also don't think it is insignificant to the hobby)

 

[Lunar Ronin]

But they have made key mergers. RPGnow and Drivethru used to be separate entities and merged into OBS. And OBS recently merged with Roll20 (still not fully sure what their merger with roll20 will mean, but I also don't think it is insignificant to the hobby)

Not to mention killed off Astral Tabletop, one of Roll20's competitors.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

As a consumer I prefer drivethrurpg.com to the alternative sites just like I prefer Amazon for book buying. I don't think any product I'd be interested in would be banned from either site.

 

[Ladybird]

Most places will have some policy limits and I suspect ones that dont will eventually lose out to ones that do. I tend to be very much a free speech person but I also know people don't want to randomly come across objectionable content. I get your fear but I doubt competition is going to remove it too much. That feature is unfortunately what more people want these days so to be competitive they will likely implement it. You can still sell at Lulu and itch.io but the freedom to do there comes with a drop in viewers and sales. That seems less like monopoly power than bulk user power.

I don't have any issue whatsoever with stores having content policies - it's the owners store, after all, they are not public services so they should be allowed to set their own policies. If they misjudge it, then they create an opportunity for criticism and for a new entrant in the market, and if that opportunity is big enough that the new entrant takes their former position then, well, that's the market in action.

I suspect the actual reason none of the "free speech" sites (Because I'm sure "BGE" is not the first) have taken off is that that market niche is not actually very big or profitable at all.

 

[Teotwawki]

There are true monopolies and effective monopolies. It’s the latter. OBS is Pepsi but there’s no Coke, just a bunch of Jolt Colas.

I like this metaphor. Especially because I don't drink Pepsi, Coke, nor any of the Jolty Colas.

My use of OBS is like having a friend treat at a dive bar and, seeing there's no decent liquor, I have a rum and peokolt to be social.

 

[Voros]

No expert but doesn't a monopoly usually use their market dominance to crush/buy-out competitors?

I haven't heard of anything like that about OBS.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

No expert but doesn't a monopoly usually use their market dominance to crush/buy-out competitors?

I haven't heard of anything like that about OBS.

I am no expert either. My understanding is that is one way to become a monopoly or maintain their monopoly position and there are many types of monopolies. There is also differences between how say the US government defines monopolies, other governments define them and how an economist might talk about monopolies. For example I know I have read economists who consider Amazon a monopoly or will say something like they are engaging in anti-competitive behavior. I think on OBS, there is a discussion to be had, but I do get the sense that many publishers would regard them as a monopoly (and many others would consider them to be at least moving in that direction). From my point of view OBS is effectively one in the sense that there isn't really any competition when it comes to selling PDFs because they hold such a dominant position, and that position has an enormous impact on what is sold in the hobby, including what prices people charge. Look at how prices when they altered their top ten algorithm to base ranking on sales amount instead of numbers sold: I haven't crunched the numbers but it does seem like we have seen prices of PDFs go up since then).

One thing I will say is it seems to me discussions about whether OBS is a monopoly or whether its policies are impacting what kind of RPGs people are able to make (and if that is having any kind of censorious effect) often get couched and framed in ways that are political to the RPG hobby (i.e. if you support this proxy political in the hobby, you support OBS, if you support this other proxy political discussion in the hobby you are skeptical of their position). But I think that is misguided as these are concerns that go beyond any of that stuff and will have lots of unintended consequences down the road for the hobby. And I am not attacking OBS. I like the people who run it, and I make decent revenue there. But I also do feel like they have a lot of influence over content simply due to their position in the industry (look if OBS said publicly today, we aren't selling any books that feature long swords because long swords are bad, you can bet my PDFs probably wouldn't have long swords if I wanted to stay in business). I know that is a ridiculous example but I think it does make the point. That kind of statement wouldn't matter and would be entirely a matter of a businesses personal views on long swords were there a healthy landscape of real competition. But because there isn't it means them saying that becomes more than just them running the company the way they feel comfortable and has an impact on all games treatment of long swords.

 

[Acmegamer]

I do feel that OBS is effectively a monopoly, so I'm all for more competition. Though has has been pointed out currently the other sites interfaces are pretty lacking in comparison to what OBS offers.

 

[Bunch]

But they have made key mergers. RPGnow and Drivethru used to be separate entities and merged into OBS. And OBS recently merged with Roll20 (still not fully sure what their merger with roll20 will mean, but I also don't think it is insignificant to the hobby)

Ok. I mean businesses grow. I'm guessing the two companies looked at each other and said "I don't know if I can outgrow you before you outgrow me but I know there isn't enough money for three of us to exist. Let's merge to survive."

Same with Roll20 and Astral. I doubt there is a large enough market to support two strictly browser based VTTs.

 

[Endless Flight]

If there isn’t enough money for RPGNow and DTRPG to co-exist in the market then DTRPG is a monopoly.