Why full price for wotc books? I already own copies.

Help me understand why we are asked to pay $29 or $49 for books here, when I've already paid that much for the paper copies of the books? If we're paying full price for the digital data, it would imply that there is no cost for printing and book binding; so are the books priced too high, or the digital data priced too high? 

On here, it won't be just a straight copy of the book from start to finish.  It will have some features intergrated, built-out for use in VTT, Roll20 tabletop.  Different work (by different staffs) was done on each. It's kinda like if you read the book, and then you want to go see the movie of it, or go to the Theme Park that has the rides based on the book.

Yea no idea...Paizo gives you a pretty steep discount if you own the PDF from their site. 

Craig Steinhoff said: Yea no idea...Paizo gives you a pretty steep discount if you own the PDF from their site.  They give you a discount equal to the price of the pdf.  Not all companies are willing to do things like that though.  This is a publisher pricing scheme that Roll20 adheres to...  If WotC wanted to give people discounts like Paizo, they certainly could.

Actually, WotC doesn't even release PDFs.

No cost for printing or book binding, true, but significant time and effort to create all the data within Roll20 -- what with maps, tokens, creatures, handouts, art, etc -- even more when it is a module whereby Dynamic Lightning is fully set up, the maps are integrated into Roll20 with correct scale (5'-per square), monster tokens are in the correct rooms (requiring one to read the whole module and room-by-place place every element). In reality, the DM is saved dozens of hours of preparation time. If the DM were to do all this, it would be a significant time investment. You could buy just the physical copy of the book, but then spend hours upon hours just putting in maps and getting everything ready. So the way I see it is you are paying not only for the book's contents but also for everything in it to already be set up within Roll20.

Try "I own the book" at the movie theater, if they ever reopen again.

Dungeon Master David said: "the maps are integrated into Roll20 with correct scale (5'-per square)"  Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Rime of the Frostmaiden would like to have a word with you regarding this statement. To be fair though, that is pretty much my only complaint with Roll20. That and the poorly tested and implemented updates. I don't mind paying (twice), for something that saves me literally hours and hours of prep work. Just wish the maps had a little more attention paid to them. Thank the gods for third party stuff. And yes, I know I can change the 10' maps to 5' maps. Point is, I shouldn't have to. And, particularly in RotF, when you do that, the grids don't line up in certain sections. Sloppy and lazy.

Also don’t discount licensing fees...

"I already own the paperback so why do I need to pay full price for the hardback?" Not to insult OP, but did this come off as arrogance to anyone else?

I don't think anybody used those words, but it's a common shorthand around here of explaining the relationship. No point in stirring up in hard feelings.