ComradeGnull
First Post
I'm curious what this means long-term about their sales strategy- like how will DDI work once 5e is out, are they still counting on subscriptions for revenue, etc.
I can easily see one of three things happening for the 'online tabletop' segment for 5e:
1) There are already too many 3rd party options for WotC to make much money out of it, and the existing VTT was too tied to 4e to be worth continuing development on. They'll make minimal noise about supporting online play, and let the 3rd party market hash things out. Making a great online play platform is a big development investment, and it isn't clear how much revenue it could actually bring. This means Hasbro/WotC doesn't see much actual growth coming to the brand by putting money behind a dev effort.
2) WotC buys or invests in one of the current 3rd part products and makes it the 'official' online platform of 5e. WotC isn't a software company; why should they try and build one from scratch when they can let someone else do 95% of the work to the point that they know it works, and then acquire them? Doing this would indicate that Hasbro is still willing to put some significant money behind D&D, and is still trying to grow the product rather than just curating the brand so they can license it for movies and lunchboxes.
3) VTT was meant for 4e, and practically speaking, 4e is nearly done. They'll take what they have, refocus on 5e, and release a new 5e VTT somewhere down the road. The product isn't ready for prime time, and there is no reason to rush it out the door if the edition that it was built to support is moving into the background anyway.
The question is, is this Wizards leaving this area entirely (which to me would indicate that D&D is going to be a bit more back burnered than before), or is this Google canceling Google Video in favor of YouTube? (yes, slightly weird analogy since they kept it around for several years after aquiring YouTube, but you know what I mean).
I can easily see one of three things happening for the 'online tabletop' segment for 5e:
1) There are already too many 3rd party options for WotC to make much money out of it, and the existing VTT was too tied to 4e to be worth continuing development on. They'll make minimal noise about supporting online play, and let the 3rd party market hash things out. Making a great online play platform is a big development investment, and it isn't clear how much revenue it could actually bring. This means Hasbro/WotC doesn't see much actual growth coming to the brand by putting money behind a dev effort.
2) WotC buys or invests in one of the current 3rd part products and makes it the 'official' online platform of 5e. WotC isn't a software company; why should they try and build one from scratch when they can let someone else do 95% of the work to the point that they know it works, and then acquire them? Doing this would indicate that Hasbro is still willing to put some significant money behind D&D, and is still trying to grow the product rather than just curating the brand so they can license it for movies and lunchboxes.
3) VTT was meant for 4e, and practically speaking, 4e is nearly done. They'll take what they have, refocus on 5e, and release a new 5e VTT somewhere down the road. The product isn't ready for prime time, and there is no reason to rush it out the door if the edition that it was built to support is moving into the background anyway.
The question is, is this Wizards leaving this area entirely (which to me would indicate that D&D is going to be a bit more back burnered than before), or is this Google canceling Google Video in favor of YouTube? (yes, slightly weird analogy since they kept it around for several years after aquiring YouTube, but you know what I mean).