New Digital Games Studio announced by the president of Wizards of the Coast

Interesting. I look forward to seeing what comes of this - some thrilling ideas, no doubt, but I'm keeping myself reserved so as not to be let down should those thrilling ideas be brought into less-than-thrilling existence.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

Well... most of the past games were mediocre because they were done by small studios who were still untested and trying to break into the market and make their names. Companies going from doing sequels or ports to making their own games with their own stories.
This is the same, except with a team that doesn't even have the experience making someone else's products.

There's no way this means we're getting a new AAA D&D RPG video game. A game like that requires a TON of money and years of development time. We're likely going to see some small stuff first (apps, a D&D version of Pokemon Go, freemium time wasters, etc) and then, maybe in three or four years, and actual video game.

They could probably do a good DnD game if they subcontracted. BeamDog is proving adept at handling the Baldur's Gate series, and Harebrained Schemes is increasingly proving capable of delivering games massively above the quality standard you'd expect from a studio so small and has proven themselves adept at using Kickstarter to fund their projects.

I would definitely suggest they add Harebrained and do more with BeamDog.

But if I were them, I'd definitely nix their own games department. Hasbro just doesn't understand video game development.

 

[Jester David]

Making a D&D game with AAA production values is too expensive. Do something like Pillars of Eternity...
https://eternity.obsidian.net/

It took three years, a $3,900,000 on Kickstarter, and an established team of experiences game designers to make that happen.
I doubt WotC is going to throw that much money at a completely untested group of people to make a D&D game in the hopes it turns a profit...

 

[Jester David]

They could probably do a good DnD game if they subcontracted. BeamDog is proving adept at handling the Baldur's Gate series, and Harebrained Schemes is increasingly proving capable of delivering games massively above the quality standard you'd expect from a studio so small and has proven themselves adept at using Kickstarter to fund their projects.

I would definitely suggest they add Harebrained and do more with BeamDog.

But if I were them, I'd definitely nix their own games department. Hasbro just doesn't understand video game development.

BeamDog hired a bunch of new support writers, explicitly to work on a new D&D project. So... it's coming. But that takes time. Siege of Dragonspear took a couple years, and it was running off an existing game. It's cool, but I'd prefer a non-2nd Edition game.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

BeamDog hired a bunch of new support writers, explicitly to work on a new D&D project. So... it's coming. But that takes time. Siege of Dragonspear took a couple years, and it was running off an existing game. It's cool, but I'd prefer a non-2nd Edition game.

I wouldn't be surprised if a new one is coming that is 5E. It shouldn't take that much to modify the existing engine to be 5E ruleset.

 

[Leatherhead]

A D&D ARG is just LARPing.

I still want a tactics-style turn based 4e video game. That would work well.

 

[flametitan]

I wouldn't be surprised if a new one is coming that is 5E. It shouldn't take that much to modify the existing engine to be 5E ruleset.

You'd be surprised at how many quirks a game engine might develop over the coding process. It's theoretically possible to develop 5e's system on it, but I'm not familiar with the engine to say how many workarounds and other idiosyncrasies would need to be overhauled.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

You'd be surprised at how many quirks a game engine might develop over the coding process. It's theoretically possible to develop 5e's system on it, but I'm not familiar with the engine to say how many workarounds and other idiosyncrasies would need to be overhauled.

No, I wouldn't. A game engine can be a total mess if designed improperly and result in half of what you accomplish being purely finding a way to use the quirks to your advantage.

But at the same time, 3E material and even material not native to the game when it was published (in the case of Baldur's Gate) has been successfully mixed into the game without the engine giving any difficulties. If there were going to be issues, they would have popped up by now.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, that's what I meant: in the 90's, the environment for making games was different, and TSR got lucky a couple times even in that more Wild West environment.

Doesn't mean we'll get a good game, or a AAA game: but it's the only way they will get games for D&D with serious long term investment of any sort in the long run.

Games were a lot cheaper to develop back in the 90's.

 

[Zardnaar]

It took three years, a $3,900,000 on Kickstarter, and an established team of experiences game designers to make that happen.
I doubt WotC is going to throw that much money at a completely untested group of people to make a D&D game in the hopes it turns a profit...

That is dirt cheap for a game and PoE is good.

Games used to cost somehting like $4 on the PS2, less in the 90's. These days a cheap game is more like $20 million with something like GTAV 200 million.

 

[Jester David]

That is dirt cheap for a game and PoE is good.

Games used to cost somehting like $4 on the PS2, less in the 90's. These days a cheap game is more like $20 million with something like GTAV 200 million.

GTA's prices are not the best yardstick since a LOT of that goes to voice acting (and casting celebs) and licencing an eff-tonne of music.

$4 mil is pretty low for a AAA game. But it's a lot for a new studio, even one backed by WotC. Heck, D&D the RPG probably barely pulls in $4 million each year.