Trapdoor Tech Closes Its Doors

Trapdoor Technologies has had a tumultuous ride over the last few years. They burst onto the scene with Codename: Morningstar, the official Dungeons & Dragons electronic toolset which became DungeonScape, before abruptly parting ways with WotC. Their subsequent Kickstarter failed to fund (spectacularly so, with its half-million-dollar funding goal). Their most recent Kickstarter, for an Android version of their Pathfinder tools (known as Playbook) was also struggling. It seems now that their misfortunes are coming to an end - if only because the company is closing down permanently. They sent out the announcement below.

Trapdoor Technologies has had a tumultuous ride over the last few years. They burst onto the scene with Codename: Morningstar, the official Dungeons & Dragons electronic toolset which became DungeonScape, before abruptly parting ways with WotC. Their subsequent Kickstarter failed to fund (spectacularly so, with its half-million-dollar funding goal). Their most recent Kickstarter, for an Android version of their Pathfinder tools (known as Playbook) was also struggling. It seems now that their misfortunes are coming to an end - if only because the company is closing down permanently. They sent out the announcement below.


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Dear Trapdoor Technologies fans and Playbook subscribers,

On Wednesday, Oct 19th, Slingshot Capital Partners, the group who own Trapdoor decided to close our company immediately. It is now the staff and management's sad duty to tell you that there will be no new products, product updates, Trapdoor Tuesday releases or other company functions. As you may already know, our Kickstarter campaign for Playbook Essentials on Android has also been canceled. Despite the efforts of the former staff to find a way to keep Playbook going, we have exhausted our options.

The Trapdoor servers which power Playbook will be going offline on or around October 28, 2016. However, even once the servers are offline, Playbook will continue to function. There will be two phases of functionality: during the remainder of your subscription and after your subscription expires.

For the remainder of your current subscription, the app will be running in offline mode. You will still be able to read all the books in your library (both free and purchased). You can still generate characters.

The Party module chat, sharing, in-app purchases in the Store, and announcements will cease to function. Since you won't be able to download new content - please make sure you download any content you want to have available offline.

After your current subscription expires (at the end of the month or year, depending on the level you chose in the app store), Playbook will function in read-only mode.

You will still be able to read any content that you have purchased but the rule books that are included s part of the subscription will cease to function. Previously-created characters will still be available to read and print, but you will not be able to modify the characters or roll up new ones.

Thank you, first and foremost, to the players and fans who helped us bring a mobile, digital RPG companion to life. We are all heart-broken over what might-have-been.

We'd also like to thank our amazing partners. Paizo as a company and their staff as individuals as well as all the Pathfinder Society Officers, have been wonderful to work with. We are so grateful to you for making a great game and putting your fans first. We're excited for Starfinder and crushed we won't be making a Playbook for it.

All our love also goes out to AAW, Legendary Games, and Playground Adventures. Hunt up their stuff online. They're making astounding content with great stories. Though we won’t be bringing them to Playbook, you know we’ll be playing with them at our own game tables.

We also want to shout out to all the media who have put us in their articles and podcasts: GeekDad, TableTop Terrors, The Tome Show, DnDUI, Melvin Smifs Geekery, the Angry GM, BoardgameGeek, and Know Direction!

There are literally hundreds of other people to thank but, part of saying goodbye is knowing when to actually go. Thank you for giving us a shot. We're sorry we have to leave, just as the party was getting started.

Keep gaming,
All of us who were Trapdoor Technologies
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lyle.spade

Adventurer
I remember looking at the system they promised for 5e and thinking that it didn't look like something I'd use, or would be particularly useful. Sometimes people get really excited about their idea and are certain that it's going to be applicable and interesting to others, when it's not. I agree that their shift to PF looked like desparation - a solution in search of a problem that didn't exist - and while I wish business failure on no honest venture, the market has spoken and that's the way things go. I hope the employees are able to find work elsewhere on projects that will be more productive and attractive.

And to echo what others said, I am surprised it took this long.
 

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Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I see conflicting comments about when Trapdoor and WotC pated ways - one that Trapdoor couldn't deliver and WotC finally walked, and one that WotC pulled out because they never intended electronic distribution and that screwed Trapdoor. Anyone have any links to something substantive instead of he said/she said?

My memory is that there was a good chunk of time with Codename: Morningstar prior to WotC leaving, and I can't picture that WotC wasn't informed that their electronic product would contain rules. And looking how WotC has licensed rules & adventures to Fantasy Grounds I don't think they are dead-tree-only, just their standard anti-PDF stand and that they aren't in the software biz.

But that's conjecture. Anyone have any citations about the Trapdoor/WotC split?
 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I strongly dislike that they are cutting off functionality (Party chat, sharing, etc.) while subscribers have already paid for access. Either run your servers longer or provide refunds for the portion moving forward.

Also, people took a chance and bought/subscribed the product, which Trapdoor abandoned. Why burn goodwill moving things to read-only mode instead of just leaving it in offline mode?
 

turkeygiant

First Post
Just want to be clear. The vision for the 5e product was never realized because WotC walked. WotC walked because they don't want their material digitalized in the way that was being suggested (they don't even allow pdfs). Then Trapdoor Tech had to pivot into another style of product.

What was released was a pale imitation of what was planned and a lot of that likely had to do with having to accomplish an extreme change in plans, in short notice. They seemed to be picking up steam with Pathfinder but who knows what happened behind closed doors.

I personally prefer “dead tree” myself but lament some of the really cool stuff that they had initially planned for but never got to implement because of the quick toss to the curb from Wizards.

I believe Wizards gave them the heave-ho because of the quality and pace at which they were creating content. Did you use the trial of their 5e program before they lost the license? it was functionally....well not functional, and trapdoor was cagey on whether they had any intention or ability to go back and fix fundamental issues like being able to update base character creation choices.
 


Copying what I said elsewhere: sad but not a surprise.
Honestly, I'm only surprised it took this long.

They had their first failed Kickstarter. Then released the app, and didn't do anything with it. Then they managed to get the Pathfinder licence, didn't do much with the new app, and then launched their second failed Kickstarter. Little progress was made to the vaunted "story machine" tech they kept hyping.

But they continued down the path of Pathfinder, despite there already being a feature complete character builder for that system. While much prettier and easier in terms of UI, Playbook just could not compete with HeroLabs in terms of content or features.
The one route Playbook could have taken to save themselves was being ready for the 5e SRD. But they burned that bridge and doubled down on Pathfinder, a system they never had any chance of finishing the content for.

(For example, they *just* added traits this past month in an update, bringing the app into the realm of bare minimum features for beginner pre-gen PFS play.)

The noteworthy features of the app (campaign management, note sharing, and like) were the selling features, but never perfectly implemented. And the focus on iPads made adoption hard for many: it was never useful at my table as we had 4 iPads and one Android.

Just want to be clear. The vision for the 5e product was never realized because WotC walked. WotC walked because they don't want their material digitalized in the way that was being suggested (they don't even allow pdfs). Then Trapdoor Tech had to pivot into another style of product.

What was released was a pale imitation of what was planned and a lot of that likely had to do with having to accomplish an extreme change in plans, in short notice. They seemed to be picking up steam with Pathfinder but who knows what happened behind closed doors.

I personally prefer “dead tree” myself but lament some of the really cool stuff that they had initially planned for but never got to implement because of the quick toss to the curb from Wizards.
Trapdoor always maintained the dispute was caused by disagreement over pricing. Likely WotC wanting to charge the full $50 for the PHB.
Given WotC is okay with Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds effectively selling digital copies of their book that doesn't seem to be the cause for the split.
 

SharnDM

Explorer
I believe Wizards gave them the heave-ho because of the quality and pace at which they were creating content. Did you use the trial of their 5e program before they lost the license? it was functionally....well not functional, and trapdoor was cagey on whether they had any intention or ability to go back and fix fundamental issues like being able to update base character creation choices.

Like I said, I was at the Gencon Press Invitational so I saw their Alpha work. They never had a true trial version of the 5e product because they got the axe before they could produce one from what I can tell.
 

Cahlwyn

Villager
They had such a fantastic vision for their work with WotC, I really wanted that to come to fruition. Sadly Wizard's desire to remain faithful to its "dead tree" format ultimately signed the death warrant long ago. I knew the team personally, was there at the initial Codename Morningstar press invitational, they had some awesome ideas. Sad to see them go, hope they land on their feet.

Did you beta test the product?

I'm sure they tried and I'm sure they are nice guys, but the app was HORRIBLE. The beta test wasn't even functional enough to be an alpha test. It was a bad product.

I'd be willing to bet that most gamers prefer books to digital. I do. 100%. WotC saw a turd and flushed it. It isn't on them.
 

Cahlwyn

Villager
Like I said, I was at the Gencon Press Invitational so I saw their Alpha work. They never had a true trial version of the 5e product because they got the axe before they could produce one from what I can tell.

They had a full beta testing program. I was in it. The product was horrible. Sorry man, you can support them all you want but aside from concept they didn't produce any results.
 


Hollow Man

Explorer
I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second. Let's say for the sake of argument that WotC pulled out for no good reason, and that Morningstar was great. Then, as I've said from the very beginning, this is a case of badly running a business. You can't blame WotC because Trapdoor couldn't figure out what to do with their product when they parted ways (business deals break down all the time). I'm sure even Trapdoor wouldn't be stupid enough to blame WotC for their problems!

It's been clear from the outset that not only was this product's development out of control in many ways, but that the company was poorly run. The amount they were asking for that first Kickstarter was ludicrous. If they had been on a show like Shark Tank (I know reality TV isn't based in reality, but work with me), they'd be laughed out of the room. Their valuation of the company based on that asked sum was absurdly high, everyone knew it, and that's why little by little no one, including the people paying them, was willing to give them any more money.

It is very sad. I met their staff at GenCon and took the app for a spin. They're passionate people, but it doesn't change the fact that the app as is wasn't great, and that despite given a number of chances, they couldn't put together something that worked well enough so that the public was willing to embrace it.

-HM
 

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