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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I'd say the functionality of the application following the closure of the servers (which is dated today, for anyone who missed it) points out that the 'dead tree' model is still superior to what was being offered here.

If you paid a subscription fee for this service, once the servers shut down, you no longer have access to your rulebooks and you can't modify your character sheets or make new ones. If you paid for 'dead tree' books and character sheets, you can keep right on gaming, even if Paizo vanishes from the face of the earth tomorrow.

Until electronic content providers can figure out how to provide persistent content even when they're not around anymore, traditional 'dead tree' delivery will always have this advantage.

--
Pauper
The thought that electronic content providers haven't figured this out is ... uninformed. This is one of the three core reasons I chose Fantasy Grounds. The application and ALL of the data I have paid for a use license of is in my control 100%. No one can take it away from me. Doesn't matter if they lose their license with WotC. Doesn't matter if they go out of business. Doesn't matter if they decide they are god's gift and want to change how I interact with them. It's mine, now and forever.

It is the SaaS model that people keep touting as the only reasonable approach for current/new/future software development that has this problem. Not traditional locally installed software.

As for Trapdoor. I'm sorry to see any company go, but it is necessary that only the better ideas, realized in an acceptable manner and run by an adequate company survive. Competition is good, it also means that not everyone is going to "make it".
 

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timbannock

Hero
Supporter
The thought that electronic content providers haven't figured this out is ... uninformed. This is one of the three core reasons I chose Fantasy Grounds. The application and ALL of the data I have paid for a use license of is in my control 100%. No one can take it away from me. Doesn't matter if they lose their license with WotC. Doesn't matter if they go out of business. Doesn't matter if they decide they are god's gift and want to change how I interact with them. It's mine, now and forever.

It is the SaaS model that people keep touting as the only reasonable approach for current/new/future software development that has this problem. Not traditional locally installed software.

As for Trapdoor. I'm sorry to see any company go, but it is necessary that only the better ideas, realized in an acceptable manner and run by an adequate company survive. Competition is good, it also means that not everyone is going to "make it".

Seconded.
 

Pauper

That guy, who does that thing.
The application and ALL of the data I have paid for a use license of is in my control 100%. No one can take it away from me. Doesn't matter if they lose their license with WotC. Doesn't matter if they go out of business. Doesn't matter if they decide they are god's gift and want to change how I interact with them. It's mine, now and forever.

Well, it's yours until they go out of business and then an operating system update breaks the application. Or until WotC releases 6th edition and, as part of the price to maintain their license, requires them to 'de-support' the 5th edition materials. Or any one of a number of other scenarios that happen every day in the software industry.

'Forever' is an awfully long time, especially in the world of software. How are your old 3.5" floppys that hold your old random monster Hypercard stack from AD&D holding up?

It is the SaaS model that people keep touting as the only reasonable approach for current/new/future software development that has this problem. Not traditional locally installed software.

If the only way you can access the content is through a specific application, you're vulnerable to that application being de-supported. If the content is produced in a generic format, you're vulnerable to that format being declared obsolete, unsecure, or any number of other reasons for people to stop writing things that read that format. (See this excellent article for more info on data extinction and how historians are trying to fight it to retain a historical record.)

--
Pauper
 

Alphastream

Adventurer
I am very sad for the employees, but the value proposition has been very poor on everything they offered. The beta/alpha was very weak and their communication always felt like flash and sales pitch rather than substance and commitment. Their periodic changing of names was indicative of their methodology - switching and re-branding rather than solving their core issues around value proposition.

My speculation as to what happened with WotC, and only a completely uninformed guess, is that they came in from day one communicating the wrong goals to WotC. WotC wanted a character builder (and only that, because they had been dreaming up the Guild for years, as we now know) and Trapdoor secretly wanted to create an online digital marketplace. As soon as Trapdoor started talking about this character builder being more than that, and Trapdoor controlling D&D digital content and charging for that, that's when the relationship soured. I've seen many deals fail when one side wasn't clear on what they wanted out of the agreement. That's my guess (and a complete guess) as to what happened, though I could be totally off. Regardless of why, WotC was right to end any bad deal. Nothing has shown that decision to be a mistake.
 

Well, it's yours until they go out of business and then an operating system update breaks the application. Or until WotC releases 6th edition and, as part of the price to maintain their license, requires them to 'de-support' the 5th edition materials. Or any one of a number of other scenarios that happen every day in the software industry.

'Forever' is an awfully long time, especially in the world of software. How are your old 3.5" floppys that hold your old random monster Hypercard stack from AD&D holding up?



If the only way you can access the content is through a specific application, you're vulnerable to that application being de-supported. If the content is produced in a generic format, you're vulnerable to that format being declared obsolete, unsecure, or any number of other reasons for people to stop writing things that read that format. (See this excellent article for more info on data extinction and how historians are trying to fight it to retain a historical record.)

--
Pauper

Data extinction is an interesting topic, but not one for here. I am familiar with it though since I do engineering data vaulting professionally.


Just to clarify and answer the immediate issues though:

And yes, rather than forever, my life time. Yes it means I have to keep a PC running an old OS around, but that's easy to do with virtual machines (I've got several) and emulators (that I use for older software already).

I didn't buy 6th Edition, so I don't have any rights to that. I bought 5E. And yes, much of the content is encrypted so it is limited to access by a specific application, though the application will run for my life time in its current state, even if the company declares it obsolete or goes out of business.

We should take this to a new thread if you want to continue though.
 

reemul

Explorer
Why can't WotC partner, even temporarily, with software companies that aren't tiny, new, and over their head? Are their licensing terms so ridiculous that no-one else will even bid? The 3e eTools product was a disaster - you could only load your character on a system that had installed all the needed modules in the same order - the promised but never delivered products under 4e frankly ought to have drawn a class action suit from folks who signed up for long term subscriptions with the understanding that those pieces definitely would be up and soon, and now this. They're based within a short drive of the MS campus, and therefore also all of their local partners and spinoffs. The sheer number of capable programmers within 50 miles of their office that have experience shipping a complicated product on time, on budget, and on spec is staggering. If they still had the Wizards branded game store at Crossroads mall, they could just hang a postcard asking for help and get a better result. I feel sorry for Trapdoor to get squashed like this, but a company like theirs should never have been involved in the first place.
 

Why can't WotC partner, even temporarily, with software companies that aren't tiny, new, and over their head? Are their licensing terms so ridiculous that no-one else will even bid? ....
Maybe because those big s/w companies have no interest in an application that they might be able to gross $1mil USD if they are lucky. More likely a D&D software tool might do something like $250k/year gross if it does well.

Oh, but then they have found some small s/w developers with years of history to license to. SmiteWorks has been around for over a decade I think. The Orr Group for awhile too.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
Why can't WotC partner, even temporarily, with software companies that aren't tiny, new, and over their head? Are their licensing terms so ridiculous that no-one else will even bid? The 3e eTools product was a disaster - you could only load your character on a system that had installed all the needed modules in the same order - the promised but never delivered products under 4e frankly ought to have drawn a class action suit from folks who signed up for long term subscriptions with the understanding that those pieces definitely would be up and soon, and now this. They're based within a short drive of the MS campus, and therefore also all of their local partners and spinoffs. The sheer number of capable programmers within 50 miles of their office that have experience shipping a complicated product on time, on budget, and on spec is staggering. If they still had the Wizards branded game store at Crossroads mall, they could just hang a postcard asking for help and get a better result. I feel sorry for Trapdoor to get squashed like this, but a company like theirs should never have been involved in the first place.


WoTC goes for cheap.Software development is really expensive even a cheap game like Pillars of Eternity is 4 or 5 million dollars.

They should probably go with something basic and make it cheap and expand it later once they have revenue coming in. Or license it which is what they have done.
 
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Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The thought that electronic content providers haven't figured this out is ... uninformed. This is one of the three core reasons I chose Fantasy Grounds. The application and ALL of the data I have paid for a use license of is in my control 100%. No one can take it away from me. Doesn't matter if they lose their license with WotC. Doesn't matter if they go out of business. Doesn't matter if they decide they are god's gift and want to change how I interact with them. It's mine, now and forever.

Ah, you haven't tried to connect to a game while there servers are down. We've missed sessions because of it.

Sure, you have it all, but without their servers players can't connect. If you don't believe me, try it on a LAN without internet access.
 

daplunk

First Post
Sad to see them go but again not surprised. I never really found it an attractive application. I love using digital tools for D&D5e but this isn't an app I was ever attracted to trying.

Right now all my attention is on Realm Works. With the content market launching in December they are positioned nicely to fill the gap in electronic toolsets that is not covered by Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds (both are VTT, not campaign managers). There's some seriously strong functionality already in the tool and I can only hope that WOTC are attracted to the potential once they see it in action.
 

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