D&D 5E Why is WOTC so awful at providing digital content?

Good discussion so far. I'm honestly not trying to say WOTC is bad. Again, they are a great company, they give us great games, but their digital endeavors are just awful. Im honestly just... confused. More of their digital promises are broken than are kept and at this point it seems like some kind of curse or something. It's just always something that gets in the way every time they make a promise or talk about the future with digital products.

ExploderWizard said:

The simple answer is because they are not equipped to do so.

I remember an old interview Arnold Schwarzenegger did back in the 80's. The interviewer was commenting that he was so successful as an actor, why didn't he write and direct as well?

His answer: "Because I can't"

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That hasn't stopped a lot of other actors though ...

Umbran said:

Well, they tried that recently, and look what happened.

The problem is that a firm solid enough to be really reliable will likely cost more than they can afford to pay. Anything else... well, amateurs screw things up.

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I honestly don't have enough information about the recent situation to make a call on why it went wrong.

It seems like there's plenty of home-made ones that don't cost very much to develop. I don't think most people are looking for a masterpiece of digital technology.

shidaku said:

I don't think most people are looking for a masterpiece of digital technology.

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Wait until they have to start paying money for it.

ExploderWizard said:

The simple answer is because they are not equipped to do so.

I remember an old interview Arnold Schwarzenegger did back in the 80's. The interviewer was commenting that he was so successful as an actor, why didn't he write and direct as well?

His answer: "Because I can't"

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Well they think they are equipped to be video game publishers.

GamesBeat: Does this mean that Wizards of the Coast is a video game publisher now?

Stewart: Actually, Wizards of the Coast has been an official video game publisher for years — see our Duels of the Planeswalker and Magic Online games.

A couple years ago, we also became the official publisher on all the digital D&D games Atari was previously publishing.

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http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/01/h...d-set-and-on-the-bleeding-edge-on-realmslore/

I'm sure there are people at wotc who would read this and say "What?! We release tons of online content on our website, we have a fantastic web presence, we're on twitter. What more do you people want?!"

The thing is, and this has been true for years, WotC (and TSR before them) operate in a publishing mode. It may have moved to the web now, but their core competency is the written word, not software.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing necessarily. Companies can spend a lot of money chasing the product dragon that's not their strong suit. I just wish they'd choose a development partner for character/dm tools and stick with it.

Heck, I'd be happy with pdfs of 5e products.

It's all about people, isn't it?

They don't have people with the digital skills or the ability to manage outside contractors as they have proven time and time again. Is this because their salaries are too low, a faulty corporate culture, a lack of leadership, and/or management ignorance? I don't know despite the various clues that point toward all of these things.

But we do know it's all about people.

Zelc said:

I recently saw some context on this, and it's quite sad

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-murder-suicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online

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Sad, but that hardly is the reason all of WotC online plans fail. If it is then it means there is some really bad management happening at WotC digital department.

I rather think WotC failing online is a self fulfilling prophecy. Hasbro/WotC is reluctant to do online tools. Various reasons have been cited like not having any experience with online tools or in later cycles bad experiences and also a fear of piracy (at least thats what they say). So when they contract out to do a tool they want to spend as little money as possible and they get a small, inexperienced and sometimes even downright shoddy team to do it which usually leads to failure.
As for simply licensing D&D and let others take the risk, Hasbro has still adapt to the fact that D&D is not an IP everybody desperately wants so that they can dictate terms. Hasbro is quite a control freak but since years now the gaming industry has shown that it is quite possible to create good video games without basing it on D&D (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Witcher, Pillars of Eternity) so they retain full control and don't have to pay fees. Now WotC/Hasbro would have to actively market D&D that someone would take it instead of waiting for developers/publishers to knock at their door throwing money in their face for the D&D license.

Evenglare said:

Good discussion so far. I'm honestly not trying to say WOTC is bad. Again, they are a great company, they give us great games, but their digital endeavors are just awful.

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So it is clear, I agree with you - they do good work. Many people really like DDI, but other than that, they haven't had much in the way of digital successes.

More of their digital promises are broken than are kept and at this point it seems like some kind of curse or something.

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It isn't actually a curse. It is that our view of software production is skewed. We have this idea that software is easy, software is cheap, and most folks who try to put out software succeed. I'm pretty sure this impression is incorrect. Lots and lots of software initiatives fail.

Making software is not, in fact, cheap. Consider: A decent, proven development professional is, once you consider salary and benefits, a six-figure item. A team of three developers, one quality assurance engineer, and one product/project manager for a year is a half-million dollars right there. And that's before you buy a single machine for them to work on, or pay for a single software license for their tools. That's before you pay for however many servers this software needs in production to serve the customers, as well.

shidaku said:

I honestly don't have enough information about the recent situation to make a call on why it went wrong.

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Well, for the moment, the why is secondary. The fact that it went wrong is what is relevant.

It seems like there's plenty of home-made ones that don't cost very much to develop.

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I think that's a seeming, but not a reality. Someone's putting in a lot of time, and time is money. A guy in his garage can do that out of love, but WotC cannot.

I don't think most people are looking for a masterpiece of digital technology.

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Oh, as soon as it is "official", they probably would be. A third party, some guy working on his home computer to build the thing, is forgiven much by the public. But if WotC does it, what the public will expect in terms of quality standards will be higher, and the expected list of features will be longer, and more complicated. In addition, if WotC does it, there will be an expectation of some form of direct customer support, and that, too, costs money.