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

Umbran · Apr 5, 2015

Evenglare said:
It's hard to write programs for sure, but there are hundreds of companies that do this. Look at the video game sector.

Yes. Look at it. There are some big names. And then there are dozens of small names that try, and don't make it. This is part of what I meant by saying that we have somewhat skewed perceptions. The successes stick in our minds, because we hear about them. The failures go unnoticed, but are more numerous.

They are the big players in the industry, they should be able to get a well known competent developer to do this for them

They could, and would - if the money was there. But the RPG market is not the market for Diablo (which sold millions of copies in mere *hours*), or Skyrim, or something.

Bugleyman · Apr 5, 2015

Dire Bare said:
You have no idea what WotC is "choosing". All we know is that WotC DID have digital plans for 5E that rather recently fell through, and now they have to reassess and start from scratch. Not having digital tools and 5E PDFs *NOW* is not an example of WotC not "choosing" from existing options..

It would take them hours to put the 5E corebooks up on dndclassics.com. Not offering 5E PDFs is a choice.

transtemporal · Apr 5, 2015

Umbran said:
Appeal to authority? I am mostly known around here for physics, but I am by no means ignorant of software development projects.

I wasn't saying you were. Just stating my expertise in the matter.

Umbran said:
And the nigh-arbitrary house rules? Those are a nightmares. "I have a ring that gives me a +6 to Dex, but only when flying...". And every campaign is going to have some of those weird things the GM made up, and doesn't fit. And each time you shove folks out into "just remember to do that yourself" is a place where you limit how good your virtual tabletop (which, of course, should be compatible) can be.

As someone noted upthread, houserules almost call for something like a scripting language. That's not easy to do, and it is less easy to do for people who don't write computer programs for a living.

House rules are definitely tricky but again, doable (unless they're actually not able to be modeled, or not usefully modeled).

If we're talking minimum viable product to get us going though, the ability to configure house rules is probably a could-have feature.

Umbran said:
UX, at the level we are talking about, if we get it wrong, the product doesn't sell and we are down something close to a million dollars.

Sure, but that's true of any software project. And if its a WotC project, let's face it - its more likely to fail on price point, marketing or runaway scope creep anyway.

Umbran · Apr 5, 2015

Bugleyman said:
It would take them hours to put the 5E corebooks up on dndclassics.com. Not offering 5E PDFs is a choice.

As several folks in publishing have mentioned in the past, you don't generally just put up the pdf used for printing and sell it. Moreover, as WotC has demonstrated with Basic, pdf documents really call for an entirely separate layout. So, it may be a choice, but there are considerations that may make it somewhat less than the top priority.

ExploderWizard · Apr 5, 2015

Umbran said:
As several folks in publishing have mentioned in the past, you don't generally just put up the pdf used for printing and sell it. Moreover, as WotC has demonstrated with Basic, pdf documents really call for an entirely separate layout. So, it may be a choice, but there are considerations that may make it somewhat less than the top priority.

In addition to the layout issues with PDF, there is the consideration for retailers. Letting the retailers and online booksellers sell as many copies in print as they can is WOTC actually showing support for those retailers rather than holding out on the fans.

Jester David · Apr 5, 2015

Evenglare said:
It's hard to write programs for sure, but there are hundreds of companies that do this. Look at the video game sector. They have to make the rules AND program the game AND music AND graphics/UI. It's hard but just about any RPG game dev could do it. You won't convince me that the guys that make the Witcher couldn't do it, Blizzard could, the guys over at obsidian. The way things are now in the VG industry all that is holding people back is the hardware. A game like 5e would be hard, but compared to other great feats 5e would be a walk in the park for a well known developer especially an MMO/RPG dev. Bioware? SquareEnix? Whatever the company that makes Everquest? I'm sure the guys at Retro based here in Texas could do it. Wizards is well known, as is Hasbro. They are the big players in the industry, they should be able to get a well known competent developer to do this for them but they keep choosing to go with unknowns to cut costs and it doesn't work just about every. single. time. Would it take a lot of work? Sure, and many patches im sure. Can it be done? Of course it can, hire competent developers and stop skimping on the cash. If you want something to be great you are going to have to pay for it and should they ever actually pony up the money it would be worth it, I think.

WotC is a big player in the card game industry. D&D is small potatoes. The amount of money the big names you throw out make for each of their releases is ten times whet a D&D makes, if not far more. BioWare went from making D&D games to their own worlds that sell ten times as many copies as D&D books, and RPG people doing adaptations of three stuff.

D&D pretty much has to stick to small companies. Ones still building their reputation. Which, unfortunately, means untested. It's hit or miss.

Derren · Apr 5, 2015

Jester Canuck said:
WotC is a big player in the card game industry. D&D is small potatoes. The amount of money the big names you throw out make for each of their releases is ten times whet a D&D makes, if not far more. BioWare went from making D&D games to their own worlds that sell ten times as many copies as D&D books, and RPG people doing adaptations of three stuff.

D&D pretty much has to stick to small companies. Ones still building their reputation. Which, unfortunately, means untested. It's hit or miss.

You don't have to compare it to AAA companies.
Just look at what Obsidian did through Kickstarter with Pillars of Eternity.

Beleriphon · Apr 5, 2015

Derren said:
You don't have to compare it to AAA companies.
Just look at what Obsidian did through Kickstarter with Pillars of Eternity.

Sure did, but I can't imagine Hasbro needing to use Kickstarter can you? Its not an issue of money Hasbro and WotC have more than enough money to pay for what they want, its an issue of return on investment. If the return isn't going to be greater than the investment, or even if it just break even, then they wont bother. Its the unfortunate reality of business.

You could contract a company, and they pay for the license to sell your stuff (which is what Wolf's Lair does for HeroLab), but then you're running up against Hasbro rather than WotC management and presumably Hasbro management wants what they think is a fair price. There's also the problem that a license for just a character genertor might at some point be construed as electronic entertainment of some kind which might crap on any plans to license the rights to video games or who knows what else. This is incidentally why Wizards cracked down hard on Star Wars RPG character generators, their license didn't include any electronic stuff at all, since at the time electronic options for Star Wars were entirely held by LucasArts.

Jester David · Apr 5, 2015

Derren said:
You don't have to compare it to AAA companies.
Just look at what Obsidian did through Kickstarter with Pillars of Eternity.

Obsidian isn't AAA but they've still released games that have sold far, far more copies than D&D. D&D wishes they could work with Obsidian again (even if Obsidian hasn't managed to launch its own IP). And a D&D app would sell a tenth of the copies Obsidian expects their products to sell. It's not worth their time.
Even in video games, WotC is stuck working with Cryptic, a bad MMO company that seemed unaware of the existence of Warcraft when planning and designing half their games. Because D&D doesn't command as much automatic video game sales as it did 20 years ago.
Video game companies are also very different entities from the software designers you need for digital tools. Because video game designer design, well, video games, they're going to want to make a game, not an accessory. Hiring Obsidian to make a character builder is like hiring a company that makes PDF reader apps to make a First Person Shooter game. The skillsets are entirely wrong.

The catch is, there's only a couple software companies with experience making character generator software, and most are not successful. You pretty much have to go with an unknown or Lone Wolf.

Zardnaar · Apr 5, 2015

Maybe they should look at using kickstarter to gauge interest in a project.

I think the main problem is there is not enough of a player pass left. Something like 2/3rds of the player base bailed on 4E as Monte last year esitmated D&D was down to about a 3rd of its player base from a few years ago. If the estimates on these boards are accurate about 5E sales it has probably outsold 4E already but it is still smaller than 3E and 2E were. You may be looking at a few tens of thousands of D&D players left in 2015 that when 2E core rules came out on CD (late 90's in the lead up to 3E) apparently numbered something like 6 million.
They need to start small if they can do it and I think kickstarter would be a good way of doing this. Hell they could even build on DDI couldn't they?

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

Umbran

Mod Squad

Bugleyman

First Post

transtemporal

Explorer

Umbran

Mod Squad

ExploderWizard

Hero

Jester David

Hero

Derren

Hero

Beleriphon

Totally Awesome Pirate Brain

Jester David

Hero

Zardnaar

Legend

Similar Threads