iProduct d20 Apps

[wingsandsword]

I had a bit of a rude awakening regarding how much the gaming public as a whole (not just the readers of ENWorld) know about the legalities of D&D and d20.

Those of you with an iProduct, go on to the App Store sometime, search for SRD and look at the handful of d20 SRD products there are. . .

. . .then read the reviews.

Pretty much every app has a number of bad reviews. There are plenty of angry, griping complaints that they lack the content of the Complete Books, or PHB II, or Spell Compendium.

One person made their review a savage assault on how the app in question only had rules for D&D 3.5, and they were only giving it 2 stars because it didn't include anything at all from 4th Edition and wondered why app makers almost all the apps for 3.5e and not 4e (almost all 4e apps are just a character sheet app, besides one interface to connect to the DDI Compendium).

I saw one review get a one-star app because it only had dry rules text, without all the flavor text and pictures from the rulebooks.

Now, to be fair, those apps also had lots of positive reviews and ratings, but it was very clear that a lot of fans out there don't understand even the foggiest bit of how the SRD and OGL work.

ENWorld readers are going to be significantly above the average in terms of comprehending this, since we have publishers who rely on being accurate with this knowledge, and ENWorld as a whole is built around 3rd party products and information. . .but it seemed to really remind me that there are lots of D&D fans who don't know the difference.

I've been trying to pick a good SRD app to keep on my own iPad. The free version of Scry seems very good, but it's got a few curious omissions (like the Vampire template). Is there an app that my fellow ENWorlders have determined is better than the others?

 

[DaveMage]

I keep looking for that great gaming app, but it has eluded me so far.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Pretty much every app has a number of bad reviews. There are plenty of angry, griping complaints that they lack the content of the Complete Books, or PHB II, or Spell Compendium.

One person made their review a savage assault on how the app in question only had rules for D&D 3.5, and they were only giving it 2 stars because it didn't include anything at all from 4th Edition and wondered why app makers almost all the apps for 3.5e and not 4e (almost all 4e apps are just a character sheet app, besides one interface to connect to the DDI Compendium).

To me, this is more of a statement that to a lot of people, an app isn't that useful if it only contains the SRD.

Wizards has shown that they're not interested in satisfying the desires of this market, but they are interested in preventing other people from satisfying this market. Which is a shame, since the proliferation of SRD apps out there shows that it really isn't that hard to write an app.

 

[johnsemlak]

To me, this is more of a statement that to a lot of people, an app isn't that useful if it only contains the SRD.

Wizards has shown that they're not interested in satisfying the desires of this market, but they are interested in preventing other people from satisfying this market. Which is a shame, since the proliferation of SRD apps out there shows that it really isn't that hard to write an app.

What Wotc isn't interested in is aiding its competitors, which is entirely reasonable.

 

[Alan Shutko]

What Wotc isn't interested in is aiding its competitors, which is entirely reasonable.

How are app developers competitors if WotC isn't in the market?

They could license this stuff out so that someone else could write the app (as in the past).

 

[johnsemlak]

How are app developers competitors if WotC isn't in the market?

They could license this stuff out so that someone else could write the app (as in the past).

App developers that support 3e are aiding WotCs competitors; or if not, such activity supports an edition that WotC no longer sells, which may take away sales from WotC's current edition.

 

[wingsandsword]

App developers that support 3e are aiding WotCs competitors; or if not, such activity supports an edition that WotC no longer sells, which may take away sales from WotC's current edition.

It's a curious point of view to think that 4 years after the release of 4e, that providing any support for 3.5e will take away customers from 4e.

It seems clear, to me at least, that everybody who is going to switch, has.

Who is going to say "Well, I was going to keep playing 3.5 like I have for the last decade, but since I can't find that good iPad app, I might as well buy into 4e just in time for 5e to come out!"?

With the attitude that WotC has shown in its publicity materials for 5e (or D&D Next, or whatever it's being called today) of trying to unify edition wars, I would think that a divisive strategy of refusing to acknowledge old editions would be out the window. Try as WotC might have, cutting off all support for 3.x hasn't made it go away, and with the OGL the genie is out of the bottle, it never will.

If WotC thought that providing any support for older edition were off the table, why would they be reprinting 1e books? Besides 3.x, 1e is probably the most popular edition of D&D.

Of course, it is quite possible that nobody ever actually asked WotC if they could license the 3.5e information for an iProduct app.