Matt Colville weighs in.

[Hussar]

Just as a point of comparison, how much is a Paizo Pathfinder subscription per month?

 

[Nikosandros]

Not the video that I saw.

They proposed making characters for free, but full access to the rules would require a subscription. I can send you the whole video if you want.

 

[Alzrius]

He just seems to be under the impression that WOTC is banking on people coming into the hobby through VTT and video games and understanding the game through those experiences (which is going to be very different, especially in terms of WOTCs ability to directly control what players and GMs are able to do in the game for example).

In other words, the medium is the message.

I find that personally ironic, since it was the point of the video below, which was posted about five months ago, when WotC was talking about the plans for their new VTT, but before we got any news about the OGL. I posted it here, and got shouted down by a few posters here who decried it as fear-mongering, clickbait, and other such appellations.

Needless to say, with what we've come to learn about Chris Cao's vision for D&D as a driver of subscriptions/micro-transactions, and what that's done to the OGL, the video now looks far more prescient than anyone gave it credit for at the time. And not at all like clickbait.

 

[TheSword]

When they did the reveal on the VTT there was a lot of headscratching over the failure to make any effort at selling features other than 3d & unreal engine. The silence was so glaring that it could have doubled as a marketing clip for the unreal engine rather than a d&d VTT. The leaks shedding light on cao's plans for it however explain the silence too neatly to ignore.

I’m not surprised the VP of digital is pretty effusive about the future of Digital though. He’s not the only person at WOC, and if it’s his team giving the leaks of course it’s gonna look digital heavy.

 

[masdog]

They have a ton of developers and not much need to develop a lot of features (they use an existing 3d engine, they need no world, etc. like regular RPGs).

Having a ton of developers can actually make things slower. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with “The Mythical Man-Month.” I’m going to paraphrase a little here, but it was basically a software engineering case study that came out of IBM, and it showed that throwing developers at a software project that was behind schedule only made the scheduling issues worse.

I’m not saying that it’s behind schedule, but adding manpower to a software project does not necessarily make it go faster.

Just as a point of comparison, how much is a Paizo Pathfinder subscription per month?

It doesn’t. It’s a little unclear, but I think the subscription is basically signing up for physical products as they’re release, and you’re charged the cover price of the book when the products ship to you. There is no recurring monthly charge.

So it’s kind of like signing up to preorder stuff automatically…I think?

 

[Nikosandros]

Just as a point of comparison, how much is a Paizo Pathfinder subscription per month?

Paizo subscriptions are very different though. You subscribe to a certain line of products and you basically auto-buy each new release them and you get a free PDF included.

 

[darjr]

In other words, the medium is the message.

I find that personally ironic, since it was the point of the video below, which was posted about five months ago, when WotC was talking about the plans for their new VTT, but before we got any news about the OGL. I posted it here, and got shouted down by a few posters here who decried it as fear-mongering, clickbait, and other such appellations.

Needless to say, with what we've come to learn about Chris Cao's vision for D&D as a driver of subscriptions/micro-transactions, and what that's done to the OGL, the video now looks far more prescient than anyone gave it credit for at the time. And not at all like clickbait.

Yea, ugh add it to the list.

 

[darjr]

Jennell Jaquays gave a low chance of success for this project.

 

[Haplo781]

Having a ton of developers can actually make things slower. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with “The Mythical Man-Month.” I’m going to paraphrase a little here, but it was basically a software engineering case study that came out of IBM, and it showed that throwing developers at a software project that was behind schedule only made the scheduling issues worse.

I’m not saying that it’s behind schedule, but adding manpower to a software project does not necessarily make it go faster.


It doesn’t. It’s a little unclear, but I think the subscription is basically signing up for physical products as they’re release, and you’re charged the cover price of the book when the products ship to you. There is no recurring monthly charge.

So it’s kind of like signing up to preorder stuff automatically…I think?

You're telling me 9 women can't make a baby in a month?

 

[Jer]

Jennell Jaquays gave a low chance of success for this project.

If you mean the vtt that's a safe bet.

It's always a safe bet to take the under when betting on giant companies undertaking massive software projects and having their vision pan out.

(They did it the right/safe way with ddb - let Fandom develop it and take the risk, and once they proved it works buy it from them.)