D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[payn]

But if you "throw together" an app, you aren't really giving people much incentive to switch. Why build something that works just like your competitor when you can get the company to invest in something truly different.

I also have no idea where you're getting the "400 people" from, I've never seen an IT project that had that many people working on a single application. Even AAA video games have 10-40 programmers with potentially up to 200 individuals doing scripting, art, voice acting and testing. I'd be surprised if they have even 50 people working on the VTT project, I assume it's much, much lower.

I thought there was a piece floating around that said they had like 300 folks working on the VTT for WotC?

 

[mamba]

But if you "throw together" an app, you aren't really giving people much incentive to switch. Why build something that works just like your competitor when you can get the company to invest in something truly different.

it does not need to be truly different to get a lot of the market, and it can evolve over time

I also have no idea where you're getting the "400 people" from, I've never seen an IT project that had that many people working on a single application.

WotC, they said there are over 350 people working on it

Even AAA video games have 10-40 programmers with potentially up to 200 individuals doing scripting, art, voice acting and testing. I'd be surprised if they have even 50 people working on the VTT project, I assume it's much, much lower.

that number includes people working on assets etc, same as in the Roll20 alternative, no reason to include them in the count for one and exclude them in the other. In both cases they are part of the project and its cost / budget

 

[Oofta]

I thought there was a piece floating around that said they had like 300 folks working on the VTT for WotC?

I'm not sure what they're working on, I just don't think they're all working on the VTT. Like I said even AAA video games which require vastly more resources don't require that many people.

 

[payn]

I'm not sure what they're working on, I just don't think they're all working on the VTT. Like I said even AAA video games which require vastly more resources don't require that many people.

Well, perhaps, but Ubisoft commonly hires 400-600 folks to work on their AAA titles so its not unheard of.

 

[Parmandur]

It seems to me the point of the VTT is to create something thwt requires such investment thwt it would discourage potential competitfrom investing in an equivalent (Microsoft, Meta, etc.) and prohibitive for anyone else in the TTRPG industry to match (Paizo, Kobold Press, etc. doesn't have the resources to do this). Much smarter and less problematic than the OGL shennanigans.

 

[mamba]

It seems to me the point of the VTT is to create something thwt requires such investment thwt it would discourage potential competitfrom investing in an equivalent (Microsoft, Meta, etc.) and prohibitive for anyone else in the TTRPG industry to match (Paizo, Kobold Press, etc. doesn't have the resources to do this). Much smarter and less problematic than the OGL shennanigans.

they can accomplish the latter, but not the former. Even game companies like Ubisoft could create a VTT if they thought that would make them more money than another Assassin’s Creed

 

[darjr]

I think it’s important to note here that the 350 people hired were for DnDBeyond as a whole.

I’d have to listen to the chat again though.

WotC - Hasbro Bets Big on D&D

During today's 'Hasbro Fireside Chat', Hasbro's Chris Cocks, chief executive officer, and Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming mentioned D&D, and about betting big on its name. This was in addition to the Magic: The Gathering discussion they held on the same...

www.enworld.org

https://investor.hasbro.com/events/event-details/ubs-fireside-chat

 

[Staffan]

that number includes people working on assets etc, same as in the Roll20 alternative, no reason to include them in the count for one and exclude them in the other. In both cases they are part of the project and its cost / budget

I'm not a developer or anything, but I figure there's a pretty big difference between making 3D models of both terrain and mobs, and making 2D map tiles and tokens (where a large portion of the work is already done by copy/pasting from the MM).

 

[Parmandur]

they can accomplish the latter, but not the former. Even game companies like Ubisoft could create a VTT if they thought that would make them more money than another Assassin’s Creed

That's whybI said "diacourage" rather than "prohibit." All non-WotC TTRPG companies pooling together couldn't invest like that, and are now years behind even if they could get the funds.

Non-TTRPG companies are less likely to see a good case for ROI if there is already a pricey robust market leader with years of dev work and a customer base. Better to make another Assassin's Creed. It's not that they couldn't, it's that theybare less likely to than if the market leader was wielding 90's tech.

 

[mamba]

I'm not a developer or anything, but I figure there's a pretty big difference between making 3D models of both terrain and mobs, and making 2D map tiles and tokens (where a large portion of the work is already done by copy/pasting from the MM).

the MM won’t help you much, unless you want really barebones tokens, but yes there is a difference, which is why a handful of people can do a 2d VTT while WotC has 350+ working on theirs