Project Sigil 90% Of D&D’s Project Sigil Team Laid Off

Reports are coming in of a swathe of layoffs at Wizards of the Coast, constituting 90% of the team of the new Project Sigil virtual tabletop platform. In all, over 30 people have been laid off, leaving a team of around 3 people.

Sigil is still in beta, only recently made public three weeks ago. Recent reports indicated that the scope of the project was seemingly being cut back.

WotC’s Andy Collins—who has worked on multiple editions of D&D and other WotC TTRPGs going back to 1996—reported via LinkedIn that he was one of those laid off. He indicated that the small team left behind would continue to work on the project.

More news as it comes in.

 

[mamba]

They just fired a bunch of WOTC digital devs. I am not sure how this can be positive.

positive for WotC / Hasbro, no, nothing positive about it. Positive for D&D the TTRPG and DDB, maybe. Theoretically that could elevate them, get them more resources. DDB could certainly use some improvements from what people say, and Maps might get some more love too

 

[Belen]

positive for WotC / Hasbro, no, nothing positive about it. Positive for D&D the TTRPG and DDB, maybe. Theoretically that could elevate them, get them more resources. DDB could certainly use some improvements from what people say, and Maps might get some more love too

They have had plenty of time to improve DDB since purchase. The poor 5.5 tools release shows they did not prioritize it.

I doubt they will add resources to it.

 

[Zaukrie]

They have had plenty of time to improve DDB since purchase. The poor 5.5 tools release shows they did not prioritize it.

I doubt they will add resources to it.

I am a bit concerned at this point.

 

[Afroconan]

There's a nice post pre(?)mortem at Arkenforge:

Project Sigil: A Presumptive Farewell

Project Sigil is on life support. As its development team is laid off, we say farewell to a platform that never reached itspotential.

arkenforge.com

And it kinda aligns perfectly with my thoughts.

If WotC's still betting on the digital future of the hobby (and I don't see why not?) then they'll pivot their resources to Beyond and licensing content to third party VTTS while expanding the third party offering on Beyond.

 

[Reynard]

Hey, where is all the people who was saying VTT was the future of D&D and WotC was going to discontinue publishing books?

Where did they all go?

They are waiting in line behind all the people who knew this thing was going to fail all along.

 

[I'm A Banana]

4) I couldn't see myself using this for every session because it'd add literally hours of preparation (even if you got fast with it), and unless you were railroading, you'd need to do tons and tons of extra might-never-get-used prep (rather than just uploading some 2D maps, or drawing them on the fly).

Convenience is King, and Project Sigil never gave off an air of convenience. It always seemed like whale-bait at best to me - maybe a place for dedicated hobbyists to do some neat stuff, but never something your average D&D player would spend hours in. Seems like WotC is learning that lesson now.

 

[Waycool]

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Reports are coming in of a swathe of layoffs at Wizards of the Coast, constituting 90% of the team of the new Project Sigil virtual tabletop platform. In all, over 30 people have been laid off.

Sigil is still in beta, only recently made public three weeks ago. Recent reports indicated that the scope of the project was seemingly being cut back.

WotC’s Andy Collins—who has worked on multiple editions of D&D and other WotC TTRPGs going back to 1996—reported via LinkedIn that he was one of those laid off. He indicated that the small team left behind would continue to work on the project.

More news as it comes in.

I've been playing D&D from as early as 1e and watched Gary Gygax, TSR and WoTC. I can tell you this, WoTC is like watching a Pirate ship battling with itself. They copied old modules, making them more expensive and ignoring fresh writters with new ideas. They even tried to stifle independent published works for D&D, which would have probably made them a lot of money if they had accepted the fresh ideas in the first place. Gary said the most important thing about D&D is to have fun. That's what Wizards lost and Hasbro too. You're a gaming and toy company, have fun and love what you do. Maybe the board members have grown to old and greedy to remember what it's like to play a fun game.

 

[AlViking]

I have looked at Maps and found there's no reason to adapt it rather than use the product I already have. I don't see Maps as being the centerpiece for the online virtual gaming world. But I would like to see the pivot.

And as you say, the partnership with other VTTs is going forward. It just is very un-WotC like to put their edition in the hands of third parties. Maybe Larian should get back into the game.

Is it unlike them to put things into other people's hands? They have more and more third party products for sale on DnDBeyond which they purchased after it was proven to work. Meanwhile a simple online tool like Maps makes sense for those that want a easy to use VTT. Most DnD games have been developed by other companies as far as I know.

My own experience with VTTs is limited mostly to COVID times but when I played with Maps it was much easier to use than most other tools. I don't need or want a bunch of automation or anything particularly fancy, just give me something to replace my mat and minis. For people that do want more there's plenty of options. It seems like they were going for the low end simplistic with Maps and the high end visually cool Sigil only to find that Sigil was too costly and wasn't a big enough draw. Maybe someday they'll purchase a Foundry or similar VTT, I just don't see how offloading development cost and risks while still reaping licensing fees is necessarily a bad thing.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know enough about the project to speculate about its future, but this doesn't seem unusual for software development. I've started assuming it's standard industry practice.

What I can say about Sigil specifically, is that I'm not interested. I know that on paper I look like their ideal customer: I play RPGs exclusively online, I play 5E D&D almost exclusively, and I spend hundreds of dollars a year on digital content and subscription fees. But unfortunately for them, all of my assets are on Roll20. Switching platforms means having to abandon (or worse, re-purchase) all of those assets, and that won't happen.

Maybe a few years down the road, they will work out a deal to let me use my existing digital assets. But until that happens, I'm not going to be interested in changing VTT platforms. I won't even switch to a completely free platform if I can't use the hundreds of dollars' worth of assets I already own.

 

[Belen]

I am a bit concerned at this point.

I am not concerned about DDB. I worked closely with several software developers in publishing and this is just normal behavior.

The software is making money now and improving the database is going to be a low priority versus adding new content that makes more money.

A lot of development teams tied to publishing are great devs but they often lack operational knowledge that would really assist in improving the customer experience.

For instance, a toggle that flipped between 5.0 and 5.5. They already have the functionality for other content so that should have been easy and should still be easy but they do not earn money by fixing it.

It is the same with improving search functionality. It is not a money making improvement.