Wizards of the Coast Is Sunsetting Sigil's Active Development

EN World has received confirmation that Wizards of the Coast is planning to transition Sigil, its just-released VTT, to a D&D Beyond feature with no large future development planned. Earlier this week, Wizards of the Coast laid off approximately 30 staff members tied to the development of Sigil, a new D&D-focused VTT system. Ahead of the layoff, Dan Rawson, senior vice president of Dungeons & Dragons, sent out an internal email confirming that the project was essentially being shuttered. Rascal was the first to report the news and EN World was able to independently confirm the accuracy of their report.

The email can be read below:

Dear Team, I want to share an important update regarding Sigil. After several months of alpha testing, we’ve concluded that our aspirations for Sigil as a larger, standalone game with a distinct monetization path will not be realized. As such, we cannot maintain a large development effort and most of the Sigil team will be separated from the company this week. We are, however, proud of what the Sigil team has developed and want to make sure that fans and players on DDB can use it. To that end, we will transition Sigil to a DDB feature. We will maintain a small team to sustain Sigil and release products already developed at no additional cost to users. To those moving on as a result of this decision, we will provide robust support, including severance packages, 2024 bonus, career placement services, and internal opportunities where possible.

I want to take a moment to praise the entire Sigil team for their incredible work to deliver this product to our community. One of the things I’m most proud of here at D&D is our strong sense of purpose. We aim to honor our current players while ensuring D&D continues to build connections and bring joy to future generations. And that’s what the Sigil team was doing. Although we haven’t fully realized our vision for Sigil to scale, the team should be proud of their achievements.”

A full breakdown of Sigil's tumultous development can be found here. Rascal has several additional details about recent events that led to Sigil's early demise.

 

[dave2008]

They are focusing their limited dev resources on adding new content to the platform. This is for direct sales.

Quality of Life is not a priority for them. Bugs can affect subs or direct sales but a simple toggle for 5 vs 5.5 do not since it is "good enough."

Sure, if a QOL patch is easy or if enough begin t get upset, then they may add it to a patch schedule but they have had several years to work on the database and fix issues that have long been broken and it is not a priority.

So Sigil resources becoming available will not really see them put more into DDB. Their focus is making more money.

To be clear, I was not disagreeing with you on how WotC is probably allocating development resources. I was just pointing out that there is money to be made in making a product work better. It just takes time and, as I noted, it is harder to quantify. I can give analogies if you want (I just never see that exercise going well on these forums).

 

[Juomari Veren]

What Maps has proven good at for DDB is driving up lifetime customer value (instead of new customers). Looks like Sigil will now do some of that work as well.

What almost certainly doomed Sigil from the outset was that their initial vision for it positioned it as both its own product and something that's meant to seamlessly integrate DDB into it but is also entirely separate from the DDB ecosystem, when the only way it would've had a chance of succeeding is if it were wholly integrated from day one; A sentiment that almost everybody on here mentioned when it was first announced and shown off.

 

[gooberlad]

What a shame.

 

[Umbran]

Well that was a complete waste of time and resources WotC could have used to improve almost anything else related to DDB…

If you don't try to do new things, and possibly have them fail, new things never happen.

 

[Belen]

To be clear, I was not disagreeing with you on how WotC is probably allocating development resources. I was just pointing out that there is money to be made in making a product work better. It just takes time and, as I noted, it is harder to quantify. I can give analogies if you want (I just never see that exercise going well on these forums).

Ok, I agree with you as well. I work with a lot of tech publishing vendors and convincing them that polishing the UI is always an uphill battle versus developing the next new thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Now that is a well-chosen header image, @Christian Hoffer.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Not surprising. You don’t cut 90% of the development staff of your unfinished product only for it to still be in active development. That’s maintenance/sunset mode cuts. I feel bad for everyone who got laid off and hope they find something soon, but things are tough out there.

 

[Stormonu]

Didn't they give out a gold dragon virtual mini or somesuch to early adopters?

With it becoming a "regular DDB feature" I wonder if it will become available to everyone else...

 

[sevenbastard]

It's a great idea. Which is why they keep going back to the well. Maybe someday someone will figure out how to make it work.

They should open it up for third party to build modules and mods. Someone out there would do the work to build Castle Ravenloft in it.

 

[mamba]

Didn't they give out a gold dragon virtual mini or somesuch to early adopters?

to people preordering the 2024 core books from WotC, print or digital