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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 7647714" data-attributes="member: 725">[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]If developing a VTT isn't that complex and most things are available 'over the shelf' then developing such an application shouldn't be all that expensive. But expensive compared to what? To an AAA game or a MMO, sure, compared to most graphical crpgs, sure, it's cheaper then that as well. BUT not as expensive as those doesn't mean cheap, the problem is how you get a return on your investment and how to make a profit, the key to that is subscribers. LOTS of subscribers and I (and many with me) think that getting enough subscribers to cover development, continued support, and a decent profit is difficult and very risky. You have a pretty massive upfront investment in time = money, continued support for a year+ at a minimum (if you sell a years subscription you better provide it or you might get in serious legal troubles).Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and finance this TRPG saving VTT? Or learn how to program and program it yourself?I've been looking into 'investing' my IT freelance overflow money into something profitable and the gaming industry is a lot more fun then your average IT project. But a VTT isn't the most effective use of that investment, it might be eventually useful as a supporting product, but it certainly is not a core product. And imho the same goes for RPG products or even other tabletop games, the investment is large, the return risky. There are other, less risky products in the gaming industry and even those are still a risky proposition (less investment, possibility of a bigger return on investment). TRPG are no longer core products imho, they are supporting products, Pathfinder is a big exception. But as RD explained it, PF is soaking up a <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />load of customers that WotC shed when they went for 4E and kept shedding when they made the mess of what 4E is now.Don't get me wrong, 4E might be a tight system, but if it doesn't make enough of a profit it is a failure in a commercial sense. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but some are just not commercially viable, and what is commercially viable differs from person to person (or company to company). Just look at Dungeonaday.com, Monte Cook sold it to Super Genius Games because it didn't make sense for him to continue with it, but SGG supported it for a while, but now even they had to stop supporting it. Great concept, huge potential, but there just weren't enough subscribers to make it worth their while. The same goes for VTTs as a core product, as a supporting product it doesn't have to directly generate a profit, it has other uses (as a gateway to selling other products, expanding your customer base, etc.).[MENTION=21076]IronWolf[/MENTION]PDFs are great, especially since I got my iPad I buy very little physical gaming books, part of the reason is because my book cases are full and expanding those isn't an option. But I also recognize that a lot can still be very expensive and continue to be so over time, and the pirate 'industry' is still easily available and has little to no drawbacks. When you compare that to the computer game industry you have little to no online play, issues with updates, and the potential for getting a virus/trojan when you install the game (or use the keygen). When I can get older, but still great titles like Mass Effect 1&2, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 for $5 a piece I just buy it, even if my Steam games already contain 200+ games I haven't finished (or even started with). I am currently a loyal follower of the Dreampod 9 Heavy Gear pdf products, at this time I have bought everything since the Blitz! era, I might even buy more (older products) if it was available in it's original format instead of scans. A $1 full titel (and not a few pages product) I can buy without much thought, but at $0.15-$0.20+ per page things stop being impulse buys, often the PDF is (a lot) more expensive then what I would pay for the physical product (discounts can add up). What I'm trying to say is that the pdf TRPG market still needs a long way to go before it's as popular as computer game equivalents like Steam.</blockquote>

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