WotC Guessing as to WotC's VTT plans

[Zardnaar]

That's true.

But if I am planning on finally leveraging the D&D Brand to make World of Warcraft money, I need to sell subscriptions to not just DMs, but players, too.

They want to bill every member of every gaming group monthly. Make no mistake, that's the plan.

MMO money. That's the goal. It always should have been, to be perfectly honest. I know that may be a dirty idea here, but if I own the D&D brand? I'd be demanding to know why these other companies are taking what should always have been my money.

Properly exploited, the D&D Brand should make money at a scale which makes M:TG look like its poor cousin. This has been true for 20+ years.

AAA titles these days are in the 100-200+million dollar range.

WotC doesn't really do software well and has cheap out in outsourcing.

No one's gonna pay big money to license D&D vs their own IP.

 

[Hussar]

Still not AAA budget.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey which I play had 7 studios working in it at once took around 2 years iirc 100 million.

Throwing money at something doesn't make it AAA you have to also make a smash hit.

Why would you compare this to a AAA video game though? This is not a video game. It's nothing like a video game. There are no cut-scenes. There are no stories. There are no actual play mechanics. This is no more a video game than Microsoft Word is a video game.

AAA video games require that kind of investment for lots of reasons - voice actors, story boarding and writing, on and on and on. This is a glorified chat program. That's it. There's nothing here that is even remotely close to a AAA game.

 

[Zardnaar]

Why would you compare this to a AAA video game though? This is not a video game. It's nothing like a video game. There are no cut-scenes. There are no stories. There are no actual play mechanics. This is no more a video game than Microsoft Word is a video game.

AAA video games require that kind of investment for lots of reasons - voice actors, story boarding and writing, on and on and on. This is a glorified chat program. That's it. There's nothing here that is even remotely close to a AAA game.

Previous poster mentioned AAA game context the 350 staff. That's more than when TSR peaked.

 

[Hussar]

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how you need that many people, but, fair enough. I'm not a programmer, so, I'll let them get on with it. But, again, all these comparisons are just baffling. MMO's and whatnot. This is not a video game. It's just not. It's far closer to a chat program married to an art program. That7s it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how you need that many people, but, fair enough. I'm not a programmer, so, I'll let them get on with it. But, again, all these comparisons are just baffling. MMO's and whatnot. This is not a video game. It's just not. It's far closer to a chat program married to an art program. That7s it.

I have severe doubts that there is anywhere near that number of people hired for this gig. I expect a rationalization of who is paying many existing employees and a relcassifcation of which "division" is paying them within Hasbro is the real culprit here.

350 would be a LOT for even the largest, most epic, Triple A title. That's more than Blizzard devotes to its dev team. I don't believe that number to be a true representation of the VTT team. At all.

That said, a 3D VTT, with advanced lighting, particle emitters and significant animations for spells, not to mention auto-resolution of a vast number of attacks goes WAY beyond a "chat program" or "art program". You are letting the Fantasy Grounds experience blind you to what's possible., (Even Foundry VTT goes way beyond FG now) . So yes, in terms of the asset creation, it certainly does look like a video game. You are off base here.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

350 would be a LOT for even the largest, most epic, Triple A title. That's more than Blizzard devotes to its dev team. I don't believe that number to be a true representation of the VTT team. At all.

AAA video games can have more than 1000 people working on them. But 350 seems like way too many for a VTT in 3d. For comparison, Tactical Adventures, who made Solasta: Crown of the Magister, has got 30 employees. Visually, Solasta isn't that far off from what I imagine a 3D VTT will be.

 

[Steel_Wind]

AAA video games can have more than 1000 people working on them. But 350 seems like way too many for a VTT in 3d. For comparison, Tactical Adventures, who made Solasta: Crown of the Magister, has got 30 employees. Visually, Solasta isn't that far off from what I imagine a 3D VTT will be.

No. They don't. Most run at 50-70 at any one point in time, with various teams being rolled in and out of active production depending on the productions stage. Some massive titles can go to 3 times that at peak staffing.

There is no Triple AAA game that has had 350 employees on site simultaneously engaged in active development on the same title. That's not how the business of game development works.

 

[darjr]

OK here’s my guess.

The D&D virtual weekends are going to push hard for folks to use it. This is the real “get players to buy something” bit. The D&D virtual weekends will be extended to 24/7 and funnel players to WotCs vtt by DM incentives and then have things players can buy, like bits of rules from existing books or fancy dice or fancy “skins”.

They will continue to have a free tier and some sort of sharing so a DM can run purchased content for their players.

Finally, and this I can’t go into much detail, they’ll have third party content. I suspect this was the basis of the whole “abandoning OGL” rumors of a few days ago.

 

[nevin]

Well, the problem with something like that is that you are inheriting a bunch of pretty old code. Roll 20 has been around now for what, almost ten years? That's quite a while and things do change.

And, I don't think that Roll 20 would be able to handle 3d or animation, which are two things they are apparently headed towards.

They better be careful. Roll20 works. 3d animation dine improperly or by devs shooting for newest shiniest and processor /graphics intensive application could sink that ship. it better be useable by 10 year old pc's, over a 50mb internet with 6 to 10 players. Developers without clear gials are good at making things most people dint have the hardware for..

Plus marketing wise buying roll20 upgrading for larger user base gives customers something now while they aim for that 3d star.

 

[darjr]

They better be careful. Roll20 works. 3d animation dine improperly or by devs shooting for newest shiniest and processor /graphics intensive application could sink that ship. it better be useable by 10 year old pc's, over a 50mb internet with 6 to 10 players. Developers without clear gials are good at making things most people dint have the hardware for..

Plus marketing wise buying roll20 upgrading for larger user base gives customers something now while they aim for that 3d star.

Software loyalty, for a variety of reasons, is also real.