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.

 

[mamba]

Just glad they didn't go with Silverlight (again!).

Silverlight was discontinued 4 years ago, they couldn't even if they wanted to

 

[Belen]

4E had very good character generator tools. Shutting them down remains The Worst.

3E had a CD demo that fizzled out.

Didn't something similar happen in 4e? 3e also had character gen tools that I don't recall being further developed than a demo with the player's handbook. Seems that when it comes to tools like this they don't want to follow through.

Actually, 3e has a really good set of tools. The CD in the book was expanded into E-Tools that was further developed by Code Monkey Publishing. You were able to buy expansion sets for new 3e/3.5 books from CMP. In fact, I still have most of my CMP datasets and the e-tools CD.

It never fizzled out. WOTC revoked the license from CMP when they announced 4e so that there were no offiial tools that would compete with 4e.

 

[Xeviat]

Didn't something similar happen in 4e? 3e also had character gen tools that I don't recall being further developed than a demo with the player's handbook. Seems that when it comes to tools like this they don't want to follow through.

I got the demo with my copy for Baldur's Gate 2, and it got me to run out and buy the core set immediately.

 

[Distracted DM]

I do think licensing is important to them, but I don't think it's huge. The movie, good as it is, was a bust, and now there's a TV show that I am sure they are hoping does some things, but that's not something they can plan around. Selling t-shirts at Old Navy, branded socks and coffee mugs and so forth is cheap for them, you're right, but doesn't seem to be a massive revenue stream (again, barring a blue moon event like BG3), and from what we've seen they are still largely reliant on books.

This has always been the issue with D&D: you can basically play it for free, or with a few books and some dice at most. And that's still how lots of folks basically play it. DDB is all about making it easy for folks to get attached to a digital ecosystem so you're likely to buy more books that are immediately integrated right into your experience. Maps works really, really well for that strategy, because now if you buy, say Vecna: Eve of Ruin through DDB you immediately get every magic item ready to be added to the digital character sheets, every monster ready to use with the Encounter Builder, and every map ready to go. Plus some extra swag like themed dice and character sheet backgrounds.

So if you're using DDB, Maps makes it so that you can pick up an adventure and start playing. Sigil offered something similar, but less integrated with DDB and a lot more complicated to use. Obviously the vision was to make it as intuitive and integrated as Maps, but that was just not going to happen while also offering the complexity needed to make it it's own revenue stream.

Yup! And even if you're like me and blow thousands of dollars on it, WotC isn't seeing a lot of that money- all the random folk making TTRPG content are. I buy lots of stuff for DnD that isn't 5e-specific. To be fair though, thousands of those thousands of dollars have been on old WotC or current Wizkids miniatures :'D

 

[Incenjucar]

Actually, 3e has a really good set of tools. The CD in the book was expanded into E-Tools that was further developed by Code Monkey Publishing. You were able to buy expansion sets for new 3e/3.5 books from CMP. In fact, I still have most of my CMP datasets and the e-tools CD.

It never fizzled out. WOTC revoked the license from CMP when they announced 4e so that there were no offiial tools that would compete with 4e.

Interesting! I either missed it or it just leaped out of my memory. Thanks for the correction!

 

[Weiley31]

Well that didn't take long.

 

[cbwjm]

4E had very good character generator tools. Shutting them down remains The Worst.

3E had a CD demo that fizzled out.

Yeah, the character creator was great, but I recall that they were planning on some sort of digital table or map software that also fell through.

 

[cbwjm]

Actually, 3e has a really good set of tools. The CD in the book was expanded into E-Tools that was further developed by Code Monkey Publishing. You were able to buy expansion sets for new 3e/3.5 books from CMP. In fact, I still have most of my CMP datasets and the e-tools CD.

It never fizzled out. WOTC revoked the license from CMP when they announced 4e so that there were no offiial tools that would compete with 4e.

I guess my thought was that WotC never continued with their etools, I don't even recall Code Monkey Publishing being touted as continuing the tools, if they were officially licenced to continue them, I'd have thought it would be better marketed, BUT it could also be my memory, 3e was such a long time ago now.

To be honest, it probably makes more sense for WotC to officially licence out etools to someone who is able to devote more resources to it.

 

[Incenjucar]

Yeah, the character creator was great, but I recall that they were planning on some sort of digital table or map software that also fell through.

Yep. It was pretty obvious it was going to fall through when they showed it off at PAX.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

shrugs in pen and paper and miniature figures