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.

 

[Queer Venger]

The ability to run personal games forever is pretty great, but a lot of folks don't get to play the hobby without digital options, for a variety of reasons including health.

PNP play is a big perk of the system, but a lot of good times can only occur because of online options.

Indeed!! Ive been running games online (discord) for almost a decade.
But.
I prefer in person.

my dedicated home D&D group only meets in person (we only played on Discord during the pandemic out of safety & necessity).

But nothing, nothing beats the in-person experience, the social interactions, the camaraderie, friendships, pizza and beer that can ONLY happen when you are lucky to find a group of like minded heroes. For me its one of the joys of attending gaming conventions. If you don't have that I am sorry because I think you are missing one of the most integral parts of this hobby.

But so long as you play it's all that matters, but I'll always believe it doesn't beat getting together with friends IRL.

Also, Im a Gen-Xer. We learned IRL socialization skills early on.
We are not the primarily screen-time generation.

Just saying ;-)

 

[Doc_Klueless]

But nothing, nothing beats the in-person experience, the social interactions, the camaraderie, friendships, pizza and beer that can ONLY happen when you are lucky to find a group of like minded heroes. ...

Meh.

Nothing, nothing beats gaming in my pajamas without having to leave my house and deal with traffic.

After 30 years of the "in-person" experience, the last 10 years of my VTT/On-line experience playing with like-minded heroes from places I'll never visit is soooo much better.

You can keep your in-person experience.

Also, Im a Gen-Xer. We learned IRL socialization skills early on.
We are not the primarily screen-time generation.

Just saying ;-)

I'm a Gen-Xer as well so I'm pretty sure you don't speak for other Gen-Xers.

 

[mamba]

I mean the project needed 10-20 years to reach a level where it would be mature for revenue generation. Not from start to the core product is out.

10-20 is way too long, no one has that kind of time / patience / money, they have 3-5 years. This is not harder than a AAA game, if it takes them 10+ years to generate revenue, then they should not have started, but I doubt they agree with your timeline on that

Smaller businesses are far more agile in their development in my experience. I've experienced it myself where I did migrations for small businesses in two weeks, while for an Enterprise it two almost two years, the biggest issue wasn't more users, it was more way connected systems that needed upgrading/integration and internal politics/processes.

so a lot more work to do due to a much larger landscape that needed upgrading or migration. None of this applies here however

 

[Distracted DM]

Not personally. I don't understand your hope. Hence the question. I have both a local and virtual game.

Not sure ofc cuz I'm just guessing based on context, it's up to them if they want to clarify, but it's probably the hope that the game doesn't take an primarily digital direction bent for design. Designing with digital in mind primarily over tabletop, etc.

 

[Clint_L]

The IP in D&D lies, I think, primarily in locations rather than characters. Things like the Yawning Portal and such. And that's much harder to monetize.

Because nobody outside of extreme D&D fandom knows anything about the Yawning Portal. What I wrote about Drizz't goes ten times over for the Yawning Portal. I agree that locations are much harder to monetize than characters, but D&D doesn't really have either, not at a scale that matters. And it's designed in such a way that it probably never will. Few people play D&D to play as Drizz't or visit the YP; even most D&D players have no idea what those are. D&D's brand recognition is weird: it's now pervasive enough that most folks know it's a game, they aren't freaking out about Satan anymore, and it's something that nerdy people do with dice. It's more a floating concept than a concrete thing or set of things that you can easily hang a film franchise on.

As for there being big money in a VTT...doubtful. Where is it? Where are we seeing the burning interest? This forum is about as hardcore as it gets, when it comes to D&D and TTRPGS, and are we seeing a ton of folks clamouring for a 3dVTT? If you start a thread on tabletop options, you will get more folks swearing by theatre of the mind and Chessex mats. People like me who go in hard for physical terrain are a distinct minority.

To me, a 3d VTT looks a lot like Dwarven Forge (and I'm a big fan and supporter of Dwarven Forge). You've got your hardcore enthusiasts, and that's enough to support a small business. But is this really a widespread desire? Evidently not: DF Kickstarters draw a few thousand supporters, which is enough to keep DF going and satisfy people like me. Similarly, Foundry has its enthusiasts, but folks are not exactly beating down their door, and WotC pretty clearly have tested the waters for a 3d VTT and seen the reaction is "meh...could take it or leave it." It's possible, of course, that that could change with just the right offering and WotC just failed in execution, but where's the evidence that even an ideal 3d VTT has huge uptake potential? So WotC are left with the option of continuing to invest a ton of money in a product that, even if perfected, probably doesn't have a huge market, or letting go of their sunk cost and moving on.

Sigil failed because there isn't enough demand to justify continuing to sink money into it. Maps has succeeded because it does the basics really well, takes minutes to learn, and is cheap. A 3d VTT is always going to be more complex, and a lot more expensive, and evidently most folks aren't too fussed about needing one.

 

[Chaltab]

I think that the shift your post goes through from the bit about games workshop licencing through wotc's settings and such nicely shows why there's such a stark difference between the two. Im not sure if GW has multiple settings beyond wh40k & wh40k fantasy, but they have a clear and obvious theme that runs through it deeply enough to seamlessly feel in play. Wotc HAD settings with clear themes (ravenloft dark sun eberron & maybe dragonlance if you get into it enough), except they have spent most of the last few decades trying to shove them under the rug or water down what made them distinctive with little more than FR loredump compatibility∆ that clashed with the settings themselves. Then 5e came along and designed against anything but kitchen sink generic fantasy with an unhealthy level of FR's lore welded to every nook and cranny.

I'm not sure that tracks. There's no way to read the 5E Ravenloft and Eberron books and not come away with a clear impression that Ravenloft is the horror setting and that Eberron is a closed off pulp setting with no relation to the Realms.

Obviously Dark Sun is another story in that it hasn't happened, but the 4E version was good.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not sure that tracks. There's no way to read the 5E Ravenloft and Eberron books and not come away with a clear impression that Ravenloft is the horror setting and that Eberron is a closed off pulp setting with no relation to the Realms.

Obviously Dark Sun is another story in that it hasn't happened, but the 4E version was good.

The setting is, but the ruleset in the phb is carry too much of one punch man dbz & Superman's world of cardboard to fit. Even the 3.x ravenloft felt it was necessary to include multiple pages of changes to PC abilities and various rules while the 5e one pretty much has a one off sentence suggesting that the GM change monsters to make it work.

Jedi master Luke Skywalker doesn't fit on any version of the USS Enterprise anymore than the borg should be visiting Corsucant in the next Disney+ exclusive. 5e provides no real support to bring mechanics and abilities under the umbrella of setting tones rather than clashing

 

[Queer Venger]

Meh.

Nothing, nothing beats gaming in my pajamas without having to leave my house and deal with traffic.

After 30 years of the "in-person" experience, the last 10 years of my VTT/On-line experience playing with like-minded heroes from places I'll never visit is soooo much better.

You can keep your in-person experience.


I'm a Gen-Xer as well so I'm pretty sure you don't speak for other Gen-Xers.

don't worry, Im not the herald for GenXers LOL.
Luckily my gaming group are my neighbors, so they sometimes come over in their pjs.

So, game on pajama boy!!!

 

[Chaltab]

The setting is, but the ruleset in the phb is carry too much of one punch man dbz & Superman's world of cardboard to fit.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. There's no mechanics to run anything remotely close to these in 5E. It's not a system I would consider to run anything like this.

Even the 3.x ravenloft felt it was necessary to include multiple pages of changes to PC abilities and various rules while the 5e one pretty much has a one off sentence suggesting that the GM change monsters to make it work.

Jedi master Luke Skywalker doesn't fit on any version of the USS Enterprise anymore than the borg should be visiting Corsucant in the next Disney+ exclusive. 5e provides no real support to bring mechanics and abilities under the umbrella of setting tones rather than clashing

I mean to an extent, this is true, but as someone who made a pretty minimalist Dark Sun patch for 5E, I can say it's not that difficult to do.

 

[Metroido]

Also, Im a Gen-Xer. We learned IRL socialization skills early on.

You sure about that?