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.

 

[Zaukrie]

nm

 

[mamba]

Combining D&D Beyond and DMs Guild is a bad idea for so many reasons.

not the least of which is that DDB does not offer PDFs, they really should include that with the purchase

 

[Chaltab]

not the least of which is that DDB does not offer PDFs, they really should include that with the purchase

Conversely, the point of D&D Beyond is that it's an online tool for playing the games. The ROI on DMs Guild products is already pretty thin for most creators, and having to integrate them into D&D Beyond would be extremely time consuming and labor intensive, so that's strike two.

Strike three: DMs Guild content ranges from solid and super useful to unbalanced and nonsensical. Stuff sold on Beyond should be for polished, playtested content--and obviously even some of that has issues like the TCE Clerics.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Honestly, I could tell the product was a dud the second I clicked launch on the program. I've got a pretty hefty high end gaming rig, and yet every fan on the thing whirred up to 100%, while the internal component temps shot up to the levels I get when playing Ark Ascended.

I suspect that the vast majority of the DnD community doesn't posses a modern gaming PC, which meant that Sigil needed to pass the potato test if it was ever going to succeed. Unless you could run the thing smoothly on your toaster, it was never going to catch on.

 

[Queer Venger]

You sure about that?

hey, I get people are feeling salty about this sigil thing going bust, but we've been down this road before. D&D can be played online and in person right now, don't need WotC to give me something I don't really need.

Anyway, yeah, in-person is my jam and always will be

 

[mamba]

Conversely, the point of D&D Beyond is that it's an online tool for playing the games. The ROI on DMs Guild products is already pretty thin for most creators, and having to integrate them into D&D Beyond would be extremely time consuming and labor intensive, so that's strike two.

I assume WotC is doing that integration today, but that also means they will only put the big names on there is the effort is not worth it otherwise, regardless of whether they front it and recover it from their fee or the third party pays for it directly

 

[Tofu Titan]

If Sigil was minimal cost; would you think many would incorporate it into their sessions?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If Sigil was minimal cost; would you think many would incorporate it into their sessions?

It's already free with a Master Tier subscription and there doesn't seem to be a lot of people using it.

If development had continued and it became easier to use and offered a lot more, maybe. But given how few people have the specs to run it, I wouldn't try to build something similar at this point in time, myself.

 

[Superchunk77]

If Sigil was minimal cost; would you think many would incorporate it into their sessions?

No, because according to many reviewers, it takes forever to build maps for it. That's a huge deterrent. About 2 minutes just to load the blank grid. No undo button, no ability to resize assets. It's almost as if it wasn't even beta ready yet! /s

 

[Queer Venger]

Honestly, I could tell the product was a dud the second I clicked launch on the program. I've got a pretty hefty high end gaming rig, and yet every fan on the thing whirred up to 100%, while the internal component temps shot up to the levels I get when playing Ark Ascended.

I suspect that the vast majority of the DnD community doesn't posses a modern gaming PC, which meant that Sigil needed to pass the potato test if it was ever going to succeed. Unless you could run the thing smoothly on your toaster, it was never going to catch on.

100% dud on arrival.
But, can I be honest? Demo'ing with a group of influencers sitting around communally IRL with super expensive laptops didn't feel weird?? Like, arent they just playing D&D except everyone is looking at their screens like when you go to a nice restaurant and couples don't talk to each other and they are on their mobile phones??