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.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Great point. Hard to believe such a professional team would not address the common onboarding challenge of the dreaded blank page to a new user.

Offering basic starter templates or a simple onboarding tutorial would go far in encouraging newcomers to make their first map.

They weren't allowed to finish, it's was barely in public alpha when the rug was yanked out from under the project.

 

[Tofu Titan]

They weren't allowed to finish, it's was barely in public alpha when the rug was yanked out from under the project.

Fair. No criticism of the team themselves. I'm sure these things would've been in future sprints.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Fair. No criticism of the team themselves. I'm sure these things would've been in future sprints.

I didn't take as you criticizing them, just that you may not have been aware of the circumstances.

 

[Valetudo]

I hear it takes a beast pc to run sigil right now. Sounds like they needed to implement some sort of cloud for the vtt. Plus this vtt couldn't even be called beta at this point. Makes me shake my head at hasbros and wizards management.

 

[LordEntrails]

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??

Absolutely. It was the worst possible way to demo a VTT. They should have had players all around the world, each one on a big projection screen that half showed their face and half their Sigil play screen. If they all HAD to be in the same room, at least put them at different tables and not facing each other.
But, Sigil was not ready to do any of that either.

edit: Can you imagine if one player had been in Japan w/ Mt Fuji in the background? And another w/ the St Louis Arch? And a third w/ the Taj Mahal? Someone else with the NYC skyline? All while the DM was in the room? Now that would have sparked people's realizations of the power of a good VTT.

 

[LordEntrails]

This comment over on the D&DBeyond forums is spot on...

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/bugs-support/207285-sigil-on-os-x?comment=39

Eh... His first part is pretty good, but all their suggestions are just ill-informed. Let's start at the beginning:

• Back catalog available on DDB. Yea, OD&D characters and monsters don't have the same stat blocks. Wouldn't work unless you made DDB support all editions. And that's just a bad idea.
• Digital Discounts and CD Keys. Yes on digital discounts, but CD Keys just don't work. Nor do putting serial numbers on books. Nice idea, but cost due to theft is incredible high.
• Partner Integration. Yea but... it's not so easy. Every VTT/partner needs the content in a different format. Yes this can be done. And someday it will be, but XML Content Managment software is still in its infancy in terms of industry adoption. And therefore it is expensive to license, setup, and maintain. We're talking a million dollar project with high maintenance costs. That's a big chunk of the licensing profits to spend.
• DMsG access to DDB. Though I like this idea, it's not as simple as people want it to be. But it might actually be the idea most worth pursuing.
• Above VTT guy. Yea, just because a lone develop can do good work on their own doesn't mean they can work well with others or follow corporate requirements. No idea about this guy, but these types of "just do this" statements are usually ignorant of realities.

 

[Queer Venger]

Absolutely. It was the worst possible way to demo a VTT. They should have had players all around the world, each one on a big projection screen that half showed their face and half their Sigil play screen. If they all HAD to be in the same room, at least put them at different tables and not facing each other.
But, Sigil was not ready to do any of that either.

edit: Can you imagine if one player had been in Japan w/ Mt Fuji in the background? And another w/ the St Louis Arch? And a third w/ the Taj Mahal? Someone else with the NYC skyline? All while the DM was in the room? Now that would have sparked people's realizations of the power of a good VTT.

This 100!!! Yeah, even this would've made it interesting and really sell the international aspect of gaming across time-zones.

Im still bummed for the dev-team, but at this point I think anyone who agrees to work for wotc (hasbro?) should be prepared to be given a last minute pink-slip, and even possibly right before xmas.

 

[Xeviat]

It's long been suspected that the main reason Baldur's Gate 3 didn't have any sort of DM mode like the ones for NWN and Divinity Original Sin 2 is so that didn't happen. But now that Sigil is effectively abandoned as a monetization platform there's no reason not to.

Should have just paid Larian to make one. Would be a killer program.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Should have just paid Larian to make one. Would be a killer program.

Or Hans Reiser. Talk about a killer programmer.

...

I'll let myself out.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Could it be that WotC has decided in-person play should remain the focus?