WotC WotC Cancels 5 Video Games

While D&D itself seems to be still growing rapidly nearly 10 years after the launch of 5th Edition, WotC has recently scaled back its video game plans, costing up to 15 people their jobs, although they may be able to relocate within the company. WotC spoke to Bloomberg and told the site that they were "still committed to using digital games" and that the change in plans was designed to focus on "games which are strategically aligned with developing our existing brands and those which show promise in expanding or engaging our audience in new ways."

Studios working on games for WotC include Otherside Entertainment and Hidden Path Entertainment. WotC owns 6 video game studios in various cities according to CEO Cynthia Williams in an interview with GeekWire.

We’ve announced six different studios that are first-party and owned. There’s Archetype in Austin that’s working on a sci-fi game that we’re really excited about. It’s a new IP.

You’ve got Atomic Arcade in Raleigh-Durham, that’s working on a very mature G.I. Joe game, and then, Invoke is working on a D&D game. The key piece I’d tell you is that we have been really fortunate to hire some amazing industry veterans, who have a passion for the brands and games that they’re building.

The Bloomberg article also mentions an internal cancelled project code-named 'Jabberwocky', but does not say what that was.

 

[sevenbastard]

$70m which would put the 3D VTT up with a lot of more serious AAA games in dev cost (rather than dev + marketing - depending on the game marketing can be anything from about 20% to 200% of the dev cost)

The marketing should be on the low side. Each D&D product has a full page and the url.

 

[Vincent55]

sounds like, they are wanting to hold all the cards, and bring home many things they have lent out to other companies, same with the new rules for 3rd parties using the 5e rules set and going after people making money off their basic rule set. This just tells me that like many companies are out to get money and care very little as to who they hurt, even their own customers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The marketing should be on the low side. Each D&D product has a full page and the url.

Any marketing for the 3D VTT is going to be about the 3D VTT, not extant D&D products. It's hard to say how much WotC will spend on it, but given how much they're investing in it, I'd be surprised if it wasn't significantly/aggressively marketed across multiple channels, including probably getting various podcasts and so on to do adventures in it.

This all rather assumes they get it done fairly promptly though, and as @Umbran points out, with software projects (or projects in general) that is very far from guaranteed.

 

[abirdcall]

I didn't even know they had video games planned, but I will say one thing that would get my interest are some turn based RPG video games like the old gold boxes from back in the day (I found when they switched to non-turn based games it didn't feel as D&D to me)

You will probably like Baldur's Gate 3.

I haven't played it yet but I understand it is similar to Divinity which was turn based.

 

[Hurin70]

Sadly, this might be the best course, given how catastrophic Wizard's forays into computer games have been.

I found the recent Dark Alliance game to be quite terrible, so if they were aiming for more of that, I'm glad they reconsidered. The obscure Tuque studios (a Hasbro subsidiary) was clearly not the right choice.

Where they have had some success is in licensing to an established company capable of making a AAA product, such as with Bioware/Obsidian (Neverwinter Nights) and Baldur's Gate (Bioware/Black Isle and now Larian).

 

[mamba]

The marketing should be on the low side. Each D&D product has a full page and the url.

the games also aren’t (close to being) released yet, that is when marketing would have gone up

 

[Jimmy Dick]

This makes me suspect they are not so enamored with the upcoming release of the D&D movie.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

sounds like, they are wanting to hold all the cards, and bring home many things they have lent out to other companies, same with the new rules for 3rd parties using the 5e rules set and going after people making money off their basic rule set. This just tells me that like many companies are out to get money and care very little as to who they hurt, even their own customers.

How did you come to this conclusion?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This makes me suspect they are not so enamored with the upcoming release of the D&D movie.

Can you explain that?

 

[Scribe]

Hopefully, it's just a consolidation of attention around a better (classic) CRPG style game.

I won't mourn for a bunch of games I likely wouldn't have played, just like all the GW games I pass on.

I always shake my head when great IPs can't figure it out for a PC version.