Does this matter?

Quote from: Wizards of the CoastYou have a new broadcast on your site at The Wizards Community!

Wotc_Josh from the group D&D Insider Beta has sent you a broadcast.

Subject: D&D VT Community Announcement

  I wanted to inform you all about an important decision that Wizards has made regarding the D&D Virtual Table  and Virtual Table Beta. While we appreciate the enthusiasm and participation in the Beta phase, we were unable to generate enough support for the tool to launch a full version to the public. Effective July 30, 2012 the D&D Virtual Table Beta will be coming to an end and the VT will be closed.

  Over the next three weeks, we encourage you to wrap up your existing campaigns and make sure to gather contact information from your online group members so that you can stay in touch if you like. We realize that because all data generated in the tool is in a proprietary format usable only by the Virtual Table, it is not possible to export your campaigns for use in another tool. You can, however, take screenshots of any notes, maps or adventures that you would like to hang on to or use in your home games.

  We would like to thank everyone who participated in the VT Beta and look forward to continuing to support D&D game play through our D&D Insider digital tools and D&D Next.

Ouch.

But I thought it was weird business decision, when all they had to do was offer out license of approval (like those old useless Nintendo Gold Seal of Approval stickers) for any third party apps that are compatible. Given all the free tools available, it seemed fruitless to compete in this arena. I hope they weren't stupid enough to dream they could start it as a for-profit service...

Quote from: Rum Cove;558292Does this matter?

No.

Considering how far roll20.net has gotten from a standing start that is at least half the time they put into the VT, Wizards should just leave code projects to professionals... or possibly, to the amateurs.

It could have mattered, had it succeeded. Now, it's just another in a looong list of failures for WotC.

Quote from: Benoist;558308It could have mattered, had it succeeded. Now, it's just another in a looong list of failures for WotC.

Just in case anyone in the thread wasn't aware, but this would be the second attempt at a DDI-linked Virtual Tabletop to fail. The first was brought down by 'outside circumstance':
http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/315975-wizards-coast-dungeons-dragons-insider-d-d-4th-edition-hasbro-some-history.html

QuoteAt the point of the original Hasbro/Wizards merger a fateful decision was made that laid the groundwork for what happened once Greg took over. Instead of focusing Hasbro on the idea that Wizards of the Coast was a single brand, each of the lines of business in Wizards got broken out and reported to Hasbro as a separate entity. This was driven in large part by the fact that the acquisition agreement specified a substantial post-acquisition purchase price adjustment for Wizards' shareholders on the basis of the sales of non-Magic CCGs (i.e. Pokemon).

This came back to haunt Wizards when Hasbro's new Core/Non-Core strategy came into focus. Instead of being able to say "We're a $100+ million brand, keep funding us as we desire", each of the business units inside Wizards had to make that case separately. So the first thing that happened was the contraction you saw when Wizards dropped new game development and became the "D&D and Magic" company. Magic has no problem hitting the "Core" brand bar, but D&D does. It's really a $25-30 million business, especially since Wizards isn't given credit for the licensing revenue of the D&D computer games.

It would have been very easy for Goldner et al to tell Wizards "you're done with D&D, put it on a shelf and we'll bring it back 10 years from now as a multi-media property managed from Rhode Island". There's no way that the D&D business circa 2006 could have supported the kind of staff and overhead that it was used to. Best case would have been a very small staff dedicated to just managing the brand and maybe handling some freelance pool doing minimal adventure content. So this was an existential issue (like "do we exist or not") for the part of Wizards that was connected to D&D. That's something between 50 and 75 people.

Sometime around 2006, the D&D team made a big presentation to the Hasbro senior management on how they could take D&D up to the $50 million level and potentially keep growing it. The core of that plan was a synergistic relationship between the tabletop game and what came to be known as DDI. At the time Hasbro didn't have the rights to do an MMO for D&D, so DDI was the next best thing. The Wizards team produced figures showing that there were millions of people playing D&D and that if they could move a moderate fraction of those people to DDI, they would achieve their revenue goals. Then DDI could be expanded over time and if/when Hasbro recovered the video gaming rights, it could be used as a platform to launch a true D&D MMO, which could take them over $100 million/year.

The DDI pitch was that the 4th Edition would be designed so that it would work best when played with DDI. DDI had a big VTT component of its design that would be the driver of this move to get folks to hybridize their tabletop game with digital tools. Unfortunately, a tragedy struck the DDI team and it never really recovered. The VTT wasn't ready when 4e launched, and the explicit link between 4e and DDI that had been proposed to Hasbro's execs never materialized. The team did a yoeman's effort to make 4e work anyway while the VTT evolved, but they simply couldn't hit the numbers they'd promised selling books alone. The marketplace backlash to 4e didn't help either.

Greg wasn't in the hot seat long enough to really take the blame for the 4e/DDI plan, and Wizards just hired a new exec to be in charge of Sales & Marketing, and Bill Slavicsek who headed RPG R&D left last summer, so the team that committed those numbers to Hasbro are gone. The team that's there now probably doesn't have a blank sheet of paper and an open checkbook, but they also don't have to answer to Hasbro for the promises of the prior regime.

As to their next move? Only time will tell.

I do a lot of beta testing, and in specific I make sure THIS NEVER HAPPENS:

QuoteOver the next three weeks, we encourage you to wrap up your existing campaigns and make sure to gather contact information from your online group members so that you can stay in touch if you like. We realize that because all data generated in the tool is in a proprietary format usable only by the Virtual Table, it is not possible to export your campaigns for use in another tool. You can, however, take screenshots of any notes, maps or adventures that you would like to hang on to or use in your home games.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the VT Beta and look forward to continuing to support D&D game play through our D&D Insider digital tools and D&D Next.

Microsoft did something recently like this with the Office Live transition.

Nobody is going to invest their time and money into a company that does not respect their time and money. There is no excuse to not provide the formats (even in the raw) to users to make the transition easier. And if WotC signed a contract which required this, then shame on them, because it means people will be far less likely to bother putting the time in to test their products, which will lead to fewer people using them, which will lead to more beta products being cancelled.

The cherry of course is how it seems WotC looks forward to you willing to go through all this again.

Well done WotC!

Quote from: chaosvoyager;558374I do a lot of beta testing, and in specific I make sure THIS NEVER HAPPENS:

Funny, I've been working in software engineering for fifteen years and I've never heard of an application's primary data storage schema being designed by the beta testers.

Say what you will about 4e, VTT is the biggest fuckup in the history of D&D as a brand, and in the history of WotC as a gaming company.

Hope they learn something from this before it's too late.

As 4e perisheth, so too doth the VTT.

I remember AM promising it to be the bees knees...

Wow, if there is a WotC failure I wish I was WRONG to predict, it is this. What a shame!

Quote from: 1989;558416As 4e perisheth, so too doth the VTT.

Indeed.  

Maybe they'll realize they need to lift off the treadmill-go pedal.

Derp.

This won't be the end of a WOTC vtt project. I guarantee you this will show up again.

WOTC wants to sell you a monthly digital subscription and auto-charge your credit card. VTT is a value add to their current offerings and can lure more people to signing up, therefore it will show up again.

No doubt this was just to make way for a deal with another partner to develop something for 5E.

Quote from: bryce0lynch;558791This won't be the end of a WOTC vtt project. I guarantee you this will show up again.

WOTC wants to sell you a monthly digital subscription and auto-charge your credit card. VTT is a value add to their current offerings and can lure more people to signing up, therefore it will show up again.

No doubt this was just to make way for a deal with another partner to develop something for 5E.

I wouldn't be surprised but after failing to get the product out during the whole 4E product run, the 5E version better be fully developed and ready to deliver before they mention it.

The sad thing is, 4th Edition would have made a helluva MMORPG.  Too bad they didn't have the license at the time to just do it instead of trying to lead up to it with a digitally delivered pen-and-paper 4e.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;558794I wouldn't be surprised but after failing to get the product out during the whole 4E product run, the 5E version better be fully developed and ready to deliver before they mention it.

and the likelihood of that?  zip, i'd say.  their track record is firmly in the SUCKS department when it comes to that.  how many suckers would they get to preorder it?  :rotfl: