Diversity & Dragons claims that Project Sigil is cancelled.
This is Doomcock levels of cope, and his sources are--at best--wrong.
Wizards of the Coast has former Microsoft people in C-Suite. Project Sigil is a software development project. What happens when a project concludes? We see this all the time in videogames, as those is the most public-facing examples; enterprise development (which is what Sigil is) is no different: you let go of most of the dev team and maintain only maintenance people.
That doesn't mean Sigil is canceled. Sigil's NDA got released a few weeks ago, which is why YouTube is rotten with streams and videos talking about it and showing it all. That was the Beta version, so of course user count is low compared to what it will become.
That means Sigil is done and will be going live sooner than later.
I've seen this dance done dozens of times by now. That's how this goes every single time, especially everything out of Microsoft and thus from those used to working like Microsoft does. Will Sigil have all of features promised at launch? Probably not; they'll get added with patches and bug fixes that testers missed (or were ignored, like we see with Blizzard all the time).
And I see how DD's sources could have fucked this up: they don't know software dev cycles. The transition of WOTC from a Tabletop game company to a Brand-focused software company is recent, so the transition in terms of personnel is not yet complete. This is how Mearls can misread the situation and not be pulling some fuckery on people, and this is how DD's sources could just be wrong and not lying to him.
It's also how DD came to the conclusion that he did: he's not used to how things like this work.
If--and that too is not certain--this is correct, then Sigil is done and going to go live sooner than we think; the Walled Garden's core feature is complete, so all that remains is to put up the online store, put in the microstransactions, and get this on mobile so the target audience--Normies, not hobbyists--can get into the new business funnel, the one that guts the commercial viability of Tabletop Conventional Play.
And Now, Something I'm Putting Down To Return To In Ten Years
The reason I'm talking about this is not because I give two shits about Current Edition. The reason I'm doing this is to point out something that all of you forgot: hobbies are living institutions unto themselves- they require CONSTANT recruiting to replace losses to attrition AND the transmission of collective acumen from Elders to Juniors (y'know, that thing Boomers refused to do).
What have I said all this time about that? Conventional Play does not have a prospect funnel process outside of WOTC.
What has WOTC done? Sealed off the prospect funnel.
If you are someone in Conventional Play that pays your bills producing product, WOTC just fucked you in the ass without lube. This is the "two" in the one-two punch that started with their hit on the OGL; by itself, not a big deal but in conjunction with sealing off the funnel by which all you people get your customers and audience you are completely and totally fucked.
Don't believe me? Hit up everyone that appears on Roll For Combat and ask them. They know they're fucked if they don't follow WOTC to Vidya, and they said as much in this stream two weeks ago.
So don't you dare say I'm the lone voice here. These are your peers confirming my positions.
Sigil's happening. The Big Move has come. The Colony Drop has come. You are coping by saying otherwise; either you accept reality or you are done here.
In ten years' time--the time it took for Kathy Kennedy to kill Star Wars--you will see your commercial viability die off because all the people who would have come for your slop will instead be having a great time in WOTC's Walled Garden paying to win for their dopamine hits just like we see in OldPub and its slop-ridden dopamine mills.
The new audience of Normies that WOTC will have already reject what you offer as it is- they sure as Hell ain't going to change by 2035, and that RFC stream shows why.
WOTC wants that money, and they're going to get it. The begging on crowdfunds will wither as people again coalesce around a new Only Game That Matters (which, of course, will be a D&D edition; WOTC's management isn't stupid- they'll sell legacy editions POD forever because it's trivial to offer it and thus Free Money), the darlings of today will be forgotten because No One Plays Them Anymore (like we saw with so many others), and thus commercial operations will close one after the next with stubborn bastards like Palladium being among the last to go.
Underground, non-commercial, and occulted--which the Clubhouse is all about--is where things will be for the Real Hobby, and it will be as the Bros have shown it- not at all Conventional Play. Why? Because, being non-commercial, there is neither the incentive nor the need for Endless Product Slop which all that Conventional Play offers.
No, in 10 years we'll see fewer games- not more. Why? Because we're retrenching, tossing out shit that doesn't get played, and focusing on what does. Everything else gets put in the recycling bin. That means Past D&D and not much else. Furthermore, we're going to abandon isolated unconnected tables and go back to having every table in the same campaign- something that is far more engaging, exciting, and yet pro-social than Conventional Play can ever offer.
The Real Hobby will be for the few willing and able to comprehend and appreciate it. WOTC will have Product Slop for the masses. Those unable to accept either will just quit and Do Something Else.
And that is good. My 60s will be a decade of, at long last, the hobby I expected to find back in the 1980s.
Or... They could be in the middle of bollocking the whole thing up.
ReplyDeleteWhich would be consistent with WotC's past efforts.
While I agree that the RPG hobby will contract. I think we are looking at 80-90's levels, and not a complete collapse.
Yeah, I saw that too.
ReplyDeleteGonna be interesting to see the port-mortem on this, but I'm still of the mind that a complete collapse is here and it will take about 10 years for it to become obvious to everyone else. WOTC can just _buy_ VTTs like they bought Beyond.
I agree that if they wanted a VTT that they should have just bought one out. Which they may very well end up doing.
ReplyDeleteThe current problem with WotC is as you well know, that they are a converged corp. Fundamentally incapable of fulfilling their primary purpose.
Yes, do vidya, lots of vidya, licensing etc,. But like Mazda does with the Miata, you preserve your 'Halo' product, the spirit of your company. You make it the best it can be. But they are currently running their flagship halo product through late-stage globohomo convergence.
I think your 10 years is about spot on for D&D killing itself. Dr. Who took about ten years from it's ratings peak to it's late stage self-immolation with the fem Dr.
Now whether that crash involves a complete collapse. Or, a 4e style exodus to a "D&D" alternative with the accompanying contracting of the hobby - remains to be seen.
Bollocking the whole thing up is gaining momentum...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rascal.news/wizards-of-the-coast-shutters-sigil-virtual-tabletop-project-lays-off-30-staff/
Lack of corporate interest and poor internal communication reportedly stymied success.
Rascal spoke with one of the affected workers (who also asked to remain anonymous), and they confirmed the text of the internal message. They said the Sigil team was notified Monday that all but three team members would be laid off. Wizards of the Coast president John Hight reportedly cried while delivering the news, stating that the company may return to the project one day if enough interest was shown, but that it will currently exist as a perk for Master tier subscribers to D&D Beyond.
The employee told Rascal that the atmosphere surrounding work on Sigil had felt off and increasingly strained since late last year, following a somewhat disastrous tech demo as part of a Gen Con 2024 performance that featured Aabria Iyengar, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Anjali Bhimani, and Baldur's Gate 3 actors Neil Newbon and Samantha Béart. Hasbro president Chris Cocks became involved in the project for the first time soon after and was reportedly not very supportive of continued development. The anonymous employee believes development was likely cancelled internally around December, and the last three months constituted a last-ditch effort to create the best product possible spearheaded by project lead Chris Cao.
[...] Sigil's sudden death was more of a murder, according to the employee. They describe a company-wide lack of coordination during their tenure where they never interacted with the book publishing team and only stumbled into the already existing Maps VTT by accidentally signing up for an internal playtest believing it was Sigil, instead. In fact, the employee claims WotC engineers would constantly clash with D&D Beyond staff over access to the latter's fiercely protected internal data. Sigil's original vision was to eventually move beyond D&D to encompass My Little Pony, Transformers, and the rest of Hasbro's vaunted license portfolio. Over time, the team narrowed the scope to creating a D&D application for PC and mobile devices that integrated D&D Beyond data and usability. The team apparently always felt as though they performed miracles with a limited set of tools, constantly moving goalposts and a distinct lack of interest from Hasbro management — until the end.