Posts Tagged ‘DDI’
I occasionally look back on old threads I’ve written at rpg.net for giggles. I’ve come to realize that I’m prophetic. This was before the announcement of the online-tools (if I’m not mistaken). http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=228915&page=18
Edit – added the actual link and here’s the text from my RPG.net post dated 8/7/2007
VT gaming is still in it’s infancy. I think with Hasbro’s/WotC digital iniative we are all going to see an upswing in the VT market. The pulling of all licenses including software for 3.5 (Code Monkey/Etools) is just the beginning.
My prediction – with the advent of 4.0 the only place you’ll be able to get software to play 4.0 via VT will be WotC. Imagine software costs and support costs vs. creating printed material and a monthly fee to game. WoW may not be true DM/player roleplaying but it has paved the way for play-for-pay models of gaming.
Here’s a thread from the Paizo boards back from April 2007 when WotC pulled the Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine licences -
http://paizo.com/dungeon/messageboards/generalDiscussion/stunnedSpeechless&page=2&source=rss
Meh – it was bound to happen. WotC has been pulling quite a few licenses. Primarily Code Monkey’s (for their character gen software) and now Paizo.
This is part of their online/subscription based content initiative (that I have no insider info just speculation).
I suspect that soon the announcement will come out that their online client to support virtual tabletop software (ala Fantasy Grounds – www.fantasygrounds.com or Screen Monkey www.nbos.com ) will support modules from their online content.
It’s almost a direct reversal of d20 and the OGL, what some I would gather to say at WotC think a miserable failure because we, as consumers have seen that quite a few producers can make better D&D products than WotC can.
The next step will be to remove the OGL from the next edition of D&D so that only their client can be 4th edition compatible and voila.
- New 4th Edition
- New 4th edition content (the electronic version of Dragon and Dungeon Magazine)
- New character creation software (non-downloadable)
- New virtual tabletop client
- New “collectible” virtual miniatures (just ask MtG Online if it’s a viable model to sell “non-existant” cards”
