As a hardcore roll20 hater, I’m not too happy about this. Hopefully this at least makes R20 better and demiplane won’t just be killed off in 6 months.
Hopefully they don’t go out of their way to try to lock you into using their VTT. I’m not a fan of Roll20 myself but as long as they let Demiplane be themselves and keep it mostly open for third party plugins to do their thing, we should be alright in the long run.
Honestly? Be prepared to leave. Enshittification is coming to get Demiplane.
(A new entry for https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ …)
I guess Roll20s subscriber numbers plateaued and they are now feeling the pressure from dnd beyond. Buying a competitor is probably the fastest way to bolster their customer count.
I have no idea what Demiplane is but I do hate to see companies buy other companies.
Demiplane is dndbeyond for RPGs other than dnd*, currently pathfinder 2e, alien RPG, avatar legends, the 2 critical role RPGs, and some others.
*They’re also adding 5th edition soon, but it’s currently just the dnd 5e SRD and kobold presses Tales of the Valiant, not the full dnd 5e
Why hate roll20?
Less about specifically hating Roll20, than the blatant engagement in anti-competetive practices and the monopolization of the industry in a push toward a vertically integrated monopoly.
Sort of like if Hasbro bought out the main book printer used by a bunch of TTRPGs so they have a vertical integration and can basically force all those other games to either deal with a hostile competitor to get books printed at unsustainable prices or completely upend a huge section of their development pipelines, try to find another printer, build that relationship, rework the pipeline and formatting guides so the printer actually can print the books. That’s a process that could take multiple years and millions of dollars to do. Both of which options would kill even large rpg studios.
Why the hate?
Roll 20 kind of sucks. They haven’t made tangible improvements in years for performance, and the gm and player tools are lacking compared to other options despite making money hand over fist.
Even worse, Roll20 development is not only slow, player made solutions to issues are locked behind a paywall.
Making your customers pay you a monthly subscription to fix your product for you and then charging other customers a monthly subscription to access the fixes you didn’t make is a grift so insane it’s bordering genius.
That’s no reason to hate anything. You just mentioned there are alternatives, just switch to them.
P.S. I am very skeptic of any claim that any TTRPG product making money have over first these days. Especially one with a functional free tier.
Source: https://blog.roll20.net/posts/roll20-has-acquired-demiplane/?_hsmi=310100938
“We’re excited to announce that Roll20 has acquired Demiplane, the best-in-class character-building solution for tabletop roleplaying games! Demiplane joins a growing suite of TTRPG (tabletop roleplaying game) offerings from Roll20 that include Roll20 Tabletop, DriveThruRPG, and Dungeon Scrawl.”
I suppose “hand over fist” is a subjective term, but you don’t acquire companies for free.
DriveThruRPG (which merged with Roll20 in 2022) according to https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/roll20-buys-demiplane
Roll20’s making some cash to keep their payroll* and purchase other companies.
*the business running