Here's the official press release of the announcement:
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS LAUNCHING ON ROLL20
The world’s most popular tabletop RPG comes to the world’s most popular virtual tabletop.
OVERLAND PARK, KS (July 28th, 2016) Roll20 announced today a licensing deal for their online “virtual tabletop” to distribute Dungeons & Dragons content. This marks the first licensed collaboration between these two companies, which has been a major goal for Roll20 since its launch in 2012.
“While Roll20 was designed to play nearly any tabletop game, the spark that pushed us to start the product was Dungeons & Dragons,” said cofounder Riley Dutton, “Our very name, ‘Roll20’ comes from the concept of a ‘critical hit’ as popularized by D&D. For us, D&D represents an evergreen part of our gaming lives, and to be officially working with its creators and caretakers certainly feels like we’ve made a winning roll.”
The launch is beginning with sales of the introductory adventure module Lost Mine of Phandelver, which comes with pregenerated characters, image handouts, maps, and tokens prearranged in Roll20 to help Dungeon Masters avoid lengthy setup times. Other licensed products will follow, including Dungeons & Dragon’s latest upcoming adventure storyline Storm King’s Thunder, which is available in Roll20 for preorder and launches September of 2016.
Roll20 already leads the virtual tabletop category, with an overall online population of over 1.6 million users, more than 46% of which identify themselves as players of the current edition of D&D.
“We’re always looking to broaden access to Dungeons & Dragons, and Roll20 already plays a significant part of that expansion,” said Greg Tito, Communications Manager at Wizards of the Coast. “We are excited to see what the future brings.”
ABOUT ROLL20
Roll20, owned by The Orr Group LLC, began as an effort to keep developers Riley Dutton, Richard Zayas, and Nolan T. Jones in touch via long distance tabletop gaming. Since launching via Kickstarter in 2012, it has attracted over 1.6 million users as a free service, becoming the preeminent way to play tabletop roleplaying games online and developing into a staple of in-person play. The award-winning program continues to be funded by subscribers who receive features that assist advanced gameplay.
ABOUT WIZARDS OF THE COAST
Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAS), is the leader in entertaining the lifestyle gamer. Wizards' players and fans are members of a global community bound together by their love of both digital gaming and in-person play. The company brings to market a range of gaming experiences under powerful brand names such as MAGIC: THE GATHERING and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. Wizards is also a publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times best-sellers. For more information about our world renowned brands, visit the Wizards of the Coast Web site at www.wizards.com.
CONTACT FOR ROLL20
Suzanne Wallace
suzanne@roll20.net
Glad they are expanding beyond Fantasy Grounds.
ReplyDelete"Roll20 already leads the virtual tabletop category, with an overall online population of over 1.6 million users"
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of those 1.6m 'users' actually use Roll20 on a regular basis. And how many are account of people who signed up, looked at it once or twice, and never came back.
I'm sure there is a large amount of overstatement there, but even at 10% of those numbers, it's huge.
DeletePotentially, it's huge for WotC too
Smart deal.
ReplyDeleteexcellent
ReplyDeleteI use Roll20 a lot (I was one of the Kickstarter backers), but don't play 5e. I'd be much more interested if they released some old school content in Roll20 friendly format. Would be more than happy to pay good coin for a Roll20 version of Keep on the Borderlands for example.
ReplyDeleteNow we'll all have to pony up 2d6 GP just to pull up a chair. There's a cigar smoking fat guy sitting in an overstuffed leather chair in Pawtucket, RI, steepling his fingers and laughing maniacally.
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ReplyDeleteI'll stick with the Fantasy Grounds version I already own. I'm probably one of those counted by Roll20 if they count those who signed up to look at it free and then said "nope, not enough here."
ReplyDeleteSorry for the unkown deleted commets.