Project Sigil 90% Of D&D’s Project Sigil Team Laid Off

Reports are coming in of a swathe of layoffs at Wizards of the Coast, constituting 90% of the team of the new Project Sigil virtual tabletop platform. In all, over 30 people have been laid off, leaving a team of around 3 people.

Sigil is still in beta, only recently made public three weeks ago. Recent reports indicated that the scope of the project was seemingly being cut back.

WotC’s Andy Collins—who has worked on multiple editions of D&D and other WotC TTRPGs going back to 1996—reported via LinkedIn that he was one of those laid off. He indicated that the small team left behind would continue to work on the project.

More news as it comes in.

 

[darjr]

 

[TiQuinn]

90% of the development team for Sigil?!

 

[pukunui]

Wow! That certainly doesn't bode well.

 

[Alzrius]

I admit, this caught me by surprise, though considering WotC's recent track record I suppose I shouldn't be.

 

[sevenbastard]

Seems like a weird time to fire 90% of your staff just weeks after launch but I'm not really sure how the video game/programing industry works.

 

[Knaves Quill]

Well...I was almost going to mess around with Sigil some, to get some first hand experience with it and compare it to the tepid (at best) things I've heard, but now I don't know if doing so will feel like messing around in a digital tomb where a great majority that worked on it were canned.

 

[pukunui]

@Ruin Explorer: What's your take on this? Is this par for the course with software development, or is it a sign that WotC doesn't see Sigil as worth investing in after all?

 

[Retreater]

Likely they realized that DND Beyond was a better return on investment and will let Sigil evaporate into the Gleemax realm.

 

[MerricB]

My take is that Project Sigil is dead. They saw the interest in it - and it was LOW.

(See Concord from last year).

I'm not actually mad at Wizards for this. Which is odd - I'm annoyed at them about enough other things. But stuff like this, which is actually pretty innovative, is also pretty risky. They took the risk, but it's unlikely to pay off.

Software projects fail all the time. They're harder than you think.