Digital Adventures Properties Sold to SmiteWorks USA

[Thore_Ironrock]

Effective November 1st, 2009 the Fantasy Grounds II intellectual properties of Digital Adventures, LLC are to be sold to SmiteWorks USA, LLC. This sale includes the license agreements held by Digital Adventures with Pinnacle Entertainment Group (Savage Worlds), Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu), Iron Crown Enterprises (RoleMaster), Troll Lord Games (Castles & Crusades), Malhavoc Press (Arcana Evolved), Fiery Dragon (Gaming Tokens), and other Digital Adventures properties and agreements which include The Complete SRD and the d20 Modern SRD Ruleset for Fantasy Grounds.

This transfer of ownership effectively brings all major Fantasy Grounds products under one roof. At this time this does not include the few d20 adventures sold for Fantasy Grounds by Digital Adventures, or the Savage Worlds Online Community (www.savageworldsonline.net). Digital Adventures itself is not going away, but won't be independently developing Fantasy Grounds products at this time as this sale is contingent on a non-compete clause. Future collaboration with SmiteWorks on Fantasy Grounds products is a possibility but nothing has been finalized.

This sale also includes the October 31st shutdown of the Digital Adventures Online Store and One Book Shelf account (RPGNow, DriveThruRPG), and those customers are to be transferred to the Fantasy Grounds Store and SmiteWorks' OBS account respectively. Digital Adventures customers please allow SmiteWorks a week to 10 days to get this information properly transferred, and Digital Adventures will also assist SmiteWorks, USA on any issues regarding the transfer. If anyone has any questions regarding their accounts in either of the Digital Adventures stores, please contact me.

Since his acquisition of Fantasy Grounds I've spoken and emailed with Doug several times, and I believe that bringing all Fantasy Grounds products under one roof is the best thing for the growth and prosperity of the software at this time. It is also my belief that Doug has the best interests in making Fantasy Grounds a more viable and mainstream product in the RPG marketplace, being both an avid gamer and successful software developer for many years. I hope the Fantasy Grounds community continues to support Digital Adventures products going forward, as well as the new owner as he faces many challenging decisions in the future.

Lastly, I would like to thank the entire Fantasy Grounds community for supporting Digital Adventures for the past five years. I would especially like to praise those of you who lent their time helping me develop quality products for all to enjoy. I could not have done all of this without the help of people of integrity such as yourselves.

In best regards,

Kevin Melka
Digital Adventures, LLC

[ddavison]

There are a dozen or so artist, developers and authors who have worked for or with Kevin in the past on these products and I have been in contact with them throughout this process. It is my intention to maintain these relationships and make it easier for others to get involved with the process going forward as well.

[Tristram]

This acquisition is worrying me more and more.

First FG is bought from the original developers who I think created and maintained an excellent product. Then, one of the first words I read about in the acquisition was "Subscription". This is a troublesome word since one of the great things about FG is that it is a one-time buy. All the upgrades have been free. It kinda sounds like FG is going to change into a one-time buy for a bare bones product and all the bells and whistles that keep FG on the cutting edge will available only with a subscription. That would be a big difference from how it is now.

Now I read that FG is taking control of rulesets with a non-compete clause. Another of the great features of FG has been that the developers made the code available for anyone to make rulesets and and a company like DA to make deals with RPGs for official rulesets to be used with FG. It seems like FG is no longer going to allow others to make official rulesets for FG. Otherwise, I don't see why the need to purchase DA products or put on the non-complete clause. So we will have only one source for official rulesets? I worry that this will mean stopping others from sharing legal, privately created rulesets. Will this mean locking down the code in anyway to limit or stop people from making rulesets or extensions?

After reading about the initial acquisition I was disappointed. I think others have been concerned as well. Further posts from the new owner have helped some. This new move with DA however has me more worried. I am curious why it was necessary to do this and why I should not be concerned? This sounds more and more like WotC and the OGL.

-Tristram

[joshuha]

One benefit is the existing relations with content owners get transitioned over to Smiteworks. This gives Smiteworks more leverage to bring other officially licensed content over from other companies. It also streamlines permission for the little guys to create content for the license properties. Ask the folks over at WhiteHairedMan.com about the hoops they had to jump through to get a Savage Worlds adventure approved for Fantasy Grounds (a PEG licensed product where the Fantasy Grounds software is owned by Smiteworks but the Fantasy Grounds conversion licensed to Digital Adventures).

And there is nothing out there right now preventing anyone from forming their own company like Kevin did and acquiring the rights to other licensed content for Fantasy Grounds. Their is nothing preventing anyone from taking open content or making a ruleset for their own copyrighted works. If this changes in the future I will be the first one on here fomenting a revolt but I see no signs of that happening.

I used to work for both Kevin and Smiteworks so I have a unique perspective here. I admire Kevin for all the work he did and I wish him the best. I am not sure however if he had the resources necessary to turn DA into a truly flourishing business where he could quit his day job.

The subscription thing you are talking about was floated as a possible idea for floating licenses and Doug did the amazing thing of listening to the community and altering his idea. The feedback and input that we are getting is much better than the sparse postings we were receiving before. I am not trying to harp on the former developers, I love the product they have made but again for them this was not a full time gig. I am hoping that Doug has the drive and resources necessary to turn Fantasy Grounds into a program that can function as a primary source of income for a company. Because if that happens it means that Fantasy Grounds has become popular enough and the VTT market is more than just a niche.

[Sigurd]

"Biblical proportions! Dogs and Cats living together! Mass Hysteria!"

I've never thought Kevin ever did anything that didn't make sense for Digital Adventures and that includes selling it to SmiteWorks USA.

I can imagine that one stop shopping is a more efficient system and an easier one to promote. Personally, I think we customers might be very well served by this. All the products will still have to be tempting before you'll buy them and maybe this way there will be more products. I don't think this is the time to worry.

Notice that there was no real imperative that anyone tell us anything about who owns what but here we are being informed. Take that as a sign of good will.

Just my .02

Sigurd

[Thore_Ironrock]

After reading about the initial acquisition I was disappointed. I think others have been concerned as well. Further posts from the new owner have helped some. This new move with DA however has me more worried. I am curious why it was necessary to do this and why I should not be concerned? This sounds more and more like WotC and the OGL.
-Tristram

Let me add a few things here that I hope will the community understand things better. There are several reasons why I choose to sell my properties to SmiteWorks USA, and none of them have anything to do with the stability of the Fantasy Grounds product or the licenses I've obtained over the years. While I'll say these are not all of the reasons for the sale, below are some of the more important pieces to the answer:

First, as Joshua has stated (thank for the kind comments bud!), while Digital Adventures has profited from its ventures over the years, it was not enough for me to quit my full-time job -- unfortunately, since my time working in the RPG industry has been the most enjoyable occupations. In this case it is is a cold, hard fact that only the person owning the software can create content for can make a living at it, at least at this time.

Second, I've always been a game designer/writer at heart, and it is something I've really missed over the years. In fact, within the last year I had to turn down the chance to work on an anthology novel because I was too busy with Digital Adventures, and this was very upsetting to me. I used to love to write RPG products, and with this sale I can now turn my attentions more in that direction if I so choose.

Third, it is the intention of SmiteWorks USA to solicit RPG publishers to do ruleset conversions, then becoming my (indirect) competition. I do not condemn this at all; in fact, it only makes sense Doug would do this in order to expand the company. Lets face it, a software publisher has to have more than two products if they are going to survive and prosper. I'm actually glad this is happening, since it has the potential to bring even more publishers over to Fantasy Grounds.

In addition (or "Forth"), in the past there have been publishers who refused to work with me because I did not own Fantasy Grounds; not many, but enough, coupled with the fact that these were major industry products/companies. While I'm sure I could have made money on my existing licenses, the chances of getting more in the future becomes more difficult if I'm not the only one out there doing it. Doug had offered to subcontract licenses he would obtain in the future, but in the end this has less financial appeal to me.

Lastly, I just think it is time for me to do something new. For the past five years I've spent more time up to my armpits in Digital Adventures, and less time with my friends and family. While I still plan to use Digital Adventures as a springboard to another business, the sale also gives me time to do other things -- like, I don't know, maybe get to play an RPG every so often now. :)

As I said in my official announcement, I do think this is the best thing for Fantasy Grounds at the end of the day. However, I'm not going to lie to you and say that Doug doesn't need your help -- because just like I always used to lean on the community for developers and ideas, he is going to need it just as much or more than I did. When I would do Gen Con demos people would ask me, "Is there a community out there for Fantasy Grounds to help newbies?", and my reply was always that we have the BEST community of any VTG software product on the market.

Don't make me a liar on this statement guys, and give Doug a chance to do with Fantasy Grounds some of the things that now only exist on dead forum threads.

KWM

[mr_h]

First FG, then DA.

Who'll be next? White Haired Ment? Devins Tokens? Four Ugly Monsters?

Wait...does this mean Doug's the Borg?

[unerwünscht]

Let me start by saying I am the first to jump in and defend the end user when I think something is amiss. Having talked to both Kevin and Doug in the past, I can assure you only good things will come from Kevin being 'bought out'. Kevin is not a bad person, and he is one hell of a ruleset programmer, but he controlled the major asset in paid Fantasy Grounds mods.

Yes there are others of us out there that make mods, Moon, Foen, Myself and quite a few others. But we are not selling mods (yet), we grind the code for the community. Here again, don't get m wrong I have come close many times to making my mods paid only, and in fact won't be releasing mods for 'free' any longer. But that is something entirely different.

Now, Devin was mentioned as was FUM and neither of them fall into these categories. Devins tokens first are free now, second even when they were not free they are not Fantasy Grounds exclusive. You can load his tokens into any number of VTTs. Same is true of FUM. FUM doesnt target just Fantasy Grounds users, they target all VTT users.

What Doug has done is taken the steps to bring everything that defines Fantasy Grounds and secure it by his company. This gives him much better control of the product, and opens new doors for everyone involved.

I have not heard from them regarding the AD&D rulesets we are working on, nor have I heard from them regarding any of the token packs we have made, and I do not anticipate them contacting us over these (tho I wont rule it out). It makes sense for them as a company to put an end to outside production of commercial rulesets, and to 'buy out' anyone making them.

And instead of writing a book, I will end my assessment there unless people still have major concerns, then I will do my best to address any concerns that are remaining.

[ddavison]

I think Kevin did a good job conveying to the community what he basically told me when we first spoke. He initiated the idea of buying his licenses; otherwise, we would have continued on under the same agreement he had with the former owners. His suggestion made sense though, so here we are today.

Regarding the community development of officially licensed material:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?p=80368#post80368

[Tristram]

Sorry about the pessimism. The past has a tendency to color how one perceives the future, though thankfully it hasn't been the case with FG. And I've been dealing with a slight case of H1N1, oink, oink.

For me the problem, I guess, has been words like "subscription", and "non-compete clauses". That plus it wasn't really clear, to me at least, how or why these transactions came about, like I'm entitled to know everything. Most times companies don't let the public know anything. Ignorance can, sometimes, be bliss. When I am given a glimpse of what is going on, which is really a generous thing, I tend to wonder what I don't see. This is a sad trait I picked up after working for the government for a number of years. This is a great community, though, and it's nice to see my questions answered. And with only a modicum of ridicule which, yes, I deserved. :rolleyes: Thanks all.

-Tristram