Important Notice: New Product Support ending June 24, 2021 - Fantasy Grounds Classic

[LordEntrails]

Likewise Smiteworks could also just sell off fantasy grounds classic completely to another entity. It is a different product after all. It would be competition of course but the RPG industry actually thrives on business diversity.

Sure, why don't you get some investors together and make them an offer? Doug's a reasonable guy.

But for some reason I don't think their is a pool of investors waiting for such an opportunity, but I wouldn't be upset to be wrong.

[Doswelk]

I don't think there's any copyright issues to be concerned about because Drivethru already has some FG mods being sold (as does Steam). Just open up a bigger marketplace by allowing another company (Drivethru) to handle the FGC mods.

What FGC mods?

There won't be any new mods, I won't be making them, no-one else will either, having to support both version of FGC/FGU is a pain, looking forward to not having to do, I have used FGC for 15 years, but still happy to see it going.

[Trenloe]

Likewise Smiteworks could also just sell off fantasy grounds classic completely to another entity. It is a different product after all. It would be competition of course but the RPG industry actually thrives on business diversity.

So, what would that other entity get if that happened? The new company would have to renegotiate all of the licenses. Have to maintain all of the DLC (if they could even afford to buy the rights to it initially). Develop on a 32-bit platform that can't work on recent non-Windows operating systems. I really don't see the logic here at all - if Smiteworks even entertained that possibility, as people would still associate "Fantasy Grounds" with Smiteworks. But, if it did happen, you'd probably be getting way less than what Smiteworks will be providing after new product support ends.

As has been said multiple times in this thread - FGC is not going away on June 24th. It just won't get any new features/functionality. If users of FGC are playing on old hardware that can't handle FGU (remember you can turn off FGU line-of-sight, lighting, etc. and turn down image quality/vsync settings to help with CPU/GPU load) then you can keep playing on FGC - you just won't be getting anything new. Stuff that works now will continue to work. If FGC is working fine for you right now (which I'm guessing it is as you want to keep using it) then it'll probably work fine into the future - just without new features/functionality. But you can keep playing with FGC. At some point users will have to upgrade their hardware - this is just a fact of life when using computers - it has to happen at some point, or you end up running unsupported operating systems, unsupported software all round.

[ProfDogg]

At some point users will have to upgrade their hardware - this is just a fact of life when using computers - it has to happen at some point, or you end up running unsupported operating systems, unsupported software all round.

Oh, I know it's a smaller market but I live in a region where VHS tapes and cassettes still get traded. When the last Blockbuster closed out here, a bunch of small mom-and-pop video stores and second-hand electronics stores sprang up. By no means are they reaping the riches from the community but they obviously subsist well enough to stick around. And they have a very loyal customer base.

[johnecc]

So why would someone invest likely millions of dollars, not just for the software but also all the game licenses, if it is a smaller market, as you say, and likely to decrease over time.

[ProfDogg]

So why would someone invest likely millions of dollars, not just for the software but also all the game licenses, if it is a smaller market, as you say, and likely to decrease over time.

I suspect the value is considerably less than a million. It would obviously need to be valued appropriately. And I dont know if it would depreciate. Less advanced VTTs are still going strong. I know one that has folded but the others all have their niche markets.

[ddavison]

Let's not spend too much time building hypothetical business cases here. That could derail the thread more than it has already. We are not going to sell off FG Classic.

[Trenloe]

Whereas it's an interesting fringe discussion, I very much doubt that:
1) SmiteWorks would want to offload the FGC rights to anyone else. EDIT: I see Doug has confirmed this.
2) Anyone else would make it worthwhile for SmiteWorks to even consider it.

FGC isn't going away right now. It'll keep going for a while, and if the demand is there I'm sure that could be quite a while.

FGU is the next version of Fantasy Grounds - and all official FGC products work in FGU. There's things you can do to make FGU work OK on older hardware, if you're careful - just like you would have to be with FGC (e.g. don't load lots of modules, don't load massive maps, etc., etc.) - with FGU specific options to tune graphical performance, and you can turn off light and/or LoS if they're causing issues (which will still give you more functional mapping).

I recommend that people who are on the fence, or have the impression that FGC is just going to vanish (which it isn't), give FGU a go. There's a good upgrade offer on now - if it doesn't work well for you (give it a proper go, come to the forums with issues, etc.) you can get a no questions asked refund within 30 days and can go back to using FGC (yes, even after June 24th - because it's not going away on June 24th).

[ProfDogg]

Let's not spend too much time building hypothetical business cases here. That could derail the thread more than it has already. We are not going to sell off FG Classic.

surreptitiously puts the piggy-bank back on the shelf...

[Alfie Lord Noakes]

I have both versions. If I want to use Classic and need someone to download the 'Free' software, will this always be available or should I download a copy of this, so I can provide the players with it?
Also, will the Free version be 'up to date' with the final version of the Classic software?