Roll20 and OneBookShelf, which includes DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Masters Guild, have inked a deal to combine the companies in a joint venture that will create cross-platform support for digital content and eventually synchronize the two company’s content libraries.
RollWo CEO Ankit Lai will be CEO of the new company, while OneBookShelf CEO Steve Wieck will join the Roll20 board and serve as President of the combined companies. Wieck founded DrivethruRPG in 2004 and formed OneBookShelf in a 2006 merger with RPGNow (see “RPGNow aned DriveThruRPG Merge”). Wieck brings decades of TTRPG production experience to Roll20, as he was one of the co-founders of White Wolf and helped bring Vampire: The Masquerade to market (see “New CEO at White Wolf“).
“Our mission from the get-go has always been to make it easier for publishers and creators to reach a wider audience of roleplaying fans,” said Wieck. “By combining forces with Roll20, we empower game makers to present content across a wider variety of formats, whether character creators, virtual tabletop, digital editions, or print. Customers will be able to support their favorite games, in any format they desire, with one economical purchase, and they will be able to use their content on roleplaying’s most trusted platform.”
“Joining forces with OneBookShelf creates the best place to purchase, peruse, and play TTRPGs online, period,” said Ankit Lal, CEO of Roll20. “Since 2012, Roll20 has been the industry leader in virtual tabletop gaming, hosting content from some of the biggest publishers in the space, including Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, and Chaosium. With this deal, we gain significant progress on several of our user promises that dramatically improve the VTT, and will work together to continue adding new and exciting features to our already industry-leading platform.”
The combined company will make OneBookShelf’s PDF libraries accessible within Roll20. This upgrade will make it easier for TTRPG publishers and creators to reach audiences in Roll20’s virtual game space, and let platform users find and use digital materials for the RPGs they want to play seamlessly between the two platforms.
Source: ICv2
