Two powerhouses in the TTRPG (that’s Table Top Role Playing Game for the uninitiated) community are joining forces! Roll20 and OneBookShelf are partnering together. This partnership will empower DMs/GMs and players alike by allowing them to easily manage content across platforms for nearly any tabletop game. This includes being able to connect more easily with other players and step into games immediately, all from one place!
Roll20 and OneBookShelf
Roll20 is the world’s most popular virtual table top platform for roleplaying games, giving a home to more than 10 million users to play TTRPGs daily. OneBookShelf manages eleven ecommerce marketplaces, most notably DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Masters Guild, and is the premiere online vendor for the TTRPG industry.
Ankit Lal, CEO of Roll20, said:
“Joining forces with OneBookShelf creates the best place to purchase, peruse, and play TTRPGs online, period. 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.”
Stephan Wieck, CEO of OneBookShelf, said:
“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. 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.”
TTRPG publishers and creators can now easily reach their audiences in the virtual game space where they often play, allowing customers to seamlessly find, share, and play their favorite games.
The joint company brings together a party of 40 technical wizards dedicated to improving product, code, and user experience. In the coming weeks, the new entity will add PDF support to Roll20’s virtual tabletop (VTT), giving GMs and players the ability to upload, read, share, and immediately play using any PDF in the VTT. At a later date, the companies will make OneBookShelf PDF libraries accessible within the Roll20 virtual tabletop experience, and are committing to ensure that OneBookShelf PDFs will not count toward Roll20 storage quotas.
Following the closure of the deal, Ankit Lal will continue as CEO, having been promoted from President of Roll20 in January 2022. He brings 14 years of experience leading strategy, product, analytics, and marketing teams across several industries, most recently at Google and ClassPass. OneBookShelf CEO Steve Wieck will join the Roll20 Board of Directors and executive team, bringing 35 years of experience across the TTRPG industry. Wieck’s credits are numerous: he co-founded White Wolf Publishing, producers of Vampire: the Masquerade and other World of Darkness properties, founded DriveThruRPG in 2004 (which later merged with RPGNow to form OneBookShelf, Inc), and later served on the CCP Games Board of Directors following the company’s White Wolf acquisition. Together, the two combine a wealth of product development and industry-specific knowledge.
With the news of these two powerhouses joining forces, what are you most looking forward to seeing this partnership cook up?
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