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rob
Senior Member
Lone Wolf Staff
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 8,232

Old August 25th, 2013, 01:30 AM
Our focus right now is on getting content into Realm Works and making that content highly useful. After we achieve that objective, we'll be focusing on allowing users to get the content out in different ways, including providing an API for other products to integrate with the data in Realm Works (e.g. virtual tabletops). You should start to see some of that functionality begin to come online in the first half of 2014.

Your concerns are valid. Even though Lone Wolf Development has been in business for 19 years now, something unexpected could always mess things up. However, we believe that the way we're structuring Realm Works will shield users from any risk of us spontaneously "pulling the plug". The cloud is an aspect of Realm Works that dramatically enhances the product, but it's not something anyone will be helpless without. All of your material lives on computers you personally own, and none of that would disappear if the cloud went away. During the Kickstarter, we publicly stated that, if something unexpected occurs and the product gets shut down, we'll absolutely make sure users can extract their material out of the product, allowing you to migrate it into any other solution you may choose.

The other thing to consider is our track record with our products and our longevity in the tabletop gaming industry. We launched our first product in this industry almost 15 years ago (Army Builder) and it's still the industry standard today. Our Hero Lab product has won multiple ENnies, has been adopted in-house by industry leaders, and continues to expand its reach with gamers. We're entirely self-funded, so we aren't beholden to somebody pulling the strings. And we're a bunch of hardcore gamers who love this stuff. Heck, I've been dreaming of creating a product like Realm Works since I got my first PC over 30 years ago.

Does any of that guarantee that nothing bad will ever occur? Nope. As they say, "Life Happens". But we're not going to just pull the plug on everyone like a faceless corporation. If Realm Works crashes and burns as a product, we'll facilitate migrating your material somewhere else and make sure you've got full access to it. That just the ethical thing to do.

Hope this helps!
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