Wolves of Freeport, Inc,[1] formerly named OneBookShelf, Inc, is a digital marketplace company for both major and indie games, fiction and comics.
Mathe made attempts to reach out to established publishers of other types of games, but many were hesitant about selling digital versions, worried that would increase piracy or cannibalize existing print sales.
The Washington Post reported that "customers hated the hassle of dealing with it, and it didn't offer very good protection against piracy, Wieck said.
[3] On April 6, 2009, Wizards of the Coast suspended all sales of its products for the Dungeons & Dragons games in PDF format from places such as OneBookShelf and its subsidiaries RPGNow and DriveThruRPG due to concerns of piracy and copyright infringement.
[16]Also, in 2015, OnceBookShelf had a credit card breach and hackers "used the OneBookShelf's servers to launch DDOS attack on other sites".
[18] From February 2016 to March 2016, DriveThruRPG held a bounty program for high quality scans of old hard-to-find Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, modules and boxed sets.
Wieck wrote "well before the iPhone, iPad, or the Kindle, James recognized the opportunity for RPG publishers to reach more fans through digital versions of their titles.
[23] In June 2020, OneBookShelf came "under scrutiny" after a queer themed adventure by ENNie Award nominated designer Oliver Clegg was removed from the DMsGuild platform for "distinctively sexualized" artwork.
[24] The company responded that "the OneBookShelf team stands by our decision to request adjustments to the art in question in this recent scenario [...].
However, we agree we want to be fair in how such standards are applied, which includes examining any internal biases that might have affected past decisions too.
[25] In July 2020, Wizards of the Coast added a sensitivity disclaimer to some of their legacy products for sale on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild.
[27] In June 2022, OneBookShelf announced a new partnership with Roll20 that would allow content creators on DMsGuild to sell modules and add-ons which are directly integrated with Roll20's virtual tabletop system.
[34] In 2013, OneBookShelf launched a new digital storefront in partnership with Wizards of the Coast to sell classic Dungeons & Dragons products.
[37] In 2016, OneBookShelf launched a new digital storefront in partnership with Wizards of the Coast called the Dungeon Masters Guild (DMsGuild).
The DMsGuild took that a step further by allowing individuals and third party publishers to create and sell content based on the Forgotten Realms.
[39][40][41] The Escapist reported "the Dungeon Masters Guild alone is a big deal since it allows anyone to be paid for Forgotten Realms content - something that once required a specific contract with Wizards of the Coast" and that "options for content range from new monsters, to NPCs, to locations, to entire Forgotten Realms adventures and campaigns.
The creator can set any price on their content - or give it away for free - with the only caveat being that Wizards of the Coast and OneBookShelf take a 50% cut of the proceeds".
[43][44][45] After the success of the DMsGuild, OneBookShelf continued to partner with other publishers to allow individuals to create and sell content based on intellectual property on the DriveThruRPG website.
[47][48] OneBookShelf said that content "purchased through any DriveThru site, including DriveThruRPG and Dungeon Master's Guild" can be imported and shared in Astral.
[53] In 2018, Deterding and Zagal wrote that "by its own account, DriveThruRPG, run by OneBookShelf, is currently the largest online marketplace for TRPGs.
As online digital and print-on-demand distribution maximizes reach and minimizes up-front investment hurdles and risk, it has contributed to the flourishing of 'long tail,' 'indie' RPGs".
[4] Jason Wilson, for VentureBeat, said that "the DM’s Guild is my favorite project from the Dungeons & Dragons team in recent years.