Wizards of the Coast - WotC Surrenders

[Silver]

Bob World Builder has posted a video about Wizards of the Coast walking back from OGL 1.2 and leaving OGL 1.0a in place untouched.

Wizards of the Coast announced that they will not destroy the jobs of thousands of indie RPG creators...and they personally emailed me about it?

More information.

 

[Carnifex]

And sometimes wisdom does prevail.

 

[Terry]

Too late no small business/developer will take the chance that WotC will screw them in the future, because we all know megacorps are soooo good at keeping their promises. After all the hupola dies down they will try it again.

 

[JFarrell71]

Too late no small business/developer will take the chance that WotC will screw them in the future, because we all know megacorps are soooo good at keeping their promises. After all the hupola dies down they will try it again.

Of course they will. The D&D name is worth too many sales not too.

 

[Terry]

You're probably right, but they're still going to get screwed.

 

[axellslade]

You're probably right, but they're still going to get screwed.

I honestly hope they do, if they try to go around their decision somehow.

 

[Terry]

I meant the small business/developer is the one who will get screwed WotC is part of a megacorp they never get screwed except by other megacorps.

 

[Taluntain]

This whole thing was just so mind-numbingly dumb... The community reaction/backlash was 100% anticipated. So why the heck go through with it only to revert it in a couple of weeks? If the people in charge of this fiasco were so out of touch with their user base, they could have done a few surveys and gathered this information at a fraction of the monetary cost, not to mention reputational cost to WotC. There's just no sensible explanation for how this played out.

 

[bjon045]

It's the suits at the top for sure. They are so out of touch with the common man. I get this at the large company that I work at all the time. Some of the "ideas" that come out of the board/executive you just know are going to completely fail. But I am a salary man who will do whatever I am told so I never complain about it except for around the watercooler

 

[JFarrell71]

This whole thing was just so mind-numbingly dumb... The community reaction/backlash was 100% anticipated. So why the heck go through with it only to revert it in a couple of weeks? If the people in charge of this fiasco were so out of touch with their user base, they could have done a few surveys and gathered this information at a fraction of the monetary cost, not to mention reputational cost to WotC. There's just no sensible explanation for how this played out.

They didn't go through with anything. The new OGL was leaked, people vented their anger, and WotC aborted the rollout. You can't revert something you never actually changed.

 

[Stingray]

OGL 1.1 was leaked, but they intentionally put out the ridiculous 1.2 proposal.

 

[Taluntain]

^That.

 

[Hastar]

Did Hasbro screw over their audience for the D&D movie, TV show, and the 50th anniversary of D&D next year? You would think they would have kept their heads out of their asses for the next year and cashed in on everything coming up.

 

[Stingray]

Did Hasbro screw over their audience for the D&D movie, TV show, and the 50th anniversary of D&D next year? You would think they would have kept their heads out of their asses for the next year and cashed in on everything coming up.

I watched the new trailer for the D&D movie a few days ago, and the writing is epic cringe. Forspoken level stuff.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8sxXKFIHvo

 

[JFarrell71]

Whole Lotta Love? Really?

 

[Couchpotato]

The first three movies weren't that great but I enjoyed watching them. The problem is the D&D IP isn't easy to translate into TV/Movies well. The 1970's cartoon wasn't bad though.

 

[rjshae]

Unlike most here, I can empathize with WotC's motivations. They want financial recompense for the intellectual properties they developed. That's how they stay in business and keep making more D&D goods for us to enjoy. But they likely need a rethink on how they approach that.

 

[JFarrell71]

Unlike most here, I can empathize with WotC's motivations. They want financial recompense for the intellectual properties they developed. That's how they stay in business and keep making more D&D goods for us to enjoy. But they likely need a rethink on how they approach that.

I agree. Sort of. Theoretically.

I do think it gets overlooked just how unusual the OGL is. Most companies guard their intellectual property with barbed wire and lawyers.

But there are a couple of things (at least) that prevent me from having any sympathy for WotC. One is that they didn't develop those properties. They bought them. Sure, they've developed new rulesets and had new material written in the settings they inherited, but virtually nothing that makes D&D what it is to its fans was created by them.

Second, they have massively benefited from the enormous marketshare their ubiquity has given them, a ubiquity very much created and maintained in large part by the OGL. They want their cake and to eat it too, like the money hungry gluttons they are.

 

[Lucky Day]

Unlike most here, I can empathize with WotC's motivations. They want financial recompense for the intellectual properties they developed. That's how they stay in business and keep making more D&D goods for us to enjoy. But they likely need a rethink on how they approach that.

Could have used your support on the NWVault Discord when I argued the same thing

 

[Ripper]

I don't think it's too much of a mystery what the motivation might be. I think the question is how they did such a spectacularly incompetent job of assessing the upsides vs the downsides. They wouldn't have done such a sharp u-turn if they hadn't realised this was a mistake for the bottom line, with a bit of foresight.

I'm not that surprised, though. I think growing a business without screwing up what makes it work is very hard. At the corporate level, it's often a complete shitshow.