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Author Topic: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards  (Read 3546 times)

Fheredin

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #15 on: January 22, 2023, 10:35:58 PM »
That's all well and good, but what about this actually changes anything? And this is to say nothing about what upper level Hasbro has been up to, because you know they've got a finger in this.
What it changes is that we know how desperate Hasbro is for their plan to succeed and that their actual goal is to shut down the RPG industry (especially competitor VTTs) outside itself so it can drag everyone into semi-MMO paypig model.

Because while they have clearly been using money from other departments to cover it, between the movie (to say nothing of its marketing and distribution and gearing up the various tie-in products), buying D&D Beyond and buying the VTT material (plus whatever they’ve spent on development of their actual VTT walled garden)… is already around the revenue of 5e over its entire lifetime (at least half-a-billion dollars).

If OneD&D fails… D&D is DONE. You can’t sink years of profits from an IP into an initiative and have it fail without the board/investors shutting the whole department down to reinvest in more profitable divisions. The Hasbro and WotC CEO’s would absolutely be out on their asses.

Those are the stakes for the corporate goons… and why failure to achieve the goals of the OGL1.1 by any means necessary is simply not something they will allow.

Right now they’re trying a more deceptive weasel-worded approach with 1.2, but their end goals are the same; with empty gestures (the “release the rules under CC-by-4.0” play which is only the material they couldn’t actually copyright anyway) and poison pills all around.

Make no mistake… if they are this heavily invested they will go “zero-percent approval tyrant” and push out everything from the OGL1.1 anyway… they’d like to be liked as they attempt to drink the RPG industry dry of its blood to fill Hasbro’s overextended coffers, but that’s a side bennie they’ll drop if it’s clearly impossible just like a hungry vampire will eventually drop the pretenses if they aren’t luring in the bictim and just take what they want.

I think that's a half-truth. It's definitely true this is a cash-grab, but I think the more pointed problem here is that none of the execs who appear to be leading this are actually D&D (or any TTRPG) players. No one who actually plays a tabletop RPG for fun would think this would work. This is a bunch of video game developers taking senior positions in an industry they don't actually understand and sinking the ship because they never bothered to understand it.

Effete

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2023, 12:37:37 AM »
That's all well and good, but what about this actually changes anything? And this is to say nothing about what upper level Hasbro has been up to, because you know they've got a finger in this.
What it changes is that we know how desperate Hasbro is for their plan to succeed and that their actual goal is to shut down the RPG industry (especially competitor VTTs) outside itself so it can drag everyone into semi-MMO paypig model.

Because while they have clearly been using money from other departments to cover it, between the movie (to say nothing of its marketing and distribution and gearing up the various tie-in products), buying D&D Beyond and buying the VTT material (plus whatever they’ve spent on development of their actual VTT walled garden)… is already around the revenue of 5e over its entire lifetime (at least half-a-billion dollars).

If OneD&D fails… D&D is DONE. You can’t sink years of profits from an IP into an initiative and have it fail without the board/investors shutting the whole department down to reinvest in more profitable divisions. The Hasbro and WotC CEO’s would absolutely be out on their asses.

Those are the stakes for the corporate goons… and why failure to achieve the goals of the OGL1.1 by any means necessary is simply not something they will allow.

Right now they’re trying a more deceptive weasel-worded approach with 1.2, but their end goals are the same; with empty gestures (the “release the rules under CC-by-4.0” play which is only the material they couldn’t actually copyright anyway) and poison pills all around.

Make no mistake… if they are this heavily invested they will go “zero-percent approval tyrant” and push out everything from the OGL1.1 anyway… they’d like to be liked as they attempt to drink the RPG industry dry of its blood to fill Hasbro’s overextended coffers, but that’s a side bennie they’ll drop if it’s clearly impossible just like a hungry vampire will eventually drop the pretenses if they aren’t luring in the bictim and just take what they want.

I think that's a half-truth. It's definitely true this is a cash-grab, but I think the more pointed problem here is that none of the execs who appear to be leading this are actually D&D (or any TTRPG) players. No one who actually plays a tabletop RPG for fun would think this would work. This is a bunch of video game developers taking senior positions in an industry they don't actually understand and sinking the ship because they never bothered to understand it.

More specifically they don't understand the customer. TT gamers who are passionate about the industry WANT to create their own content. They want to tinker with mechanics and find what works best for their table. Take that away and they'll rightly accuse you of trying to destroy the game. Try to charge them extra money for the privilege and they'll go somewhere else.

Sure, there's a subset of players who only know 5e and nothing else (for whatever reason), but even they are starting to break away. WotC might capture and retain a few of them, but ultimately I see this little gamble of theirs failing. If I'm wrong and they find success, great! Good for them. I don't really care because I'll never be a customer. But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't get some satisfaction from watching them crumble.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2023, 01:12:06 AM »
Their idea also just runs into hardware limitations. Gamers with the hardware to run their fancy VTT, would have the hardware to run powerful videogames. Many of their existing fans could be in a position to be incapable of giving WOTC money even if they wanted too. Whoops.

As for how its relevant: I would not suggest going the opposed lawsuit direction. If Wizards is willing to burn hundreds of millions on pissing contests, it won't blink twice on spending ones of millions on a lawsuit.

Steven Mitchell

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2023, 08:02:45 AM »
Their idea also just runs into hardware limitations. Gamers with the hardware to run their fancy VTT, would have the hardware to run powerful videogames. Many of their existing fans could be in a position to be incapable of giving WOTC money even if they wanted too. Whoops.

As for how its relevant: I would not suggest going the opposed lawsuit direction. If Wizards is willing to burn hundreds of millions on pissing contests, it won't blink twice on spending ones of millions on a lawsuit.

Yes.  Never interfere with an enemy when they are in the process of destroying themselves.

Chris24601

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2023, 08:21:15 AM »
Another bit to add to the fire if you will is more weasel-wording that FoundryVTT picked up upon.

The license 1.2 states that by using any of the covered content you agree to be bound by the OGL1.2.

That content includes the SRD5.1 which is currently available under 1.0a. The deauthorization of OGL1.0a and it’s statements about allowances for previous content sits outside the 1.2 license proper.

As Foundry points out… as presently written, by having any product using SRD5.1 material in it you “automatically” consent to OGL1.2 with all its restrictions on legal action you can take against WotC (ex. no class actions… if they come at you, no other party like the EFF or larger interested parties is allowed to become involved without you breaching a license you may have never realized you were agreeing to.

Basically, right now the ONLY safe move is to purge anything that even looks like SRD5.1 content (including covered concept stacks) ASAP. If you want to test WotC on deauthorizing the OGL1.0a do it with explicitly SRD3.5 material.

Marchand

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #20 on: January 23, 2023, 08:29:19 AM »
As Foundry points out… as presently written, by having any product using SRD5.1 material in it you “automatically” consent to OGL1.2 with all its restrictions on legal action you can take against WotC (ex. no class actions… if they come at you, no other party like the EFF or larger interested parties is allowed to become involved without you breaching a license you may have never realized you were agreeing to.

I'm no lawyer, but surely this automatic consent thing cannot be legal. "If you sign this agreement giving you a pound, you automatically consent to this other one I have in my pocket where you have to give me a fiver." Clearly that cannot be right.

MAYBE on a going-forward basis so long as it is well-telegraphed in 5.1 SRD. But I cannot believe you could impose something like this retroactively. It would become almost impossible ever to have any legal agreement.
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Summon666

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #21 on: January 23, 2023, 08:40:23 AM »
DnDShorts has worked out these last few days that being a reporter is a lot harder than many people think. He had to retract all that stuff he said about not reading the surveys in the next video as all his source said.. no.. they defiantly read them and we regally receive reports based on the feedback... and I think it is in the best interest of everyone that he is doing what he is doing.. as in communicating with the gizmod reporter and having her handle things from now on.

Chris24601

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #22 on: January 23, 2023, 08:42:16 AM »
As Foundry points out… as presently written, by having any product using SRD5.1 material in it you “automatically” consent to OGL1.2 with all its restrictions on legal action you can take against WotC (ex. no class actions… if they come at you, no other party like the EFF or larger interested parties is allowed to become involved without you breaching a license you may have never realized you were agreeing to.

I'm no lawyer, but surely this automatic consent thing cannot be legal. "If you sign this agreement giving you a pound, you automatically consent to this other one I have in my pocket where you have to give me a fiver." Clearly that cannot be right.

MAYBE on a going-forward basis so long as it is well-telegraphed in 5.1 SRD. But I cannot believe you could impose something like this retroactively. It would become almost impossible ever to have any legal agreement.
“Cannot be legal” and “included in a license by a major corporation intending to hurt their competitors” are NOT mutually exclusive.

Foundry calling them out on that “loophole” is essentially telling everyone paying attention that thoss elements as written aren’t actually legal and that Hasbro is still playing games with the license and NOT acting in good faith (which should be a surprise to no one).

Sacrificial Lamb

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #23 on: January 23, 2023, 09:13:10 AM »
That's all well and good, but what about this actually changes anything? And this is to say nothing about what upper level Hasbro has been up to, because you know they've got a finger in this.
What it changes is that we know how desperate Hasbro is for their plan to succeed and that their actual goal is to shut down the RPG industry (especially competitor VTTs) outside itself so it can drag everyone into semi-MMO paypig model.

Because while they have clearly been using money from other departments to cover it, between the movie (to say nothing of its marketing and distribution and gearing up the various tie-in products), buying D&D Beyond and buying the VTT material (plus whatever they’ve spent on development of their actual VTT walled garden)… is already around the revenue of 5e over its entire lifetime (at least half-a-billion dollars).

If OneD&D fails… D&D is DONE. You can’t sink years of profits from an IP into an initiative and have it fail without the board/investors shutting the whole department down to reinvest in more profitable divisions. The Hasbro and WotC CEO’s would absolutely be out on their asses.

Those are the stakes for the corporate goons… and why failure to achieve the goals of the OGL1.1 by any means necessary is simply not something they will allow.

Right now they’re trying a more deceptive weasel-worded approach with 1.2, but their end goals are the same; with empty gestures (the “release the rules under CC-by-4.0” play which is only the material they couldn’t actually copyright anyway) and poison pills all around.

Make no mistake… if they are this heavily invested they will go “zero-percent approval tyrant” and push out everything from the OGL1.1 anyway… they’d like to be liked as they attempt to drink the RPG industry dry of its blood to fill Hasbro’s overextended coffers, but that’s a side bennie they’ll drop if it’s clearly impossible just like a hungry vampire will eventually drop the pretenses if they aren’t luring in the bictim and just take what they want.

I think that's a half-truth. It's definitely true this is a cash-grab, but I think the more pointed problem here is that none of the execs who appear to be leading this are actually D&D (or any TTRPG) players. No one who actually plays a tabletop RPG for fun would think this would work. This is a bunch of video game developers taking senior positions in an industry they don't actually understand and sinking the ship because they never bothered to understand it.

It won't work. It can't. ::)

Hasbro Executives: "Let's destroy the entire TTRPG hobby and industry! All roleplaying games belong to us now. We'll force all those gamer retards to play our video game with an AI DM Chatbot! What's this nonsense about books and graph paper and dice? What? Who cares about this stupid OGL tabletop game industry? The entire RPG industry belongs to us anyway. No, I don't care if the plebes are mad. We'll just make these stupid gamer punks pay $$$$ through the nose every month. They're mindless idiot consumers, so they'll love it. And the great thing is that this will tie into a social credit score. We'll scour their social media accounts, so if they ever say anything on social media we don't like....we can just nuke their accounts....which means, no D&D for them!" 8)

"And if they don't love it, we'll deplatform these little fucks....and use weaponized lawfare to sue them into bankruptcy. Those little gamer turds owe us their money."  >:(

P.S. I'm making a little joke here, because I honestly think that the giant management asset firms that fund Hasbro with ESG investment capital care more about power and control than about money. But I think this still captures the mindset of Hasbro executives. :)

hedgehobbit

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #24 on: January 23, 2023, 09:20:05 AM »
Exactly, and it's frustrating when some chucklehead comes along and tries to fit a square TTRPG peg into a round video game hole.

Except WotC has already had success converting M:TG into a digital game with Arena which has been a huge money maker for them. And Gloomhaven also has been a huge success (both as a boardgame and online) and it is basically a DM-less RPG. It looks to me like there is a market for a hybrid RPG/video game.

But there's also the issue that Hasbro wants to regain control of the D&D IP. So even if One D&D is a huge failure, if the result of it is the destruction of the OGL 1.0a, then Hasbro will have succeeded in their primary goal.

And there's always the option for a Two D&D.

hedgehobbit

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #25 on: January 23, 2023, 09:28:49 AM »
More specifically they don't understand the customer. TT gamers who are passionate about the industry WANT to create their own content.

Gamers that want to create their own content are not the primary customers of Hasbro. This has been true since the beginning. The entire RPG industry is built upon selling rules, settings, and adventures. Three things that players could create themselves.

Trying to build a business selling products to people that don't need them will never be a success. I can't blame Hasbro for marketing their products to the people that actually purchase products.

Chris24601

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #26 on: January 23, 2023, 09:44:02 AM »
More specifically they don't understand the customer. TT gamers who are passionate about the industry WANT to create their own content.

Gamers that want to create their own content are not the primary customers of Hasbro. This has been true since the beginning. The entire RPG industry is built upon selling rules, settings, and adventures. Three things that players could create themselves.

Trying to build a business selling products to people that don't need them will never be a success. I can't blame Hasbro for marketing their products to the people that actually purchase products.
What you’re selling is Convenience/Time Saving.

Sure, you can build a bespoke ruleset and try and balance it yourself over the course of weeks or months -or- you can buy this pre-built system and tweak it a little and be able to play in a couple hours.

Sure, you can build your own monsters from scratch at a cost of hours per session to prep them -or- you can buy this book filled with hundreds of monsters to cover everything you’d need.

Sure, you can design your own setting from scratch and fill it with unique NPCs and adventure hooks taking you hours or days of effort -or- you can buy this setting book that’s done all that work for you.

Sure, you can make your own adventures and maps, but sometimes you just don’t have time or are looking for inspiration.

People make billions providing customers with things they could, in theory, do for themselves. The value is in allowing people to skip the things they don’t really want to do so they can get to the things they do.

Jam The MF

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #27 on: January 23, 2023, 10:53:52 AM »
More specifically they don't understand the customer. TT gamers who are passionate about the industry WANT to create their own content.

Gamers that want to create their own content are not the primary customers of Hasbro. This has been true since the beginning. The entire RPG industry is built upon selling rules, settings, and adventures. Three things that players could create themselves.

Trying to build a business selling products to people that don't need them will never be a success. I can't blame Hasbro for marketing their products to the people that actually purchase products.


Good points.  We don't need to buy their rules, or their format for playing pretend.  We can do all of that, ourselves.  We always could.
Let the Dice, Decide the Outcome.  Accept the Results.

Steven Mitchell

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #28 on: January 23, 2023, 11:03:00 AM »
What you’re selling is Convenience/Time Saving.

Sure, you can build a bespoke ruleset and try and balance it yourself over the course of weeks or months -or- you can buy this pre-built system and tweak it a little and be able to play in a couple hours.

Sure, you can build your own monsters from scratch at a cost of hours per session to prep them -or- you can buy this book filled with hundreds of monsters to cover everything you’d need.

Sure, you can design your own setting from scratch and fill it with unique NPCs and adventure hooks taking you hours or days of effort -or- you can buy this setting book that’s done all that work for you.

Sure, you can make your own adventures and maps, but sometimes you just don’t have time or are looking for inspiration.

People make billions providing customers with things they could, in theory, do for themselves. The value is in allowing people to skip the things they don’t really want to do so they can get to the things they do.

Yep.  And when a company is in the business of selling a luxury item that people can do themselves, they are moving product, but they are really selling a service.  They better keep that in mind, because every notch of convenience that slips out of the equation gets people thinking about doing it themselves. 


Chris24601

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Re: The scoop by D&D Shorts about the new OGL and the situation at Wizards
« Reply #29 on: January 23, 2023, 12:20:29 PM »
What you’re selling is Convenience/Time Saving.

Sure, you can build a bespoke ruleset and try and balance it yourself over the course of weeks or months -or- you can buy this pre-built system and tweak it a little and be able to play in a couple hours.

Sure, you can build your own monsters from scratch at a cost of hours per session to prep them -or- you can buy this book filled with hundreds of monsters to cover everything you’d need.

Sure, you can design your own setting from scratch and fill it with unique NPCs and adventure hooks taking you hours or days of effort -or- you can buy this setting book that’s done all that work for you.

Sure, you can make your own adventures and maps, but sometimes you just don’t have time or are looking for inspiration.

People make billions providing customers with things they could, in theory, do for themselves. The value is in allowing people to skip the things they don’t really want to do so they can get to the things they do.

Yep.  And when a company is in the business of selling a luxury item that people can do themselves, they are moving product, but they are really selling a service.  They better keep that in mind, because every notch of convenience that slips out of the equation gets people thinking about doing it themselves.
There's a reason 2/3 of my GM's Guide is pre-built monsters and a good 1/4 is tools to help new GM's build their own settings and adventures (using completely random rolls if they want to... though I make the point that they're really intended more to provide a list of inspirations and to only bother rolling if nothing appeals to you). Technically the only hard mechanics you NEED out of my GM's Guide are specific terrain rules, the affliction and monster building rules and the rewards rules... IF you're an experienced GM who knows how to build your own settings and wants to make up their own monsters/diseases/curses.

But, for some, at the time unknown, reason I had decided to design my GM's Guide around providing advice and tools for new inexperienced GMs despite the fact that, with D&D as the gateway game, few GMs coming to a different system would really NEED such tools as the DMG would have been their primer on such things. Now, as the OGL burns on its funeral pyre and Hasbro looks to be abandoning the concept of homebrew in pushing its VTT I continue to think some higher power may have been guiding my seemingly nonsensical at the time design decisions. Maybe I'm just lucky... maybe I'll screw it up in the 11th hour yet, but regardless, I've got a whole bunch of tools for the convenience of new GMs already in place.