Rumours: WotC Announcement Today; Insider Email Reveals Plans

There's a couple of rumours going round today. I cannot verify either, but I'm reporting them as most of the recent OGL rumours have proven true.

First -- it is rumoured that today at 3pm ET Wizards of the Coast will make some kind of video statement about the current Open Game License situation. This rumour came from the folks at Roll For Combat who were the first to break the draft OGL scoop.

[[UPDATE -- This didn't happen!]]

Second -- an email has been circulating from an anonymous WotC insider. Again, I must reiterate I cannot myself verify this, so read this with that in mind, but the email says:

Hi,

I'm an employee at WotC currently working on D&Dbeyond (DDB) and with D&D business leaders on the health of the product line. If you want I can provide proof of this.

I'm sending this message because I fear for the health of a community I love, and I know what the leaders at WOTC are looking at:

-They are briefly delaying rollout of OGL changes due to the backlash.
-Their decision making is based entirely on the provable impact to their bottom line.
-Specifically they are looking at DDB subscriptions and cancellations as it is the quickest financial data they currently have.
-They are still hoping the community forgets, moves on, and they can still push this through.

I have decided to reach out because at my time in WotC I have never once heard management refer to customers in a positive manner, their communication gives me the impression they see customers as obstacles between them and their money, the DDB team was first told to prepare to support the new OGL changes and online portal when they got back from the holidays, and leadership doesn't take any responsibility for the pain and stress they cause others. Leadership's first communication to the rank and file on the OGL was 30 minutes on 1/11/23, This was the first time they even tried to communicate their intentions about the OGL to employees, and even in this meeting they blamed the community for over-reacting.

I will repeat, the main thing this leadership is looking at is DDB subscription cancellations.

Hope your day goes well,

P.S. I will be copying and pasting this message to other community leaders.

If both rumours are true, I guess at 3pm ET today we'll find that out.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

1. is explicitly irrevocable,
2. explicitly defines "authorized" in a way that de-authorization can't happen,
3. explicitly declares that the offer is both perpetual and irrevocable,
4. explicitly requires that the Open Gaming Foundation approve of any new OGL versions,

and then release, under that "1.0b" license, not just the original 3rd edition SRD, the D20 Modern SRD, the 3.5 RSRD, and the current SRD5, but also expand the SRD5 with the subclasses/backgrounds/feats from the PHB, plus, heck, they also release an SRD with most of the original 4th edition PHB/DMG/MM.

I understand how you or I may want some or all of this (I still think the no NFT and No hate speech, that can cancel your license are both good) but what would WotC get out of this?

I can see no benefit now. People are already saying they wouldn't come back even if they did do this... so we seem to be at a lose no matter what for them.

 

[Haplo781]

They were making plenty of money with the OGL 1.0 in place. The problem here is not that they’re trying to make money, it’s that they are now hurting the community and other creators’ livelihoods in their pursuit of money.

They're willing to shrink the industry by 90% if it means they can squeeze out an extra 5% profit next quarter.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If they make it super duper irrevocable, who needs trust?

I mean, imagine a scenario (I don't claim it's likely) where they issue an OGL 1.0b that:

1. is explicitly irrevocable,
2. explicitly defines "authorized" in a way that de-authorization can't happen,
3. explicitly declares that the offer is both perpetual and irrevocable,
4. explicitly requires that the Open Gaming Foundation approve of any new OGL versions,

and then release, under that "1.0b" license, not just the original 3rd edition SRD, the D20 Modern SRD, the 3.5 RSRD, and the current SRD5, but also expand the SRD5 with the subclasses/backgrounds/feats from the PHB, plus, heck, they also release an SRD with most of the original 4th edition PHB/DMG/MM.

I mean, at that point, sure, I know Hasbro is likely to be a weasel in the future. Heck, they might go ahead and try to get people to sign a GSL in order to make content for One D&D. But why would I really care?

In this scenario, WotC could still make a lot more money, just by making their products better (the big hiring frenzy for D&D Beyond suggests that the website could be improving a lot in future, assuming those people aren't all on VTT duty). They could still leverage their enormous size and wealth to increase market share. (Again, D&D Beyond advantages WotC content, and it's hard to put in third party content, even for an individual group's use.)

The amount of effort going in to suffocate an industry that basically serves as third-party marketing doesn't make any real sense. ("Oh, more money!" only makes sense if you don't add in the needed additional marketing work to be done, even without the debacle.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

People are already saying they wouldn't come back even if they did do this... so we seem to be at a lose no matter what for them.

Most people will cool down, as much as that irritates people to hear it said.

 

[Manbearcat]

(emphasis added)

@Reynard did take the trouble to differentiate industry from hobby.

I think the issue is I don’t accept whatever mechanism (that doesn’t fit the parameters I outlined above) is being imagined here to establish the differentiation?

If 3PP’s can’t derive the take-home they’re making presently in a “Post-D&D TTRPG world”, then my italicized text above seems the most likely causal factor; The hobbyists collectively are so incurious, so fickle, so fragile, so ossified, so non-resilient that the industry somehow collapses as a result (and whatever is left of the hobby becomes vestigial at best).

While we’ve never been forced to run the experiment, my tentative hypothesis is that the above is not true.

I welcome the opportunity to run the experiment (as you know )!

 

[Morrus]

Live now, some sort of pre show. Let's Watch WoTC's OGL Response Together!

Where will WotC video be?

 

[dragoner]

The 80s was pretty recent. That’s one of the most insidious things about capitalism, it has managed to convince people that it’s some kind of natural law, rather than a system, created by people, in only the last 300 years or so. Things have, in fact, not always been this way, and they don’t have to be this way forever.

Who cares?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was merely pointing out the qualities that it shared with phishing emails.

Presumably, if it is real, whoever came up with the plan to drop the OGL1.0a and use a draconian OGL1.1 in the first place would've accounted for a short-term business drop, with a plan to recoup those losses....metrics and KPIs matter most over time. Short-term losses for long-term gains and all that.

Also a subject line, and a lot of ASCII characters. Totally sketchy, that.

Come on. I don't say it's for-sure real, we can't know that, but it's just the kind of e-mail you would expect from a disgruntled Wizards employee who was a fan of the OGL (as many of the rank and file are), royally narked off at leadership, and saw the current furor as an opportunity to strike a blow for the things they believe in.

And the call to action is exactly what many people had already figured out: Wizards is going hard on digital, they just laid out big money for D&D Beyond, and every company loves subscription revenue. It's not rocket science to guess that canceling your sub will get their attention. I did it two days ago and I've been urging others to do the same.

It's good to maintain a little skepticism, but the leaks in this whole sorry business have proven true again and again and again, all the way back to November when rumors started circulating that they were going to get rid of the OGL and most of us (certainly including me) were pooh-poohing the idea.

Presuming it is real, I would assume that Wizards is counting on the money third-party publishers make with D&D products is enough for people to continue to do so under the new terms.

But that also doesn't address the overhead at Wizards it would create for managing financial reporting, recording, license reviews, and whatnot.

I understand how you or I may want some or all of this (I still think the no NFT and No hate speech, that can cancel your license are both good) but what would WotC get out of this?

I can see no benefit now. People are already saying they wouldn't come back even if they did do this... so we seem to be at a lose no matter what for them.

 

[Nikosandros]

Where will WotC video be?

That's the big mystery! Only a select few seem to have been notified... it's very strange to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Where will WotC video be?

Downstairs, in the basement, where both the stairs and light have gone out, in a locked lavatory with a sign on the door reading "beware of the leopard."