WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

[mamba]

I don’t get it. None of this seems to address the points in my post.

You said ‘imagine Paizo had become the 800lb gorilla because of the OGL’, and I said that 1) it would not have been because of the OGL, they could have released a very similar game without it, and 2) that this can only happen if WotC is as stupid as they were during the 4e phase, and abandon the ecosystem that revolves around them thanks to the OGL / SRD, and release a new version that a large percentage of players does not like. At any other time, the OGL ensures WotC’s continued dominance

 

[FrogReaver]

You said ‘imagine Paizo had become the 800lb gorilla because of the OGL’, and I said that 1) it would not have been because of the OGL, they could have released a very similar game without it, and 2) that this can only happen if WotC is as stupid as they were during the 4e phase, and abandon the ecosystem that revolves around them thanks to the OGL / SRD, and release a new version that a large percentage of players does not like. At any other time, the OGL ensures WotC’s continued dominance

Okay. Thanks for explaining.

For me it boils down to -
Me: Imagine this
You: I can't imagine that

I get the response now and that's certainly one way to respond. I hope you can see why from my perspective that type of response wasn't a particularly satisfactory response to my question.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My theory is Hasbro's goal is D&DB to become the favorite online distributor of 3PPs, working as Steam or Epic Games launcher, or a streaming service. It could be bad if it worked as a cartel or oligopoly agreeing on prices, but D&D after years of experience surviving astute and mercyless DMs shouldn't be so easy to be tricked. D&D as online distributor of 3PPs' content shouldn't be bad if these could choose other options in the industry when it was necessary.

They money by the 3PPs is only leftovers when Hasbro is more interested into the digital industry, the videogames and Hollywood productions. Hasbro wants D&D monsters to become more popular than Pokemon, if this could be possible.

 

[wedgeski]

To me, SlyFlourish's argument boils down to "DNDB is so popular that it will, or perhaps already has, become exclusionary". For me, as a DM, that's already true. I won't use a source that isn't on DNDB. It's a great tool, despite its flaws. In that sense WotC's plan has worked. (Out of principle, I also own 90% of the material in physical that I own on DNDB, but I realise I'm probably an outlier in that respect.)

In terms of getting people to play something other than WotC's output, I don't see this as any different to getting your friends to play different RPG's than D&D. I would love to run the Alien or Blade Runner RPG's, but finding room for those games is almost impossible. We're just talking scale. It's D&D vs. everything else, it's WotC D&D 5E vs. Level Up. They're the same issue. One option is popular, frictionless, and already off the start line; anything else is potentially more expensive, effortful, and an unknown quantity. These aren't new problems.

 

[Morrus]

As stewards of the hobby they put 5e, which they spent a great deal of time and money developing, into Creative Commons, which is pretty remarkable. Making the SRD public back with 3e was pretty remarkable.

As I posted previously, I feel like there is a lot of conflation of D&D with 5e or, in this case, "the hobby," which is being used to pillory WotC for protecting their control over D&D. In fact, I feel that there is a huge double standard - WotC has gone much further than most companies ever do in sharing access to their IP, and yet it seems like it is never enough, like some folks expect them to just put D&D into the CC.

They might be partial "stewards of the hobby" - that's debatable. They are the owners of Dungeons and Dragons.

Nobody is saying that they don't own D&D. Yes, of course they do.

When I say 'the hobby' I mean 'the hobby of playing D&D', specifically. I agree entirely that D&D (as in the ownership of the IP) and the hobby of playing D&D are not exactly the same thing. While it might sound like a semantic argument, it's actually quite an important distinction.

WotC itself uses the term 'stewards' and indicates that the benefit of the fans is important; those arguing that WotC could not or should not care about such things, I feel, are missing that WotC itself says it cares about such things and, at least in part, sees itself that way.

Driving these goals were two simple principles: (1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game, and (2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans. Nothing about those principles has wavered for a second.

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

Whatever one thinks of their role in the hobby and/or community, I just wanted to put it out there that these terms weren't just plucked out of the air in this thread.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Would you put your competitor on your platform that just copied your rules but better/worse?

My point is that this clearly shows how different a platform D&D Beyond is compared to any other online tool like Demiplane, Shard, Roll20, Foundry, or Fantasy Grounds who don’t have any problem putting up other variants of 5e. WOTCs platform, which may be the most, or second most popular platform next to Roll20, will almost certainly exclude other 5e variants not because it’s not useful to its users but because of the content they publish themselves.

Of course this makes sense for WOTC. We’d not expect anything else. But the more dominant D&D Beyond becomes in the larger 5e space, the more it pushes out these other variants.

That may be good for WOTC but it’s not good for us players and GMs who love 5e.

 

[mamba]

Okay. Thanks for explaining.

For me it boils down to -
Me: Imagine this
You: I can't imagine that

I get the response now and that's certainly one way to respond. I hope you can see why from my perspective that type of response wasn't a particularly satisfactory response to my question.

I did not say I cannot imagine it, I said it takes an extreme set of circumstances, and that it can be done with or without the OGL (almost) just as well - and that WotC embracing the OGL / SRD and 3pps helps them maintain their position.

The OGL benefits WotC, it is not a threat to their dominance, even if it allows others to create similar games. They knew that when they created it, but they lost that knowledge over time, otherwise they would not have tried to end it twice

 

[Hussar]

they can choose to release none of it under the OGL, like some other publishers do

What publishers for DnD are not using the ogl? Well prior to this year obviously.

 

[Oofta]

no, by not opening it farther / this slowly, by not providing an API, basically the things I mentioned. Keeping DDB closed was not one of them…

It's new technology, a new business practice. There may also be technical issues we don't know about. It's easy to say "Just add a button to import" or "Just add an API". Either one of those require significant investment and ongoing support costs. Would what you want be profitable for them? Would opening the floodgates hurt their business? Who knows. Of course they're going slow. We don't really know what the end game is, this is a new process still in it's infancy.

But let's take a step back to look at the definition of a walled garden: A network or service that either restricts or makes it difficult for users to obtain applications or content from external sources. Based on that, I don't think DDB qualifies. WOTC is not stopping, will never be able to stop because they put much of their IP into CC, people from creating D&D compatible products. They're still supporting DmsGuild, there's no indication they are changing agreements with companies like Roll20. They simply aren't actively boosting the sales from more than a handful of companies at the moment.

That may mean they don't give every 3PP, or everyone that wants to become a 3PP, a boost in visibility. Because that's what we're really saying here, right? For those people that use DDB the people that get their product published on DDB will get a boost in sales, potentially both for the products on DDB and those that are never published there.

It's not on WOTC to ensure that 3PPs are successful.

 

[Hussar]

My point is that this clearly shows how different a platform D&D Beyond is compared to any other online tool like Demiplane, Shard, Roll20, Foundry, or Fantasy Grounds who don’t have any problem putting up other variants of 5e. WOTCs platform, which may be the most, or second most popular platform next to Roll20, will almost certainly exclude other 5e variants not because it’s not useful to its users but because of the content they publish themselves.

Of course this makes sense for WOTC. We’d not expect anything else. But the more dominant D&D Beyond becomes in the larger 5e space, the more it pushes out these other variants.

That may be good for WOTC but it’s not good for us players and GMs who love 5e.

I would point out though that all those platforms for vtts are exclusive to each other though. If I buy Pathfinder for Fantasy Grounds, none of that can be used anywhere else. No one else even whispered the idea that other vtts should be cross platform compatible.

Yet suddenly we’re seeing the idea put out that WotC should? How much money has WotC invested into DnD beyond and the vtt? Hundreds of millions of dollars. And they are just supposed to let everyone else piggyback on that for free?

Why? Why would they even consider that? On what planet would anyone expect them to invest hundreds of millions of dollars- and that is what they’ve invested not even counting the millions invested in the 2024 rerelease - and then just give it away? Make it wide open for everyone so everyone else can play in their pool?

Because they’re just that nice?