Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
With the full understanding that we are still dealing with rumors and possibilities (albeit, perhaps, very well-sourced rumors), I have spent a little bit of time this past weekend thinking about the OGL 1.1 controversy that is consuming the D&D fandom, and pondering my own reaction to it- which, alas, is something less than surprise. I had previously written (some time ago) that I was both happy, and moderately fearful, of the success that D&D and 5e was having, and what we are seeing now is the precise reason why I had been having some trepidation. I knew that it would always be possible for the Powers That Be to choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In order to understand why this most recent maneuver from Hasbro (should the rumors be true) be unsurprising, and in fact, entirely predictable, I think it helps to look back at a prior transitory period ... the one from 3e (3.5e) to 4e, and see how that change may have foreordained the issues we are seeing today.
Please note- this is not a thread about the merits or the mechanics of editions. Any type of "edition superiority" or "edition warring" or threadjacking about what D&D should or should not be will likely (and properly) get the thread shut down. Don't do that! Be kind, and remember this is about corporate Issues and how those may (or may not) be similar to the what we are seeing now. Thanks!
I. Remembering the 3e/4e Transition
It also means you could mess around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything.
The first thing to remember is that 4e did not arise in a vacuum; it was the product of a company. And that company ... was Hasbro. Let's remember the timeline of TSR/WoTC/Hasbro and the OGL.
1997- WoTC announces the acquisition of TSR.
1998- WoTC begins work on 3e, OGL
September 1999- Hasbro acquires WoTC
2000- WoTC released 3e and the OGL
January 2001- Peter Adkinson resigns from WoTC
August 2001- WoTC is consolidated into Hasbro (previously operating autonomously)
Based on this timeline, while not dispositive, I think you can make the following reasonable inference- the OGL was simply a side effect, a labor of love, a project spearheaded and championed within WoTC that never rose to the radar of Hasbro. You have to remember that at this time, D&D wasn't what it is today. WoTC wasn't acquired by Hasbro for D&D- no, it was for the card game (MTG). The thing about big companies, like Hasbro, is that eventually you stop flying under the radar ... and you very much fall on the radar. And that's when the company thinks to itself, "Self, how am I thinking? I am a corporation that eats consumers' money and poops dividends to shareholders. Also? Why aren't we fully monetizing this D&D thing?"
And that's where we got ... 4e. Now, I did a deep dive on this before, so I'm just going to reprint what I wrote earlier-
A not-very-brief history of 4e's issues and why it wasn't a market success:
A. At GenCon in August 2007, WoTC botched the rollout of 4e, causing many in the audience to (incorrectly) believe that a computer was required to play the game. This was the start of misconceptions about this edition that the powers that be never really addressed.
B. June 6, 2008- the release of 4e. Do you know what else happened between the announcement of the product and the release? The Great Recession. Not the best time to release a new product (especially when you were hoping for sweet recurring subscriber revenue).
C. It was hoped that 4e would have MMO licensing, computer games, and more. But the timeframe was not favorable. Moreover, we can forget how ambitious this was for the time; the idea of "always on" internet was still novel, and services such as Roll20, twitch, and so on weren't around yet. Heck, the original (very slow!) iPhone had just been released. Yes, the D&D audience was more tech-savvy than regular consumers, but the rosy projections did not match the reality.
D. Building on (C), there exist players who view D&D as a mostly tech-free time. A respite from screens and technology. Sure, they might be luddites, and they might be a very small part of the market now, but they exist. Which also goes back to B, and the botched rollout- computers weren't required, but WoTC chose to emphasize it.
E. Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Yeah, sure, the announcement was botched, and the timing was horrible, but they also had terrible, terrible luck! The 4e designers acknowledged that the final push was rushed by directives from the top. So many parts that could go wrong, did go wrong- key parts of the computer component that was supposed to be rolled out were entrusted to a developer, and that person was unstable and it ended in a horrific tragedy (and also meant no product). The projections for the product, which were too optimistic, combined with the lack of immediate success, resulted in Hasbro immediately slashing funding. But the time Essentials was rolled out in 2010, 4e was already dead internally and they were debating what to do.
F. Within the 4e community, there has been some debate about whether Essentials was a necessary correction that would have appealed to the mass market, or a betrayal of the essential ethos of 4e.
G. Going back to (B), the concept of subscription services and "Everything is Core" (repeated releases of core books each year) is an idea that was, at best, ahead of its time- we are all about subscriptions now, but it wasn't that common then. At that time, it came off as more of a cash grab, especially given the economy.
H. The design team was too insular and wasn't aware that the reception wouldn't be great, and therefore didn't do enough to "sell" the product. When they had 3PP come and playtest 4e, Jason Buhlman of Paizo saw what was going on and that provided Paizo the confidence to continue on with Pathfinder. In other words, outside playtesters realized it would be divisive to some of the core consumers.
I. One more thing- while the internet wasn't "always on" enough for the ambitions of some aspects of 4e, this was the first edition launch that had many D&D players (I assume, I don't have stats for this) have easy access to some form of the internet, which enabled extreme and intense opinions to both form, spread, and become much more noticeable and toxic.
J. Finally, this history has to be measured in terms of what is a "flagship" product. It's not enough for a D&D product to be "good" or "better" than other editions or other products, it's not sufficient that it has great design. It has to be broadly and widely popular so that it continues to dominate the TTRPG marketplace. That is the raison d'être for D&D. People can, and do, argue endlessly about what makes D&D better or worse or good or not, but in terms of a product, D&D must always be #1. Starbucks coffee might not taste the best, but they have to careful changing it ... if you know what I mean.
TLDR; a big part of the issue regarding the metrics of success is that 4e was oversold within Hasbro, and given the resources devoted to it (and the expectations), the failure to live up to expectations was what led to the immediate retrenchment. And the failure to live up to expectations had a number of causes, including ... the expectations.
But when I wrote this previously, one thing I didn't cover was the licensing. All of the above is true- Hasbro wanted to monetize D&D, they through a lot of resources at it, and when there wasn't the Return on Investment Hasbro wanted, they cut bait. But one of the other factors, the one that led to the schism with Paizo and other 3PPs, was the combination of an existing OGL (and SRD) that the 3PPs could use, combined with Hasbro attempting the process of "locking down" 4e with a new, more restrictive licensing agreement- the GSL (Game System License). At least we should given them points for honesty back then; Hasbro did not attempt to say it was an "open" license. Regardless, the GSL drove out almost all the third party producers for 4e.
II. Out of Corporate Neglect was Born 5e, and then Hasbro Gets Interested Again
The definition of chutzpah is murdering your parents and then asking the court for mercy because you are an orphan.
Here's the thing- the failure (relative to expectations) of 4e arguably led to the sustained success of 5e. Because Hasbro was no longer treating D&D as a serious driver of revenue, the powers that be pretty much let a skeleton crew design and release 5e, with few expectations. Moreover, for the people left to work on D&D within Hasbro, it truly was a labor of love. By the beginning of January, 2016, we had a new, 5th Edition SRD under OGL 1.0a and every thing was looking fine and dandy!
And that might have been the problem. Because 5e continued to thrive. Continued to do well. Continued to dominate. After a while, it was no longer just a rounding error on Hasbro's spreadsheets- it was becoming a major driver of profits. Suddenly, they are talking about D&D on the regular investor phone calls. They are trying to value the IP, and deciding about licensing the product for more videogame. For movies. For TV shows (if you can do Witcher and Wheel of Time and Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, why not D&D?). Just as importantly, they are under pressure to monetize it- don't forget that just recently there was an attempt by an outside group that wanted to split off D&D and MTG in order to increase the revenue streams from those properties.
And if you're Hasbro, you're suddenly very interested. You can only sell so many variations of Monopoly. A lot of your IP like Transformers looks pretty mined out right now, and I don't know about that many people waiting for the next GI Joe movie. And here, you have a product, that ... hey, remember that recurring licensing and subscription idea you had more than a decade ago? Yeah, it seems like it's a lot more viable now, doesn't it?
III. History Doesn't Repeat, but it Often Rhymes. Like, um, Wistery.
The sole consistency that I can find is that, in litigation concerning business, the Business always wins.
This is the point when I'm going to do something a little controversial (wait ... not you Snarf!). Let me start by saying that I 100% (or 150%) disagree with Hasbro trying to revoke the OGL that 3PPs have relied upon. That said, let's turn this around and attempt to make sense of this from the point of view of a corporate suit- after all, most actions aren't evil or filled with malice, and it helps to try and understand why something is happening, even if you disagree with it. And that's where I think the prior 4e transition is a helpful example.
When Hasbro decided to use more restrictive licensing for 4e, there was a very good reason (for them) for doing so- they were investing more money in the product, and they wanted to reap more return. Fundamentally, in order to fully monetize D&D (and leverage D&D) they need to control it to the greatest extent possible. To them, it's not different than GI Joe, or Power Rangers, or My Little Pony. If there is a videogame using D&D IP- they want a cut. If people are playing D&D online- they want a cut. If there is a D&D TV show or movie (or that uses D&D concepts)- they want a cut. The actual sales of D&D books pale in comparison to, for example, the amount of money that Hasbro could make if they could get recurring subscriber revenue from every person playing D&D on a VTT. And in certain (corporate) way, this makes sense- do you think Disney would be happy with people making Marvel movies, or allowing people to play as Marvel characters in an on-line game, without the House of Mouse getting their cut?
All that said, I also think it helps to look back at the issues with 4e. Some of those particular issues won't repeat- the chances of hiring a software developer who is involved in a murder/suicide is ... unlikely. People are much more comfortable being on-line and paying for subscriptions than they were in 2008, and always-on internet is ubiquitous. Still, I can't help but see some similarities....
Hasbro is launching OneD&D, arguably, right after "peak D&D." I'm not saying that D&D is dying or anything, simply that it achieved a height during the pandemic that it will be hard to grow from.
They appear to be botching the launch; much like the ill-fated GenCon 2007 announcement, this OGL kerfuffle is already generating headwinds.
They look to be setting up a situation for a schism in the player base, as opposed to attempting to unite players, with the OGL controversy.
Much like with 4e, the launch seems to be occurring in a more challenging economic environment.
Finally, and most obviously, a more restrictive license is causing problems right off the bat.
Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting topic to think about- I have been thinking about it for the past few days.
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
With the full understanding that we are still dealing with rumors and possibilities (albeit, perhaps, very well-sourced rumors), I have spent a little bit of time this past weekend thinking about the OGL 1.1 controversy that is consuming the D&D fandom, and pondering my own reaction to it- which, alas, is something less than surprise. I had previously written (some time ago) that I was both happy, and moderately fearful, of the success that D&D and 5e was having, and what we are seeing now is the precise reason why I had been having some trepidation. I knew that it would always be possible for the Powers That Be to choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In order to understand why this most recent maneuver from Hasbro (should the rumors be true) be unsurprising, and in fact, entirely predictable, I think it helps to look back at a prior transitory period ... the one from 3e (3.5e) to 4e, and see how that change may have foreordained the issues we are seeing today.
Please note- this is not a thread about the merits or the mechanics of editions. Any type of "edition superiority" or "edition warring" or threadjacking about what D&D should or should not be will likely (and properly) get the thread shut down. Don't do that! Be kind, and remember this is about corporate Issues and how those may (or may not) be similar to the what we are seeing now. Thanks!
I. Remembering the 3e/4e Transition
It also means you could mess around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything.
The first thing to remember is that 4e did not arise in a vacuum; it was the product of a company. And that company ... was Hasbro. Let's remember the timeline of TSR/WoTC/Hasbro and the OGL.
1997- WoTC announces the acquisition of TSR.
1998- WoTC begins work on 3e, OGL
September 1999- Hasbro acquires WoTC
2000- WoTC released 3e and the OGL
January 2001- Peter Adkinson resigns from WoTC
August 2001- WoTC is consolidated into Hasbro (previously operating autonomously)
Based on this timeline, while not dispositive, I think you can make the following reasonable inference- the OGL was simply a side effect, a labor of love, a project spearheaded and championed within WoTC that never rose to the radar of Hasbro. You have to remember that at this time, D&D wasn't what it is today. WoTC wasn't acquired by Hasbro for D&D- no, it was for the card game (MTG). The thing about big companies, like Hasbro, is that eventually you stop flying under the radar ... and you very much fall on the radar. And that's when the company thinks to itself, "Self, how am I thinking? I am a corporation that eats consumers' money and poops dividends to shareholders. Also? Why aren't we fully monetizing this D&D thing?"
And that's where we got ... 4e. Now, I did a deep dive on this before, so I'm just going to reprint what I wrote earlier-
A not-very-brief history of 4e's issues and why it wasn't a market success:
A. At GenCon in August 2007, WoTC botched the rollout of 4e, causing many in the audience to (incorrectly) believe that a computer was required to play the game. This was the start of misconceptions about this edition that the powers that be never really addressed.
B. June 6, 2008- the release of 4e. Do you know what else happened between the announcement of the product and the release? The Great Recession. Not the best time to release a new product (especially when you were hoping for sweet recurring subscriber revenue).
C. It was hoped that 4e would have MMO licensing, computer games, and more. But the timeframe was not favorable. Moreover, we can forget how ambitious this was for the time; the idea of "always on" internet was still novel, and services such as Roll20, twitch, and so on weren't around yet. Heck, the original (very slow!) iPhone had just been released. Yes, the D&D audience was more tech-savvy than regular consumers, but the rosy projections did not match the reality.
D. Building on (C), there exist players who view D&D as a mostly tech-free time. A respite from screens and technology. Sure, they might be luddites, and they might be a very small part of the market now, but they exist. Which also goes back to B, and the botched rollout- computers weren't required, but WoTC chose to emphasize it.
E. Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Yeah, sure, the announcement was botched, and the timing was horrible, but they also had terrible, terrible luck! The 4e designers acknowledged that the final push was rushed by directives from the top. So many parts that could go wrong, did go wrong- key parts of the computer component that was supposed to be rolled out were entrusted to a developer, and that person was unstable and it ended in a horrific tragedy (and also meant no product). The projections for the product, which were too optimistic, combined with the lack of immediate success, resulted in Hasbro immediately slashing funding. But the time Essentials was rolled out in 2010, 4e was already dead internally and they were debating what to do.
F. Within the 4e community, there has been some debate about whether Essentials was a necessary correction that would have appealed to the mass market, or a betrayal of the essential ethos of 4e.
G. Going back to (B), the concept of subscription services and "Everything is Core" (repeated releases of core books each year) is an idea that was, at best, ahead of its time- we are all about subscriptions now, but it wasn't that common then. At that time, it came off as more of a cash grab, especially given the economy.
H. The design team was too insular and wasn't aware that the reception wouldn't be great, and therefore didn't do enough to "sell" the product. When they had 3PP come and playtest 4e, Jason Buhlman of Paizo saw what was going on and that provided Paizo the confidence to continue on with Pathfinder. In other words, outside playtesters realized it would be divisive to some of the core consumers.
I. One more thing- while the internet wasn't "always on" enough for the ambitions of some aspects of 4e, this was the first edition launch that had many D&D players (I assume, I don't have stats for this) have easy access to some form of the internet, which enabled extreme and intense opinions to both form, spread, and become much more noticeable and toxic.
J. Finally, this history has to be measured in terms of what is a "flagship" product. It's not enough for a D&D product to be "good" or "better" than other editions or other products, it's not sufficient that it has great design. It has to be broadly and widely popular so that it continues to dominate the TTRPG marketplace. That is the raison d'être for D&D. People can, and do, argue endlessly about what makes D&D better or worse or good or not, but in terms of a product, D&D must always be #1. Starbucks coffee might not taste the best, but they have to careful changing it ... if you know what I mean.
TLDR; a big part of the issue regarding the metrics of success is that 4e was oversold within Hasbro, and given the resources devoted to it (and the expectations), the failure to live up to expectations was what led to the immediate retrenchment. And the failure to live up to expectations had a number of causes, including ... the expectations.
But when I wrote this previously, one thing I didn't cover was the licensing. All of the above is true- Hasbro wanted to monetize D&D, they through a lot of resources at it, and when there wasn't the Return on Investment Hasbro wanted, they cut bait. But one of the other factors, the one that led to the schism with Paizo and other 3PPs, was the combination of an existing OGL (and SRD) that the 3PPs could use, combined with Hasbro attempting the process of "locking down" 4e with a new, more restrictive licensing agreement- the GSL (Game System License). At least we should given them points for honesty back then; Hasbro did not attempt to say it was an "open" license. Regardless, the GSL drove out almost all the third party producers for 4e.
II. Out of Corporate Neglect was Born 5e, and then Hasbro Gets Interested Again
The definition of chutzpah is murdering your parents and then asking the court for mercy because you are an orphan.
Here's the thing- the failure (relative to expectations) of 4e arguably led to the sustained success of 5e. Because Hasbro was no longer treating D&D as a serious driver of revenue, the powers that be pretty much let a skeleton crew design and release 5e, with few expectations. Moreover, for the people left to work on D&D within Hasbro, it truly was a labor of love. By the beginning of January, 2016, we had a new, 5th Edition SRD under OGL 1.0a and every thing was looking fine and dandy!
And that might have been the problem. Because 5e continued to thrive. Continued to do well. Continued to dominate. After a while, it was no longer just a rounding error on Hasbro's spreadsheets- it was becoming a major driver of profits. Suddenly, they are talking about D&D on the regular investor phone calls. They are trying to value the IP, and deciding about licensing the product for more videogame. For movies. For TV shows (if you can do Witcher and Wheel of Time and Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, why not D&D?). Just as importantly, they are under pressure to monetize it- don't forget that just recently there was an attempt by an outside group that wanted to split off D&D and MTG in order to increase the revenue streams from those properties.
And if you're Hasbro, you're suddenly very interested. You can only sell so many variations of Monopoly. A lot of your IP like Transformers looks pretty mined out right now, and I don't know about that many people waiting for the next GI Joe movie. And here, you have a product, that ... hey, remember that recurring licensing and subscription idea you had more than a decade ago? Yeah, it seems like it's a lot more viable now, doesn't it?
III. History Doesn't Repeat, but it Often Rhymes. Like, um, Wistery.
The sole consistency that I can find is that, in litigation concerning business, the Business always wins.
This is the point when I'm going to do something a little controversial (wait ... not you Snarf!). Let me start by saying that I 100% (or 150%) disagree with Hasbro trying to revoke the OGL that 3PPs have relied upon. That said, let's turn this around and attempt to make sense of this from the point of view of a corporate suit- after all, most actions aren't evil or filled with malice, and it helps to try and understand why something is happening, even if you disagree with it. And that's where I think the prior 4e transition is a helpful example.
When Hasbro decided to use more restrictive licensing for 4e, there was a very good reason (for them) for doing so- they were investing more money in the product, and they wanted to reap more return. Fundamentally, in order to fully monetize D&D (and leverage D&D) they need to control it to the greatest extent possible. To them, it's not different than GI Joe, or Power Rangers, or My Little Pony. If there is a videogame using D&D IP- they want a cut. If people are playing D&D online- they want a cut. If there is a D&D TV show or movie (or that uses D&D concepts)- they want a cut. The actual sales of D&D books pale in comparison to, for example, the amount of money that Hasbro could make if they could get recurring subscriber revenue from every person playing D&D on a VTT. And in certain (corporate) way, this makes sense- do you think Disney would be happy with people making Marvel movies, or allowing people to play as Marvel characters in an on-line game, without the House of Mouse getting their cut?
All that said, I also think it helps to look back at the issues with 4e. Some of those particular issues won't repeat- the chances of hiring a software developer who is involved in a murder/suicide is ... unlikely. People are much more comfortable being on-line and paying for subscriptions than they were in 2008, and always-on internet is ubiquitous. Still, I can't help but see some similarities....
Hasbro is launching OneD&D, arguably, right after "peak D&D." I'm not saying that D&D is dying or anything, simply that it achieved a height during the pandemic that it will be hard to grow from.
They appear to be botching the launch; much like the ill-fated GenCon 2007 announcement, this OGL kerfuffle is already generating headwinds.
They look to be setting up a situation for a schism in the player base, as opposed to attempting to unite players, with the OGL controversy.
Much like with 4e, the launch seems to be occurring in a more challenging economic environment.
Finally, and most obviously, a more restrictive license is causing problems right off the bat.
Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting topic to think about- I have been thinking about it for the past few days.
