WotC Gale Force 9 Sues WotC [Updated]

In the second lawsuit against WotC in recent weeks (Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman sued the company for breach of contract and other things about a month ago), Gale Force 9 is suing the company for breach of contract and implied duty of good faith.

Gale Force 9 produces miniatures, cards, DM screens, and other D&D accessories. They’re asking for damages of nearly a million dollars, as well as an injunction to prevent WotC from terminating the licensing contract.

From the suit, it looks like WotC wanted to end a licensing agreement a year early. When GF9 didn't agree to that, WotC indicated that they would refuse to approve any new licensed products from GF9. It looks like the same sort of approach they took with Weis and Hickman, which also resulted in a lawsuit. The dispute appears to relate to some product translations in non-US markets. More information as I hear it!

UPDATE. GF9's CEO, Jean-Paul Brisigotti, spoke to ICv2 and said: "After twelve years of working with Wizards, we find ourselves in a difficult place having to utilize the legal system to try and resolve an issue we have spent the last six months trying to amicably handle between us without any success. We still hope this can be settled between us but the timeline for a legal resolution has meant we have been forced to go down this path at this time."

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I wonder what this will imply for D&D translations, since they are done by companies (such as Asmodee in Italy) that are sub-contractors of GF9.

Same fear to me

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Digging deeper, it looks like WotC wasn't happy with some Korean translations and some French translations:

Frankly this appear to me as poor justifications... excuses.... I smell there is something going on....

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

This . . . . isn't surprising at all, given the current state of the world economic market due to Covid.

This action, as well as the Weis/Hickman situation, is the action of a company looking down the barrel at significant, strategic revenue losses, trying to get out from under cost obligations that they feel were unlikely to produce long-term revenue gains.

It's that simple.

I can't really comment on whether they're in breach of contract in either case, but the motivation is easily understood.

I've worked for a Fortune 25 tech company previously, and I can tell you that even at that organization, $950k would not be viewed as an insignificant budget line item.

I'm not an expert, but to stop GF9 production means stop to sell translated product. It seem more a way to stop incomes than to stop outcomes

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Perhaps we should let this play out before taking sides? I mean, it is possible there is a good reason. I have my doubts, but I'm not going to decide just yet that Hasbro is wrong.... Yet.

Problem isn't to take side, but to try to understand why this breach. It seems sistematic now.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

My guess is that WotC want to do more products in house. I’m also a little bit confused where the boundary lies between who can do what with miniatures. There seemed a clear distinction between Wizkids doing random painted figures and GF9 doing kit figures until Wizkids started doing their own unpainted non-randomised figures. Both Wizkids and GF9 do board games.
When 5e came out, WotC were very hesitant about pumping resources into the game. With the backing of Hasbro, they could easily have made everything themselves but instead licensed everything to Wizkids and GF9. Even the first three campaigns were written by third parties.
Now it‘s clear that 5e is a success, they probably want to take everything back.
Personally, a lot more of my money goes to Beadle & Grimm, Wizkids and GF9 than to WotC.
I wonder how aware Beadle& Grimm were about WotC publishing their own deluxe version of Curse of Strahd.

This is the best theory so far. I agree

 

[Zardnaar]

This is the best theory so far. I agree

They washed their hands if all of this.

Used to make minis, Spellcards etc.

 

[ccs]

They washed their hands if all of this.

Used to make minis, Spellcards etc.

Eh, the WoTC minis aren't much of a loss. WK does an infinitely better job than Wizards ever did.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Or it could be "same effect, different reason".
Maybe Dragonlance was broken due to authors inability to resolve "sensible reader" standards, period.
Maybe GF9 was broken because of license is considered underpriced by Wizard in respect to what was decided in 2005, or because Wizard believes to earn more money doing by itself or both of the two.
Only the final behaviour from Wizard remain the same: to breach the contract or refuse to approve. Giving the fact that an answer to refuse to approve is obviously a suing, It is probable that Wizard wants to be sued to open a negotiation that will lead to an increase of license fee or a remodulation (for instance: GF9 continue to produce Screens and Minis, but the translations businnes is directly managed by WoTC, allowing it to increase incomes).

 

[Karez]

That was very, very sad news.
My country (Hungary) has got the license the 5th edition this year, and releasing for Starter Set. I hope so not affected the future releasing, beacuse I love D&D and the hungarian translate very good job. Keep it up!

 

[DammitVictor]

Perhaps we should let this play out before taking sides? I mean, it is possible there is a good reason. I have my doubts, but I'm not going to decide just yet that Hasbro is wrong.... Yet.

Once is a coincidence. Twice is happenstance. Thrice is enemy action.

It appears to me that there is at least one person at WotC/Hasbro who thinks "not paying your bills" is a good way to cut budgets. I'd like to see the courts put the screws to the company hard enough that the next thieving parasite who proposes this is terminated so fast his 401k catches fire.