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."

 

[Olrox17]

Why do they want them at all, if they’re in another language?

The game's crunch can be understood even with a elementary knowledge of english. Probably not a very engaging or fun read though.

 

[TheSword]

The game's crunch can be understood even with a elementary knowledge of english. Probably not a very engaging or fun read though.

So good enough to take advantage of the work that has gone into it, but not good enough to pay for?

Should people be morally allowed to steal (pirate) music from a different language because they only get the sound and not the words?

Next time I’m in the supermarket and my favourite wine is sold out, I’ll just steal a bottle of one of the others... it will be drinkable but not quite as good as I expect.

 

[Olrox17]

So good enough to take advantage of the work that has gone into it, but not good enough to pay for?

Should people be morally allowed to steal (pirate) music from a different language because they only get the sound and not the words?

I feel like we're arguing in circles. Again, I'm not saying pirating is legal or even right. I'm just saying it will happen anyway, and massively so, if translations aren't provided in a timely manner.

 

[TheSword]

I feel like we're arguing in circles. Again, I'm not saying pirating is legal or even right. I'm just saying it will happen anyway, and massively so, if translations aren't provided in a timely manner.

So it’s not legally right, and it’s not morally right, I’m not sure in those circumstances it would be as widespread as you believe.

I believe this tangent was started by claiming that WOC actions justified piracy against them. I’ll consider that closed then.

 

[Olrox17]

So it’s not legally right, and it’s not morally right, I’m not sure in those circumstances it would be as widespread as you believe.

Except actual legal consequences are basically unheard of, and people having actual moral qualms about stealing from big (and foreign, in this case) corporations is probably less common than you would imagine.
Again, I brought my empirical data to the table. Interested about hearing more from people of non-english speaking countries.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

What we could and what we should do are two different things. I can download the pdf of Sandy Petersen's Myths of Chulthu for 5th Ed but I bought the book (translated version) because I want Edgeent to publish more translations of D&D. I could download Starfinder books but I would rather to buy the books translated by Devir (some weeks ago I bought the alien archive).

I could download the Endless Quest books but I haven't done it, and I would rather to await to be translated to buy them and gifts them to my loved nephews. I could download Tiny Frontiers, the sci-fi RPG for children but I want to buy it for my 9y niece (she has discovered Star Wars and she loves it) when it was translated by Akuma Studio. I can download Akuma, the Spanish RPG based in manga-anime, but I am aware if Akuma Studio doesn't earn enough money then this will not publish more titles for this game.

In the short run the money spent in a videogame is better, but long-term the TTRPGs keep better the economic value. Let's compare a 3.5 D&D sourcebook and a videogame with the same prize and in the same time. Today the book is more valuable to be sold to potential collectors.

I can get the crunch from Pathfinder thanks the SRD, and it wouldn't be piracy but perfectly legal. Nevertheless I bought Pathfinder books (although slow candence by Devir, the ultimate magic guide wasn't translated) because I like to collect.

We could watch 80's D&D cartoon, couldn't we? but today some people are willing to buy merchadising linked that cartoon show.

 

[Echohawk]

I live in a country where many people can speak/read English even if not as a first language, so the translation issue isn't so much of a priority. However, I can confirm that even in English RPG books are very much a luxury item.

For me to get a printed copy of Tasha's will cost at least US$55, since I will need to import it myself or wait about six months for the closest book shop that stocks RPG books (a two and a half hour drive away) to maybe get a copy. That price assumes I risk using the post office; usually I would pay a bit more to use a courier service because that greatly increases the odds of actually getting the book, but let's stick to the lower price for this calculation.

US$55 works out to about 6% of the average person's monthly take-home pay, or if I use the Big Mac Index to figure out the equivalent amount in burgers, that's about 27 burgers which translates back to US$152.76. So that's (apparently) the burgernomics equivalent price here for a copy of Tasha's: $153.

Just to be clear, I don't think the high relative price is an excuse for piracy. I do pay for my (imported) books and I also pay for a D&D Beyond subscription and buy digital copies. The content sharing features of that means that the other players in my gaming group don't need to pirate. If I wasn't lucky enough to be able to afford to legally share the digital content, my guess would be that about half of them would pay for their own digital copies and the other half would not be able to afford to, and would be using illegal PDFs (or whatever format they found the pirated versions in). At most, one other person in the group would be willing/able to pay for print, and he'd likely piggy-back on one of my existing import orders.

 

[jasper]

Try living outside America.

PHB $50-$70 and in some countries you get a fraction of US wages (half or less).

By the time you've paid for postage each book can be the equivalent of $100-$200.

Thanks. How you start a thread how each book cost in different countries. List Price and then other price.

 

[MoonSong]

What we could and what we should do are two different things. I can download the pdf of Sandy Petersen's Myths of Chulthu for 5th Ed but I bought the book (translated version) because I want Edgeent to publish more translations of D&D. I could download Starfinder books but I would rather to buy the books translated by Devir (some weeks ago I bought the alien archive).

I could download the Endless Quest books but I haven't done it, and I would rather to await to be translated to buy them and gifts them to my loved nephews. I could download Tiny Frontiers, the sci-fi RPG for children but I want to buy it for my 9y niece (she has discovered Star Wars and she loves it) when it was translated by Akuma Studio. I can download Akuma, the Spanish RPG based in manga-anime, but I am aware if Akuma Studio doesn't earn enough money then this will not publish more titles for this game.

In the short run the money spent in a videogame is better, but long-term the TTRPGs keep better the economic value. Let's compare a 3.5 D&D sourcebook and a videogame with the same prize and in the same time. Today the book is more valuable to be sold to potential collectors.

I can get the crunch from Pathfinder thanks the SRD, and it wouldn't be piracy but perfectly legal. Nevertheless I bought Pathfinder books (although slow candence by Devir, the ultimate magic guide wasn't translated) because I like to collect.

We could watch 80's D&D cartoon, couldn't we? but today some people are willing to buy merchadising linked that cartoon show.

In the other side of the pond things are different. If you know about D&D, it means you know English, or know someone who knows English. Knowing English is very important to a lot of the good paying jobs -the kind of jobs you need to be able to afford D&D in the first place-. And if the choice is between the originals in English that are across the border and the poorly translated ones from the Mother land (no offense intended, but many localizations from Spain suffer from inconsistency and excesive coloquialism), I think most would choose the ones in English. This happens with TCGs, most people pay a premium for cards in English, and only people buying for their children actively seek Spanish translations.

Perhaps, if the translations were done in Argentina, and the books were a bit in the affordable side, there could be demand for Spanish versions of D&D.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Although my level or written English isn't bad, if I have to spend my money to buy books, I would rather my mother tongue, it's more confortable., and imported books only can be found in capital cities. Have you bought any work in no-English language? Do you watch dubbed anime or in original Japanese voice (with subtitles)?

Translations are very important for no English-speaker markets. Somebody can buy an arcade videogame what uses other languange, but TTRPGs have got a lot of text. Even board games (Monopoly, Clued, Risk) with simpler rules have to be translated.

And many teenages players from no-English speaker countries haven't enough level to dare to buy original English books.