Ryan Dancey -- Hasbro Cannot Deauthorize OGL

I reached out to the architect of the original Open Gaming License, former VP of Wizard of the Coast, Ryan Dancey, and asked his opinion about the current plan by WotC to 'deauthorize' the current OGL in favour of a new one.

He responded as follows:

Yeah my public opinion is that Hasbro does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.

Ryan also maintains the Open Gaming Foundation.

As has been noted previously, even WotC in its own OGL FAQ did not believe at the time that the licence could be revoked.

7. Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

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[Drake2000]

It isn't good from a business perpective, they going to get slammed with lawsuits, not small lawsuits, huge ones, because not only with the other TTRPG companies, but screwing their friends in Critical Role, which means this screws CR partner Amazon, Hasbro/WotC can't afford to piss off Amazon.

Remember this will effect Amazon's show Vex Machina as well.

Nothing stops WOTC from making separate, and more beneficial to the licensee, deals with those entities, however.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I made an illustration to help my understanding of our current predicament as described by Steel_Wind.

On that note, it's too late at night and I should probably go to bed!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I made an illustration to help my understanding of our current predicament as described by Steel_Wind.

View attachment 271389

On that note, it's too late at night and I should probably go to bed!

my favorite part is that Enworld is the place I get the MOST backlash against 4e. (TBF most I get is nobody cares one way or another and/or started in 5e)

 

[Mecheon]

[This is the same edition others now claim sold better than 3.x? DELUSIONAL. ]

I mean, the claim it sold better than 3.x came from WotC, who I think might know how their products sold....

Regardless though, if we're talking about "What we know", then I know for a fact Amazon's storefront constantly had 4E products as a higher seller than any Pathfinder products, until we hit tail end of Essentials when Pathfinder overtook it.

What I also know is 4E and Paizo products were both pretty dry on the ground in Australia, but I don't think that's telling either way and just local stores being local stores

 

[Steel_Wind]

I dint think it was “owned” by Lisa Stevens. Not like Peter owned it. But I think she was as instrumental at WotC as anyone. Maybe more so.

Peter had ~6% more shares than she did (she had more than 40%). They both walked away with nearly $150m+ each. It wasn't Pathfinder $$ that built her Star Wars memorabilia collection (the largest in the world). That was M:TG, Pokemon and the tap patent. If you Google it, her home & Star Wars collection et al are online if you dig. It's beyond impressive.

 

[Composer99]

IvC2 shows PF and 4e were competing for top spot in last half of 2010, with PF pulling ahead in 2011 and staying ahead until 5e came out. All the same, D&D stayed in the top 5 until the quarter before 5e released. In short, sales for D&D products were fine - unless you're Hasbro, in which case they were disastrous.

While that period has the GSL debacle, which shares many features with the current "OGL" debacle, there isn't anything going on today like the edition war that was going on at the time, even without considering D&D's position in the market today relative to the 2008-2010 period.

Suffice to say that it's premature to say confidently that a competitor will soon kick D&D off the top of the heap; I wouldn't rule it out myself, but without the edition war impetus I am skeptical - to my mind 1D&D isn't different enough from 2014!5e to inspire anything like the 3.X/4e edition war.

 

[DaveMage]

If there was ONE controversy that could drag me out of mothballs too,

THIS IS IT.
Very glad to see Ryan around the forum!

Now, all we need is Orcus to show up and we'll really be back in the early 2000s.

 

[troff]

I just wish the word "irrevocable" appeared in the OGL v1.0!

It doesn't, but in EFFECT it does. Check clause 2, which reads: "No terms may be added or subtracted from this License except as described by the License itself. No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License".

 

[FoolishFrost]

I think this is going to be a lot less about the publishers, and more about the VTT space.

Let me explain:

• Everything I'm seeing out of Wotc sounds a lot like them getting on what is lovingly called the "Live Services" bandwagon. I say lovingly due to game publishers seeming to love making live services out of anything that used to be called a "game".
• The reason this is bad, is due to the fact the main goal of turning D&D into a "live service", is to monetize it. Alot. In every darn way they can.
• This means getting people into subscriptions, probably combined with microtransactions. Don't laugh. Look at magic the gathering, it's pretty much the posterchild for loot boxes, loooong before they were a thing in computer games.
• In order to do the above, they need to control the market. That means getting rid of competition. Other VTT softwares.
• Easiest way to do that is to choke off the published content that the 3rd parties can post to those tools when related to D&D. If a publisher cannot post software content based on D&D, then they can't add their material to VTT other than one run by Wotc.
• Profit!

Now, can I prove this is the way it's going? Nope. But I've been working in the game industry (computer/console/mobile) for over a decade now, and this is the pattern I've seen over and over. If they are NOT going that way with the patterns I've seen, I simply have no idea what they are doing.

I mean, really. You better hope I'm wrong.

 

[Branduil]

I don’t think that is likely. To do so would be to accept WOTC’s position that OGL 1.0a can be non-authorized. It would also put them in a position where their future success is dependent on an agreement with WOTC that could be terminated. They’ve been through this before and I would doubt they want to be in that situation again.

I think they are more likely to say “no thanks” and continue to publish open game content under OGL 1.0a. The leadership of Paizo is very experienced with the OGL and understand how it works. If it comes to a court case, I believe they would have a good chance of success.

This is the big issue facing anyone who wants to make a deal with WotC-- even just implying that the OGL can be revoked demonstrates WotC is now a bad-faith actor, and cannot be trusted. It's the scorpion telling the frog "Don't worry, I won't sting you again."