It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Bix and Box]

If a friend tried to take advantage of me (say trick me out of some money) and I protested his actions and he relented and gave me the money back and apologized... yeah I'd probably forgive him.

A hypothetical?!?

Ok. I'll play. What if it was a complete stranger? Or better yet, a faceless corporation.

And what if he tried to take the money of many people? Their livelihoods, in fact.

What if he lied about it to your face? And smiled condescendingly while he did so?

What if you had to protest for weeks on end? Threaten him, ultimately, in order to get your money back.

How might that impact your relationship going forward?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

A hypothetical?!?

Ok. I'll play. What if it was a complete stranger? Or better yet, a faceless corporation.

And what if he tried to take the money of many people? Their livelihoods, in fact.

What if he lied about it to your face? And smiled condescendingly while he did so?

What if you had to protest for weeks on end? Threaten him, ultimately, in order to get your money back.

How might that impact your relationship going forward?

How about an actual?

A company proposes a plan.

People don't like it.

The company says, "Okay, how about this instead?"

People say they don't like it.

The company says, "Okay, how about we not do the original plan, and just to make sure you know that you were heard, we also give you something extra?"

And all of this transpires over the course of a few weeks. Again, the first rumors were Jan. 4th, the leaked text was January 9th, WoTC partially walked the changes back on Jan. 13th, they released the survey on Jan. 20th, and the complete backdown (and additional release to CC) was January 27th.

Now, compare that to how most corporations act. Seriously, go on. Think about how your feedback has affected the labor practices of a corporation. The environmental practices of a corporation. The practices of a corporation in terms of how it competes with others in a marketplace. Go on. Think about how much success you've had, and how quickly.

Yeah, I thought so. Not as gratifying, is it? I understand that there's still a lot of free-flowing anger out there. But this was a victory. And the company actually listened, quickly (in corporate terms) to its customers. And somehow ... that's not good enough, and people are comparing them to murderers.

Whatever makes people feel better, I guess?

 

[Aldarc]

I don't want to invalidate people's feeling. I know that a lot of trust has been broken. I do honestly think the move was unethical.
I do however think, that it is the reality of how the system works. Corporations do want to make money. My example of Paizo was just do demonstrate, that they also have at times retaliated hard against WotC. The only thing that was different was that usually they had the players on their side.
So in my opinion it is not about trust. For me as a player, it is only about the question if I want to exchange my money for a product or not. I don't need trust.
For 3pp it is different. But with CC, they also lost the need to trust WotC to be able to base their whole business on their product.

Paizo is not a person.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah. Somehow being a gaming company makes people expecting them playing fair amd nice with each other. I can understand this sentiment.

I don't think it's so much that they expect them to play fair and nice, though I'm sure some amount of them do. Rather I think that they just take it more personally and become even more upset when it happens, because they are more emotionally invested. When Del Taco stopped carrying Mr. Pibb I was upset, because it's my favorite drink. I never stopped going to Del Taco, though. I'm much more emotionally invested in the D&D community than the Mr. Pibb community.

 

[Lichbeard]

WOTC ended up doing exactly what we want companies to do.
They dialed back horrible plans at our outrage and got better.
If you don't reward that behavior, why would any company change their plans and get better?

You can say "we want a company that doesn't ever get bad plans" but that is nuts. No company can live up to that standard.
Heck no person can live up to that standard.

Last but not least. Companies are not people. they are never your friend. Don't confuse the feelings you have for a beloved hobby for the feelings you have for a business trying to get rich of promoting that hobby.

 

[Scribe]

If you don't reward that behavior, why would any company change their plans and get better?

They have been rewarded. The anger is mostly dialed back, the bad press is slowed or stopped. Many have decreased their outcry.

That's what Wizbro has earned.

They don't have their customers in an outrage.

 

[Imaro]

A hypothetical?!?

Ok. I'll play. What if it was a complete stranger? Or better yet, a faceless corporation.

And what if he tried to take the money of many people? Their livelihoods, in fact.

What if he lied about it to your face? And smiled condescendingly while he did so?

What if you had to protest for weeks on end? Threaten him, ultimately, in order to get your money back.

How might that impact your relationship going forward?

I don't have a relationship with WotC beyond that of a consumer... They changed course so I choose to buy their product... if they hadn't I might not. I brought up companies that have done much worse than this earlier in the thread. Or for an example more close to home... why aren't we still holding a grudge with Paizo around the substantiated accusations of the mismanagement and horrible treatment of their employees and work conditions that were brought to light in 2021, even though I believe they have reformed some/many/all of these things?

 

[glass]

I'm talking pure facts... nothing actually changed. I'm not the one debating what might've, could've been.

The irrevocability and safety of the OGL are, in practical if not strictly legal terms, much more in doubt than it was before Christmas. That is a real, material change.

Can we please stop equating revoking the OGL with murder... seriously they aren't comparable and it actually makes your position, in my eyes, seem even more overblown.

Nobody is equating them. Thinking twice about buying a company's products is not the same as sending people to prison for a couple of decades.

the complete backdown

Just to be clear, this never happened. They said that the are not deauthorising the OGL. They conspicuously did not say that they never will, let alone that they cannot.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Just to be clear, this never happened. They said that the are not deauthorising the OGL. They conspicuously did not say that they never will, let alone that they cannot.

To be clear, they said that they are not doing what they said they were going to do. That's what everyone wanted.

Also to be clear, they previously said (way back when) that you could always rely on it. For complicated legal reasons, that statement then was just as valid as any statement they make now. So even if they did, in some sort of, oh, FAQ or something,* the "people who could not be pleased" would just say that you couldn't trust them- because they did it before. The only way to undo the method they used would be ... to release a new license! Which wouldn't solve the underlying problem regarding the issues with the drafting of the OGL 1.0(a).

So there are, in fact, conspicuous legal reasons that not only did the community get half a loaf, they got a loaf and a half.

Just to be clear.

But if you would like to be more clear to me, explain to me exactly how, legally, they were supposed to "backdown" even further. Feel free to explain it using any complicated terms that are necessary to make your point. To be 100% clear.



*See what I did there?

 

[Umbran]

They have been rewarded. The anger is mostly dialed back, the bad press is slowed or stopped. Many have decreased their outcry.

That's what Wizbro has earned.

They don't have their customers in an outrage.

So, the way humans (and mammals in general) work, ceasing negative input is not the same as positive input, in terms of learning or training.

Unfortunately, most moral and ethical frameworks (where we determine what they have "earned") are not built with understanding of how we learn or change behavior.