Ginny Di interviews WotC's Kyle Brink

Continuing the D&D executive producer's interview tour, gaming influencer Ginny Di asks a WotC's Kyle Brink about the OGL and other things.

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[Justice and Rule]

they can do that without nuking the OGL too. Do not license 1DD to the existing VTTs and let the 5e licenses expire, done.

Without the subclasses (not in the SRD) and official adventures, the other VTTs are effectively removed from the D&D market.

They do not use the SRD today, so changes to the OGL for this are not helpful / needed.

You don't need to license it over to other VTTs to have that happen. Foundry has no license for D&D but you can still strip DNDBeyond of the info through it. They didn't do that, they tried killing off the rest of the VTT market preemptively.

When you nuke something, you aren't being surgical. You just nuke it. It's simpler to understand and hurts the competition more.

I genuinely have a problem with the idea that it is just corporate greed. I guess there were a whole lot of reasons why some people at WotC thought it might be a good idea. The core was certainly to protect their recent and future investment...
... and then they did everything wrong.

Why? Just look at what happened to Magic, as well as their sky-high projections on how they want to build the brand.

Please demonstrate to me where WotC was acting with such intelligence that this is an implausible scenario.

Please demonstrate to me where WotC has acted with enough sincerity that we should trust their own explanations?

Really, it's not about "intelligence", because neither of our scenarios has it. Both are dumb moves. The difference is that their own explanation comes off as an excuse, where the devil made them do it ("We had to act!"). My version has a more logical, profit-driven idea behind it ("We're the market leaders, we can wreck our competitors and give ourselves the best chance to hit our goals!") and follows what they've been trying to do so far.

For one thing, WotC hasn't exactly demonstrated that they really understand technology.

For another thing, there's no reason to think that this was about fear of sudden changes.

Yes, but we have simpler, easier-to-justify scenarios right there. Why take the one that requires a heretofore unmentioned worry by Wizards rather than simply say "They are putting everything on 1DND, they are trying to maximize their market by killing their competition ahead of releasing their new edition and VTT"?

Again, it just comes off as an excuse and requires us to trust Wizards's own explanation of why they did what they did.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

they can do that without nuking the OGL too. Do not license 1DD to the existing VTTs and let the 5e licenses expire, done.

Without the subclasses (not in the SRD) and official adventures, the other VTTs are effectively removed from the D&D market.

They do not use the SRD today, so changes to the OGL for this are not helpful / needed.

One of the major VTT (Foundry) does not have a license with them but there are tools to scrape all the materials from D&D Beyond.

Fantasy Grounds has a license but in 4th edition there was a tool to scape the books from the digital system then. I use Fantasy Grounds and Smiteworks (their owners) have made it clear that any book already bought is safe. FG also has a robust marketplace for 3PP to sell their books.

All the major VTT also support other RPG.

The gun that was aimed at all not WoTC was not the VTT stuff, it was aimed at Drivethru in terms of potentially ordering them to cease selling OGL products if the OGL was deauthorized.

WoTC can still shut off their partner VTT from One D&D books and that will be a revenue blow to them, probably a pretty big one. But it will be a blow to WoTC as they then need their VTT to make up that revenue.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I also remain convinced that the interviews are part of the process to protect their most important asset - the Movie.

We are all celebrating our victory and in some ways I think the PR campaign looks more like a Hollywood crisis expert was brought in.

 

[mamba]

You don't need to license it over to other VTTs to have that happen. Foundry has no license for D&D but you can still strip DNDBeyond of the info through it.

that sounds like a technical gap WotC can fix, not a legal right VTTs have. If WotC went through the trouble of not renewing licenses, this way would get closed as well.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

that sounds like a technical gap WotC can fix, not a legal right VTTs have

I can always cut and paste. I routinely enter data into Fantasy Grounds and I have been buying D&D Beyond books since it first started (as of now they lost my paper and D&D Beyond Heist books purchase but I will buy on FG to future proof in case the license is not renewed next year).

 

[mamba]

One of the major VTT (Foundry) does not have a license with them but there are tools to scrape all the materials from D&D Beyond.

there being a way now is not the same as WotC guaranteeing this will continue to be available. If they went so far as to not renew licenses, you can safely assume they would not allow for this to continue either.

All the major VTT also support other RPG.

So? Nothing WotC can do about that, with the OGL or without

The gun that was aimed at all not WoTC was not the VTT stuff, it was aimed at Drivethru in terms of potentially ordering them to cease selling OGL products if the OGL was deauthorized.

this is at most collateral damage, not the goal. 1.0a products could continue to be sold, 1.1 were only affected past a threshold, 1.2 were not affected at all again.

WoTC can still shut off their partner VTT from One D&D books and that will be a revenue blow to them, probably a pretty big one. But it will be a blow to WoTC as they then need their VTT to make up that revenue.

If they fear losing money that way, then they can simply renew the licenses.

The point is what WotC can or cannot do to VTTs does not depend on the SRD and by extension not on the OGL either

 

[Myrdin Potter]

there being a way now is not the same as WotC guaranteeing this will continue to be available. If they went so far as to not renew licenses, you can safely assume they would not allow for this to continue either.

I am amazed they allow it at all since they have licensed VTT partners. The fact that the have not licensed Foundry points to me as a reason to believe they want to further restrict access in the future.

 

[mamba]

I also remain convinced that the interviews are part of the process to protect their most important asset - the Movie.

We are all celebrating our victory and in some ways I think the PR campaign looks more like a Hollywood crisis expert was brought in.

I am pretty sure this is why the survey was cut short

 

[mamba]

I am amazed they allow it at all since they have licensed VTT partners. The fact that the have not licensed Foundry points to me as a reason to believe they want to further restrict access in the future.

not sure why Foundry does not have a license, maybe because they can get away with this. Closing this hole is a ‘Foundry is using our stuff without a license’ problem, not a ‘we want to shut down all VTTs’ one

 

[Justice and Rule]

that sounds like a technical gap WotC can fix, not a legal right VTTs have. If WotC went through the trouble of not renewing licenses, this way would get closed as well.

There will always be gaps. If you destroy the other VTTs, there will be no one left to exploit them.