WotC Hasbro's CEO Reports OGL-Related D&D Beyond Cancellations Had Minimal Impact

Hasbro held a quarterly earnings call recently in which CEO Chris Cocks (who formerly ran WotC before being promoted) indicated that the OGL controversy had a "comparatively minor" impact on D&D's revenue due to D&D Beyond subscription cancellations. He also noted that D&D grew by 20% in 2022 (Magic: the Gathering revenues grew by an astonishing 40% in Quarter 4!)

WotC as a whole was up 22% in Q4 2022.

Lastly, on D&D, we misfired on updating our Open Gaming License, a key vehicle for creators to share or commercialize their D&D inspired content. Our best practice is to work collaboratively with our community, gather feedback, and build experiences that inspire players and creators alike - it's how we make our games among the best in the industry. We have since course corrected and are delivering a strong outcome for the community and game.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I'm not even sure what you mean by "necessary".

That the action was simply not needed? I don't know if I can be any clearer than the fact that their OGL changes would have blown up the community in a way that wasn't needed if they wanted to control their IP.

But I can see why decision-makers and lawyers, with background in other areas and without intimate understanding of this particular hobby/ecosystem, would look at all these other people making money on their IP, imagine all sorts of bad things that could happen, and think, "Whoah, this is totally out of hand. We need to get more control over this."

I mean, you said it above: "...it's pretty obvious to anybody who has any sense of the community..." Well, obviously the people who won the internal argument didn't have a sense of the community, and didn't believe the people who did. No conspiracy theory necessary.

You don't need a conspiracy theory to just say "They saw an area where they could be making money/limiting loss and decided to try and wrangle it in". And even in your version, the objective is to destroy the 3PP market, even if you want to change the reasons.

I wish the public internet had been around when New Coke was introduced. I bet a lot of the comments were the same as these.

I dunno, would people defend Coke as vehemently?

 

[mamba]

Something I don’t understand.

Isn’t this the best result we could have wanted? Yes, WotC screwed up. Absolutely. But they fixed their mistake in a matter of a couple of weeks. Isn’t that how it should work?

By and large yes, it is certainly preferable to the possible alternatives, but the point remains that they were willing to go back on their word and a legal document they thought they found a way to wiggle out of, despite the very clear intent of the document.

This destroyed a lot of trust, and rebuilding that is not done by simply turning back at the last minute due to outside pressure.

Rebuilding trust will take repeated actions that demonstrate that WotC learned the lesson and is a good member of the community again. Until they have demonstrated that, a certain level of mistrust will remain (and this will take years, simply because there are not that many opportunities to show this) - and for some that trust has been damaged beyond repair and WotC will not be able to ever rebuild it.

So no, for some people things are not ‘back to normal’ yet, and for others they never will be, and trying to pressure them into ‘forgiving’ by saying ‘we should all get along now’ or something like that is not going to help.

 

[mamba]

What more can they do outside of some ridiculously over the top suggestions that have been lobbed on this forum?

simple, show us that they are trustworthy again.

Release the 3e SRD under CC, release a new SRD for 1DD under OGL and CC, keep licensing to other VTTs under current / similar terms.
If they do that, they win back the trust of 90% of those they have not won back already, and for the other 10% nothing will ever be enough, and that is ok too, sometimes things cannot be rebuilt.

 

[mamba]

Case in point.

case in point for what? for ridiculous, over the top suggestions? No, that is just an acknowledgement that they screwed up and a way (the CC part) to show that they won’t do it again. It kinda is the bare minimum.

 

[mamba]

When I say they had to "know", it's that they were informed of what would happen, that it was an informed choice. Does that make more sense?

it is pretty much how I understood it, but being told and ‘knowing’ are two separate things. Had they really known this would happen, why would they ever have done it?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I dunno, would people defend Coke as vehemently?

They had to hire more operators because they were getting 8,000 angry calls a day.

 

[Justice and Rule]

it is pretty much how I understood it, but being told and ‘knowing’ are two separate things. Had they really known this would happen, why would they ever have done it?

Chalk that up to me using unclear verbiage. My bad. Though it's totally possible that they could have agreed that there would be outrage and think they could weather the storm. Really depends on whether you believe Kyle that 1.2 was a modification based on feedback or if 1.2 was meant to be a fallback position that looked benign but had a few backdoors in it.

They had to hire more operators because they were getting 8,000 angry calls a day.

There'd be at least a few people defending the reddit walls for them, I'm sure. Their downvoting... would be legendary.

 

[Saracenus]

Even granting your supposed truisms, this paragraph is quite flawed. Just because someone is in the room doesn't mean they were valued or listened to. Just about every planning disaster had someone in the room that said "this is going to be a disaster" and then it went forward anyway.

I concur.

I can speak from direct experience that being the voice of reason in a meeting is not a ticket to being listened to. There are the egos and the perceived importance when you put a bunch of people in a room that have differing aims and "truths." It is really hard to get people to see beyond there preconceived notions.

My brain naturally starts scenario building when someone says something about a problem. I ask questions and basically I try to determine the board state and the "rules" of the game (in my case it involves local politics and legislation). My decades of gaming gives me a quick toolset to break things down and find the win condition or better the win, win. Unfortunately, this usually leads me to suggest courses of action that are counter-intuitive. I have to remember to explain the 10 or 20 steps in my thinking that got me there and if I am lucky they maybe understand more than a couple of them. I initially got dismissed, a lot. I am usually right. I have more juice now. That only took me 5 years to build.

Let's not get into whole unequal dynamics of power in the room. If you are VP of X and a bunch of other VPs and directors that are in favor with the big cheese (read CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, etc.) and you are not, well speaking out is not a healthy prospect for continued employment. It is even more compounded when you are the new person at the table.

Then there are personality types. A lot of people are conflict avoidant. This means folks who are not usually walk all over them.

So, no even if Kyle Brinks spoke up about the impending disaster before WotC (and this is requires and assumption that he could see it that way) the only thing Kyle likely got to do is the "I told you so" dance when it blew up.

Again, we do not know all the players in the room or the power dynamics of that room. Disasters like this are usually way more complicated than most of the speculation here allows for. And if anyone here is saying they know what really happened... well, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you, it was only used by a grandmother to go to church on Sundays, and it is almost brand new...

 

[Hussar]

By and large yes, it is certainly preferable to the possible alternatives, but the point remains that they were willing to go back on their word and a legal document they thought they found a way to wiggle out of, despite the very clear intent of the document.

This destroyed a lot of trust, and rebuilding that is not done by simply turning back at the last minute due to outside pressure.

Rebuilding trust will take repeated actions that demonstrate that WotC learned the lesson and is a good member of the community again. Until they have demonstrated that, a certain level of mistrust will remain (and this will take years, simply because there are not that many opportunities to show this) - and for some that trust has been damaged beyond repair and WotC will not be able to ever rebuild it.

So no, for some people things are not ‘back to normal’ yet, and for others they never will be, and trying to pressure them into ‘forgiving’ by saying ‘we should all get along now’ or something like that is not going to help.

Who’s pressing to forgive or forget? I’m not. But I’m also in the boat that relitigating the past month over and over again shouting for WotC to do even more isn’t helping either.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some times I think some people within WotC allowed this mistake because they knew it was idea by the "sharks" and these didn't want to listen they were wrong. They had to face the reality and then the others could say "we warned you!". Now those sharks of Wall Street should learn to listen the rest. They have to forget their previous possible prejudices against the geek community and to understand really the true psychology of this type of consumer, or at least the internaut comunity.

If I do an offensive coment within this forum, intetionally or by mistake, apologies will be not enough, but I will need a time show good behavior to prove I have learnt the lesson. And why would you be more condescending with a company when it affects the money from your ownpocket?

And we are not furious to pay more for our hobby, in our ordinary life we have to pay more taxes and more bills, and we are unhappy with certain economic strategies in the videogame industry, for example when the main game is incomplete and then you have to buy that DLC or expansion.

And it was really ridiculous about if there are animations of the figures then it is not a true VTT but a videogame. They haven't got the right to control the creations by others.

And I felt very bad vibes with the potential censorship with the excuse of hate-speech and inclusive content. I am OK with the idea of adding no-Caucasian characters to send the message of "everybody is wellcome in the D&D game". This is one of the positive things about this game and since the 1st edition, and it is not a new one added later. I don't mind if some details are added because if I don't like them then I can edit or change them, but my fear is it happens again, when they say "inclusive" but really they start to exclude certain groups. I feel unconfortable with the trope of "sinnister minister" within a Ravenloft story, for example.

* I have read something is happening with the onwers of Black Rock and Vanguard, the main investment funds. This can affect seriously biggest megacorporations, not only Hasbro but also their partners and potential acquirers in case of blankrupt.