WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox, "I would say that the underlying thesis of our D&D business is all about digital,”

[Oofta]

Gimme a break. You know what’s meant.

Didn't mean offense, I was agreeing. Get a group of people, especially people who are passionate about their work, and there will be conflicting ideas. I don't see why anyone is surprised by that.

Whether that conflict is handled in a productive healthy way or not, I have no idea.

 

[darjr]

I wonder if Ben's information is older? Back in the 3.5/4e era WoTC would regularly fire a bunch of people right before Christmas. I am pretty sure that is a way to promote a lot of disfunction and a nasty workplace environment.

I think Teos is better plugged into the workings of the current team, here.

Ben stated, though I could be misremembering, that the issues remain. In fact they were a part of what engendered the OGL fiasco.

 

[darjr]

Didn't mean offense, I was agreeing. Get a group of people, especially people who are passionate about their work, and there will be conflicting ideas. I don't see why anyone is surprised by that.

Whether that conflict is handled in a productive healthy way or not, I have no idea.

Apologies. Dangit really. I should have read your post better.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, irreversible for 5E's rules though we shall see for 1D&D/6E/whatever we're calling it.

Also for the real 7E or whatever when it comes along? I feel like they're going to try this idiocy again, with like a GSL 3.0 or something. WotC just can't help themselves. They love the violent smack of the rake handle into the cartilage of their nose. Makes them feel alive!

The part of the refocus on digital as the means of growth for the hobby and us gamers, IMO, is that WotC has no incentive to muck around with the rules. Rules don't make the big bucks, digital minis do. Means they have no reason to get on the edition treadmill, if it might cause a disfunction in the digital minis sales, and 20+ years of OGL/CC 5E rules becomes a rather overwhelming market advantage on keeping the industry D&D focused.

That's absolutely right - it was notable that their justifications for the OGL 1.1/2.0 just kept endlessly circling back to "But what if A NAZI made an OGL compatible book!?!??!? WHAT THEN?!?!?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

And of course the answer from D&D players was "Well no-one would buy it, so who cares?".

It took a long time for them to come to terms with that.

I think theybwere being most real when they admitted they were scared of Disney swooping in, as Disney is currently doing to MtG with their Lorcana game.

 

[Parmandur]

Ben stated, though I could be misremembering, that the issues remain. In fact they were a part of what engendered the OGL fiasco.

I'm sure there are issues, but I think they aren't normally quite so dramatic, as Teos seems to suggest.

 

[darjr]

I am one who really does think that if they keep pushing on with the books and efforts to bring in new DMs and players they can reach very lofty goals without “digital”

But the video games already are a magnitude bigger in scale that it really is a must do.

 

[darjr]

I'm sure there are issues, but I think they aren't normally quite so dramatic, as Teos seems to suggest.

Not much is as dramatic as the OGL fiasco.

But how many of those does it take to be a hostile environment? Not many I’d think, depending upon who you are I suspect.

 

[darjr]

transcript in spoilers

Spoiler

exactly does that mean you thought too
many big words at me okay now because I
don't understand him I'm gonna take him
as disrespect on a recent investors call
Hasbro CEO Chris Cox concerned many when
he said that the future of d d was and I
quote digital Cox comments came after an
analyst asked whether the struggles of
the d d movie at the box office was a
setback for plans to double wizard of
the coast business as previous investor
calls seem to indicate the d d was a big
part of those plans I would say you know
the underlying thesis of our DND
business was all about digital I think
Baldur's Gate 3 is just the first of
several new digital initiatives you're
going to see from us that stand how we
can try to transform tabletop
role-playing gaming now Cox pointed to
the success of ultrascape 3 which he
called a game of the year Contender and
noted that Hasbro will make more money
off of Licensing Baldur's Gate 3 than
they have of the the last 5 to 10 years
of film licensing combined now in this
case Hasbro's film licensing business
has been relatively modest as the
company has mostly stayed in-house with
producing films based on its big toy
franchises instead of just licensing
them out to Studios like what Mattel did
for the Barbie movie now Cox also noted
that d d games allowed Hasbro to reach
the much larger role-playing game Market
I.E video game role-playing games which
had a much larger demographic than
traditional tabletop role-playing games
Cox then went on to explain that digital
allows them to expand the reach of the
Dungeons and Dragons brand from Beyond
tabletop gaming to a wider segment of
players and what digital allows us to do
is kind of take that tabletop
role-playing game Tam that we have in
the world which is you know probably
about 80 million people who participate
in those hobbies and frequent that kind
of Channel and take our brand like d d
to 800 million people who play
role-playing games now there's two
specific things to take away from Cox's
statement fans probably recognize his
plans to transform tabletop gaming as a
likely reference to the D D digital vtt
which Wizards has been developing for
over a year now that's not close to
completion to the best of our knowledge
but it still seems to be a major factor
in Wizards future plans it also seems
that Hasbro has plans to release several
more d d video games in the future at
one point Hasbro had a full pipeline of
d d video games in the works but several
were allegedly cut at the beginning of
the year and it seemed like those plans
had kind of petered out now given that
there was some discrepancy on how many
of those games were actually canceled uh
hidden path entertainment for instance
said that their DND game was still on
despite the fact that uh Bloomberg
reported that their game had been
canceled so who knows what's actually
going on there uh it's possible that
some of those games are still being
actively developed uh and uh you know
they could be as successful as Walters
Gates 3 or you know probably close to
being successful as several of them are
described as being AAA games
now more importantly it definitely seems
that Wizards is looking to replicate the
success of Baldur's Gate 3 and find ways
to use DND to hit up or
um you know appeal to the larger video
game population and I think that is
really what D D's digital plans are keep
in mind that Hasbro when Hasbro talks
about digital they don't just mean the
DND digital you know the vtt that
everyone is rightfully worried about
they mean video games they're talking
about video games so is the future of d
d digital let us know in the comment
section don't forget to hit those like
And subscribe buttons
foreign

 

[Parmandur]

Not much is as dramatic as the OGL fiasco.

But how many of those does it take to be a hostile environment? Not many I’d think, depending upon who you are I suspect.

Hard to say from the outside. The designers seem to be enjoying their work, at least, including the fresh blood like Juatice or De Armas.

 

[Alzrius]

That's absolutely right - it was notable that their justifications for the OGL 1.1/2.0 just kept endlessly circling back to "But what if A NAZI made an OGL compatible book!?!??!? WHAT THEN?!?!?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

And of course the answer from D&D players was "Well no-one would buy it, so who cares?".

It took a long time for them to come to terms with that.

It's tangential now, but I'm of the opinion that WotC was being extremely disingenuous with that particular clause. They cited it repeatedly, to the point of making it sound like they felt like they had a moral responsibility to eliminate the OGL 1.0a in order to keep the hobby diverse and inclusive, refusing to countenance that what they were proposing was a solution in search of a problem...all while putting most of their focus into VTT-related aspects of the license ("no spell animations!").

While there might very well have been a few individuals at WotC who felt strongly that they had a duty to eliminate the possibility of racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. products being made under the OGL regardless of the fact that the proposed solution was worse than the problem (there were certainly people who felt that way on these forums), their corporate messaging in that regard came off as being wholly insincere.