WotC Hasbro gains big time from D&D, Magic, Monopoly, and Baldur's Gate 3

[Velderan]

I have to say, I've never really bought this line in the countless situations where people use it, not when they've been at place for decades without that change happening anyway. I'm sure plenty of people sign up to do precisely this - but if you're not seeing the change you want within a few years, you're likely leaving. If you're not seeing the change you want within a decade, and you're sticking around, well I think you're probably fooling yourself about why you're there.

I feel like we're talking about 2 different things. Change at the company vs. helping steer the direction of a game he's passionate about. If hypothetically he's unhappy with the direction of WotC, sure he's probably fooling himself if he thinks staying does anything to change the company. But if hypothetically he's unhappy with the company and thinks in his position he can at least protect some of the important elements of D&D to remain as the game evolves, it might be worth it. For all we know, he very well could be one of the biggest advocates for minimal changes in the 2024 rule updates.

 

[Oofta]

It's been less than a year. The OGL fiasco ended up delaying a bunch of kickstarters many of which have yet to fulfill. It's one thing to say that the OGL was only an issue among enthusiasts, like the people who populate these boards--that the general customer base of wotc did not and does not know or care. I'd agree with you. But then you'll probably have to accept that among enthusiasts--people who buy a lot of 3rd party content and support third party publishers including enworld itself--people are going to be salty about Wotc's proposal to cut off that entire branch of the hobby.

This is to say nothing that the core product that people are concerned about--the revised core books and the VTT--are not even out yet. The issue of the OGL is resolved for now but related issues are still outstanding: for example, wee know from last January that wotc wants monetization and recurrent spending and we know from a recent investor call that the future of dnd is digital. You seem to be ok or even enthusiastic about those changes, but a lot of other people are seeing a walled garden on the horizon and are less than thrilled. After everything that's happened this past year, they have a right to be suspicious.

The new revision and the VTT are not what derail every single thread about the business side of things. The OGL was a stupid unforced error, but the decision was also reversed before implementation yet it inevitably comes up on every single thread when business aspects of the game are discussed in length.

I don't even know what this supposed "walled garden" could be. If you need a VTT and your current VTT works for you, you can keep using them. Same with the 2024 edition, if you like your current game the books are not going to self destruct. D&D is not heading towards and will never be a digital only product for the foreseeable future. I use DndBeyond because I think it's a good product that is worth my money but if it was turned off tomorrow it wouldn't change much. It's a convenience. Is WOTC interested in making money? Of course they are! It's how they make money so they can continue to get a paycheck.

I'll continue to check out new products when they're released and make a decision at that point, just like I always have. I quite enjoyed the D&D movie and Baldur's Gate 3, they certainly figured out how to separate me from some of my hard earned money for those products. Since I enjoyed the movie and spent a couple hundred hours playing the game (I'm too much of a completionist for my own good) it was worth it to me. Meanwhile D&D can be, and remains, one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available in terms of hours of entertainment per dollar spent.

 

[mamba]

For all we know, he very well could be one of the biggest advocates for minimal changes in the 2024 rule updates.

you say this as if that is positive…

 

[Velderan]

you say this as if that is positive…

It might be to him, who knows!

 

[mamba]

It might be to him, who knows!

I suspected as much

 

[Parmandur]

you say this as if that is positive…

For a lot of folks, it is.

 

[Hussar]

maybe, but they did not start at 0, they started from the OGL having been in place for 20 years…

If I gave you $1000 a month for 20 years and then reduced it to $100, I doubt you would say ‘well, 100 is generous compared to the general standard of me getting 0’, esp when we have a contract in which I agreed to forever pay you $1000 per month

Let’s run with this shall we?

You take the 1000 dollars and base your budget around that. However you getting that money depends 100% on my goodwill. Because when I change the deal, not a single person steps up to try to enforce the contract.

Not one.

The contract is only as good as it’s enforceability. An unenforceable contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The OGL debacle was inevitable. It was always going to happen because of that one fact.

The ogl was never worth anything. It wasn’t worth anything because no one would enforce it.

So you’re giving a thousand dollars to someone every month. You know that you can change that money and there is not a thing they will do about it. If you are getting that money, do you buy a house with it knowing that at any time it could stop?

I wonder just how much of the anger over the OGL is the realization that for twenty years, everyone was just pretending that the OGL had any actual force.

 

[Malmuria]

The new revision and the VTT are not what derail every single thread about the business side of things. The OGL was a stupid unforced error, but the decision was also reversed before implementation yet it inevitably comes up on every single thread when business aspects of the game are discussed in length.

I don't even know what this supposed "walled garden" could be. If you need a VTT and your current VTT works for you, you can keep using them. Same with the 2024 edition, if you like your current game the books are not going to self destruct. D&D is not heading towards and will never be a digital only product for the foreseeable future. I use DndBeyond because I think it's a good product that is worth my money but if it was turned off tomorrow it wouldn't change much. It's a convenience. Is WOTC interested in making money? Of course they are! It's how they make money so they can continue to get a paycheck.

I'll continue to check out new products when they're released and make a decision at that point, just like I always have. I quite enjoyed the D&D movie and Baldur's Gate 3, they certainly figured out how to separate me from some of my hard earned money for those products. Since I enjoyed the movie and spent a couple hundred hours playing the game (I'm too much of a completionist for my own good) it was worth it to me. Meanwhile D&D can be, and remains, one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available in terms of hours of entertainment per dollar spent.

That's your opinion. Good for you! Other people who are enthusiasts in the hobby are more skeptical/suspicious of what Hasbro will do to the game in the pursuit of monetization and maximum growth. Still other people have decided to continue support 3rd party but never go back to 5e. etc. You asked what the "statute of limitations" was on them having those opinions and, fyi, it's going to be a lot longer than 9 months. So you'll have to get used to people on ttrpg enthusiast message boards "derailing" threads by doing things like expressing their opinions.

 

[mamba]

You take the 1000 dollars and base your budget around that. However you getting that money depends 100% on my goodwill.

no, there is a contract, in which I promise to do so indefinitely....

Because when I change the deal, not a single person steps up to try to enforce the contract.

so might makes right? because that is all it was, lawsuits are expensive and WotC is a giant compared to the others.

Since they never terminated the OGL, there was no way to sue them over breach of contract either. Lawsuits could still have come if WotC did in fact terminate it, some companies were evaluating that. Or they could have kept on using the OGL, waiting for WotC to sue them over that (lawyers seemed to recommend that over you suing them). In either case, the conditions for a lawsuit were not met before WotC backed down.

I wonder just how much of the anger over the OGL is the realization that for twenty years, everyone was just pretending that the OGL had any actual force.

well, 20 years ago the contract was assumed to be binding and to hold up in court if needed (the jury is still out on that one, as it never was tested, I assume it would have been upheld), as to it having actual force, the OGL is still around, you can still use it. Turns out the enforcement was the players, not the 3pps

 

[Alzrius]

Let’s run with this shall we?

You take the 1000 dollars and base your budget around that. However you getting that money depends 100% on my goodwill. Because when I change the deal, not a single person steps up to try to enforce the contract.

Not one.

Paizo Publishing isn't composed of even a single person? Not one? Because I remember them saying that, while they didn't want to, they were prepared to go to court to defend the OGL:

Paizo does not believe that the OGL 1.0a can be “deauthorized,” ever. While we are prepared to argue that point in a court of law if need be, we don’t want to have to do that, and we know that many of our fellow publishers are not in a position to do so.

Don't even get me started on how all of those DDB cancellations do, in fact, count as a form of "stepping up" to enforce (albeit indirectly) the OGL.