WotC D&D Historian Ben Riggs says the OGL fiasco was Chris Cocks idea.

[Oofta]

You dont think different CEO's make a difference to the direction of a company?

I don't think there's any reason to trust a different CEO to do anything other than look out for their personal interests and, to a slightly lesser degree the interests of their employer. Caring about the consumer, much less other companies? Way, way down the list. Unless, of course, it affects the corporate bottom line.

 

[jayoungr]

I hope someone will go to this panel and report on it for those of us who can't make it to GenCon this year.

 

[Oofta]

When you think about it, Chris Cocks was just a product of his time. In that era, every CEO was basically an idiot who refused to listen to the experienced experts around them. We can't judge him based on the standards of our time. He was just doing what everyone else was doing.

By "product of his time" I assume you're talking about "that time since humans formed large organizations"?

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I hope someone will go to this panel and report on it for those of us who can't make it to GenCon this year.

It's not impossible that he'll record it for his podcast.

(Unless he's said that he won't, in which case pretty impossible.)

 

[Scribe]

I don't think there's any reason to trust a different CEO to do anything other than look out for their personal interests and, to a slightly lesser degree the interests of their employer. Caring about the consumer, much less other companies? Way, way down the list. Unless, of course, it affects the corporate bottom line.

Thats not the question. I know at my company, who have had several CEO's over my time, have had dramatic direction shifts based on those CEO changes.

The bottom line is important, how one gets there is up for debate.

 

[Malmuria]

One thing that’s clear from the OGL scandal is that one limit to corporate greed is an active consumer base that loudly criticizes anti-consumer behavior. I don’t think Chris Cocks was expecting the level of criticism from fans or the level of opposition from smaller developers. And no doubt that they will try other monetization shenanigans in the future unless people keep up that same level of criticism.

 

[darjr]

A minor nitpick here, but when Riggs says...



...he's in error. The OGL debacle began in January of 2023, but Chris Cocks became CEO of Hasbro in February of 2022.

Now, maybe Riggs meant that Cocks came up with, and began to put into motion, the plan to end the OGL back when he was still President and Chief Operating Officer of WotC, but if so he could have worded that better.

He’s talking about the idea of it. Which was well before we knew about it. Well before they started to present it to a select set of 3pp.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Thats not the question. I know at my company, who have had several CEO's over my time, have had dramatic direction shifts based on those CEO changes.

The bottom line is important, how one gets there is up for debate.

I think I had a manager once in Corporate who explained it to me like this:

A CEO implements a plan. The plans will probably take five years to fully integrate. A CEO or head stays, on average, around five years.

So, when CEO 1's plan is finally producing fruit, CEO 2 is coming in with a 'new vision, a new synergy' - and kills CEO 1's plans, even if they were working. And the cycle begins anew.

It's fully enabled because you have a lot of CEOs or high-level people from other companies sitting on companies' boards.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm glad the scandal happened, it's getting us SRDs for previous editions and 1D&D which likely would never happened otherwise and got it put in CC.

Not saying I trust Ben's word on this, but if it's true things turned out for the best.

 

[mamba]

Almost as shocked as I am that anyone thinks a different CEO would make a difference

If they keep on getting away with stuff, they will continue behaving like this.... for that reason alone I want Cocks gone