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

[TiQuinn]

It is pretty clear now that bringing third parties into the Beyond marketplace was always part of this plan, and thankfully that hasn't changed.

I mean, clearly they’re going for their own walled garden and IMO, that’s fine - it’s a good product. But definitely know what you’re getting into. I prefer to not go down that rabbit hole and just stay pencil and paper.

 

[Oofta]

My mob reference was to old school monster movies where people would gather with torches and pitchforks to hunt down the monster.

In other words, it was a reference to a form of punishment, not how people's opinions are formed. Since it was misunderstood I won't use it again.

 

[Oofta]

I mean, clearly they’re going for their own walled garden and IMO, that’s fine - it’s a good product. But definitely know what you’re getting into. I prefer to not go down that rabbit hole and just stay pencil and paper.

I don't see any "clearly" and no one has ever explained how a walled garden would work. Certainly allowing 3PP seems to contradict that, or we have different definitions.

 

[Parmandur]

IMO, the entire situation as it originated and unfolded actually makes perfect sense to my mind as follows:

• Chris Cocks is genuinely terrified of a Musk or Zuckerberg sweeping in with the OGL and doing a weird takeover of the D&D space, as Brinks laid out in his apology tour (the most rational breakdown of the whole affair I think is if he was honestly and openly laying out the fear motivation for WotC business side)
• Cocks & Co. genuinely think that a new OGL deal that brings small publishers closer to WotC worh community standards and access to the Beyond marketplace: the proposed OGL seems insane from the TTRPG hobbyist perspective, but from a U.S. copyright and license perspective it was actually still crazy generous, and I can understand an executive really believing that he was offering a win-win deal for Hasbro and TPP
• Some people on WotC see this will go over like a lead balloon, and spend some time pushing back but yoy can only push back against the CEO of Hasbro so far.
• The community does not see the deal as a win-win, to put it mildly
• When thw potential scale of disaster is clear, the Creative Commons release kills two birds with one stone: the third party community is no longer under any threat of a change to the status quo, but also if a Musk or Zuckerberg swoops in to make a weird counter-D&D...they will use the CC version, and can thus be easily distinguished from WotC in the public eye because they are using a public domain thing rather than a licensed thing (which was the fear in the first place)

Lined up like that, the origin, controversy and resolution flow together as a logical whole...and nobody is really a bad guy (maybe the Metas of the world).

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, clearly they’re going for their own walled garden and IMO, that’s fine - it’s a good product. But definitely know what you’re getting into. I prefer to not go down that rabbit hole and just stay pencil and paper.

I don't use digital either, but I think this sort of relationship and platforming of third parties is good for the hobby.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't see any "clearly" and no one has ever explained how a walled garden would work. Certainly allowing 3PP seems to contradict that, or we have different definitions.

Well, that was what the revised OGL was supposed to accomplish: by setting limits on third parties who use it, such as community standards, in exchange for access to the Beyond marketplace and such.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't use digital either, but I think this sort of relationship and platforming of third parties is good for the hobby.

I think it's a more of a double edged sword. The bigger the platform becomes, the more the owner of the platform has the power to raise prices for both the consumer as well as the publishers using the platform.

 

[TiQuinn]

we have different definitions

"We" are not having this conversation anymore.

 

[Parmandur]

I think it's a more of a double edged sword. The bigger the platform becomes, the more the owner of the platform has the power to raise prices for both the consumer as well as the publishers using the platform.

Eh, not as long as other platforms exist...which the CC resolution ensures.

 

[mamba]

The disparity in revenue between 3PP and WotC is obviously massive, so I don’t blame 3PP from wanting to be part of DDB.

the disparity in revenue is not solely explained by DDB… being on DDB gives 3pp another revenue stream, maybe that is 50% additional sales, no idea, but it won’t somehow give them sales that are comparable to WotC’s.

Still, 30% or 50% more sales is nothing to sneeze at