darjr
I crit!
To be clear I don’t think the questions were softball. Just the answers were.
WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox talks about D&D on NPRs Here & Now. Topics include Layoffs and OGL.
Scott Christian
Hero
I kind of agree. They were answers that are round in nature; they start with the company, circle to the fan, then round to the board - the people that approve his bonuses. From his viewpoint, these were good answers.
But as a person who is deeply invested in the hobby and cares about its future, I can definitely see your point.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
There was a good bit of deflection, but for CEO-speak this was pretty straight shooting. He admitted that the OGL changes were a mistake, which is good.
More than anybinformation, what strikes me is the cultural shift from when I was young of a high-power CEO talking about playing D&D and Magic on NPR. That would have never happened in 2004, and I somehow doubt the CEO of Hasbro then even knew he owned D&D.
OB1
Jedi Master
Somewhat buried in the story is that 45% of D&D players now identify as non-male. WotC has done a remarkable job in expanding the diversity of people who play the game, and that's worth celebrating. I imagine that will have a trickle down effect on the video game industry over the next couple of decades, which will also be a good thing.
That is something I would primarily attribute to visibility of female players in streaming, rather than D&D rulebooks. Note that i am not saying WotC hasn't helped in the streaming visibility part -- they have. And I think D&D books are certainly less off putting to women and girls now than they were in the Elmore Cheesecake Era, but I think the main draw is the women rocking it in livestreamed games.
Myrdin Potter
Hero
The original AD&D Player's Handbook has a preface by Mike Carr specifically identifying D&D as being more popular with women (in comparision to war gaming I think is being made here) and Gygax himself says there are all sorts of different types of players. I would say that general cultural shifts and computer games have a lot more to do with more women players. Maybe those cultural shifts include less cheesecake covers, but I doubt there is any one thing that WoTC/Hasbro did. Considering the constant obvious errors they keeop making (have the space monkeys faded from memory so quick as an example), there is a reasonable argument that they are better at saying they are doing something than actually doing it.
BTW - I think the bonus question compared to layoffs was not a good question as it means the compensation table was being misread (it has been), so not answering it was the right interview choice as telling the interviewer they were wrong via a boring SEC disclosure explanation does not make for a good interview response.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
TSR would NEVER and I really mean NEVER EVER even consider making an OGL.
jerryrice4949
Hero
Not just TSR but most companies never would have or would do so. As much as everyone likes to say the OGL has been great for WoTC, and I tend to believe that as well, there is no way to prove or disprove that. Most of us are biased in that regard. I can see how many executives think it has not been.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I'm 100% sure that the OGL was massively beneficial to WotC, and those that wrote it knew that it would be. (Though I disagree with @Parmandur that it was ever cynical - a better phrase would be calculated. It was a work of marketing genius.)
That typical short-sighted company suits might look at other companies making money with "our game" and be (very short-sighted) jealous enough to think that the money would somehow come back their way if they rid themselves of it? That's just typical short-sighted foolishness of middle and upper management-types. It's not new, it's not surprising.
One of the reasons that I'm constantly baffled by those that go on about "trust" being "lost" with WotC. WotC is not a person! It's a company. As such there are people that are "on our side" (in that they want to produce a good game that we all enjoy playing) and people that are not (in that they would like to reach into our wallets and take our money without giving us anything in return). And people in-between.
Some idiot(s) thought that revoking the OGL was a good idea. They were powerful enough in the company to almost succeed. They were proven to be wrong. Could someone in the future be dumb enough to try again? Maybe. But for now, it's over - it was a bad idea and the company (currently) knows it.
There's no trust to be had and no trust to be lost.
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