WotC WotC President Cynthia Williams Resigns

Despite her departure, I expect WoTC's view of the consumer, and business practices to remain largely the same.

mamba said:

agreed, I meant we have no idea what her stance on it was or what she did for / against that change. Obviously she was aware of it and in the discussions surrounding it

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Her lack of a stance is a stance in itself. She should have, at the bare minimum, addressed it publicly, and stated her stance on it. On the other hand, doing so would have likely pissed off Hasbro (despite WotC still being its own company regardless of the partnership with Hasbro).

Oofta said:

The number of customers that ever cared about the OGL is small. The number that still care is a smaller. The number of people that care about changing the OGL for older versions is smaller yet. The number of people who would change their mind? A rounding error.

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Not true at all. It wasn't just consumers and customers. Content creators, the foundation of WotC's success with the OGL, were not a small minority. Major publishers pushed back on it, with some expressing a desire to create a new OGL. Paizo even used the opportunity to put a shot squarely across WotC's bow with their introduction of the ORC, which those same content creation companies spurned by WotC playing fast and loose with the OGL contract then jumped ship with. That is a huge loss of IP and creators, and the finanical damage is incalculable. That is a solid basis for the BoE to sue for breach of fiduciary duty.

mamba said:

agreed, I meant we have no idea what her stance on it was or what she did for / against that change. Obviously she was aware of it and in the discussions surrounding it

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Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe it was decided on high because they thought it impacted licensing opportunities and was dictated further up. Without her or others directly involved sharing tea, it's all idle speculation. Is it reasonable to assume? I'm not even sure on that.

Oofta said:

So ... basically never?

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Trust has to be earned. Once it's broken, it really needs to be earned again. You can't expect us to say "Welp, they said they're sorry, guess everything is totally OK again."

Oofta said:

The number of customers that ever cared about the OGL is small. The number that still care is a smaller. The number of people that care about changing the OGL for older versions is smaller yet. The number of people who would change their mind? A rounding error.

I just don't see the offended minority changing their minds. Should HASBRO have done it in the first place? No. Did some suits not understand what the issue was? Sure, which explains the slow recognition of the gravity of the problem.

Based on other responses, it still wouldn't matter, once a mistake is made there can be no forgiveness. So at this point they may well not bring attention to it.

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The OGL scandal is not the only bad choice she made, she also made the MtG side extremely unhappy by doing things like screwing LGS over via Amazon dumps, reduced card stock quality, price spike, etc..., and D&D side price spike, making Spelljammer and Planescape Slipcases, etc...

cranberry said:

Despite her departure, I expect WoTC's view of the consumer, and business practices to remain largely the same.

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I hope your wrong, I really do.

Oofta said:

The number of customers that ever cared about the OGL is small. The number that still care is a smaller. The number of people that care about changing the OGL for older versions is smaller yet. The number of people who would change their mind? A rounding error.

I just don't see the offended minority changing their minds. Should HASBRO have done it in the first place? No. Did some suits not understand what the issue was? Sure, which explains the slow recognition of the gravity of the problem.

Based on other responses, it still wouldn't matter, once a mistake is made there can be no forgiveness. So at this point they may well not bring attention to it.

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Redressing harm is not actually that hard. There's three steps. In order:

1. Apologize: WotC has done this one.
2. Restore the status quo: They've taken steps towards this, but they've still broken norms and not restored them to how they were previously. I like the irrevocability angle as a fix here, but I'd take moving the prior SRDs into the creative commons.
3. Make amends: Perform some further act of contrition, demonstrating you knew you were wrong and want to balance the scales. Again, it's very clear how this could be done, by moving older edition material to a common license.

They simply haven't done all of the work. Once they do, it becomes possible to establish trust again.

_Michael_ said:

Not true at all. It wasn't just consumers and customers. Content creators, the foundation of WotC's success with the OGL, were not a small minority. Major publishers pushed back on it, with some expressing a desire to create a new OGL. Paizo even used the opportunity to put a shot squarely across WotC's bow with their introduction of the ORC, which those same content creation companies spurned by WotC playing fast and loose with the OGL contract then jumped ship with. That is a huge loss of IP and creators, and the finanical damage is incalculable. That is a solid basis for the BoE to sue for breach of fiduciary duty.

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What is the financial damage to WotC? Show your work.

Oofta said:

I just don't see the offended minority changing their minds.

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Which is your bias.

If you think that WotC should be absolved of responsibility because of some sentiment that "nothing they do will ever be good enough anyway, so why bother?" that's your prerogative, but as someone who's one of the "offended minority" which you're (mis)characterizing, I'm telling you that you're wrong. Do with that what you will.

cranberry said:

Despite her departure, I expect WoTC's view of the consumer, and business practices to remain largely the same.

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Then WotC deserves to go belly-up. Period. If you aren't willing to learn and adapt, then you deserve to go bankrupt. Get out of the way of other companies in the market trying to actually put out quality, not quantity. Selling sideline junk (like endless trinkets and other memorabilia like key chains, mugs, pens, etc) will sap the bottom line as much as trying to slip some fraud into the contract by revising it after the fact because the base has been riled up and those are the easiest (and first) to be dumped by consumers. Cut the crap, stop selling junk, focus more on the standards, and leave the OGL as it is, with the "irrevocable" word placed in it, and be done.

Trying to juggle the OGL to see if you can squeeze more out of it is a bad idea. Just look what happened to Disney and Star Wars with the EU. That's what Hasbro wants--to be able to toss out the OGL entirely, close up shop, and sell ONLY WotC stuff, with all the content creators and their ancillary companies put out to pasture. It's a monopolistic practice guaranteed to generate bad will and low sales.

dbolack said:

What is the financial damage to WotC? Show your work.

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How many smaller content creation companies left after the OGL debacle? Kobold Press and Paizo left, two of the biggest content creators, and then Paizo even created it's own ORC rules as a direct challenge to the supremacy of WotC in the RPG market. Others, like Green Ronin, were also very displeased. The loss of those two companies alone, with their combined revenues for the content they created for WotC's Dungeons & Dragons trademark is in the millions of dollars.