WotC Anyone Else Tired of the Wizards Bashing?

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Rushbolt

Explorer
I watched a stream the other day with Erik Mona as the guest discussing the announcement of PF 2E Remastered. Wizards' involvement with the Pinkertons and the failure of 4e were both brought up during the first 30 minutes of a two-and-a-half hour stream. I understand that Wizards should not have hired the Pinkertons and intimidation is never the way to do business, but does it seem to anyone else that streamers are just trying to blow up anything that Wizards does anymore? It started with the OGL scandal, moved on to the movie not being a blockbuster, followed with the agenda of the Creator Summit, and now the Pinkerton scandal has started. The latest attack is Paizo blaming the OGL for needing to publish new books this year, even though Wizards walked back the OGL and they would suffer massive public outcry and brand damage if they renege on that decision.

Maybe it's just me, but I find Paizo and many of it's players using constant smear tactics to be objectionable. I'm starting to view it more and more as tearing down D&D and less as altruistic attempts to hold a large corporate entity to acceptable standards. The D&D movie is now closing in on $200 million globally, and it still may lose money, but it's been generating revenue for weeks now because word of mouth has kept the money coming in. Paizo-friendly streams or players aren't going to talk about that for sure.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have ramped up their time in front of the camera recently. The orders to increase face time are probably coming down from the executives making these unforced errors, but I'm not sure they wouldn't revel at the chance to do it anyway. They have both worked tirelessly over decades and all these smear tactics are threatening the work they have put into the industry, their livelihood, and the designers they are working with now to produce D&D '24. It may not be the best strategy to light a fire under what may be the two most accomplished designers ever in the industry.

Two of Wizards' actions have been unexcusable this year-the hiring of the Pinkertons and attempting to revoke the OGL. Condem Wizards for these actions and move on. I would prefer not to have the game I enjoy playing most being attacked incessantly for years to come for anything it's detractors can spin, and I hope others will join me in condemning these actions.
 
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Blue Orange

Gone to Texas
Nobody's attacking the game, they're attacking the company. Hasbro has now become the Evil Empire, and people love to go after those (look at the popularity of Star Wars). You may or may not be old enough to remember T$R's lawsuits against people making D&D content online in the 1990s.

Paizo's now competition for Wizards, and is acting accordingly.
 

jgsugden

Legend
You can't attack the company withput attacking the game.

I strongly believe we need to have a strong central RPG in the industry to preserve the health of RPGs overall. There are benefits to having a pillar around which the industry rotates. Right now, we have several groups that see blood in the water and would rather take a shot at being the next D&D, regardless of the odds, than ride on the coat tails of D&D and WotC. At the same time, Hasbro would rather optimize profits from D&D for a short period and drive it into the ground than play the long game - as they unerstand that if D&D dies off substantially, another opportunity will take the place of it.

It sucks.
 


Oofta

Legend
As far as "The Pinkertons" ... in the past, MtG pre-production cards have been stolen. According to WOTC they tried to contact the individual multiple times before hiring someone to knock on their door to find out what was going on. Other than that, we just don't know much.

But I agree with the OP. It's gotten to the point of being silly. WOTC is not an evil empire any more than any other corporation. Do I trust them? Think they have my personal best interest at heart? Of course not. They're a corporation and I don't trust them any more than I trust any large company.

Like all corporations, WOTC is made up of individuals. Some of those people tried to do something boneheaded but ultimately the company listened to public feedback and changed direction. I don't understand holding a grudge about a stupid mistake when it was never actually implemented.

I'll judge WOTC on what they do and whether they produce a product I want to purchase. On the scale of corporate evil when you have corporations that are literally killing people in order to maximize profit, WOTC is pretty low on the evil scale. Even in the TTRPG realm other companies have done worse.
 

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I'll judge WOTC on what they do and whether they produce a product I want to purchase. On the scale of corporate evil when you have corporations that are literally killing people in order to maximize profit, WOTC is pretty low on the evil scale. Even in the TTRPG realm other companies have done worse.
Yeah, but we're in a small hobby industry, not petrochemicals. WotC is the 800 lb gorilla so of course it's going to take a lot of criticism. And with recent blunders, they're earned it. I might agree that there are individuals who have an outsized mad-on for them and could stand to lighten up, but we're just a few months past WotC's attempt to blow up their own support ecosystem. Let people stay mad a little while before you sweep everything under the carpet.
 

Oofta

Legend
Yeah, but we're in a small hobby industry, not petrochemicals. WotC is the 800 lb gorilla so of course it's going to take a lot of criticism. And with recent blunders, they're earned it. I might agree that there are individuals who have an outsized mad-on for them and could stand to lighten up, but we're just a few months past WotC's attempt to blow up their own support ecosystem. Let people stay mad a little while before you sweep everything under the carpet.

Some individuals in a large corporation screwed up. Their proposals were ultimately shut down by that same company. I'm not sweeping anything under the carpet, but it is water under the bridge.

I get that everyone wants to be mad at the big guy. It gets eyeballs when you attack the market leader. But I judge corporations (and people for that matter) by what proposals are actually implemented.
 




Oofta

Legend
You do you, but sometimes a more clear picture of who someone is (including corporations) is from what they try to get away with before they get called on it and are forced to retreat.

So the fact that they listened to customer feedback and changed directions is somehow a bad thing? They would have been shooting themselves in the foot, but nobody external to the company had the power to force them to do anything. Interesting spin. 🤷‍♂️
 


Oofta

Legend
You can't attack the company withput attacking the game.

I strongly believe we need to have a strong central RPG in the industry to preserve the health of RPGs overall. There are benefits to having a pillar around which the industry rotates. Right now, we have several groups that see blood in the water and would rather take a shot at being the next D&D, regardless of the odds, than ride on the coat tails of D&D and WotC. At the same time, Hasbro would rather optimize profits from D&D for a short period and drive it into the ground than play the long game - as they unerstand that if D&D dies off substantially, another opportunity will take the place of it.

It sucks.

I guess I just don't see any ongoing focus on short term profits. There was an obvious focus on short term profits decade or so ago when they released a monster manual without the metallic dragons so people had to buy MM2 if they wanted those. It was apparent in the book-a-month club and the release of 3.5.

Now? When it comes to D&D I simply don't see it.
 

mamba

Hero
Yeah, but we're in a small hobby industry, not petrochemicals. WotC is the 800 lb gorilla so of course it's going to take a lot of criticism. And with recent blunders, they're earned it. I might agree that there are individuals who have an outsized mad-on for them and could stand to lighten up, but we're just a few months past WotC's attempt to blow up their own support ecosystem. Let people stay mad a little while before you sweep everything under the carpet.
Whether they earned it is up for discussion. Sure they got deserved backlash to the OGL, but releasing the SRD under the CC took care of that as far as I am concerned.

Sending the Pinkertons, I am not sure I even care. The guy refused several contact attempts, WotC then sent someone who was harder to ignore and talked to him and maybe gave him a bit of a scare (he does not sound to me like it did scare him, he does say it scared his wife however) and ultimately they got their product back and he got the product he should have gotten in the first place. It's not like they beat the guy up.

What all this unnecessary outrage does is make me tired of hearing it, which does not bode well for future justified outrage, and it makes me not listen to those that do basically nothing but rage. It instead does make me feel sympathetic towards WotC (the designers really), something I did not expect to happen after the OGL debacle.

As to Paizo, I do not blame them for moving away from the OGL. While some stuff is under CC now, I am not sure how much they rely on older SRDs which are not.
 

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
So the fact that they listened to customer feedback and changed directions is somehow a bad thing? They would have been shooting themselves in the foot, but nobody external to the company had the power to force them to do anything. Interesting spin. 🤷‍♂️
No, the fact that they tried to screw over their support ecosystem in the first place was the bad thing. The fact that they were forced to retreat from that position is them salvaging the situation from their own short sighted and stupid behavior.
 

Rushbolt

Explorer
The latest spin from Paizo that the short-lived lifespan of their Core Rulebook is all Wizards' fault is especially stretching the truth. Many of their players have expressed all the issues that have needed errata and the company themselves have admitted a huge 640 page rulebook wasn't a good idea. As far as protecting themselves if Wizards' revokes OGL 1.0a, I still believe Pathfinder Remastered would be in trouble because they still have six little words: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Removing the 3-18 scale doesn't change that. I also think they are smart enough to know that and expect players to just buy their excuses.
 

Oofta

Legend
No, the fact that they tried to screw over their support ecosystem in the first place was the bad thing. The fact that they were forced to retreat from that position is them salvaging the situation from their own short sighted and stupid behavior.
Some individuals in the corporations, likely without talking with people on the D&D team that knew the product better, pushed something stupid. It was eventually rejected by WOTC after a great deal of pushback from people both inside and outside the company.

You may not like how the sausage, or decisions on a corporate level, are made but end of the day all I care is about the end product. In this case the end product was better than what we had before.
 


mamba

Hero
As far as protecting themselves if Wizards' revokes OGL 1.0a, I still believe Pathfinder Remastered would be in trouble because they still have six little words: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Removing the 3-18 scale doesn't change that. I also think they are smart enough to know that and expect players to just buy their excuses.
No, that is not something that would get them into trouble, not if the OGL were revoked and certainly not now that the SRD is under CC.
 


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