None of what I just read seems all that unreasonable to me. And yet, "everyone" seems to be furious. What am I missing?
I mean, the key points are, that the conventional reading of this is:
A) The previous OGL 1.0a is "de-authorized". You can never again make a product using the OGL 1.0a.
This obviously goes DIRECTLY against 20 years of how WotC has said the OGL 1.0a worked, including 5E. Ryan Dancey has been very clear that the deauthorization was never an intended possibility. It's also not clear if it actually works, legally.
So that would cause a huge problem for pretty much all 3PPs.
B) Open Gaming Content no longer exists in 1.0a.
You can never share anything again. The entire point of the OGL was OGC. But they delete that concept, and you automatically share everything only with WotC.
C) The only SRD allowed to exist is the 5.1 SRD. No other SRDs are allowed, nor is anything based on them allowed. So even if Paizo signed this, PF1 has to never have another book published for it - not by Paizo, not by anyone.
D) With 30 day notice, they change any of the terms of this licence, to whatever they like (!!! yes for real).
E) They want 20-25% of REVENUE above $750k. Most 3PPs have a profit margin less than 25%. This means a 3PP could actively losing money on sales above $750k per year. That's about 20 companies according to WotC's estimates, but it actually seems like it might be a bit higher. And it's a great for ensuring none of those companies can ever grow. WotC do smarmily say if you repeatedly bang into the $750k bar, they may decide to give you a better licence.
F) A bunch of other stuff, including what
@Haplo781 posted.
The one chink of light here is that, despite WotC's comments implying this isn't opt-in, it may be that in reality, it does operate on an opt-in basis. WotC went to great lengths to obscure that, though, if so, and have had since Thursday to say something about it.
Even if it's opt-in, it's GSL 2.0, because it has a poison pill - if you make 5E content, you can never make any other OGL content.
The tone is definitely bizarre, even for “plain language” commentary. Seems like they’re trying to intimidate the reader into taking action, and to sound casual and relatable at the same time. The result is just weird and off-putting.
Like I said days ago, they're going for "How do you do, fellow kids!" but they're far too corporate and menacing to pull it off.