Can WotC be forgiven?

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes.

Release every edition of D&D under the ORC, or an OGL 1.0b, which is exactly the same as OGL 1.0a except that it has the word "irrevocable" added to it in absolutely every single place that makes grammatical and legal sense for it to be included.

That would be enough for me to forgive this error.

 

[Clint_L]

WotC is another greedy corp, and thus, is the enemy. I do not support the enemy. Sorry, but that's what happens when you call me an obstacle to YOUR money.

When did they call you that? Are they literally supervillains now?

 

[DarkCrisis]

It’s not WotC, it’s Hasbro. Not that the difference matters much anymore. Since Hasbro put more of their people in their.

 

[Yaarel]

The GSL didn't try to revoke the OGL.

Also, Hasbro-WotC repented after 4e, and 5e went back to the OGL 1.0a. 5e playtesting was unprecedented embracing and crowdsourcing the tastes and talents of the gaming community to help create 5e. We − all of us who participated in those playtests − are why 5e is a success.

The community was satisfied.

But now, the assault on the OGL 1.0a itself is magnitudes worse. It has been around for over 20 years with thousands of people legally relying on it for their own content, and millions of people benefiting from this content. Hasbro-WotC seeks to destroy everyone.

 

[Yaarel]

Are they literally supervillains now?

Are Hasbro-WotC supervillains now? Kinda. Yeah. Metaphorically like Eye of Sauron and 1984 Big Brother.

There is a vibrant gaming community − a culture. Hasbro-WotC is behaving as imperialists.

 

[pemerton]

But first, a hard rain's gonna fall.

You know it's a Bob Dylan song?

 

[Gladius Legis]

Hasbro and WOTC needs to fire every suit involved in devising and pushing this new OGL, and publicly announce those firings, name by name. That's the first step of many they need to take.

 

[pemerton]

Release every edition of D&D under the ORC, or an OGL 1.0b, which is exactly the same as OGL 1.0a except that it has the word "irrevocable" added to it in absolutely every single place that makes grammatical and legal sense for it to be included.

That would be enough for me to forgive this error.

Do you really think a commercial publisher is going to release their back catalogue and current works for free?

 

[pemerton]

until recently we believed we had perpetual, irrevocable rights to that particular playground due to their "opening" of it in 2000, and it does not simply affect our rights to use their SRDs, but perhaps more importantly a huge wealth of other material output by 3PPs over the intervening years under OGL 1.0a that in many cases contains no copyrighted WotC content whatsoever, but could potentially be closed off unless the original publishers update it to a new license such as ORC.

What implications do you see, for the publishers you describe, of WotC seeking to unilaterally change its legal relationship with its licensees?

The only one I can see is that the publishers you've described have promised on another to regularly reproduce in their works a licence text in which WotC owns the copyright. But that was always the case, so it seems at least plausible that whatever conferred permission on those publishers then to use the licence continues to confer that permission on them now.

 

[Shiroiken]

But the thing is, as far as I can tell management  still doesn't understand why they received the response they did. I really think they figured some of the big ones would have no choice but to sign on, thus encouraging others to do the same.

That's definitely an issue. This could be because of three things, two of which are fixable. It's hard to tell exactly which it is, because officially the 1.1 OGL is a fiction (and will remain so until revealed or the leak is acknowledge officially).

1) They're business people, not gamers. They legitimately don't understand how this would negatively impact the game for a large segment of their customers. This can be fixed by actually asking the customer, which they have yet to do.

2) They somehow believe this is in the best interest of the D&D community. I honestly have no clue how this could be, but if it's the case, they can simply present their argument and try and sway the community.

3) They don't care. This is a business decision to increase short term gain at the cost of long term sustainability. I fear this is the case, and it's the one unfixable scenario. Given that WotC has been screwing over their bread and butter, MtG, for the last few years, it's become obvious they've forgotten a key bit of wisdom: you can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once. 5E has been unbelievably profitable, and to take any action that could jeopardize this is absolutely insane.