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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9438451" data-attributes="member: 18">I think there's definitely some of this going on with WotC, but never underestimate the power of panicky idiots in upper-middle management (or just upper management).The OGL thing was de facto absolutely boundary testing. Someone very senior at WotC (or even Hasbro) decided it was time to ditch the OGL, and ordered plans to be drawn up for doing so, and clearly ignored any pushback they got until it went public and really until really one journalist managed to make it a major story of general interest to people who like games or even maybe used to play D&D or whatever (not to diminish anyone else involved, but Lin Codega was pivotal to taking this from "lol D&D players are maldin" to being something WotC actually had to worry about). So I don't think it was designed to test boundaries, it was just assumed they didn't exist - but it still had that actual effect.The Pinkertons thing was probably smug upper-middle management getting their rocks off taking an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach, and I suspect they'd have got told "Wtf no" if they'd asked whoever their boss was for specific permission, rather than using authority they already (stupidly) had. This is conjecture of course, but I doubt it was intentional boundary-pushing, and I'm not sure it really tested them either.The copyright-strike thing was utterly bizarre and stupid, and again de facto boundary pushing. What a lot of people on ENworld apparently didn't know, and acted like was implausible (/rolleyes), was that this kind of flip-through is 100% routine. Like, absolutely routine. If an RPG product is interesting, people will do a flip-through, and they simply don't attract copyright strikes. Some people do them of their own books, even (SlyFlourish, for example). WotC, who just fired literally everyone who might have known this, clearly didn't do 10 minutes of research, and just sent these books out, with very few guidelines (which would normally be fine, were WotC sensible), then absolutely crapped their pants about the flipthroughs, despite the fact they were completely normal and to be expected. That they copyright-struck one guy who didn't do anything any different to others suggests disorganisation and incompetence rather than intentional boundary-pushing (they did take it back, at least), but de facto acted as it. That they continued to insist on the blurring though suggests real incompetence, closing the stable door after the horse bolted, being completely unrealistic about the impact of piracy vs the impact of publicity and so on. Which is not uncommon in upper-middle management (nor upper management).</blockquote>

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