Do you think that they're really going to be making public statements while in the middle of damage control that haven't gone through multiple people? It's not impossible they're doing it incompetently, but it's simpler that a higher up just decided to deny some things and send it through the same account that's otherwise been involved in the controversial stuff. And then why deny that their product is going to have a good feature.
I mean, yes, that's what
damage control is. And it's also what miscommunication is: DDB is not the people handling the VTT, so they would actually not be the ones to know whether or not this feature is real: it's misdirection because people simply assume it.
Also why not confirm it? Well, if it also helps confirm other stuff that people don't like, you don't. That stuff is a package deal.
Companies lie to achieve a goal. WotC is lying about the intent of the OGL 1.0a in order to justify changes they want. Why would they lie about this instead of just not address it? Heck, why not just say "yes" and hype it up further?
They can lie about multiple things at once, and I'd say there's plenty of reason to lie about how you're going to turn DnD into a subscription-based microtransaction video game. Might not go over well in the community, you know.
What major things has he been right on, and do we know which sources in the video told him the right things vs. the wrong things?
Uh, just about everything outside of the feedback story, which got a lot of pushback. I believe he was the first to call that the OGL implementation got pulled back via email, as well as the OGL 2.0 FAQ that got released.
More than that, when he was wrong he got a whole bunch of pushback. None of that right now.
No, we definitely don't have any reason to trust DnDShorts when it comes to these particular sources. These sources have already misrepresented (at best) crucial parts of the story. And it is important that those were the parts of the story that could be verified. So what we have left are rumours from sources who seem to pretty clearly have some strong bias and have been shown to be willing to make claims that turned out to be contrary to the truth.
Uh, we don't know that. You're talking about him botching a single story by mixing up details, which were clarified later. That also got a
bunch of immediate pushback, while this gets none. It would be incredibly easy (and beneficial!) to immediately quash these rumors. But instead, they aren't, just like what was going on when we were seeing leaks of 1.1.
You cannot treat DnDShorts like he is a reporter. He is not a reporter, and he is not working for reputable news media. When he gets a story completely wrong, the only consequences are to his reputation, which is mostly as an entertainer.
Okay, no. You're not going to get reporters covering this in quite the same way because there are few who are actually covering it. Multiple parts of this story (such as the $30 Subscription part) has been confirmed by multiple other people. Linda Codega is rather nice, but also unique in this regard.
If Wizards wants to dispute the accounts, they are fully able to. Certainly plenty did when he put in the idea that they don't read feedback.
There is a ton happening behind the scenes at Hasbro right now and I very much look forward to learning about it when that story finally does come out. That kind of reporting is hard. It takes time and commitment to doing the tedious parts of journalism. That's not what DnDShorts does.
I think that DND Shorts has done a fairly decent job and coming clean when you make a mistake is not a bad thing. Simply disregarding him because he's not a journalist misses that he has released information in the past that has been confirmed by others (Like the OGL 2.0 FAQ). I think it's okay to take it with some skepticism, but much of this matches what Wizards is focusing on and he's done good work so far.