WotC Gale Force 9 Sues WotC [Updated]

In the second lawsuit against WotC in recent weeks (Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman sued the company for breach of contract and other things about a month ago), Gale Force 9 is suing the company for breach of contract and implied duty of good faith.

Gale Force 9 produces miniatures, cards, DM screens, and other D&D accessories. They’re asking for damages of nearly a million dollars, as well as an injunction to prevent WotC from terminating the licensing contract.

From the suit, it looks like WotC wanted to end a licensing agreement a year early. When GF9 didn't agree to that, WotC indicated that they would refuse to approve any new licensed products from GF9. It looks like the same sort of approach they took with Weis and Hickman, which also resulted in a lawsuit. The dispute appears to relate to some product translations in non-US markets. More information as I hear it!

UPDATE. GF9's CEO, Jean-Paul Brisigotti, spoke to ICv2 and said: "After twelve years of working with Wizards, we find ourselves in a difficult place having to utilize the legal system to try and resolve an issue we have spent the last six months trying to amicably handle between us without any success. We still hope this can be settled between us but the timeline for a legal resolution has meant we have been forced to go down this path at this time."

 

[Olrox17]

Not only can you buy all of the WotC 5E Books on Fantasy Grounds at less than MSRP (close to US Amazon prices). You have no taxes, not import fees, or postage.

And you know what? You can even buy them through Steam and get regional pricing, which adjusts for cost of living where you live. Meaning you can get up to something like another 75% off the cost. So that means you can get the PHB for something like $5 USD. And all of that is legal.

Inform yourself of what's possible, and some of you, because where you live, can buy the core books and all the add-ons for a fraction of what us Americans pay. (And yes, I'm fine with that because I understand global economics). Using cost to justify theft of a non-essential hobby product is pretty selfish attempt to justify immorality.

And for those of you who often bitch about the quality of TTRPG products, its' because many of us gamers refuse to pay premium prices, so therefore we do not get premium products. Just look at all the posts on how hard it is to make it as a professional in the TTRPG industry. It's because 'we' gamers are cheap and use any justification possible to steal the work of others. Anyone can play 5E completely free and legally.

I’ve said before: I already buy wotc’s books. I often visit the US, so I can just walk into a shop and buy physical copies (less so lately with covid, but that’s beside the point).

I’m not talking about myself, a non native English speaker that is relatively fluent in the language. I’m talking about the massive majority of non-English speaking gamers worldwide. If no translations exists, you can bet they won’t buy legally.

Everyone keeps talking only about the price issues, totally skipping the language argument. The amount of people that would buy a hobby book that is not in their native language is small. Especially if the price is high, but also if the price is merely moderate.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In my land usually only in the cities with enough population to allow a comic-shop you can buy TRPGs, and imported books in original English only in the main capital cities. If I am a collector then I would rather to buy books with my native language.

I bought some 3.5 D&D books and Dragon magazines (I mean in English, I also bought lots of translated titles), and also some World of Darkness books, and these sometimes had got some too colloquial phrases for my level of English.

And if you want to hook new players among the yougest generations then the language may be a serious obstacle. I started to learn English when I was in 6th class, near 11 years old. Later I used to read English thanks internet, for the second half of the 90's years.

And we have to remember the differences of adquisitive level among countries. If Joe only needs 4 hours job to earn enough to buy certain game Paco from other land with the same job will need work more hours to earn enough.

Hasbro sinceretely wants to promote D&D as brand, but not to sell more TTRPG books but making money with the videogames and other multimedia products (toys, comics, novel, media productions, merchadising..).

 

[BigZebra]

God please stop. It’s not a given right to own D&D books. If you think they’re too expensive just don’t buy them. It’s such short sighted selfishness trying to make a case for pirating RPG books. It’s almost impossible for creatives making a living out of RPG books unless you’re Wotc.
I think it’s amazing how cheap a hobby it is. I gladly pay the price for those books. All those hours of entertainment they give me and three other people is unmatched.

 

[TheSword]

To my knowledge, you cannot buy a rulebook on the installment plan; there is no "mortgage" for a PHB &c. Do all the math you like to show how inexpensive per hour the hobby is, the purchase price on the book is still a fixed $XYZ - up front, in cash, all at once, before it leaves the store.

If somebody can get a rulebook via payments, please tell us where and how.

Why would you expect WOC to opperate sales differently to Hobby Craft, or Artworld, or Pottery Barn. They aren’t a charity.

Though they do offer a proportion of their rules for free.

While it is certainly a good thing for WOC to offer translations in other languages and to other markets, it isn’t a god given right.

My advice for people bothered by import taxes, take a nice holiday at some point in the next few years to somewhere in America or Europe and buy the books. They are reasonably priced in both.

 

[Olrox17]

God please stop. It’s not a given right to own D&D books. If you think they’re too expensive just don’t buy them. It’s such short sighted selfishness trying to make a case for pirating RPG books. It’s almost impossible for creatives making a living out of RPG books unless you’re Wotc.
I think it’s amazing how cheap a hobby it is. I gladly pay the price for those books. All those hours of entertainment they give me and three other people is unmatched.

Why would you expect WOC to opperate sales differently to Hobby Craft, or Artworld, or Pottery Barn. They aren’t a charity.

Though they do offer a proportion of their rules for free.

While it is certainly a good thing for WOC to offer translations in other languages and to other markets, it isn’t a god given right.

My advice for people bothered by import taxes, take a nice holiday at some point in the next few years to somewhere in America or Europe and buy the books. They are reasonably priced in both.

Everyone keeps talking only about the price issues, totally skipping the language argument. The amount of people that would buy a hobby book that is not in their native language is small. Especially if the price is high, but also if the price is merely moderate.

 

[TheSword]

Everyone keeps talking only about the price issues, totally skipping the language argument. The amount of people that would buy a hobby book that is not in their native language is small. Especially if the price is high, but also if the price is merely moderate.

The product being in a different language and therefore worth less is an argument for not playing the game, not for pirating said game. You either want it or you don’t. If you don’t want it badly enough to pay for it then don’t play... or play the free version available.

There is no possibly justification you can give for pirating a luxury item. In an industry where the writers of said item don’t get paid enough.

 

[Olrox17]

The product being in a different language and therefore worth less is an argument for not playing the game, not for pirating said game. You either want it or you don’t. If you don’t want it badly enough to pay for it then don’t play... or play the free version available.

I'm not saying that is what should happen. And yet, it's what is already happening, and will happen. People will pirate. Of course they're not legally right, but they're not going to shell the big bucks to support a company that can't be arsed to give them a translated product.

If and when a translated product comes out, a good portion of those same people that pirated the english PDFs will buy it, I assure you, but not before that.

In my experience, the percentage of dnd players that are not-native english speaker but also buy gaming book in english is about 5%. 95% will resort to piracy instead.
I would like to hear from other non-native english speaker gamers about this. Is my empirical data far off the mark?

There is no possibly justification you can give for pirating a luxury item. In an industry where the writers of said item don’t get paid enough.

I don't need or care to provide a justification, as I said before, I bought the books. I'm just describing what I I'm seeing happening: by not providing translations, WotC will lose a massive amount of potential sales to piracy.

 

[TheSword]

I'm not saying that is what should happen. And yet, it's what is already happening, and will happen. People will pirate. Of course they're not legally right, but they're not going to shell the big bucks to support a company that can't be arsed to give them a translated product.

If and when a translated product comes out, a good portion of those same people that pirated the english PDFs will buy it, I assure you, but not before that.

In my experience, the percentage of dnd players that are not-native english speaker but also buy gaming book in english is about 5%. 95% will resort to piracy instead.
I would like to hear from other non-native english speaker gamers about this. Is my empirical data far off the mark?

Can I ask the source of your empirical data? That sounds a very low figure.

It sounds like you’re trying to justify piracy morally by saying it isn’t fair that there isn’t a foreign language translation.

I don’t see how a person who has created a piece of Intellectual Property should loose the right to profit from that creation because its in another language. Their work in creating the art, rules, play testing, layout, license costs etc is fixed doesn’t matter whether in French, German, Korean etc.

 

[Olrox17]

Can I ask the source of your empirical data?

It sounds like you’re trying to justify piracy morally by saying it isn’t fair that there isn’t a foreign language translation.

I don’t see how a person who has created a piece of Intellectual Property should loose the right to profit from that creation because its in another language. Their work in creating the art, rules, play testing, layout, license costs etc is fixed doesn’t matter whether in French, German, Korean etc.

The source is the gaming groups I personally know. They all have tons of third edition books, because at the time of 3E translations were fast and high quality. Nobody has 4E books, because many groups didn't play it and those who did just paid a DDI subscription. As far as 5e goes, a good amount of people has Asmodee's translated books, but even those people have pirated copies of the more recent books that have not yet been translated (translations are stuck at Xanathar's guide, I believe).

And again, I'm not saying pirating is legal or even right. I'm just saying it will happen anyway, and massively so, if translations aren't provided in a timely manner.

 

[TheSword]

The source is the gaming groups I personally know. They all have tons of third edition books, because at the time of 3E transactions were fast and high quality. Nobody has 4E books, because many groups didn't play it and those who did just paid a DDI subscription. As far as 5e goes, a good amount of people has Asmodee's translated books, but even those people have pirated copies of the more recent books that have not yet been translated (translations are stuck at Xanathar's guide, I believe).

And again, I'm not saying pirating is legal or even right. I'm just saying it will happen anyway, and massively so, if translations aren't provided in a timely manner.

Why do they want them at all, if they’re in another language?