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."

 

[Eltab]

Offering a desirable product, then abandoning the market without providing the product (or providing poor product or providing a tiny trickle of product compared to demand) is inviting somebody else to fill that niche. Traditionally with RPGs that has meant copying a bunch of pages out of a book for use at home.
Is it hard to figure out, with WotC not offering other-language versions of 5e while they get into a legal tangle with the translator, that other people will do home translations to pass around among friends? And potentially offer copies to other persons? And that those copies as they spread will (1) undermine future sales of official translated product and (2) land in the hands of somebody with more greed than honor?

Piracy is illegal, yet it is fully possible for an IP owner to conduct themselves in such a manner that the only way forward is without them, without the cooperation normally expected in a mutually beneficial relationship.

My position is that WotC needs to remember the purpose of a company - to provide goods / services - and get a move on doing so, not set up infinite delay conditions. Finish with GF9 and find somebody else to start over, or partner with GF9 to find better translators. But get the translations out for sale.

 

[TheSword]

Offering a desirable product, then abandoning the market without providing the product (or providing poor product or providing a tiny trickle of product compared to demand) is inviting somebody else to fill that niche. Traditionally with RPGs that has meant copying a bunch of pages out of a book for use at home.
Is it hard to figure out, with WotC not offering other-language versions of 5e while they get into a legal tangle with the translator, that other people will do home translations to pass around among friends? And potentially offer copies to other persons? And that those copies as they spread will (1) undermine future sales of official translated product and (2) land in the hands of somebody with more greed than honor?

Piracy is illegal, yet it is fully possible for an IP owner to conduct themselves in such a manner that the only way forward is without them, without the cooperation normally expected in a mutually beneficial relationship.

My position is that WotC needs to remember the purpose of a company - to provide goods / services - and get a move on doing so, not set up infinite delay conditions. Finish with GF9 and find somebody else to start over, or partner with GF9 to find better translators. But get the translations out for sale.

So give people what they want or you deserve to have your other products pirated... not sure I agree with that.

 

[LordEntrails]

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.

Fantasy Grounds. You pay via Pay Pal and choose the installment method of payment. Never done it myself, but the option is there.

(I know am not Zardnaar) I like pdfs, but not so much the other formats. I've been burned once before by losing an account through not fault of my own. I feel comfortable buying pdfs, but not content in a platform that might not be there tomorrow. Nothing beats a hardcopy, though pdfs are acceptable, everything else, I need a lot of trust it'll be there tomorrow. I can't take access to my collections online for granted. Outside the states you are a legislation change away from being cut out of your online content.

That's one reason I don't buy via DDB or Roll20. But it's not a valid reason for Fantasy Grounds. Fortunately, FG downloads the product to your computer, and since you are using a local application, it doesn't matter if the company goes out of business, you can use FG and the DLC you have bought for as long as you keep a computer that can run the application. That's one of the big reasons I originally bought via FG.

Also I don't play online so PDFs are useless in that regard.

I buy them if they're cheap ($10 or so maybe $20) or come bundled with hardcopy.

Online D&D to me is like online porn compared to erm nevermind. It's not the same.

Again, not talking PDF. Please read what I write, not what you think I write.

FG is very useful in person. Digital formats, even PDFs are very useful in face-to-face games. I get it if its not your preference, but understand it is your preference, not something wrong with the format.

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.

Yep, this makes sense. Doesn't make it right, but makes sense.

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

And if they are not willing to shell out money, then it will never be profitable for the company(ies) to spend money and resources translating their products. It's a chicken and egg thing. If you don't buy the products, their is no money to justify spending money to translate the products.

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.

Massive? I suspect they have already done the economic studies and don't think they are losing enough money to make it a super priority to translate. If their was millions of dollars being left on the table, Hasbro would be sure they would be going after it.

US$55 works out to about 6% of the average person's monthly take-home pay, or if I use the Big Mac Index to figure out the equivalent amount in burgers, that's about 27 burgers which translates back to US$152.76. So that's (apparently) the burgernomics equivalent price here for a copy of Tasha's: $153.

Curious, if you go here, and make sure that Steam has your region, how much is Tasha's listed for you with regional pricing? It's $29.99 for those of us in the USA. Would be great if those of you in other places listed what it shows for you.

My position is that WotC needs to remember the purpose of a company - to provide goods / services - and get a move on doing so, not set up infinite delay conditions. Finish with GF9 and find somebody else to start over, or partner with GF9 to find better translators. But get the translations out for sale.

How quickly do you expect this to happen? Also, do you expect them to enter into a contract with someone else to translate while they already have a (disputed) contract with GF9?

Also, remember, the people who have to deal with this contract dispute and make the "big" decisions, also have to work on dozen of other high priority issues. Like COVID, like Hickman/Weiss, like everything else they are paid to do.

Yes, time means lost opportunity. But working on translations means time other oppourtunities are delayed.

 

[Lanefan]

Curious, if you go here, and make sure that Steam has your region, how much is Tasha's listed for you with regional pricing?
It's $29.99 for those of us in the USA. Would be great if those of you in other places listed what it shows for you.

$33.99 Canadian.

Nice price.

Not interested in the slightest, though: if it ain't on paper I don't want it.

 

[Echohawk]

It's $29.99 for those of us in the USA. Would be great if those of you in other places listed what it shows for you.

Wow, that's listed as the equivalent of $11.48 for me, using today's exchange rate. Easily the cheapest way to get Tasha's here.

 

[Zardnaar]

From my observations a lot of the young players here have PDFs on laptop or phone.

Mostly pirated.

They do have hardcovers I suppose it's convenient, options are limited as well flgs has 0 MM or DMG.

Personally I don't do it not from any ethical concerns I get my books for free now anyway.

The players that do it do buy other material as they can afford it so it's still driving sales in a way and the books are twice the price relative to the USA.

 

[Nylanfs]

Fantasy Grounds. You pay via Pay Pal and choose the installment method of payment. Never done it myself, but the option is there.

Note: I "think" the Paypal installment plan is only available in the US.

 

[MoonSong]

That's one reason I don't buy via DDB or Roll20. But it's not a valid reason for Fantasy Grounds. Fortunately, FG downloads the product to your computer, and since you are using a local application, it doesn't matter if the company goes out of business, you can use FG and the DLC you have bought for as long as you keep a computer that can run the application. That's one of the big reasons I originally bought via FG.

But, don't you need a connection to the Steam servers to launch Steam games including Fantasy Grounds?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But, don't you need a connection to the Steam servers to launch Steam games including Fantasy Grounds?

You can play steam games offline but in the case of FantasyGrounds, I created a shortcut to the exe and played it with out reference to Steam for over a year.

 

[LordEntrails]

But, don't you need a connection to the Steam servers to launch Steam games including Fantasy Grounds?

Nope. Not for FG because FG is not actually hosted by Steam. When you purchased via Steam, you can still download the program straight from SmiteWorks. But even if you install through Steam, it only is a 'wrapper' that then calls the regular FG program.

The FG program only needs internet access to; update, download DLC, to allow remote players to connect, and to validate Ultimate licenses when free/demo license players connect.

Though I don't know if this is intended long term, but as of 2 weeks ago their was a statement that you can view/use DLC with a free license of FGU. So don't know if that is unintended or new functionality, but you sounds like you don't even need an FGU license to use the DLC.