Ginny Di interviews WotC's Kyle Brink

Continuing the D&D executive producer's interview tour, gaming influencer Ginny Di asks a WotC's Kyle Brink about the OGL and other things.

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[mamba]

It's also a bit of a power move to ensure that Evergreen D&D remains an Evergreen strategy: many at WotC have believed and advocated for this for years, and now this makes it harder to ever break away from pursuing.

I don’t know, if they learned one thing recently, then that is that promises of something going on indefinitely eventually end up conflicting with their then current interests.

I do not find someone tying their own hands and then declaring that this strengthens their position all that convincing.

Particularly as the game becomes less important than merchandising.

that can indeed make an edition change less important, I guess we will see how long they stick with an evergreen strategy

 

[teitan]

The profit and revenue mainly comes from MtG. Top end estimate is that D&D made $150M of more than $1B of revenue and that is very recent.

WoTC (and Hasbro) has been carried along by MyG for a while. D&D only recently started getting mentioned in earnings calls.

Considering Hasbro considers a core brand to be 50 million… that’s not small. And it’s been getting mentioned on earnings calls for about 6 years now.

 

[Hussar]

.

They alienated their most loyal fans, they jumpstarted two competing RPGs and they reduced their influence in one fell swoop.
If they keep having these kinds of wins, they might as well shut D&D down

Not sure that’s entirely true. Often the loudest voices disavowing WotC are the same voices that have spent years proudly proclaiming how they don’t actually buy anything from WotC and feel that WotC is no longer “their” DnD.

 

[Jadeite]

Not sure that’s entirely true. Often the loudest voices disavowing WotC are the same voices that have spent years proudly proclaiming how they don’t actually buy anything from WotC and feel that WotC is no longer “their” DnD.

Some, but not all.

 

[mamba]

Not sure that’s entirely true. Often the loudest voices disavowing WotC are the same voices that have spent years proudly proclaiming how they don’t actually buy anything from WotC and feel that WotC is no longer “their” DnD.

there is no ‘only’ here… you want a ‘mostly’?

 

[teitan]

.

They alienated their most loyal fans, they jumpstarted two competing RPGs and they reduced their influence in one fell swoop.
If they keep having these kinds of wins, they might as well shut D&D down

This was the biggest mistake since 4e, the one saving grace is that this time they cut their losses after a few weeks

Voices on the internet are usually and rarely reflective of the majority or even the most loyal. They are the vocal minority. Most players and fans probably didn’t care either way and we don’t know what the financial impact is/was on WOTC with regard to the OGL incident because it was a very small time span and made zero impact on, for example, Amazon sales rank, where the PHB remained a top product. Yes all these other games sold through, and that’s wonderful, and a sign of an impact on the brand, but was it the most loyal? Was it a blip? Do those sales translate to new, sustained players or are they short term gains with minimal impact for those games?

The average player, again, doesn’t care about OGL or how this impacts everything and it won’t impact their games or their buying dollars. Many don’t even know what it is and just buy their D&D books, minis and other products because they love playing. This will be the majority. Some might blip out for a short term and then blip right back in. OneDnD will pull more back in.

 

[Hussar]

there is no ‘only’ here… you want a ‘mostly’?

I don’t actually understand what this means.

 

[Hussar]

Some, but not all.View attachment 275427

Oh fair enough. I’m not saying that no one cares. Of course not. But it does seem that the most strident voices, the ones loudly proclaiming their displeasure are often the ones who’ve been pretty clear that they disengaged from WotC years ago.

 

[Ondath]

As far as the 3D vtt goes Kyle says

“Creating for the 3D space can get complicated” home brew “will require more work” and “work in our part”

So yea, not for me, probably.

But I was assured dozens of times that it's no different than using a 2D map and tokens?!!

 

[mamba]

Voices on the internet are usually and rarely reflective of the majority or even the most loyal. They are the vocal minority.

they are a vocal minority, agreed, never claimed they were not

Most players and fans probably didn’t care either way and we don’t know what the financial impact is/was on WOTC with regard to the OGL incident because it was a very small time span

I agree, I said the same things in my posts (spread out, not all in one), including right after what you quoted from this one

 

[mamba]

I don’t actually understand what this means.

I agree that there was some outrage from others as well, including ones that were done with WotC a long time ago.

I did not say the only ones alienated were the most loyal fans, but I would not count those that were not playing 5e and complaining amongst those that this move has alienated, they already were.

Would me including a mostly in that sentence, so it becomes ‘WotC mostly alienated their most loyal fans’ address your objection?

 

[mamba]

But I was assured dozens of times that it's no different than using a 2D map and tokens?!!

you were, by whom?

 

[Ondath]

you were, by whom?

I was being facetious, I said a 3D VTT wouldn't be as easy to use as a 2D one in another thread and got dozens of responses saying I was wrong a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Staffan]

I was being facetious, I said a 3D VTT wouldn't be as easy to use as a 2D one in another thread and got dozens of responses saying I was wrong a couple of weeks ago.

It probably wouldn't be much harder to use. It would be harder to design for.

 

[mamba]

It probably wouldn't be much harder to use. It would be harder to design for.

use as in the DM creating an environment in it, ie the equivalent of creating a 2d map. At least that is how I read it.

Playing in the finished version is not that different

 

[Fallen star]

We can finally put the whole "show me racist OGL material now, or it's not a problem" comments to rest.

Again, the word "race" was in every RPG product for 45 years. Then WotC decided the word was bad, so now every product is racist.

That's what happens when you agree to follow any standard that they can change after the fact.

 

[Loren the GM]

Again, the word "race" was in every RPG product for 45 years. Then WotC decided the word was bad, so now every product is racist.

That's what happens when you agree to follow any standard that they can change after the fact.

Plenty of other products, including Pathfinder 2e, moved away from the term race well before WotC did. Products were problematic because they were problematic, not because WotC moved some goal post.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Not sure that’s entirely true. Often the loudest voices disavowing WotC are the same voices that have spent years proudly proclaiming how they don’t actually buy anything from WotC and feel that WotC is no longer “their” DnD.

I mean, as someone who largely pushes his group to play other games, I still was considering the occasional WotC book purchase and maintained a continuing Hero-Tier subscription to DNDBeyond simply because people I knew ran it. I also still bought the miniatures when they had good stuff, but I can't comment on how much they make on those.. Even as a guy who rips DND a bunch, I still had regular cash-investment in it.

This whole idea of "The people who were most against this were the ones who weren't even involved in the system!" really seems to ignore that plenty of the influencers who made their money on the system were very against it. The outrage seemed pretty universal and I feel it doesn't accurately capture both the universal level of outrage and even the continued level of investment some of us who have "moved on" to other systems might still have.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Again, the word "race" was in every RPG product for 45 years. Then WotC decided the word was bad, so now every product is racist.

That's what happens when you agree to follow any standard that they can change after the fact.

That wasn't what I was referring to.

 

[Remathilis]

Again, the word "race" was in every RPG product for 45 years. Then WotC decided the word was bad, so now every product is racist.

That's what happens when you agree to follow any standard that they can change after the fact.

Did someone tell Paizo that? They dumped the term before WotC did.