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]

I am pretty used to draft documents saying draft or being watermarked draft. It is a sign to people you offer contracts to that you are open to suggestions.

I am used to that too. Kyle said what they were doing is basically the norm in the publishing industry, I have no experience with that

The theory that it is a draft until it is signed is not wrong, but thar assumes everyone is on the same page.

I get the sense that the 3PP were thinking it was take it or leave it except for the royalty percentage.

as I said somewhere else, we have no idea what was said in those negotiations or how much pressure was applied. Would be great if we did, as it would resolve a lot of uncertainty

 

[Justice and Rule]

which response *there were several) ?

Personally I believe them, because it is the kind of stupid reason that makes just enough sense, when before I never understood why they went raving mad and even considered a 1.1

That was to Umbran saying "If we take their fear of Meta eating their lunches to be sincere."

Personally, I don't because it comes off trying to say "There is a greater villain here!" and choosing one of the most popular ones (Meta) as it. Like, their actions make more sense in trying to use their position in the market to push out competitors for their future VTT as well as salt the ground behind them compared to a random tech giant suddenly making a dedicated RPG VTT.

I guess we disagree. I would have been fine if they had pushed back in the interview, but doing so 'behind his back' was wrong.

Eh, I think it's fine. If you words aren't deceptively-edited, someone editorializing after-the-fact doesn't really change much.

I am fine with a tough interview, but it should not be hostile.

Eh, I think we have different definitions of hostile. I've definitely seen more hostile interviews.

1.1 was definitely plan A. That does not mean it was not a draft, it was a draft they really wanted to become a full version.

Again, I feel like much of the evidence was that it wasn't a draft, especially given how Kickstarter chimed in on the matter. Feels like that was the plan, and they had a fallback in case there was extreme pushback against it. I just don't think they planned on having a sustained negative reaction against them, which is why we didn't see OGL 1.3.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah. So if this article was posted after 3pp saw it it’d sway your opinion?

Somewhat, bit probavly not fully: when they put that FAQ up, they thought there would be a new OGL soon. Doesn't mean they thought it was finalized...or that everyone at WotC was on the same page. The FAQ may have been scheduled to post automatically weeks earlier and the stakeholders may have decides to start retooling it before they went on Holiday break. I don't see any reason to doubt the bones of Brink's account, though I thi k he is underplaying how acrimonious things were between stakeholders inside WotC for diplomacy sake (he is careful to not throw anyone under the bus, but he must know somewhat who did certain things).

 

[mamba]

Personally, I don't because it comes off trying to say "There is a greater villain here!" and choosing one of the most popular ones (Meta) as it. Like, their actions make more sense in trying to use their position in the market to push out competitors for their future VTT as well as salt the ground behind them compared to a random tech giant suddenly making a dedicated RPG VTT.

not to me, they never needed to hobble the competition to be in a good position. The risk (upsetting the community) vs reward (making a few bucks more) never felt like this was justified to me. Maybe I am giving them too much credit here and it was just greed and stupidity, but paranoia and stupidity is the one that explains it better to me.

Again, I feel like much of the evidence was that it wasn't a draft, especially given how Kickstarter chimed in on the matter. Feels like that was the plan, and they had a fallback in case there was extreme pushback against it. I just don't think they planned on having a sustained negative reaction against them, which is why we didn't see OGL 1.3.

It definitely was the plan, the solid front of pushback definitely came as a surprise to them. I am not sure the community pushback made much of a difference, in the sense that all 3pps walking had already resulted in 1.1 being scrapped. It certainly helped with getting the SRD released under CC and also 1.2 kicked to the curb.

 

[Justice and Rule]

not to me, they never needed to hobble the competition to be in a good position. The risk (upsetting the community) vs reward (making a few bucks more) never felt like this was justified to me. Maybe I am giving them too much credit here and it was just greed and stupidity, but paranoia and stupidity is the one that explains it better to me.

I disagree completely. VTTs have a lot of competition, their own VTT is years off and by the time it comes out there will be several very established competitors. They may have the big name, but they want to assure complete dominance, and that is absolutely not assured given their monetization plans.

Rather, nuking the VTT market so that people don't have other places to go for their product makes their release far safer, especially if (like most big tech projects) they run into technical hurdles initially. This way people have to use their system because there simply aren't other options.

To me, it makes way more sense than Meta or Disney suddenly swooping in and trying to eat their lunch via the OGL. Much like the "We have to have this morality clause because RACISM~!", it comes off more as an excuse that might engender positive feelings from the community than the actual reason itself.

It definitely was the plan, the solid front of pushback definitely came as a surprise to them. I am not sure the community pushback made much of a difference, in the sense that all 3pps walking had already resulted in 1.1 being scrapped. It certainly helped with getting the SRD released under CC and also 1.2 kicked to the curb.

I think the community feedback matters more than people think. I don't think it was the only thing, but I think the overwhelmingly negative pushback was something they just didn't expect. I suspect they didn't think their community would be as passionate about this as they did, and I really think all the negative press (especially from influencers) probably freaked out a lot of people.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I am used to that too. Kyle said what they were doing is basically the norm in the publishing industry, I have no experience with that


as I said somewhere else, we have no idea what was said in those negotiations or how much pressure was applied. Would be great if we did, as it would resolve a lot of uncertainty

Kyle is not really from the publishing industry and D&D is tiny in Hasbro. So I have doubts that they have publishing centric lawyers and that he knows what is “usual”.

I marked that down as a probable lie.

Cannot be proven, of course. But rings false.

 

[teitan]

I don’t feel like my trust was violated by WOTC because they had a bad idea that they didn’t go through with… yes they talked to publishers about it in a meeting and Kickstarter but they didn’t go through with it. They came forward with a starting plan, that yes was because of the protest against a leaked draft, that honestly didn’t line up with their comments the week or so before about the changes to the OGL, but they very quickly said ok this won’t fly so let’s scrap the whole thing and release it to CC and quit trying to revise the OGL. Now Magic? They undermined the trust of retailers to… be able to hold onto a case for a month and sale individual cards for up to 100x their value in scalping ventures and for players to be… gouged by retailers on buy back programs like GameStop buying back new releases a week later for $1.50 on that $150 special edition but… hey that’s Magic.

 

[teitan]

Kyle is not really from the publishing industry and D&D is tiny in Hasbro. So I have doubts that they have publishing centric lawyers and that he knows what is “usual”.

I marked that down as a probable lie.

Cannot be proven, of course. But rings false.

D&D is tiny? When WOTC is literally half of Hasbro profit I don’t think D&D is tiny.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

People: If a post makes you want to sling words like “disingenuous” or other swipes at the poster, you might need to take a breather & reconsider before hitting “Post reply” yourself.

 

[Justice and Rule]

They came forward with a starting plan, that yes was because of the protest against a leaked draft, that honestly didn’t line up with their comments the week or so before about the changes to the OGL, but they very quickly said ok this won’t fly so let’s scrap the whole thing and release it to CC and quit trying to revise the OGL.

Kyle's own defense of that on 3 Black Halflings (that basically everything is a draft until it goes into effect) is the sort of spin that is technically true (It didn't go into effect, thus was only ever a draft) but in the spirit of what we are talking about probably is a lie (It was meant to go into effect, but was pulled because of the reaction against it).

D&D is tiny? When WOTC is literally half of Hasbro profit I don’t think D&D is tiny.

When it comes to full-time staff, the D&D team is relatively small compared to the rest of Hasbro, and incredibly small given their portion of the profits. I believe that is what is meant by @Myrdin Potter .