Hasbro/WotC has crossed the Trust Thermocline

[Parmandur]

WotC, as part of Hasbro, is a publicly-traded company that is beholden to shareholders. And typically, these types of companies prioritize profit over all other considerations. Short-term thinking vs. long-term thinking. You can be friends, or have friendly feelings towards, some of the folks who work for those types of companies . . . but yes, the company itself is not "your friend".

I feel friendly towards many of the "faces" of WotC's D&D team, including Chris Perkins, Greg Tito, Shelly Mazzanoble, and others. But I realize, while they are important, they aren't the decision makers. Not at the top. They aren't driving this, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter, whatever they might be. But yeah, WotC, the company, isn't my friend. They do make products I love though . . .

However, most smaller RPG publishers are not publicly traded companies, and they don't have shareholders to appease. They are usually owned by one or a handful of owners. Profit is certainly a motive for these companies, but it is not always prioritized over people, over communities, as it usually is with publicly traded corporations.

I actually do feel friendly towards Green Ronin, because Green Ronin is Chris Pramas. I have mixed feelings towards Paizo, because Paizo is Lisa Stevens . . . whose done a lot of good, but also some shady stuff towards her employees. Whether I'm "friends" with a particular company, depends a lot on WHO the owner is and how they treat their employees, their fans/customers, and the larger RPG community. I'm choosy about friends in my personal life also . . . not much different.

Nothings black-or-white my friend.

Absolutely, mostly it's a Grey muddle. And mostly that particular muddlehas little to with whether DCC books often make me happy, while Paizo books leave me cold in general. If it were the other way around, so would my purchasing decisions. Nothing to do with the people, but the products.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The Thermocline isn't one bad decision, one price increase, one loss of service or privilege, one change to a product. It's an aggregate feeling, and it won't hit for everyone all at once. It only seems sudden to those who weren't paying attention to the Check Engine light that's been glowing on the dash for a while now.

Agreed. 4e had several issues, from a product that was not really well received and the GSL fallout. 5e was better but lots of GMs find it lacking in game-running tools (hence many 3pp like Tome of Heroes), the setting books have not received critical acclaim, and D&D Beyond has stagnated under WotC/Hasbro with no real features released in more than a year.

All of this meant the d&d "trust level" was on shaky ground prior to the OGL dust up.

Happening over the holidays was exceptionally bad as it meant lots of people had a ton of free time to troll the internet for rumors. This meant far more people were aware than on another date.

Then when the rumors were confirmed and had a couple of extra twists of the screws, it blew up within the community that was primed for the worst, and got it.

it was still in the slow news window so outlets that might have made a small mention about d&d made it a headline story.

Wotc/Hasbro's continued fumbles and flailing, inconsistencies and has done nothing but show the doomsayers were more accurate than the optimists, further eroding trust.

This is going to be a case study in corporate mismanagement alongside Twitter in MBA courses in the near future.

 

[ersatzphil]

So if those are the people you are hitting, that's arguably worse since you are basically taking out a load-bearing structure: each one who doesn't want to play may not get replaced, meaning that you are losing several possible customers instead of one. We won't know for a little while, but I'd say this is bad.

WotC claimed recently that about 20% of the user base for D&D are DMs - losing 10% of your player base is bad but not a death blow I’d say; losing half of the 5e DMs would be a sea change.

Edit: And that’s aside from the posts I’ve started seeing on Reddit that essentially read, “…so, D&D sucks now, I guess?”

 

[Dire Bare]

Absolutely, mostly it's a Grey muddle. And mostly that particular muddlehas little to with whether DCC books often make me happy, while Paizo books leave me cold in general. If it were the other way around, so would my purchasing decisions. Nothing to do with the people, but the products.

You (the general "you") are more likely to be "friends" with a company that publishes products you enjoy. You're likely not to pay much attention to those who don't. Sure.

But that's a separate issue over how companies treat their employees, their fans and customers, and their larger community.

I don't know a lot about the folks who run Goodman Games, because I'm not a fan of their products. Not for any negative reason, I'm just not their audience is all. So, I'm not "friends" with Goodman, but if someone in the know tells me about the folks who own the company, I might give them my respect.

 

[Dire Bare]

Agreed. 4e had several issues, from a product that was not really well received and the GSL fallout. 5e was better but lots of GMs find it lacking in game-running tools (hence many 3pp like Tome of Heroes), the setting books have not received critical acclaim, and D&D Beyond has stagnated under WotC/Hasbro with no real features released in more than a year.

All of this meant the d&d "trust level" was on shaky ground prior to the OGL dust up.

Happening over the holidays was exceptionally bad as it meant lots of people had a ton of free time to troll the internet for rumors. This meant far more people were aware than on another date.

Then when the rumors were confirmed and had a couple of extra twists of the screws, it blew up within the community that was primed for the worst, and got it.

it was still in the slow news window so outlets that might have made a small mention about d&d made it a headline story.

Wotc/Hasbro's continued fumbles and flailing, inconsistencies and has done nothing but show the doomsayers were more accurate than the optimists, further eroding trust.

This is going to be a case study in corporate mismanagement alongside Twitter in MBA courses in the near future.

A company putting out products that are not the best quality . . . not really an erosion of trust, bringing them closer to the "thermocline".

And quality is subjective. There were folks complaining about the setting revivals published so far, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Spelljammer . . . . but a lot of us enjoyed those products. And when not, we don't all conflate "I didn't like this" or "I would have done this differently" with an actual erosion of trust. Or lack of quality.

WotC not putting enough resources into D&D Beyond isn't a new problem. It existed prior to their acquisition of the service, when it was a licensed product. However, this is part of that trust erosion . . . not egregious enough on it's own, but adding to folks disquiet. Finding out they down-sized the support staff is not a good look either.

While it was a while ago, the whole 4th Edition and GSL mess was the beginning of the erosion, for me at least. 5th Edition returning us to a more classic D&D and to the original OGL started to heal that trust. Now, we are back where we were back in 2008, and it somehow feels way worse than it did back then.

 

[Parmandur]

You (the general "you") are more likely to be "friends" with a company that publishes products you enjoy. You're likely not to pay much attention to those who don't. Sure.

But that's a separate issue over how companies treat their employees, their fans and customers, and their larger community.

I don't know a lot about the folks who run Goodman Games, because I'm not a fan of their products. Not for any negative reason, I'm just not their audience is all. So, I'm not "friends" with Goodman, but if someone in the know tells me about the folks who own the company, I might give them my respect.

They seem like decent people, but their products are what I pay for, not their being nice people who like similar cheezy books to my own interests.

 

[Dire Bare]

They seem like decent people, but their products are what I pay for, not their being nice people who like similar cheezy books to my own interests.

Sure.

But if you found out that the company owners and management of your favorite company are total bastards, who treat their employees terribly, disrespect the RPG community, and only see you, the fan, as an "obstacle to their money" . . . . you might be less inclined to purchase their products, even if you LOVE those products.

That's the place many of us are in with WotC and D&D. I've purchased every 5th Edition book published so far, and I've enjoyed them all. I genuinely like many of the faces of WotC on the D&D Team. WotC has, up until recently, has seemed to be trying to be a good corporate citizen. I felt good being their loyal customer.

But now . . . . I'm soured on official D&D and WotC. I'm not excited to purchase their next D&D releases, and probably won't. I will probably stop using D&D Beyond to build my characters. However, I'm pretty sure the next couple of D&D books are going to be awesome, and I already like the D&D Beyond service.

Can WotC regain my trust, and regain me as a loyal customer and fan? Yes, but . . . . it's not likely seeing how the wind seems to be blowing right now. And even if they walked back the OGL 2.0 entirely, and added the word "irrevocable" to the OGL 1.0 . . . . I'm going to be wary for a while.

 

[Justice and Rule]

A company putting out products that are not the best quality . . . not really an erosion of trust, bringing them closer to the "thermocline".

And quality is subjective. There were folks complaining about the setting revivals published so far, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Spelljammer . . . . but a lot of us enjoyed those products. And when not, we don't all conflate "I didn't like this" or "I would have done this differently" with an actual erosion of trust. Or lack of quality.

WotC not putting enough resources into D&D Beyond isn't a new problem. It existed prior to their acquisition of the service, when it was a licensed product. However, this is part of that trust erosion . . . not egregious enough on it's own, but adding to folks disquiet. Finding out they down-sized the support staff is not a good look either.

While it was a while ago, the whole 4th Edition and GSL mess was the beginning of the erosion, for me at least. 5th Edition returning us to a more classic D&D and to the original OGL started to heal that trust. Now, we are back where we were back in 2008, and it somehow feels way worse than it did back then.

I mean, I'd say all those could contribute to the trust thermocline, especially the first one: putting out bad products consistently can absolutely lead to the erosion of trust. Has DnD been doing that? I know I heard a lot of disappointment around Strixhaven and Spelljammer, but generally it has to be a more consistent thing. I'd probably say that their actions on the MTG side has probably contributed more recently.

But while I think Wizards has probably had a more middling reputation as of late, this action is at such a different level that they might have been able to get to the trust thermocline if they hadn't done anything wrong. This is just such an insane move to make given how well they are doing.

 

[Dire Bare]

I mean, I'd say all those could contribute to the trust thermocline, especially the first one: putting out bad products consistently can absolutely lead to the erosion of trust. Has DnD been doing that? I know I heard a lot of disappointment around Strixhaven and Spelljammer, but generally it has to be a more consistent thing. I'd probably say that their actions on the MTG side has probably contributed more recently.

But while I think Wizards has probably had a more middling reputation as of late, this action is at such a different level that they might have been able to get to the trust thermocline if they hadn't done anything wrong. This is just such an insane move to make given how well they are doing.

For me . . . WotC hasn't put out any "bad" products. Not everything has been knocked out of the park for me, but nothing is "bad" or of poor quality.

I didn't enjoy Strixhaven, but . . . it just wasn't my cuppa tea. That's okay. I was very happy with the other MtG/D&D crossovers, and I was very happy with the setting revivals for Eberron, Ravenloft, and even Dragonlance. Spelljammer I have issues with, but that's with the format rather than the actual writing and design.

If a company does consistently put out products you don't personally care for . . . . because they suck, or because they just don't do it for you, or do it your way . . . . that is an "erosion" of sorts, but more of an erosion of enjoyment. Not of trust.

But we're fans . . . . it's easy for us to conflate, "WhAt dID thEY do To drAgOnlaNCe!" with the OGL shenanigans going on right now.

For me, some of the smaller issues that had begun eroding MY trust with WotC . . .

• 4E/GSL way back in 2008.
• How Orion Black, a WotC designer-of-color, was treated.
• How WotC quietly put Mearls on the back-burner when he got mixed up with Zak S. Instead of dealing with that head-on.
• The "two steps forward, one step back" progress on racial issues within D&D. Hadozee?
• D&D Beyond being under-resourced.
• The three-book slipcase format of Spelljammer, an admitted way to charge more for less.
• Learning that freelancers and license partners view WotC as a "culture of arrogance" with accusations of veiled harassment from some.
• I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting . . . .

WotC hasn't put out any products that I felt were of terrible quality. If I felt they had been, consistently over time, I would have stopped being their customer. But not due to an "erosion of trust". However, those two things can work together!

If you are already not a fan of WotC's current direction with official D&D . . . . you're closer to dropping them as a patron over the current mess than others might be. Sure.

 

[Justice and Rule]

For me . . . WotC hasn't put out any "bad" products. Not everything has been knocked out of the park for me, but nothing is "bad" or of poor quality.

I didn't enjoy Strixhaven, but . . . it just wasn't my cuppa tea. That's okay. I was very happy with the other MtG/D&D crossovers, and I was very happy with the setting revivals for Eberron, Ravenloft, and even Dragonlance. Spelljammer I have issues with, but that's with the format rather than the actual writing and design.

If a company does consistently put out products you don't personally care for . . . . because they suck, or because they just don't do it for you, or do it your way . . . . that is an "erosion" of sorts, but more of an erosion of enjoyment. Not of trust.

But we're fans . . . . it's easy for us to conflate, "WhAt dID thEY do To drAgOnlaNCe!" with the OGL shenanigans going on right now.

There have been products I didn't like (HotDQ stands out as an early adventure I remember playing and disliking, SCAG as a player supplement just had bad classes), some good ones (XGtE is legit one of their best), and the rest kind of okay. I would largely agree that I don't think their output is a good reason for a decline in trust, though I'd also say it probably hasn't inspired extra trust with them.

For me, some of the smaller issues that had begun eroding MY trust with WotC . . .

• 4E/GSL way back in 2008.
• How Orion Black, a WotC designer-of-color, was treated.
• How WotC quietly put Mearls on the back-burner when he got mixed up with Zak S. Instead of dealing with that head-on.
• The "two steps forward, one step back" progress on racial issues within D&D. Hadozee?
• D&D Beyond being under-resourced.
• The three-book slipcase format of Spelljammer, an admitted way to charge more for less.
• Learning that freelancers and license partners view WotC as a "culture of arrogance" with accusations of veiled harassment from some.
• I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting . . . .

WotC hasn't put out any products that I felt were of terrible quality. If I felt they had been, consistently over time, I would have stopped being their customer. But not due to an "erosion of trust". However, those two things can work together!

If you are already not a fan of WotC's current direction with official D&D . . . . you're closer to dropping them as a patron over the current mess than others might be. Sure.

Ah, we are pretty similar in this regard. The bolded ones for me are very much big factors for me moving away, as well as my own personal frustration with the system. I don't buy as much as I used to, but I did have a quiet DDB sub that I used because people in my group still run D&D. I exported my characters, cancelled my sub, and I'm probably going to say that after my current campaign I don't want to play D&D anymore. Certainly never going to run it again, either.