WotC Hasbro's CEO Reports OGL-Related D&D Beyond Cancellations Had Minimal Impact

Hasbro held a quarterly earnings call recently in which CEO Chris Cocks (who formerly ran WotC before being promoted) indicated that the OGL controversy had a "comparatively minor" impact on D&D's revenue due to D&D Beyond subscription cancellations. He also noted that D&D grew by 20% in 2022 (Magic: the Gathering revenues grew by an astonishing 40% in Quarter 4!)

WotC as a whole was up 22% in Q4 2022.

Lastly, on D&D, we misfired on updating our Open Gaming License, a key vehicle for creators to share or commercialize their D&D inspired content. Our best practice is to work collaboratively with our community, gather feedback, and build experiences that inspire players and creators alike - it's how we make our games among the best in the industry. We have since course corrected and are delivering a strong outcome for the community and game.

 

[M_Natas]

The assumption you're making though is that Chris Cocks is telling the truth, which in the absence of hard numbers, I personally don't believe - simply because wotc/hasbro have done nothing, and continue to do nothing, that earns any belief in anything they say. What he says, particularly because there aren't actual numbers, sounds like just the sort of BS you would say to your investors so that they don't also jump ship.

wotc/hasbro are simply continuing the BS train. Sure, that's my opinion and YMMV

Edit: and yes I see what others are saying about this being an earnings call, and heavily regulated, and blah blah blah ... 'cause of course there's never been a company that's ever mislead investors

But if they lie on that earnings call this lie would get exposed at the next earning call when they have to publish the numbers for the first quarter 2023. So it would be very stupid, because if Investors find out you Lied to them you are gone.
Unless you think that Hasbro would go so far to falsefy their erarning reports.

Because if you look at the numbers ' like how many people canceld there subscription to Beyond? 10 000? 20 000?
If 10 000 people in the DM Tier canceld, that's 50 000$ a month. For a franchise that makes how much in a quarter? 50 million? I mean, yes, the subscribtion fees are basically free money that they now don't get. But in order to really impact the bottomline you need at least like 100 000 DM Tier subscribers cancelling their subscripitions.

 

[mamba]

Who’s pressing to forgive or forget?

there is a long thread with essentially that title…

I’m not. But I’m also in the boat that relitigating the past month over and over again shouting for WotC to do even more isn’t helping either.

This does come pretty close to saying ‘it is time to move on’… in other words ‘forgive and forget’

People are upset, they express this. This does not need to happen on your timescale.

 

[mamba]

Because if you look at the numbers ' like how many people canceld there subscription to Beyond? 10 000? 20 000?
If 10 000 people in the DM Tier canceld, that's 50 000$ a month. For a franchise that makes how much in a quarter? 50 million?

not to mention the cancellation is not immediate, the subscription ends whenever your term ends, which can be 6 or 9 months later.

So even if everyone had cancelled they could correctly claim to not have noticed much difference in the first two weeks…

 

[Oofta]

I dont even understand the conversation anymore.

Is Wizards being defended? Why?
Is Wizards being 'forgiven'? Why?

What even is the point of debate currently, like the thesis?

They clearly did wrong, knew it, owned it, backed off in a complete 180. Its as good as an admission of guilt as there is to get at this point. They dropped one in the middle of a packed room, and everyone saw them.

Whats even up for debate lol.

They thought about doing something but never actually followed through. In fact, they bent over backwards and provided more than people asked for.

Therefore they can never be forgiven because they have proven that they are a corporation that doesn't deeply care about every other unrelated business that also makes money off of D&D.

Oh, and something, something greed because they currently make a profit.

 

[mamba]

They thought about doing something but never actually followed through.

not for lack of trying though

In fact, they bent over backwards and provided more than people asked for.

CC is not really an improvement over OGL 1.0a, apart from not having been poisoned by WotC’s attempt to revoke it, so not much has actually changed there.
This is not bending over backwards, it is the first step to rebuilding trust. The remaining steps are not unreasonable either, they basically amount to continuing their past (pre 1.1) behavior.

Therefore they can never be forgiven

they will be, some have, others will be once they actually have shown that they can be trusted again, a few they lost for good - and they have no one to blame but themselves for that.

Not sure why you paint them as the victim here

Oh, and something, something greed because they currently make a profit.

they have been making record profits for years with no one complaining, so this is clearly not it

 

[mamba]

.

 

[bedir than]

CC is not really an improvement over OGL 1.0a, apart from not having been poisoned by WotC’s attempt to revoke it, so not much has actually changed there.

It's a more open license, with more supported legal cases about rights, internationally recognized as the standard.

It's better if you want to open up D&D to even more expressions.
It's worse if you're a legacy 3pp because you'll have a couple of pages to edit in past content removing the more bloated and restricted OGL 1.0a and replacing it with a dozen words

 

[Loren the GM]

It's a more open license, with more supported legal cases about rights, internationally recognized as the standard.

It's better if you want to open up D&D to even more expressions.
It's worse if you're a legacy 3pp because you'll have a couple of pages to edit in past content removing the more bloated and restricted OGL 1.0a and replacing it with a dozen words

First, I agree with you that Creative Commons is a more open license, and that it definitely is more solid on the legal front than the OGL 1.0a at this point in time.

That said, there are still issues, and they amount to much more than layout concerns. Creative Commons doesn't have a mechanism for Open Gaming Content, meaning (a) if your work made use of other Open Gaming Content from outside the SRD, it will be difficult or impossible to move it to the Creative Commons license (at best you would need to negotiate a license with the publisher of all the Open Gaming Content you use from outside the SRD, which could be difficult as many publishers no longer exist), and (b) it also limits the future of shareable content as an ecosystem, as Creative Commons doesn't have a method to mark aspects as Open Gaming Content while keeping the rest of the document closed.

For people who care about these aspects (basically, building on a legacy of content that up until now has been freely available to use, and adding to this large group of content), there are a lot more questions regarding what license to use for their own publishing going forward. It is possible the ORC license will answer some of this (although moving old content into the new license will prove troublesome no matter what license it is moving to if you have built anything on Open Gaming Content from outside the SRD) and include mechanisms for designating content as open and shareable (but we don't know that, as ORC hasn't been published yet). Continuing to publish under OGL 1.0a is also an option, but that has obviously been tarnished in many ways and would need to be carefully evaluated as a business proposition.

All in all, the SRD being in Creative Commons is a very good and helpful thing, but it does not solve all the issues publishers are facing that the issues with OGL 1.0a created. It merely solves the core 5e (and hopefully all previous OGL content, as promised by Kyle Brink in his interviews) mechanics being available for everyone to use.

 

[Oofta]

not for lack of trying though


CC is not really an improvement over OGL 1.0a, apart from not having been poisoned by WotC’s attempt to revoke it, so not much has actually changed there.
This is not bending over backwards, it is the first step to rebuilding trust. The remaining steps are not unreasonable either, they basically amount to continuing their past (pre 1.1) behavior.


they will be, some have, others will be once they actually have shown that they can be trusted again, a few they lost for good - and they have no one to blame but themselves for that.

Not sure why you paint them as the victim here


they have been making record profits for years with no one complaining, so this is clearly not it

So ... basically they thought about doing something you didn't approve of. In addition, according to you, they already make enough profit.

I don't see anything but confirmation of what I said. I don't see the point of continuing. They made a mistake that was never implemented because they listened to the community, even if some bureaucrats had to be beaten over the head by the reaction of the community.

 

[bedir than]

b) it also limits the future of shareable content as an ecosystem, as Creative Commons doesn't have a method to mark aspects as Open Gaming Content while keeping the rest of the document closed.

This remains untrue.

A publisher can choose to have their new creation listed as cc-by-sa, or cc-by-non commercial even copyrighted in full.

By using a CC in one place you aren't committed to using that form everywhere.

Billions of pages on the internet already prove this. Using a cc-by photo doesn't remove copyright, or claim the photo as their own

Just mark the elements borrowed as borrowed, mark the derivatives as derivatives, mark original work as original. Using techniques similar to technical and academic writing should help.