It will be easy to tell what third parties sold out the community for thirty pieces of silver. My guess is Critical role probably did because they probably got the best deal of all, but time will tell.
God I was kind of assuming everyone would wait until pretty much the last minute before actually signing any deals, including sweetheart ones because of fear of something like this happening.
But if some 3PPs have gone "Full Judas" (never go full Judas), then hoo boy this is going to be the some WW3-type stuff on the RPG internet for a while.
God if Critical Role have locked themselves in, and WotC
does release the OGL 1.1 replete with the deauthorization clause, that's going to be insane. The CR people will get criticised to hell and back. "Matt Mercer" will become a name of ill-repute, and the huge army of blindly loyal hyperfans CR has, who see it as unable to do any wrong, will be open warfare with anyone criticising CR, include a hordes of less-extreme CR fans.
On a positive note, though, this gives CR an incredibly strong incentive to make WotC see sense on the OGL 1.1, and make the actual final document significantly less extreme (particularly removing the deauthorization or turning it into a "mere" poison pill).
I am firmly convinced they are still going to do it, they are just regrouping on how to implement.
Is that a gut instinct or evidence-based? Not a criticism either way, but if the latter, what are you basing it on?
For me the delay and all-round silence is strongly suggestive of "OH CRAP WE DUN MESSED UP". I feel like if they were still intending to go ahead with the OGL 1.1 as received by io9/Linda, there would be messaging from 3PPs who'd already signed onto sweetheart contracts that "It's not going to be that bad!" (even though it would be), and AFAICT no-one is saying that.
OMG! They want ANYBODY doing podcasts about D&D that make money YOU HAVE TO REPORT YOUR EARNINGS TO WotC/Hasbro! ANYTHING AT ALL ON D&D YOU MUST REPORT INCOME TO THEM!
What lol?
Wow. I think that alone would be enough to convince an awful lot of podcasts to go "Hey guys now we're a Pathfinder podcast!".