Matt Colville weighs in.

[Minigiant]

Keeping the 1.0 OGL would be great,
However if the community doesn't provide WOTC or the Floundering Hasbro another path to make continuous money, they won't listen to us.
And proudly saying you don't want their books OR worse never planned on buying their books just makes it worse.

Hence why I share Coville's overall pessimism.

 

[Bagpuss]

I don't have the patience to listen to 32 minutes of stuff. Do you have the Cliff Notes?

EDIT: Just realised I gave the Cliff Notes to DMShort's "Every Insider Leak I've Been Given..." not the Chris Cao interview. To be honest it is probably more relevant. As his interview was about MtG Arena that had just come out of Beta.
________________________________________________

The Execs at WotC particularly Chris Cao don't understand D&D (Chris Cao doesn't even play), they want to turn it into a 3D digital platform that can be a single player or co-op player experience without the need for a DM. But they fear anyone could copy their Unreal Engine 3D digital platform with the current OGL. They want to kill Roll20, Foundry, and other VTTs because they are competitors in this digital space, to do that they need to destroy the OGL. Most of this seems to be coming from Chris Cao who sees D&D gamers as the same as Farmville players, he seems to be planning to monetize D&D with microtransactions for 3D models, skins, spell effects, etc.

Currently D&D makes about $150 million a year they want to turn it into a $1 billion dollar brand like MtG. They aren't going to do that selling books, and it seems if they have to kill what D&D currently is to make it a billion dollar digital brand, they are happy to do that.

There is a real disconnect between the design team at WotC that don't like what is going on but have no power, and the execs that have the power but do not understand D&D in it's current form and want to turn it into a video game.

_________________________________________

IMHO Chris Cao's vision of a D&D game has about as much in common with a real D&D TTRPGs as the D&D Movie has. It's D&D in name, it's D&D in some of the tropes and features, but it isn't D&D.

Seems to me the OGL 1.0a was written specifically do prevent what Chris Cao wants to do with the brand. However it's a legal document so it is only worth anything once it gets tested in court and who's willing to face Hasbro's lawyers over it?

 

[Guest 7034872]

I can't think of a more serious person to comment on this whole thing, so if that's where Mr. Colville is, then I'd say the die is cast.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Any way you slice it, they're asking people to pay more for less. I don't think it will work.

Putting aside the obvious of joke of "Have you been in a grocery store lately?". I think it could. There's been tons of examples of it in the past. You remember when you would pay once for a copy of Microsoft Office and you would use that software for like 7-10 years before buying a new version and having to pay again. Now, you pay that same price every year. Is the product better for that 7-10 fold increase in price?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

This is what I have been saying and predicting.

You isolate people. If more groups plug a line in the back of their head and enter the matrix you do too if that is where the players are.

Instead of sketching your character you buy a picture/token.

Homebrew isn’t a matter of course. You BUY the option. Nothing is admissible that does not help WOTC. Rolled a good character? 3 18s again, Bob?!

Too bad. You did not use the official dice roller online. And you wish there was a magic shop? Well there can be. It’s 3 dollars to have a random shop show up in town but what is available will be randomly determined.

And on and on and on.

Will it “work?” And if it does, how soon? I don’t know. But if it does, it will be a culture destroyer. And that is a sad thought.

 

[gametaku]

Putting aside the obvious of joke of "Have you been in a grocery store lately?". I think it could. There's been tons of examples of it in the past. You remember when you would pay once for a copy of Microsoft Office and you would use that software for like 7-10 years before buying a new version and having to pay again. Now, you pay that same price every year. Is the product better for that 7-10 fold increase in price?

You can still buy Microsoft Office standalone.

Buy Office Home & Student 2021 (PC or Mac) - Download & Pricing | Microsoft Store

Buy Office Home & Student 2021 for Windows or Mac. A one-time purchase gets you apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, featuring security updates.

www.microsoft.com

 

[eyeheartawk]

You can still buy Microsoft Office standalone.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mic...-us&country=US&activetab=pivot:eek:verviewtab

Neat! I didn't even know they offered it anymore.

 

[mamba]

Putting aside the obvious of joke of "Have you been in a grocery store lately?".

I kinda need to eat, I do not need to play D&D

I think it could. There's been tons of examples of it in the past. You remember when you would pay once for a copy of Microsoft Office and you would use that software for like 7-10 years before buying a new version and having to pay again. Now, you pay that same price every year. Is the product better for that 7-10 fold increase in price?

Who outside of corporations and freelancers buys MS Office?

I have no idea how that works today, I use it at work, I do not have it installed at home (I have LibreOffice there).

Do they want it to be a subscription, sure. Do they have anything worth subscribing to at the price they set? At best this remains to be seen

 

[Plokman]

As long as we teach those younger kids the way of the real theater of the mind, any TTRPG will win. Really there is not a thing they can do to make us stop, we bought the product and rules we can do whatever we want.

Pessimism is not going to help.

 

[DarkCrisis]

As long as we teach those younger kids the way of the real theater of the mind, any TTRPG will win. Really there is not a thing they can do to make us stop, we bought the product and rules we can do whatever we want.

Pessimism is not going to help.

Not to mention whole other RPGs covering various genres (not just fantasy!) exist.