Yeah, of the people who cancelled DDB (which was 5 digits and closer to 50k according to reports, which is still less than a percentage point of DDB's subscribers let alone D&D players) only a minority will not forgive. But this bugs me because it's dominating the conversation and drowning out all the reasonable discussion and voices. All the actual feedback for the new license is being shouted down.
No, this is wrong. The 5 digits are not cancellations, they are
deletions. Just accounts completely gone. This is different from, say, what I have done and simply cancelled my subscription.
The OGL 1.0a is going away. We need to get over ourselves and bruised egos and accept this. And if we actually care about 3rd Party Publishers like we claim, work to make the new license as good as possible. And forgive WotC and let go of this anger.
Uh,
why? It's still up in the air whether or not OGL 1.0a goes away, whether it be Wizards' choice or in a courtroom. You talk about bruised egos, but the person who did the wrong thing here is Wizards. They are the ones who clearly had bruised egos when they also claimed victory. I don't see any reason to forgive a company that has been recklessly going after their partners, breaking contracts, and just acting in bad faith all around. In fact, it makes me want to
never forgive them because they haven't shown any sort of contrition. At all. They've just tried to keep it more under wraps.
Honestly, I don't get this sort of defense of Wizards. It's just kind of sad. There's no reason to be this attached to a set of rules or a company, especially when they act in such a malicious and destructive manner to the hobby. If Wizards wants forgiveness, it's a two-way street. Just begging people to stop and give in because Wizards is giving table scraps or things they can easily take away is just incredibly wrong-headed and weird.
Because a healthy WotC and strong D&D helps 3PP.
Not when they can just kill any 3PPs at their whim. They'd be constantly living as hostages where their entire output could be destroyed if they did not do what WotC wanted.
If D&D takes a nose dive and the audience splits into four or five different games and editions, it will also quarter sales for those 3rd Party Publishers. Assuming they can even make content for those games: there are quite a lot of popular games that have no Open Gaming license or 3rd Party support.
Alternatively it makes them permanent hostages of Wizards, who can decide whatever terms they want in the future. Splitting up the market would be way better than allowing someone to behead it any any given moment, especially when it comes to getting away from having a massive market leader who can do such things.