OGL-Gate & Mainstream Media: The Guardian Weighs In

With The Guardian picking up the story this morning, here's a list of media outlets covering the Open Gaming Licence controversy.

The initial story came from Gizmodo/iO9, which recieved a leaked copy of the OGL v1.1., and YouTube channel RollForCombat.

• The Guardian: ‘People are leaving the game’: Dungeons & Dragons fans revolt against new restrictions
• Vice: Dungeons and Dragons Is Jeopardizing Its Greatest Strength: Its Ubiquity
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators
• Comic Book Resources: How New Changes to D&D's Open Gaming License Will Impact Other TTRPGs
• Forbes: What’s Happening With The Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License?
• Ars Technica: RPG fans irate as D&D tries to shut its “open” game license
• NME: D&D content creators outraged over licensing changes, demand the game remain “open”
• Polygon: D&D’s stricter licensing rules might impact some beloved RPGs
• Law Insider: Wizards of the Coast Open Game License
• Financial Times (behind paywall): Dungeons & Dragons & fear & loathing: When Wizards go rogue

 

[Yaarel]

The reason why Hasbro-WotC is silent is they have zero intention to end the Anti-OGL. The Anti-OGL went into effect today, January 13. Possibly some companies have signed it, such as Kickstarter.

The plan of Hasbro-WotC is to start litigating.

We will see if the protests give pause.

But Hasbro-WotC is dead serious about the Anti-OGL.

 

[Yaarel]

Forbes and Financial Times picking up the story is a bigger issue for Hasbro/WotC and indicates just how wide this has gone, its outside nerd media and spilled into Guardian mainstream. WotC need to comment soon

Also these are business newssources − now investors in Hasbro-WotC are paying attention to the protest against it.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The news has been picked up by a business newsmagazine in Italy:

Il business legato a D&D è a una svolta - BusinessWeekly

Nato come un hobby da nerd, Dungeons and Dragons negli ultimi anni si è evoluto sino a diventare mainstream. Ora il business ad esso legato è in pericolo. Tutto ha inizio nei primi anni duemila. Il creatore originale del gioco di ruolo più famoso al mondo, Gary Gygax, ha perso il controllo della...

businessweekly.it

Wow this is getting huge

It's spiralling out of control and the longer it takes to put this fire out, that bigger the blaze gets and the more higher up folks get burned.

 

[Yaarel]

As of today, January 13, the Anti-OGL went into effect. In the opinion of Hasbro-WotC,

the OGL 1.0a no longer exists.

The legal battles have begun.

Part of the reason for the silence of Hasbro-WotC is waiting for the Anti-OGL to come online.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

As of today, January 13, the Anti-OGL went into effect. In the opinion of Hasbro-WotC,

the OGL 1.0a no longer exists.

The legal battles have begun.

Part of the reason for the silence of Hasbro-WotC is waiting for the Anti-OGL to come online.

Except 1.1 was never actually released, OGL 1.1 is dead, they now have an OGL 2.0, but the stopped from releasing at like the last minute because of the backlash which has only gotten worse.

I do agree with you WotC was very committed to this idea because they know if they don't get rid of OGL 1.0a and they put One D&D on a seperate more punishing OGL (in name only) then One D&D will be dead on arrival, and the new OGL is key to what they THINK will monetize D&D, so these foolish exective got themselves caught in a bind as I think this was key to most of their monetization plans. Instead this is spiralling out if control and they basically burned decades of community building and reputation building to the ground.

Still at some point they have to admit failure, but by then folks will likely be losing their jobs.

 

[Yaarel]

Except 1.1 was never actually released, OGL 1.1 is dead, they now have an OGL 2.0, but the stopped from releasing at like the last minute because of the backlash which has only gotten worse.

I do agree with you WotC was very committed to this idea because they know if they don't get rid of OGL 1.0a and they put One D&D on a seperate more punishing OGL (in name only) then One D&D will be dead on arrival, and the new OGL is key to what they THINK will monetize D&D, so these foolish exective got themselves caught in a bind as I think this was key to most of their monetization plans. Instead this is spiralling out if control and they basically burned decades of community building and reputation building to the ground.

Still at some point they have to admit failure, but by then folks will likely be losing their jobs.

Hasbro-WotC released the Anti-OGL, with NDAs for people to sign. Apparently some did sign it.

The Anti-OGL is now in effect!


The mainly irrelevant adjustments (that were indefensible anyway), to a future version of it, havent actually happened yet.

 

[Sidhanei]

Hasbro-WotC released the Anti-OGL, with NDAs for people to sign. Apparently some did sign it.

I'm curious as I was under the impression no one had. Who signed and source?

 

[DMZ2112]

Well, at least D&D is making it into the mainstream media these days. Only took them 50 years...

60 Minutes, 1985.

Never forget.

We were stronger than that, we are stronger than this, we are stronger than attacks on D&D in general, whether they come from within or without.

 

[The Stray]

Interesting that they don't mention that Baron De Rapp is a YouTuber...he's not just some random DM.

 

[The Stray]

Setting the OGL controversy aside, it is often adorable when mainstream media outlets cover our hobby and misunderstand half of what they are talking about. Never change, guys. Never change.