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

 

[Reynard]

Oh, that New Republic article is quite good.

My only quibble with it is that it doesn't mention that the vast majority of OGL material is actually in direct support of D&D, not separate games.

 

[Dausuul]

The New Republic too: Dungeons & Dragons Fans Prepare to Face Their Greatest Adversary: Corporate Greed

Now that article hits it out of the park. Highly accurate and also very eloquent about why this is a Bad Thing.

(It does not pretend to neutrality on the subject; the New Republic has a definite political point of view and is not shy about expressing it. That doesn't stop it from getting the facts straight, though.)

 

[humble minion]

Now that article hits it out of the park. Highly accurate and also very eloquent about why this is a Bad Thing.

(It does not pretend to neutrality on the subject; the New Republic has a definite political point of view and is not shy about expressing it. That doesn't stop it from getting the facts straight, though.)

And there's a decent article in Reason as well, which is a publication that holds a definite political point of view very different to that of the New Republic.

Why the tabletop role-playing world is furious about changes to Dungeons & Dragons' open gaming license

For 20 years, D&D has offered third-party publishers an open, royalty-free license to create new works using its game. A leaked revision would end all of that.

reason.com

 

[Kai Lord]

That's a weird, badly-researched, and unhelpful article that addresses almost none of the genuine issues.

I know right. "Kicking down doors and stealing goblins?" People are gonna think we're a bunch of weirdos!

 

[Staffan]

Hasbro exec:
I wish there was more mainstream news coverage of our products.

 

[wingsandsword]

When your mistake makes the Financial Times, you're going to have to start explaining things to large shareholders.

If this was Cynthia Williams's master plan to shut down 3PP's and thought she could just buffalo some small businesses into obeying her. . .her miscalculation just landed on worldwide major media, including business media. . .and has lead to a mass exodus of subscribers from D&D Beyond.

This is what happens when you put some generic executive from way outside the field (like her prior experience at Microsoft) in charge of WotC and they decide that what works in a totally different field (like business software such as Microsoft Office) doesn't work for D&D.

 

[dave2008]

I don't know about 'shortly'. 5e was released in mid 2014, and I remember it being very quiet. There wasn't a great deal of content published (it didn't release with the OGL, which came later in 2016 with the DMsGuild launch), as it was more of a "back to basics" vibe.

Well according to Morrus' article linked below, the articles started in 2015!

 

[Dausuul]

And there's a decent article in Reason as well, which is a publication that holds a definite political point of view very different to that of the New Republic.

Why the tabletop role-playing world is furious about changes to Dungeons & Dragons' open gaming license

For 20 years, D&D has offered third-party publishers an open, royalty-free license to create new works using its game. A leaked revision would end all of that.

reason.com

Yup, that one is also very good indeed.

 

[Jer]

Also speaks to the level of panic/confusion at WotC/Hasbro that they didn't comment.

They haven't said a single thing anywhere about any of this.

Unless this is some elaborate PT Barnum "there's no such thing as bad publicity" angle that I'm missing, it feels like corporate malpractice at this point. To not acknowledge that this is going on and customers are kinda mad about it is really weird - even a "we don't comment on rumors" response is better than just not saying anything at all - at least it shows that you know something is going on that you're not huddled in your office in a fetal position unable to even craft a response.

Unfortunately, you forget the Daily Mail, which is (sadly) much more popular both domestically and worldwide.

I also always forget about the Daily Mail too. But in fairness that's because if I see a Daily Mail link I look for someone else's reporting to make sure it's an actual story and not something made up whole cloth. The Onion seems to be more rigorous in their "reporting" than the Daily Mail.

 

[Xamnam]

They haven't said a single thing anywhere about any of this.

Teeeeeeeeechnically, they've said one thing: