Roll for Combat reveals the terms of the "sweetheart deal" offered to 3pp

[HomegrownHydra]

I think the most likely explanation is that the business side people really believed that 25% with marketing assistance was a legitimately great offer on the numbers.

The most likely explanation is that they were trying to cut the top 3pp's down to size.

 

[Parmandur]

You give a repeatedly and blatantly deceptive company more credit than I do.

More importantly than that, theybare greedy. Ot really isn't that hard to read them: they thought they saw a way to make money byboffering a way for others to make more money, and didn't consider ideals like "Open Gaming" or that third party publishers might not be cold calculating business Reptialians (temwmber that most people assume that everyone secretly thinksnlike they do!). Mistakes were made.

 

[Parmandur]

The most likely explanation is that they were trying to cut the top 3pp's down to size.

No, the most likely explanation was that they wanted money, and an excellent way to do that is by offering a way for someone else to make money and pay you for the privilege.

 

[Ashtagon]

The 15% offer came before the leaks, incidentally, that was their opening gambit to have 25% the standard withb15% for negotiated contracts.

...

Even assuming more knowledge than I am guessing the beers guys had, let's take a look at Kobold Press Tome of Beasts line. They had fewer than 10,000 backers for the latest one on Kickstarter, and made some thousands of sales on DriveThruRPG. Now, let's assume that WotC marketing offer convinced 1% of D&D Beyond users to try Tome of Beasts V, or about 150,000 sales: or approximately $7.5 Million in revenue. Sure, 15% on 7.5 million would be a lot of money given to WotC, but from a business point of view that's a fair trade.

Sure, but if cost-per-unit accounts for 30% of the unit price (assuming printed books), losing 75% (DM Guild's 50%, plus another 25% for the 1.1 licence) means you are paying for the privilege of being in the industry; the more you print, the more you lose.

You're not just paying an upfront cost for development. Per-unit costs exist as well. And it's quite reasonable to suppose that a few thousand units have to be sold just to break even on the development costs.

It might conceivably be a good deal if all you are selling is software with electronic distribution, and therefore no meaningful per-unit costs. Given that the current batch of WotC executives seem to be from that field, that may be why they think its such a good deal.

 

[Maxperson]

More importantly than that, theybare greedy. Ot really isn't that hard to read them: they thought they saw a way to make money byboffering a way for others to make more money, and didn't consider ideals like "Open Gaming" or that third party publishers might not be cold calculating business Reptialians (temwmber that most people assume that everyone secretly thinksnlike they do!). Mistakes were made.

Mistakes are still being made. They continue to try and deceive us, making things worse and not better.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, but if cost-per-unit accounts for 30% of the unit price (assuming printed books), losing 75% (DM Guild's 50%, plus another 25% for the 1.1 licence) means you are paying for the privilege of being in the industry; the more you print, the more you lose.

You're not just paying an upfront cost for development. Per-unit costs exist as well. And it's quite reasonable to suppose that a few thousand units have to be sold just to break even on the development costs.

It might conceivably be a good deal if all you are selling is software with electronic distribution, and therefore no meaningful per-unit costs. Given that the current batch of WotC executives seem to be from that field, that may be why they think its such a good deal.

Per unit costs go down with volume, and as I pointed out above, if WptC could use their marketing muscles to get 1% of their users to buy a Kobold Press book we are talking millions of dollars. I think we have to reasonably assume that some MBA ran some numbers that seemed wildly mutually beneficial, but maybe had some flawed assumptions or data.

 

[Parmandur]

Mistakes are still being made. They continue to try and deceive us, making things worse and not better.

Well, duh, they always were. Like, this is WotC we are talking about here, they've always been manipulative snowjob experts at their best as a group.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Sure, but if cost-per-unit accounts for 30% of the unit price (assuming printed books), losing 75% (DM Guild's 50%, plus another 25% for the 1.1 licence) means you are paying for the privilege of being in the industry; the more you print, the more you lose.

You're not just paying an upfront cost for development. Per-unit costs exist as well. And it's quite reasonable to suppose that a few thousand units have to be sold just to break even on the development costs.

It might conceivably be a good deal if all you are selling is software with electronic distribution, and therefore no meaningful per-unit costs. Given that the current batch of WotC executives seem to be from that field, that may be why they think its such a good deal.

I'm pretty sure if you use the DMs Guild you are not using the OGL. DMs Guild is a separate (bad!) agreement with WOTC that supersedes the implicit offer and acceptance in the OGL. I think they even specifically say that in the old "draft" of OGL 1.1. Or, at the very least, they wouldn't be double-dipping on royalties.

Then again, their word is mud, so you know.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

A lot of assumptions going on there. The Occam's Razor approach is that the decision makers at WotC thought this was a good deal that people would take up, and everybody would make money. And putting on the McBusiness glasses, I can see why that may have seemed reasonable from a particular information vantage point.

We are both making assumptions and yours are not the "Occam's Razors approach", they are just your assumptions. You are assuming that WotC was going for a win-win situation but that clearly is false based upon the fact they included in OGL 1.1 a clause that would let them change or cancel the license whenever they wanted, they just had to give 30 days notice. That is an absolutely outrageous provision that would grant WotC the power to destroy any business that signed on to OGL 1.1. There is no legitimate reason for such a clause and it made clear that they were not wanting to help 3pp's be more successful but to wreck them.

 

[Parmandur]

We are both making assumptions and yours are not the "Occam's Razors approach", they are just your assumptions. You are assuming that WotC was going for a win-win situation but that clearly is false based upon the fact they included in OGL 1.1 a clause that would let them change or cancel the license whenever they wanted, they just had to give 30 days notice. That is an absolutely outrageous provision that would grant WotC the power to destroy any business that signed on to OGL 1.1. There is no legitimate reason for such a clause and it made clear that they were not wanting to help 3pp's be more successful but to wreck them.

I mean, of course they wanted a win-win, they wanted money. They are simple creatures.