Rumours: WotC Announcement Today; Insider Email Reveals Plans

There's a couple of rumours going round today. I cannot verify either, but I'm reporting them as most of the recent OGL rumours have proven true.

First -- it is rumoured that today at 3pm ET Wizards of the Coast will make some kind of video statement about the current Open Game License situation. This rumour came from the folks at Roll For Combat who were the first to break the draft OGL scoop.

[[UPDATE -- This didn't happen!]]

Second -- an email has been circulating from an anonymous WotC insider. Again, I must reiterate I cannot myself verify this, so read this with that in mind, but the email says:

Hi,

I'm an employee at WotC currently working on D&Dbeyond (DDB) and with D&D business leaders on the health of the product line. If you want I can provide proof of this.

I'm sending this message because I fear for the health of a community I love, and I know what the leaders at WOTC are looking at:

-They are briefly delaying rollout of OGL changes due to the backlash.
-Their decision making is based entirely on the provable impact to their bottom line.
-Specifically they are looking at DDB subscriptions and cancellations as it is the quickest financial data they currently have.
-They are still hoping the community forgets, moves on, and they can still push this through.

I have decided to reach out because at my time in WotC I have never once heard management refer to customers in a positive manner, their communication gives me the impression they see customers as obstacles between them and their money, the DDB team was first told to prepare to support the new OGL changes and online portal when they got back from the holidays, and leadership doesn't take any responsibility for the pain and stress they cause others. Leadership's first communication to the rank and file on the OGL was 30 minutes on 1/11/23, This was the first time they even tried to communicate their intentions about the OGL to employees, and even in this meeting they blamed the community for over-reacting.

I will repeat, the main thing this leadership is looking at is DDB subscription cancellations.

Hope your day goes well,

P.S. I will be copying and pasting this message to other community leaders.

If both rumours are true, I guess at 3pm ET today we'll find that out.

 

[Velderan]

So I paid for a year Dndbeyond sub a couple months back before all this happened. I have some encounters built (your limited to 5 I think with the free account, I needed more). If I cancel my sub will I lose all those encounters I've built for my game? I guess I'm going to wait and see what this video is about then decide. This sucks.

I believe cancelling your account only cancels the renewal of it at the normal end of its term, so you would not lose anything until your subscription year is up.

@Rabulias is correct. I'm paid through October and cancelled, but still have all my usual access through the end of my paid time.

 

[Art Waring]

Ryan Dancey covered some of this yesterday in his interview on Roll for Combat. Hasbro reorganized after taking over, organizing by priotitizing the "big" IP's together, and giving no priority to brands that made under 50 million annually (this included d&d).

D&D, now making more and more money, has brought D&D into the crosshairs of the shareholders, who before this didn't know or care that D&D existed. Now that it has to make money, the shareholders need explanations like "fireside chats" to assure them their investment is sound.

The direct result of people unsubbing from their platform, is that they now must answer to the shareholders again. Not to mention their stock has taken a dip of 1.7% yesterday, and depending on their announcement today, their announcement may affect their stock even further.

Why? because placing D&D as one of their primary brands, just like Mtg, affects their entire business (stock previously dropped up to 40% following the announcements from banks downgrading their stock and the m30 release).

 

[overgeeked]

I don't find that e-mail remotely surprising. It always sucks to hear what corporate thinks of us "little people", but it seems that it's always a variant of this attitude. It comes from seeing people as numbers on graphs and spreadsheets. That and CEOs are often sociopaths.

I've honestly come to expect it.

I mean, it's literally capitalism. That's what it do. The greed of corporations doesn't shock or surprise me. That other people are shocked and surprised is what shocks and surprises me.

 

[Velderan]

Also, if you absolutely want to keep playing "official" D&D just buy the books used.
I bet that probably bothers them more than not playing at all.

Half Priced Books and stores like that are great for this sort of thing.

 

[Ondath]

So by not releasing a statement at 3:00 p.m. ET today, they can cast doubt on the first rumor. "Well that rumor was wrong about the announcement, maybe it's also wrong about these changes to the OGL," some might think.

But it would confirm the second (and more damning) rumor. "They said they were going to delay the roll-out, and now they're already delaying the announcement, so the rumor must be true!"

This is going to be an interesting afternoon.

Personally, thinking about this is now taking too much cognitive space for me. I won't fret about the announcement until they make it.

In the meantime, I requested that they delete my D&D Beyond account, and I am reporting about the situation to a Turkish RPG site when enoug news accumulates. I will speak ill of their plans until they reverse course, but refreshing my Twitter feed and EN World every 5 minutes yields nothing at this point.

 

[Scribe]

So by not releasing a statement at 3:00 p.m. ET today, they can cast doubt on the first rumor. "Well that rumor was wrong about the announcement, maybe it's also wrong about these changes to the OGL," some might think.

But it would confirm the second (and more damning) rumor. "They said they were going to delay the roll-out, and now they're already delaying the announcement, so the rumor must be true!"

This is going to be an interesting afternoon.

Yeah and here I am heading into meetings!

 

[diceexmachina]

The amazing part about this whole thing is the failure of Hasbro/WotC to understand their own business. But then again, that's basically the story of modern American corporate management: Short term gains over long-term gains, make as much money now as possible. The advantage of a corporation over a sole proprietorship or family business is allegedly that the corporation is more capable of long-term planning, but in reality, the executives get/keep their job by promising investors short-term returns rather than long-term growth. Everything is run like a gold mine: Extract all the easy money, then sell the leftovers for scrap.

The OGL was created by a group of forward-thinking people who knew that a healthier community and industry benefitted D&D and WotC in the long-term, and they understood that people who bought rules supplements from Mongoose, settings from Fantasy Flight, or adventures from Paizo were also buying the main rulebooks from WotC. That was the bargain, and it paid off big-time. Now, for the second time in 15 years, WotC leadership has let their delusion that they're "leaving money on the table" lead them off a cliff because they only see other people making money. They're idiots, and like every company run by dipshits from US Business schools, they'll keep doing stupid naughty word because they think it's how they are supposed to do iy.

 

[Zaukrie]

WotC can't undo the harm at this point. Not in the short term. The big companies aren't going back, they will build new games. The question is, what can they do to decrease the harm? The majority of players probably don't know what's going on.... They need to keep those players happy and engaged.

 

[Kai Lord]

Considering that even if they rolled back 100% and ammended the current OGL to be super duper irrevocable forever the trust is irretrievably broken. So damn the torpedoes, you know? The damage is already done.
We'll just have to make our own non corporate d&d now.

I assume they could at least amend the original 1.0a OGL to include the word "irrevocable?" That's the only thing that I can think of that will restore perpetual ongoing trust at least with regard to producing content for everything up through 5E.

 

[DMZ2112]

Edit, it’s back on line.

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Can I just say how much I've always hated that 500 error. Gives me a gat-danged heart attack every time it comes up late at night. :: shakes tiny fist ::

I'm reasonably certain that they are concerned about paying subscribers.

And probably won't care about people that sign up just to quit.

But when we feel powerless, sometimes any action helps? So why not!

With a nod to the humor, I'm gonna humbly suggest folks not. There have always been so many good reasons not to have a D&D Beyond account subscription at all that this one barely even registers a change on the whole tumescent mass.