Ryan Dancey & AEG Part Ways Following AI Comments

Ryan Dancey, the Chief Operating Officer of boardgame publisher Alderac Entertainment Group, no longer works for the company, following statements on social media where he claimed that AI could make most of the company's board games, and that D&D and Magic: the Gathering were the only new forms of gameplay in his lifetime. After another poster on LinkedIn claimed that "AI wouldn't come up with Tiny Towns or Flip Seven or Cubitos because it doesn't understand the human element of fun", Dancey responded that he had zero reason to believe that AI could not do such a thing.

"I have zero reason to believe that an Al couldn't come up with Tiny Towns or Flip Seven or Cubitos. I can prompt any of several Als RIGHT NOW and get ideas for games as good as those. The gaming industry doesn't exist because humans create otherwise unobtainable ideas. It exists because many many previous games exist, feed into the minds of designers, who produce new variants on those themes. People then apply risk capital against those ideas to see if there's a product market fit. Sometimes there is, and sometimes there is not. (In fact, much more often than not).

Extremely occasionally (twice in my lifetime: D&D and Magic: the Gathering) a human has produced an all new form of gaming entertainment. Those moments are so rare and incandescent that they echo across decades.

Game publishing isn't an industry of unique special ideas. It's an industry about execution, marketing, and attention to detail. All things Als are great at."

- Ryan Dancey​

The Cardboard Herald, a boardgame reviews channel, responded yesterday on BlueSky that "As you may have seen, [AEG] CEO Ryan Dancey stated that AI can make games “just as good as Tiny Towns or Flip 7 or Cubitos”, completely missing the inexorable humanity involved.We’ve spent 10 years celebrating creatives in the industry. Until he’s gone we will not work with AEG."

Today, AEG's CEO John Zinser stated "Today I want to share that Ryan Dancey and AEG have parted ways.This is not an easy post to write. Ryan has been a significant part of AEG’s story, and I am personally grateful for the years of work, passion, and intensity he brought to the company. We have built a lot together. As AEG moves into its next chapter, leadership alignment and clarity matter more than ever. This transition reflects that reality.Our commitment to our designers, partners, retailers, and players remains unchanged. We will continue building great games through collaboration, creativity, and trust."

Dancey himself posted "This morning [John Zinser] and I talked about the aftermath of my post yesterday about the ability of AI to create ideas for games. He's decided that it's time for me to move on to new adventures. Sorry to have things end like this. I've enjoyed my 10 years at AEG. I wish the team there the best in their future endeavors.

I believe we're at a civilizational turning point. That who we are and how we are is going to change on the order of what happened during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions; and it's past time we started talking about it and not being afraid to discuss the topic. Talking about AI, being honest about what it can and cannot do, and thinking about the implications is something we have to begin to do in a widespread way. Humans have a unique creative spark that differentiates us and makes us special and we should celebrate that specialness as we experience this epic change.

For the record: I do not believe that AI will replace the work talented game designer/developers do, nor do I think it is appropriate to use AI to replace the role of designer/developers in the publication of tabletop games. During my time at AEG I developed and implemented polices and contracts that reflect those views. It's important to me that you know what I believe and what I don't believe on this particular topic, despite what you may have read elsewhere."

Whatever your position on generative LLMs and the like, when the COO of your company announces publicly that all of the company’s games could have been made by AI, it’s a problem. UK readers may recall when major jewelry chain Ratners’ CEO Gerald Ratner famously announced that the products sold in his stores were “trash”, instantly wiping half a billion pounds from the company’s value back in the early 1990s. The company was forced to close stores and rebrand to Signet Group. At the time the Ratners Group was the world's biggest jewelry retailer. Ratner himself was forced to resign in 1992. The act of making a damaging statement about the quality of your own company’s products became known as “doing a Ratner”.

Dancey was VP of Wizards of the Coast when the company acquired TSR, the then-owner of Dungeons & Dragons. He is also known for being the architect of the Open Game License. Dancey has worked as Chief Operating Officer for AEG for 10 years, and was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, second-in-command after the CEO, John Zinser.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Was one of Dancey's goals to eliminate all non-D&D games? Or virtually so, at least?

Or was one of his goals to further cement D&D in the center of the industry, and lower the number of other, non-D&D systems? Reduce system competition? (not necessarily to zero, or close to)

Buddy, those are both "evil" goals. They're both anti-consumer, anti-choice. Any attempt "reduce competition" is a bad thing under capitalism, an objectively bad thing. There's a reason Adam Smith stressed the extreme importance of competition, and a reason the main thing he thought could harm consumers and the capitalism he was proposing was monopolies and people doing stuff like you're offering apologia for.

I don't see an attempt at lowering the amount of system competition that existed for D&D by making D&D an open game as an "evil" (or bad) thing.

I mean, factually, it was, at least in the short-to-mid term, a "bad" thing for RPGs in general.

I'm not sure it was even a good thing for 3E in the mid-term. In the short term it clearly was for two reasons:

1) It sold a lot of extra copies of the PHB etc.

2) It caused a lot of RPG stores to devote huge amounts of space to d20 products, which funnelled more people to 3.XE.

However, this lead to an implosion a few years later, because loads of other RPGs and RPG companies had been killed off or harmed directly and indirectly by the d20 boom (whether this was intended, I dunno, I kind of assume it was, because it was predictable), and then a lot of FLGSes suffered because they'd devoted loads of space to this area of gaming that was no longer popular, and had a lot of product they were struggling to move. I know of at least one FLGS which stopped carrying RPGs because of this.

 

[Cergorach]

Which might not be a problem for you if you like to play D&D; but if you're not into D&D, it sounds pretty offensive. Like someone saying "Look, it would be most effective if everyone were to speak English as their native language; we should try to achieve that, and as a logical result, all other languages will probably more or less disappear."

But isn't this exactly the general US mentality? WotC and Ryan Dancey both being from the US?

And they aren't unique either. France was very similar for the longest time, not able to speak any other language and if they did they often refused to in their own country... Heck, even Germany dubs everything to German on TV...

I'm from a tiny country (Netherlands), we know we can't expect people to speak our guttural language, so we also learn English, German, and French (not that I'm any good at the last two). We accept that in the western world English is THE default language to speak, we understand that almost no one will learn Dutch outside of the Benelux, even when visiting... We're not offended by that.

How many non-D&D RPGs died before the OGL even existed? Oodles! That wouldn't change. But how many games either survived or gained more players due to the OGL? Quite a few! Sovereign Stone wouldn't have lasted long without a D20, Call of Cthulhu got a lot more interest due to D20 Cthulhu, L5R got more players due to the D20 integration, and how many people got their introduction to Traveller due to T20?

Someone might want to wipe out the competition, but if the customers are not interested in the first place, they can do nothing, short of buying the competition and then it depends of the competition wants to be bought... If there were people that would rather play a D20/OGL game then the game they were previously playing, then it's a case of a better product for that consumer. And if that means that an indie is selling so much less then previously, that just means that they had the 'inferior' (aka. less popular) product.

There are a TON of companies that now exist due to the OGL. And I suspect that a lot of these were not funded by losses from other indies, but from WotC revenue losses (TSR vs WotC. product numbers). WotC didn't make so many pies, so there was more money to spend on other stuff.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But isn't this exactly the general US mentality? WotC and Ryan Dancey both being from the US?

And they aren't unique either. France was very similar for the longest time, not able to speak any other language and if they did they often refused to in their own country... Heck, even Germany dubs everything to German on TV...

I'm from a tiny country (Netherlands), we know we can't expect people to speak our guttural language, so we also learn English, German, and French (not that I'm any good at the last two). We accept that in the western world English is THE default language to speak, we understand that almost no one will learn Dutch outside of the Benelux, even when visiting... We're not offended by that.

How many non-D&D RPGs died before the OGL even existed? Oodles! That wouldn't change. But how many games either survived or gained more players due to the OGL? Quite a few! Sovereign Stone wouldn't have lasted long without a D20, Call of Cthulhu got a lot more interest due to D20 Cthulhu, L5R got more players due to the D20 integration, and how many people got their introduction to Traveller due to T20?

Someone might want to wipe out the competition, but if the customers are not interested in the first place, they can do nothing, short of buying the competition and then it depends of the competition wants to be bought... If there were people that would rather play a D20/OGL game then the game they were previously playing, then it's a case of a better product for that consumer. And if that means that an indie is selling so much less then previously, that just means that they had the 'inferior' (aka. less popular) product.

There are a TON of companies that now exist due to the OGL. And I suspect that a lot of these were not funded by losses from other indies, but from WotC revenue losses (TSR vs WotC. product numbers). WotC didn't make so many pies, so there was more money to spend on other stuff.

I feel like this take doesn't actually understand how the market works, particularly not how it worked when most people obtained RPGs from FLGSes, not via Kickstarter, PDFs, and Amazon.

The OGL existing helped, for sure.

d20, on the other hand, basically bombed the entire industry, and whilst there were many survivors, and some powerful mutants among them, I don't think we can say it was a good thing.

WotC absolutely did make "so many pies", too, in the 3.XE era, it's wild to say they didn't. Indeed by the end of the d20 era, looking at most FLGses, the only major 3PP with a ton of product was Paizo, most of the others had failed or faded. And if OGL/d20 had been the only thing, Paizo might never have become particularly hugely successful (indeed I could easily see them having been absorbed into WotC at some point), the reason they became so huge was the insane missteps WotC made around 4E. That the OGL existed allowed Paizo to take advantage of those missteps, so again, yay for the OGL, but WotC were by then trying to get rid of the OGL for the first time.

 

[Swanosaurus]

How many non-D&D RPGs died before the OGL even existed? Oodles! That wouldn't change. But how many games either survived or gained more players due to the OGL? Quite a few! Sovereign Stone wouldn't have lasted long without a D20, Call of Cthulhu got a lot more interest due to D20 Cthulhu, L5R got more players due to the D20 integration, and how many people got their introduction to Traveller due to T20?

Someone might want to wipe out the competition, but if the customers are not interested in the first place, they can do nothing, short of buying the competition and then it depends of the competition wants to be bought... If there were people that would rather play a D20/OGL game then the game they were previously playing, then it's a case of a better product for that consumer. And if that means that an indie is selling so much less then previously, that just means that they had the 'inferior' (aka. less popular) product.

There are a TON of companies that now exist due to the OGL. And I suspect that a lot of these were not funded by losses from other indies, but from WotC revenue losses (TSR vs WotC. product numbers). WotC didn't make so many pies, so there was more money to spend on other stuff.

You're right, and I'm fine with all of that. I'm not taking issue with the net effect of the OGL, it's great. I'm just taking issue with Dancey's arrogant rhethorics. To me, it sounds quite clearly as if he was saying: "the OGL will do away with tons of competing systems, leading to a gazillion more PHB sales!", and I'll assume he meant it. That this is not how it has turned out is a great boon.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You're right, and I'm fine with all of that. I'm not taking issue with the net effect of the OGL, it's great. I'm just taking issue with Dancey's arrogant rhethorics. To me, it sounds quite clearly as if he was saying: "the OGL will do away with tons of competing systems, leading to a gazillion more PHB sales!", and I'll assume he meant it. That this is not how it has turned out is a great boon.

In the short term that was precisely how it turned out. Just not in the longer term.

 

[darjr]

For reference

TSR Thread 'Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR'

Mar 16, 2000

In the winter of 1997, I traveled to Lake Geneva Wisconsin on a secret mission. In the late fall, rumors of TSR's impending bankruptcy had created an opportunity to made a bold gamble that the business could be saved by an infusion of capital or an acquisition with a larger partner. After a hasty series of phone calls and late night strategy sessions, I found myself standing in the snow outside of 201 Sheridan Springs Road staring at a building bearing a sign that said "TSR, Incorporated".

Inside the building, I found a dead company.

In the halls that had produced the...

• RyanD
• Replies: 227
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

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[Dire Bare]

But you do see how saying "the problem is competitive systems" (talking about the the problem of RPGs in general), taken together with the idea that you want to drive D&D PHB sales as high as possible, basically means that the best course of action is to do something that will drive all other systems than D&D from the market. Which might not be a problem for you if you like to play D&D; but if you're not into D&D, it sounds pretty offensive. Like someone saying "Look, it would be most effective if everyone were to speak English as their native language; we should try to achieve that, and as a logical result, all other languages will probably more or less disappear." I think its understandable that a lot of people would react poorly to that; and personally, I think it would be pretty sad if all other languages but English were to disappear, and also pretty sad if all systems but D&D were to disappear. Couching all that in the language of the alleged inevitability of economics doesn't make it better, but rather worse.

If your goal is to reduce the number of game systems out there in favor of D&D . . . I think the "how" you go about it is important. I don't think the goal itself is "offensive". Staff at WotC seemed to honestly believe that "system proliferation" was harmful to the RPG industry as a whole . . . an idea that I don't think holds true . . . but the team at the time was looking for ways to, yes, boost D&D sales, but to also preserve D&D from future negative corporate decisions, and to improve the overall industry . . . albeit with D&D at the center of it. And, of course, D&D was already at the center of the industry.

The solution, making D&D an "open game" was pretty benign. A very not-evil way of enacting their evil plan. And for a short while during the "d20 Boom", it seemed to work at reducing "system proliferation" . . . but it also did boost the overall industry's health. And after things evened out once we got past the "d20 Bust", RPG publishers returned to creating and supporting non-D&D games while simultaneously creating games compatible with 3E (and later 5E).

The creation of the OGL has several purposes, some altruistic for the industry and fandom as a whole, some focused on maintaining and improving the dominance of D&D in the market. I have a hard time seeing the creation of the OGL, and the motivations behind it, as negative towards the industry, fandom, and the existence of non-D&D games.

 

[Dire Bare]

Buddy, those are both "evil" goals. They're both anti-consumer, anti-choice. Any attempt "reduce competition" is a bad thing under capitalism, an objectively bad thing. There's a reason Adam Smith stressed the extreme importance of competition, and a reason the main thing he thought could harm consumers and the capitalism he was proposing was monopolies and people doing stuff like you're offering apologia for.


I mean, factually, it was, at least in the short-to-mid term, a "bad" thing for RPGs in general.

I'm not sure it was even a good thing for 3E in the mid-term. In the short term it clearly was for two reasons:

1) It sold a lot of extra copies of the PHB etc.

2) It caused a lot of RPG stores to devote huge amounts of space to d20 products, which funnelled more people to 3.XE.

However, this lead to an implosion a few years later, because loads of other RPGs and RPG companies had been killed off or harmed directly and indirectly by the d20 boom (whether this was intended, I dunno, I kind of assume it was, because it was predictable), and then a lot of FLGSes suffered because they'd devoted loads of space to this area of gaming that was no longer popular, and had a lot of product they were struggling to move. I know of at least one FLGS which stopped carrying RPGs because of this.

Buddy, we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But isn't this exactly the general US mentality? WotC and Ryan Dancey both being from the US?

No, it's not a US mentality. It's evidence of a universal mentality: people tend to learn 2nd (and additional languages) when there is immediate utility that outweighs the cost. The US is large enough, and homogenous enough, that there are vast regions where you can live your whole life and never encounter a 2nd language. But in recent decades that has started changing in certain regions, and in those regions there are lots of people...U.S. born, of european descent...who have learned Spanish.

Europeans, and others who live in areas with dense language heterogeneity, get their noses about US monolingualism, as if their tendency toward multilingualism is due to moral superiority rather than convenience.

P.S. I was once staying overnight at a climbing hut in the alps, where some Italian and German climbers were trying, and failing, to communicate. I speak German decently, and Italian poorly but well enough to translate for them. Ha! Take that, eurosnobs.

 

[Swanosaurus]

In the short term that was precisely how it turned out. Just not in the longer term.

Possibly ... I'm in Germany, and I think d20 not had that kind of sway over the market here back then, so I kind of didn'gt really notice it.
Actually, now with 5e it's a lot more extreme (also, I'm mainly looking at the English-speaking market these days).