Why I'm not boycotting the movie, video games, comic books or novels over the OGL scandal, just D&DB & hardcovers.

[Henadic Theologian]

No, they won. The OGL v1.0a de-auth was the big ticket item, and they've managed to defuse it by walking back the other stuff and convince everybody else they'd won.

The boycott of D&D Beyond hasn't stopped to my knowledge and it's possibly growing, and the internal opposition is still there as is the legal issues that make revoking it doomed to failure. It's the Kobashi Maru for WotC at this point, they can't win.

Besides this thread seems to have established that I'm the only one who thinks we won!

 

[BrokenTwin]

I'll probably see the movie eventually, either on whatever streaming service it ends up on or on the high seas. There's very few movies I go to see in theatres anymore, just not worth it. I'm expecting the movie to be a serviceable popcorn flick at best.
I can't really boycott WotC, as I haven't bought their stuff in years anyway. But what little interest I did have in 6e/5.5/One/whatever is gone. Will probably pick up Level Up at some point.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'll probably see the movie eventually, either on whatever streaming service it ends up on or on the high seas.

We don't generally talk about Piracy on enworld...

 

[Henadic Theologian]

We don't generally talk about Piracy on enworld...

First rule of fight club, we don't talk about fight club.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Good news guys! We killed Jason and Michael Meyers! Let's party! No need to check for the bodies!"

 

[I'm A Banana]

well... the brand IS more important than the game.

I'm thinking WotC believes this as well.

And that's the thing that has me all bent out of shape.

To me, the game is more important than the brand. I have more positive memories of making up stories in a room with a bunch of fellow nerds than I do of reading D&D novels someone else wrote by myself. I have more positive memories of my friends joking around through a campaign than I do of Chris Pine's charming smile. I have more impactful memories of character arcs and stories from people that changed me than I do of any TV show of any genre. Not because of the brand of D&D, but because of the game of D&D. That's the thing I want to teach my kid, that I want to introduce newbies to, that I want to share with people like me, to make a connection over this weird little game.

The game means something to me, and it's being blown up because it means less to WotC than the brand does. The brand doesn't mean much to me. The stories I made with my friends will always be more meaningful to me than the stories Wizards made up that didn't involve the characters and villains my friends and I built.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

To me the reason to not boycott the movie is that a major motion picture is not really all that dependent on the custom of the fans of the underlying source material, certainly not the fans who are in so deep that they are invested in inside baseball like the OGL controversy. If it's not bringing in a much larger audience than actually play D&D at all much less are hyper-engaged, it's already a failure. Also it is unclear how much of the movie profits actually go Hasbro's way. The end result is that the ratio of message sent to self denial suffered by skipping the movie (if you actually want to see the movie) is much lower than with say, the D&D book business, where the people talking about boycott are include many of the most frequent customers.

Also the movie might actually be good, unlike most of the books WotC produces which tend to have some good elements but be the hurried, compromise works of committees too large to produce coherent content.

That said I do think a successful movie at the end of March is exactly the thing that will obfuscate what a terrible job certain executives are doing or long term damage to brand health. But then I also think they'll spin a decline in book sales as just a reason to pivot harder to digital. The creepy suits are all together in a creepy suit echo-chamber and it will take years before they either turn on each other or all get replaced. Trying to send them a message is pretty hopeless. Do it when it feels good, but don't do it when it bums you out.

Ultimately I just don't see the WotC or Hasbro seeing the error of their ways and righting course until years from now if ever. So rather than worrying about what to melodramatically boycott I think the prudent course is to simply factor in giving money to WotC as a negative externality when considering purchases the way you hopefully do your carbon footprint or whatever. I'm going to see the movie if it turns out to be good, because I really want to see a good D&D movie (or just a good fantasy movie). But I can't think of any other products of theirs I'm really excited about, and "really excited" has replaced "eh.. it's pretty cheap on Amazon right now, maybe I'll give it a shot" as my threshold to buy a WotC product.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm thinking WotC believes this as well.

And that's the thing that has me all bent out of shape.

To me, the game is more important than the brand. I have more positive memories of making up stories in a room with a bunch of fellow nerds than I do of reading D&D novels someone else wrote by myself. I have more positive memories of my friends joking around through a campaign than I do of Chris Pine's charming smile. I have more impactful memories of character arcs and stories from people that changed me than I do of any TV show of any genre. Not because of the brand of D&D, but because of the game of D&D. That's the thing I want to teach my kid, that I want to introduce newbies to, that I want to share with people like me, to make a connection over this weird little game.

The game means something to me, and it's being blown up because it means less to WotC than the brand does. The brand doesn't mean much to me. The stories I made with my friends will always be more meaningful to me than the stories Wizards made up that didn't involve the characters and villains my friends and I built.

The thing is, all D&D IS is a brand. They gave away the game, or what little they actually could own in the first place, and have relied on the Brand ever since. D&D as a ruleset is interchangeable with dozens of other rulesets. I've run my homebrew world in four unique editions of D&D plus two OGL games and little has changed. WotC has to leverage the brand to sell t shirts and movies, it's all that makes their version unique.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

We haven't won anything yet -- and will not have won until WotC waves a white flag and confirms to deauthorization of the OGL.

And have you seen the new D&DB plans? We need to hit their wallet harder -- which means going after every company that licenses content from WotC. We need not just TTRPG consumers but licensees dropping the business to exert influence.

The faster WotC surrenders the faster you can go back to consuming content.

 

[DMZ2112]

I'm not boycotting the D&D movie because I think Hasbro sucks and is targeting the industry that helped make D&D as big as its gotten. I'm skipping the movie because it looks like trash. I don't want a "har har, it's like they're from an actual gaming table" movie. That was one of the big problems with the movie 20 years ago.

I feel like we saw two very different movies. The only joyful thing about the 2000 movie is Jeremy Irons chewing the scenery. It's overwrought start to finish.

I'd much rather they treat it the same way the better novel authors do, and actually write a story that explores the setting, builds upon lore (canon or otherwise) and develops the protagonists as something other than one note joke characters.

That confirms it, you are posting on this forum from a parallel reality where Hollywood works completely differently. How do I cross over?