WotC Replies: Statements by WotC employees regarding Dragon/Dungeon going online

[smootrk]

I believe OGL magazines have been tried. And did not last long. EN World Player's Journal was one such. Now one could take a gamble that with no "official" print counterpart available after Sept 2007 there would be more of a market.

FYI I would love to see another online outlet to compete with WotC, maybe something started by ENWorld. I would support it initially just for spite of WotC, then continuation would based on content/quality.

 

[Nightfall]

Smootk,

Can we save the spite and anger for next week? I want to hear what Bill Slavacik(sp) has to say.

But don't worry I support you. Just want some peace now.

 

[amethal]

I believe, they (Paizo) are under some contract that doesn't allow them to change names at the drop of the hat.

Someone with more legal expertise can explain that part.

Its all rumour and speculation, but the word on the street is that the original licensing agreement between WotC and Paizo included a non-competition clause.

If it didn't, it should have (and WotC's lawyers were probably negligent).

Basically, as part of the agreement whereby WotC licensed the magazines to Paizo, Paizo would have agreed that for a set period of time after the licence expired they would not set up similar magazines of their own.

Paizo would have the ability to now challenge any such clause if they felt it was an unreasonable restraint of trade, so the time period would have to be reasonable. In the UK, a reasonable period would be a year or two; I imagine the USA would be similar.

 

[Nightfall]

Am,

See I knew it was partial rumor but wasn't sure if there were some facts involved too.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Everyone ragging on the WotC folks for being "too cowardly" to post here, and for not wanting to be "thrown to the wolves," may want to stop for a moment and consider that the people likely to be posting about this are the creative folks--the ones you know by name, the ones who have posted here before--and not the ones who made this decision. Even if some anger is justified, it's not justifiably aimed at the people who would be posting--yet in the current environment, I don't blame them for worrying that they'll still get a face full of it.

Yeah, seriously if I were them I wouldnt want to post here either. I think the cancelling of DUNGEON jusk sucks and I fully intend to support Paizo's new effort at the same time taking a good hard look at my future WOTC purchases. On the other hand I'm more than just a little curious as to what WOTC's new online initiative is going to contain and look like and I dont want to hear about it from people who know nothing about it and are speculating. I want to hear about it from people who are involved in it and the only way for that to happen is to foster an enviornment where they would want to come here and tell us what they have planned.

I'm a little suprised at the level of venom here. I get a little confrontational from time to time butthe past few days here have been ridicoulous (sp?).

 

[Nightfall]

Shin,

Well not sure about ridiculous so much as the venom is emotional and thus blinding.

 

[Tzeentch]

http://www.circvsmaximvs.com/showthread.php?t=23149

It seems that we aren't going to get the discussion and answer from Wizards because of the way many people here are acting about the whole thing. And frankly, I don't blame them one bit.

Hiding out in the bunkers while the internet maelstrom swirls has always worked out well ...

I don't think WotC could have mishandled the PR on this more if they had tried - which as has been noted is pretty amusing since they are so big on pushing content through this series of tubes called the intarweb and yet don't have clue one on crafting their presence on it.

 

[JeffB]

I think the lesson here is that a company thinking of moving to an online model, needs to be better at managing the web reaction to their announcements...

Bravo.

The whole "WOTC staffers are "reluctant" (cough) to come over here and talk about this mess" that Morris posted honestly cracks me up.

As someone who has worked for some fairly large corporations who've had to make some press announcements that pi$$ed off a lot of people/customers from time to time, quite honestly, I think the stance is rather unprofessional. Marketing and CS people sometimes get to have all the glory, and sometimes they have to eat the big $^&t sandwiches when it's bad press and problems. Quite frankly, where I have worked, our marketing people (that included myself) would have been reamed out and/or disciplined/fired for avoiding such a situation. An online "damage contol-blurb", would not be sufficient (in the least). Then again, we'd have our CS people up to snuff on the sitch as best we could, and also be putting out all kinds of FAQs for our customers (like Paizo did)

I'm not talking about designers now...I'm talking about the marketing people and the people in charge of this online initiative (assuming they've hired the positions yet, lol).

 

[Nightfall]

Jeff,

Yeah I feel you on that but on the other hand, let's just give them a chance. I'm not saying stop being unhappy. Just give them a chance to respond.

Otherwise I feel and agree with you on that 100%.

 

[Crothian]

The whole "WOTC staffers are "reluctant" (cough) to come over here and talk about this mess" that Morris posted honestly cracks me up.

I'm not talking about designers now...I'm talking about the marketing people and the people in charge of this online initiative (assuming they've hired the positions yet, lol).

I'm pretty sure it is the designers though that are the ones saying they are reluctant to post.