Because they promised that license was for life. That it was perpetual. Changing a perpetual agreement is highly unethical. And possibly it is illegal.
So, indentured servitude is completely moral then? And anyone in such a contract wanting out of it is the unethical one?
The nature of the perpetual agreement is completely irrelevant, only the fact it is perpetual matters?
What an insane take
Yes the nature of the agreement does matter
No the nature of the agreement is not akin to forms of literal slavery
Because they promised that license was for life. That it was perpetual. Changing a perpetual agreement is highly unethical. And possibly it is illegal.
So, indentured servitude is completely moral then? And anyone in such a contract wanting out of it is the unethical one?
The nature of the perpetual agreement is completely irrelevant, only the fact it is perpetual matters?
There is a certain irony to your invoking indentured servitude for comparison provided Wizards' attitudes on what is or is not hateful are informed by a mob that have little hesitation minimizing the brutality endured by particularly Irish women under indentured servitude because they see so much as mentioning the subject as somehow making excuses for the Atlantic slave trade.
Yes, it was horrific. However, the suggestion is that everyone else can and should be able to use the products of Wizard's labour absolutely free with no benefit back to Wizards. In fact, they should be allowed to openly compete with Wizards using anything and everything Wizards creates. And note, we are not talking about new original or sufficiently transformative works. Those would not normally be subject to Wizards' copyrights.
The analogy stands. And Irish men were subjected to it too, used as forced labour or forced to fight as soldiers. So were Welsh and, well anyone else they decided deplorable. We use your labour, you get nothing in return. And if you don't like it, you can feel to the new world / shut down your company.
Hasbro created 1.0a to indirectly generate profit during 3e/3.5e, and it worked amazingly. It worked a second time over a decade later when they repeated the experiment with fifth edition.
Now, somehow, the new generation at leadership at Hasbro/WotC regrets their decision (which was made to make money, and did so) and wants to go back on their word and people are holding them to their word and... you're painting Hasbro/WotC as the victim? Of their own, profitable decisions?
Hasbro created 1.0a to indirectly generate profit during 3e/3.5e, and it worked amazingly. It worked a second time over a decade later when they repeated the experiment with fifth edition.
Now, somehow, the new generation at leadership at Hasbro/WotC regrets their decision (which was made to make money, and did so) and wants to go back on their word and people are holding them to their word and... you're painting Hasbro/WotC as the victim? Of their own, profitable decisions?
There's no world in which your metaphor works.
First of all, how does it generate profit for WotC if they get nothing back in return? This comes back to my asking what 3rd party anything actually facilitated the success of 5e.
5e didn't even exist until fourteen years later.
Second, Hasbro had just purchased WotC the year before and Wizards had bought TSR only 3 years before that. The edition out there was still the rather unpopular 4e. So, frankly, it looks more like Hasbro was just (mostly) writing off D&D at the time. It is only later when they went to make 5e that there was any reason for regret. And even then, there was not the level of real time online play we see today. Roll20 was only 2 years old when 5e was released. Discord did not exist until the year after it was released. Foundry did not exist until 2 years ago.
The majority of lawyers I have seen giving commentary on 1.0 have said 'Bad agreement.'
Just because an entity is bigger does not mean it is always in the wrong. Nor is the world binary with only completely right or completely right or completely wrong.
Look at it objectively, in the real world. No alternative worlds needed.
You are misunderstanding the core principle behind community-driven content.
3e and 5e were popular BECAUSE of the OGL and 3rd party content. It is what facilitated its popularity and its growth.
Its not like Wizards of the Coast created 5e and it was so good that 50 million people started playing it. A small number of people started playing, those people started creating content under the OGL, which brought in more players, who then also created content, which brought in more players.. so on and so forth.
Community growth is very powerful, Wizards of the Coast's D&D is as popular as it is because a vast community adopted it. They make tons of money from 3rd party content because this content grows its player base, market share. This creates opportunities for them to sell things of their own creation.
So no they earn nothing on 3rd party products, but yes, they make crazy amounts of money because of the growth of the community which has grown as a result of the OGL and the massive expansion of the game beyond what Wizards of the Coast publishes.
Its the same with video games. Half-Life became one of the most popular PC games in the history of gaming, not because Half-Life was such a good game, but because they opened the game to modders who created so much content for the game including entire sub-games like Counter-Strike. Valve made tons of money on the game, but ZERO money on the modder's work, but in the end it was the growth of the community that made them filthy rich.
Wizards of the Coasts wants the growth and the royalties but as soon as you ask for royalties, that 3rd party community disappears.. more specifically they will go somewhere else and before you know it, it will be Paizo's Pathfinder that gets all the 3rd party content and insane growth.
It's coming.. you'll see. If Wizards of the Coast releases this OGL they are shooting themselves in the foot. What do you think will happen to D&D's popularity when Critical Role decides to move their game to PF2.... MCDM decides to create a monster book for PF2 instead of D&D, when people start streaming PF2 tutorials instead of D&D tutorials.
Create an OGL that blocks motivation for people to create content for your game and those people will move elsewhere to do the same thing. Content creators will always find a way to make their stuff, passionate communities function like that and if they can't do it under D&D without getting hosed... Well... they will just find somewhere else to do it.
1. LICENSED CONTENT: (a) Content Covered: (i):"This license covers any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons. You may use that content in your own works on the terms of this license."
Does this mean they can change the SRD at any time? Sure they could add stuff, which would be cool to see the SRD content grow over time. But they could also remove stuff, meaning entire swaths of OGL licensed content could suddenly be in breach of the OGL, which means that any 3rd party content under the OGL is putting the future profitablity of their content in the hands of Wizards.
Needs to be more specific on how the SRD can and cannot be changed, with express confirmation that works published using a version of the OGL will not be held accountable for breach of license if the SRD is changed after publication.
6. WARRANTIES AND DISCLAIMERS: (f) No Hateful Content or Conduct."[You represent and warrant that] You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action."
With no concrete definition for what constitutes "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" content, this allows Wizards the power revoke licenses from any work if they can kinda, sorta justify maybe someone, somewhere possibly taking offense to it. Nothing in this document so much as suggests that they have to hold themselves to the same standard, meaning 3rd party OGL licensees are at the whims of Wizard's hypocracy. Especially since D&D has, even very recently, released harmful, hateful, etc material in their own work.
This also takes away basically any legal way for a 3rd party company, under this OGL, to contest a decision to revoke the license based on this. Not only can they decide your work is harmful, without any proof or oversight, they take away your right to defend your work.
Needs a clear, referenceable definition of "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" material and promotion thereof.
Needs a confirmation that Wizards will hold themselves to the same standards they will hold OGL licensees to in this regard, as well as an avenue for 3rd parties to hold them accountable for breaching those standards.
Must remove that forfeiting of legal rights.
7. MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (a) Modification: "We may only modify the provisions of this license identifying the attribution required under Section 5 and the notice provision of Section 9(a). We may not modify any other provision."
For reference:
5. YOU CONTROL YOUR CONTENT:"You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."
(a)"You must clearly indicate that your Licensed Work contains Our Licensed Content under this license either by including the full text of this license in your Licensed Work or by applying the Creator Products badge in compliance with the then-current style guidelines." (b)"You may permit the use of your Content on any terms you want. However, if any license you offer to your Licensed Work is different from the terms of this license, you must include in the Licensed Work the attribution for Our Licensed Content found in the preamble to the applicable SRD, and make clear that Our Licensed Content included in your Licensed Work is made available on the terms of this license."
-
As they can modify the attribution required under section 5, that means they can, at any point, redefine any point in this section. Meaning attributed ownership of 3rd party content is at Wizards' whims. They can also change HOW you control your content, whether you can license your own original work, what you must include to use OGL content, etc. It also does not provide any protections to works released before modifications to this section are made.
Needs specifications for what Wizards can and cannot modify in this section, as well as confirmed protections for works published before modifications to section are made official.
For refence:
9. MISCELLANEOUS:
(a) Notices. "We may notify you by any email or physical address we can locate for you. Only if we cannot locate your email or physical address after a reasonable search, notice via a public channel is sufficient. You may provide notice to us of your email or physical address, or any other notice, by emailing oglnotices@wizards.com."
-
Section 9 (a) ultimately means nothing, as they can change this section on a whim. Meaning that they can redefine how they can notify you, or any requirements you need to make to receive notifications, including regestering accounts, providing personal or professional details, etc.
Needs to specify that, in regards to 9.(a), new avenues of notification can be added, but old avenues of notification cannot be removed, and that the licensee can determine the preferred method of notice.
MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (b) Termination (i):"We may immediately terminate your license if you infringe any of our intellectual property; bring an action challenging our ownership of Our Licensed Content, trademarks, or patents; violate any law in relation to your activities under this license; or violate Section 6(f)."
Once again, termination of license without reproach based on Wizards' interpretation of "harmful" material.
Needs: See response to section 6 (f)
MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (b) Termination (ii):"We may terminate your license if you breach any other term in this license, and do not cure that breach within 30 days of notice to you of the breach."
Once again, no provisions or protections for material that is already in print/production at the time when this document is modified.
Needs clear confirmation of protections for material already in publication at time of modifications made to the OGL.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (d) Severability: "If any part of this license is held to be unenforceable or invalid for any reason, Wizards may declare the entire license void, either as between it and the party that obtained the ruling or in its entirety. Unless Wizards elects to do so, the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist."
Are you serious? What is the ******* point then? You can literally pull the plug making any content under the OGL 1.2 null and void, any time they don't get their way? No. Why would anyone stake their businesses on an license that can disappear the second the license-holders feel like they aren't getting their way? It's completely unacceptable.
Needs confirmation that Wizards will not declare the entire license void if a part of it is held as unenforceable or invalid. Make "the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist" part Wizards only choice for this situation.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (g) Waiver of Jury Trial:"We and you each waive any right to a jury trial of any dispute, claim or cause of action related to or arising out of this license."
Of course not, you fools. No one should sign their legal rights away.
Remove it.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (h) Review by Counsel:"You should seek advice of counsel to make sure you understand this license. You agree that you had the opportunity to do so."
Well, no. If this is referring to legal council, not everyone has access to that. It's expensive, and presents an unnecessary high bar for entry for smaller 3rd party developers. It's also unclear what agreeing to this statement actually changes about your position as a licensee.
Specify what rights or avenues of recourse you forfeit by agreeing to this section.
1. LICENSED CONTENT: (a) Content Covered: (i):"This license covers any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons. You may use that content in your own works on the terms of this license."
Does this mean they can change the SRD at any time? Sure they could add stuff, which would be cool to see the SRD content grow over time. But they could also remove stuff, meaning entire swaths of OGL licensed content could suddenly be in breach of the OGL, which means that any 3rd party content under the OGL is putting the future profitablity of their content in the hands of Wizards.
Needs to be more specific on how the SRD can and cannot be changed, with express confirmation that works published using a version of the OGL will not be held accountable for breach of license if the SRD is changed after publication.
6. WARRANTIES AND DISCLAIMERS: (f) No Hateful Content or Conduct."[You represent and warrant that] You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action."
With no concrete definition for what constitutes "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" content, this allows Wizards the power revoke licenses from any work if they can kinda, sorta justify maybe someone, somewhere possibly taking offense to it. Nothing in this document so much as suggests that they have to hold themselves to the same standard, meaning 3rd party OGL licensees are at the whims of Wizard's hypocracy. Especially since D&D has, even very recently, released harmful, hateful, etc material in their own work.
This also takes away basically any legal way for a 3rd party company, under this OGL, to contest a decision to revoke the license based on this. Not only can they decide your work is harmful, without any proof or oversight, they take away your right to defend your work.
Needs a clear, referenceable definition of "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" material and promotion thereof.
Needs a confirmation that Wizards will hold themselves to the same standards they will hold OGL licensees to in this regard, as well as an avenue for 3rd parties to hold them accountable for breaching those standards.
Must remove that forfeiting of legal rights.
7. MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (a) Modification: "We may only modify the provisions of this license identifying the attribution required under Section 5 and the notice provision of Section 9(a). We may not modify any other provision."
For reference:
5. YOU CONTROL YOUR CONTENT:"You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."
(a)"You must clearly indicate that your Licensed Work contains Our Licensed Content under this license either by including the full text of this license in your Licensed Work or by applying the Creator Products badge in compliance with the then-current style guidelines." (b)"You may permit the use of your Content on any terms you want. However, if any license you offer to your Licensed Work is different from the terms of this license, you must include in the Licensed Work the attribution for Our Licensed Content found in the preamble to the applicable SRD, and make clear that Our Licensed Content included in your Licensed Work is made available on the terms of this license."
-
As they can modify the attribution required under section 5, that means they can, at any point, redefine any point in this section. Meaning attributed ownership of 3rd party content is at Wizards' whims. They can also change HOW you control your content, whether you can license your own original work, what you must include to use OGL content, etc. It also does not provide any protections to works released before modifications to this section are made.
Needs specifications for what Wizards can and cannot modify in this section, as well as confirmed protections for works published before modifications to section are made official.
For refence:
9. MISCELLANEOUS:
(a) Notices. "We may notify you by any email or physical address we can locate for you. Only if we cannot locate your email or physical address after a reasonable search, notice via a public channel is sufficient. You may provide notice to us of your email or physical address, or any other notice, by emailing oglnotices@wizards.com."
-
Section 9 (a) ultimately means nothing, as they can change this section on a whim. Meaning that they can redefine how they can notify you, or any requirements you need to make to receive notifications, including regestering accounts, providing personal or professional details, etc.
Needs to specify that, in regards to 9.(a), new avenues of notification can be added, but old avenues of notification cannot be removed, and that the licensee can determine the preferred method of notice.
MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (b) Termination (i):"We may immediately terminate your license if you infringe any of our intellectual property; bring an action challenging our ownership of Our Licensed Content, trademarks, or patents; violate any law in relation to your activities under this license; or violate Section 6(f)."
Once again, termination of license without reproach based on Wizards' interpretation of "harmful" material.
Needs: See response to section 6 (f)
MODIFICATION OR TERMINATION: (b) Termination (ii):"We may terminate your license if you breach any other term in this license, and do not cure that breach within 30 days of notice to you of the breach."
Once again, no provisions or protections for material that is already in print/production at the time when this document is modified.
Needs clear confirmation of protections for material already in publication at time of modifications made to the OGL.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (d) Severability: "If any part of this license is held to be unenforceable or invalid for any reason, Wizards may declare the entire license void, either as between it and the party that obtained the ruling or in its entirety. Unless Wizards elects to do so, the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist."
Are you serious? What is the ****ing point then? You can literally pull the plug making any content under the OGL 1.2 null and void, any time they don't get their way? No. Why would anyone stake their businesses on an license that can disappear the second the license-holders feel like they aren't getting their way? It's completely unacceptable.
Needs confirmation that Wizards will not declare the entire license void if a part of it is held as unenforceable or invalid. Make "the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist" part Wizards only choice for this situation.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (g) Waiver of Jury Trial:"We and you each waive any right to a jury trial of any dispute, claim or cause of action related to or arising out of this license."
Of course not, you fools. No one should sign their legal rights away.
Remove it.
9. MISCELLANEOUS: (h) Review by Counsel:"You should seek advice of counsel to make sure you understand this license. You agree that you had the opportunity to do so."
Well, no. If this is referring to legal council, not everyone has access to that. It's expensive, and presents an unnecessary high bar for entry for smaller 3rd party developers. It's also unclear what agreeing to this statement actually changes about your position as a licensee.
Specify what rights or avenues of recourse you forfeit by agreeing to this section.
A few years ago, there was a controversy and Orcs were considered to be a racist experience and a proxy to diminish people of colour.
WOTC can deauthorize a full RPG using the new ogl for putting orcs as monsters. Without justification, without resort of any kind.
It's so much worse than that. They can take something you created, publish it as their own and then shut you down for using "their" content. Your only recourse at that point is to sue them and hope you can prove in a court of law that they stole from you and even if you win, the only thing you can get is a cash settlement, they still own your content and can still shut you down.
Now I will admit this is quite an alarmist position to take, I don't actually believe they would do something like that, but with this OGL, they certainly could.
A few years ago, there was a controversy and Orcs were considered to be a racist experience and a proxy to diminish people of colour.
WOTC can deauthorize a full RPG using the new ogl for putting orcs as monsters. Without justification, without resort of any kind.
It's so much worse than that. They can take something you created, publish it as their own and then shut you down for using "their" content. Your only recourse at that point is to sue them and hope you can prove in a court of law that they stole from you and even if you win, the only thing you can get is a cash settlement, they still own your content and can still shut you down.
Now I will admit this is quite an alarmist position to take, I don't actually believe they would do something like that, but with this OGL, they certainly could.
And the next person you walk past on the street certainly could decide to start beating on you, but the vast majority of the population carries on with life regardless. Brandishing these hypotheticals is not a great argument, particularly given that we’ve already demonstrated to WotC that the end state of such actions is the majority of playerbase abandoning D&D. I’m not under any illusions that the company is a benevolent entity with only the best of intentions in mind, but I also don’t buy into the illusion that they’re so Stupid Evil they’ll burn their own house down attempting to make a quick buck.
A few years ago, there was a controversy and Orcs were considered to be a racist experience and a proxy to diminish people of colour.
WOTC can deauthorize a full RPG using the new ogl for putting orcs as monsters. Without justification, without resort of any kind.
It's so much worse than that. They can take something you created, publish it as their own and then shut you down for using "their" content. Your only recourse at that point is to sue them and hope you can prove in a court of law that they stole from you and even if you win, the only thing you can get is a cash settlement, they still own your content and can still shut you down.
Now I will admit this is quite an alarmist position to take, I don't actually believe they would do something like that, but with this OGL, they certainly could.
And the next person you walk past on the street certainly could decide to start beating on you, but the vast majority of the population carries on with life regardless. Brandishing these hypotheticals is not a great argument, particularly given that we’ve already demonstrated to WotC that the end state of such actions is the majority of playerbase abandoning D&D. I’m not under any illusions that the company is a benevolent entity with only the best of intentions in mind, but I also don’t buy into the illusion that they’re so Stupid Evil they’ll burn their own house down attempting to make a quick buck.
I don't disagree, I don't think their goal is to steal from the 3rd party creators, I think their goal is to ensure the contract is such a raw deal that their won't be anyone creating any 3rd party content to begin with.
The objective here is to shut down the 3rd party market and create a lifestyle environment and it's a pretty brilliant move. With less content available for D&D, if you want to buy D&D content you'll be doing it through them for all your content. Sure the community will shrink, but if 100 people spend 50 bucks each on your books and 50 bucks on 3rd party books, you will make less money than if 70 people spend 100 bucks each on your product. Even if the community shrinks by 30-40% they will make way more money if the 3rd party market is dead.
4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.
If WotC was afraid of 3rd party content and thought it was eating into their own profit they would just buy it up like any other company.
There are thousands of 3rd party publishers creating 10's of thousands of books, people buy this content sporadically. No single publisher is making all the money, but all combined they are making a fair share and they sell books at considerably discounted prices compared to what Wizards of the Coast could get for it.
Buying them out is not profitable, eliminating them is.
They only need to to buy out the ones that become a financial threat. Not all of them. There are very few that are putting a noticeable dent into their bottom line.
I have DM'd my group for 25 years. I bought every 3rd Edition book. I've bought every 5th Edition book to date. In between, however, I bought every Pathfinder book because 4th edition declined to keep the promise of the OGL. I won't buy any more books or tools or anything from this company again, and will move my group elsewhere. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on books from this company, and I won't pay another dime. The OGL represented a promise to not follow TSR's ways. I can't trust OGL 1.2 as the promises of the past have been thrown away.
I can't trust any component of the new OGL because of this one act. It is the move of a company that refused to learn the lessons of the past, who discards the good will of a community of creators. Everything else, from the Morality clause that will be used to harm creators that WotC deems competition, to attack VTTs that show WotC has no faith in their future product. It shows that WotC has no faith in 6th edition as a whole. These are small though, compared to trying to revoke a promise that for decades has made this property a money printing machine.
Simply put, Do not attempt to revoke the OGL 1.0a. WotC's own FAQ said so:
"Can’t Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn’t like?
Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there’s no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway."
Buying them out is not profitable, eliminating them is.
They're not eliminating anyone. If they wanted to do that, there'd be no OGL at all, they'd simply deauthorize 1.0a and demand everyone come to them for a custom license they way TSR did.
Buying them out is not profitable, eliminating them is.
They're not eliminating anyone. If they wanted to do that, there'd be no OGL at all, they'd simply deauthorize 1.0a and demand everyone come to them for a custom license they way TSR did.
Or if we're listing things they aren't able to do, why not just materialize bricks of gold out of solid air?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Buying them out is not profitable, eliminating them is.
They're not eliminating anyone. If they wanted to do that, there'd be no OGL at all, they'd simply deauthorize 1.0a and demand everyone come to them for a custom license they way TSR did.
Or if we're listing things they aren't able to do, why not just materialize bricks of gold out of solid air?
False dichotomy. They could deauthorize and try to defend that in court, which is not something that they could do to materialize bricks of gold.
Naw, they can't deauthorize. Just as much as they can't materialize gold from thin air.
They could lie and say they can do either. Some people will even believe them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
People can insist that a contract works any given way. They can even believe it and thus not be lying. Their belief does not make them right.
WotC's beliefs do not make them right, however yours do not make them wrong, either.
Fascinating that you think a company is an entity capable of holding a belief.
Looks like some folk are exhibiting some personification tendencies here. Your best pal WotC needs to get defended huh? Those internet meanies keep picking on your poor defenseless friend just for believing he can revoke his gaming license.
...
No man. WotC doesn't hold a belief. People hold beliefs, and you can rest assured they hold an array of them. Some grounded in reality and some... not. You got polling data for the beliefs of everyone all 1000+ employees? No? Okay, stop acting like you know what WotC believes or doesn't believe. Or even phrasing it like that sentence is coherent.
If WotC was making perfectly reasonable and coherent choices based entirely on good information.... they wouldn't currently find themselves embroiled in a massive PR disaster over this issue. Clearly mistakes are being made within their walls. We should be questioning the choices they're making. We should be questioning the statements they're making.
Trust, built on decades of good faith, is gone. An attempt was made, by people within WotC, to pull some shady shit. Can WotC redeem themselves? That's a personal choice. Your answer and mine clearly differ on what they need to do to redeem themself. Will the right people who are calling the shots course correct? Time will tell. It ain't looking favorable though. Not if they keep trying to revoke a legally perpetual and irrevocable (imo*) promise made to the community.
*which is correct.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
What an insane take
Yes the nature of the agreement does matter
No the nature of the agreement is not akin to forms of literal slavery
Hasbro created 1.0a to indirectly generate profit during 3e/3.5e, and it worked amazingly. It worked a second time over a decade later when they repeated the experiment with fifth edition.
Now, somehow, the new generation at leadership at Hasbro/WotC regrets their decision (which was made to make money, and did so) and wants to go back on their word and people are holding them to their word and... you're painting Hasbro/WotC as the victim? Of their own, profitable decisions?
There's no world in which your metaphor works.
You are misunderstanding the core principle behind community-driven content.
3e and 5e were popular BECAUSE of the OGL and 3rd party content. It is what facilitated its popularity and its growth.
Its not like Wizards of the Coast created 5e and it was so good that 50 million people started playing it. A small number of people started playing, those people started creating content under the OGL, which brought in more players, who then also created content, which brought in more players.. so on and so forth.
Community growth is very powerful, Wizards of the Coast's D&D is as popular as it is because a vast community adopted it. They make tons of money from 3rd party content because this content grows its player base, market share. This creates opportunities for them to sell things of their own creation.
So no they earn nothing on 3rd party products, but yes, they make crazy amounts of money because of the growth of the community which has grown as a result of the OGL and the massive expansion of the game beyond what Wizards of the Coast publishes.
Its the same with video games. Half-Life became one of the most popular PC games in the history of gaming, not because Half-Life was such a good game, but because they opened the game to modders who created so much content for the game including entire sub-games like Counter-Strike. Valve made tons of money on the game, but ZERO money on the modder's work, but in the end it was the growth of the community that made them filthy rich.
Wizards of the Coasts wants the growth and the royalties but as soon as you ask for royalties, that 3rd party community disappears.. more specifically they will go somewhere else and before you know it, it will be Paizo's Pathfinder that gets all the 3rd party content and insane growth.
It's coming.. you'll see. If Wizards of the Coast releases this OGL they are shooting themselves in the foot. What do you think will happen to D&D's popularity when Critical Role decides to move their game to PF2.... MCDM decides to create a monster book for PF2 instead of D&D, when people start streaming PF2 tutorials instead of D&D tutorials.
Create an OGL that blocks motivation for people to create content for your game and those people will move elsewhere to do the same thing. Content creators will always find a way to make their stuff, passionate communities function like that and if they can't do it under D&D without getting hosed... Well... they will just find somewhere else to do it.
Stuff to be wary of from OGL 1.2 Draft:
5. YOU CONTROL YOUR CONTENT: "You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you
may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."
(a) "You must clearly indicate that your Licensed Work contains Our Licensed Content under this license either by including the full text of this license in your Licensed Work or by applying the Creator Products badge in compliance with the then-current style guidelines."
(b) "You may permit the use of your Content on any terms you want. However, if any license you offer to your Licensed Work is different from the terms of this license, you must include in the Licensed Work the attribution for Our Licensed Content found in the preamble to the applicable SRD, and make clear that Our Licensed Content included in your Licensed Work is made available on the terms of this license."
9. MISCELLANEOUS:
(a) Notices. "We may notify you by any email or physical address we can locate for you. Only if we cannot locate your email or physical address after a reasonable search, notice via a public channel is sufficient. You may provide notice to us of your email or physical address, or any other notice, by emailing oglnotices@wizards.com."
breach within 30 days of notice to you of the breach."
I will simply add this.
A few years ago, there was a controversy and Orcs were considered to be a racist experience and a proxy to diminish people of colour.
WOTC can deauthorize a full RPG using the new ogl for putting orcs as monsters. Without justification, without resort of any kind.
agreed!
It's so much worse than that. They can take something you created, publish it as their own and then shut you down for using "their" content. Your only recourse at that point is to sue them and hope you can prove in a court of law that they stole from you and even if you win, the only thing you can get is a cash settlement, they still own your content and can still shut you down.
Now I will admit this is quite an alarmist position to take, I don't actually believe they would do something like that, but with this OGL, they certainly could.
And the next person you walk past on the street certainly could decide to start beating on you, but the vast majority of the population carries on with life regardless. Brandishing these hypotheticals is not a great argument, particularly given that we’ve already demonstrated to WotC that the end state of such actions is the majority of playerbase abandoning D&D. I’m not under any illusions that the company is a benevolent entity with only the best of intentions in mind, but I also don’t buy into the illusion that they’re so Stupid Evil they’ll burn their own house down attempting to make a quick buck.
I don't disagree, I don't think their goal is to steal from the 3rd party creators, I think their goal is to ensure the contract is such a raw deal that their won't be anyone creating any 3rd party content to begin with.
The objective here is to shut down the 3rd party market and create a lifestyle environment and it's a pretty brilliant move. With less content available for D&D, if you want to buy D&D content you'll be doing it through them for all your content. Sure the community will shrink, but if 100 people spend 50 bucks each on your books and 50 bucks on 3rd party books, you will make less money than if 70 people spend 100 bucks each on your product. Even if the community shrinks by 30-40% they will make way more money if the 3rd party market is dead.
Wizards of the Coast is evil but not stupid.
The OGL 1.0a only needs one change.
If WotC was afraid of 3rd party content and thought it was eating into their own profit they would just buy it up like any other company.
There are thousands of 3rd party publishers creating 10's of thousands of books, people buy this content sporadically. No single publisher is making all the money, but all combined they are making a fair share and they sell books at considerably discounted prices compared to what Wizards of the Coast could get for it.
Buying them out is not profitable, eliminating them is.
They only need to to buy out the ones that become a financial threat. Not all of them. There are very few that are putting a noticeable dent into their bottom line.
An excerpt from my survey:
I have DM'd my group for 25 years. I bought every 3rd Edition book. I've bought every 5th Edition book to date. In between, however, I bought every Pathfinder book because 4th edition declined to keep the promise of the OGL. I won't buy any more books or tools or anything from this company again, and will move my group elsewhere. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on books from this company, and I won't pay another dime. The OGL represented a promise to not follow TSR's ways. I can't trust OGL 1.2 as the promises of the past have been thrown away.
I can't trust any component of the new OGL because of this one act. It is the move of a company that refused to learn the lessons of the past, who discards the good will of a community of creators. Everything else, from the Morality clause that will be used to harm creators that WotC deems competition, to attack VTTs that show WotC has no faith in their future product. It shows that WotC has no faith in 6th edition as a whole. These are small though, compared to trying to revoke a promise that for decades has made this property a money printing machine.
Simply put, Do not attempt to revoke the OGL 1.0a. WotC's own FAQ said so:
"Can’t Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn’t like?
Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there’s no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway."
They're not eliminating anyone. If they wanted to do that, there'd be no OGL at all, they'd simply deauthorize 1.0a and demand everyone come to them for a custom license they way TSR did.
Or if we're listing things they aren't able to do, why not just materialize bricks of gold out of solid air?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Naw, they can't deauthorize. Just as much as they can't materialize gold from thin air.
They could lie and say they can do either. Some people will even believe them.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Fascinating that you think a company is an entity capable of holding a belief.
Looks like some folk are exhibiting some personification tendencies here. Your best pal WotC needs to get defended huh? Those internet meanies keep picking on your poor defenseless friend just for believing he can revoke his gaming license.
...
No man. WotC doesn't hold a belief. People hold beliefs, and you can rest assured they hold an array of them. Some grounded in reality and some... not. You got polling data for the beliefs of everyone all 1000+ employees? No? Okay, stop acting like you know what WotC believes or doesn't believe. Or even phrasing it like that sentence is coherent.
If WotC was making perfectly reasonable and coherent choices based entirely on good information.... they wouldn't currently find themselves embroiled in a massive PR disaster over this issue. Clearly mistakes are being made within their walls. We should be questioning the choices they're making. We should be questioning the statements they're making.
Trust, built on decades of good faith, is gone. An attempt was made, by people within WotC, to pull some shady shit. Can WotC redeem themselves? That's a personal choice. Your answer and mine clearly differ on what they need to do to redeem themself. Will the right people who are calling the shots course correct? Time will tell. It ain't looking favorable though. Not if they keep trying to revoke a legally perpetual and irrevocable (imo*) promise made to the community.
*which is correct.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.