“Through founding and overseeing DDB, I had a front-row seat to the direction Wizards of the Coast wanted to go with things, and that played a key role in my departure from that former job.”
“The thing that separates our hobby from many others is its cooperative nature and inclusiveness”, he adds. “Open gaming has set a precedent that has been a vital ingredient in the explosive growth of the tabletop roleplaying space for decades.”
The game requiring cooperation to exist is a big deal, I think the Executives have forgotten a rather important element of what makes D&D actually work ~ it's tantamount to fanfiction libraries trying to monetize access to content that wasn't even made by them. For starters, the people consuming your product likely don't all have money to spend on it, so making it cost money means you're cutting down on your consumers - and secondly, it's in a sort of ephemeral category of made-by-the-people, more than made-by-the-company.
Which means their attempts to monetize it are going to leave a bad taste in the community's mouth, since that's largely, well, their content to begin with. The majority of the content I've interacted with for 5e has not been made by WotC, and I've bought at least 6 official D&D books, so we're talking about quantities that WotC simply cannot and never will be able to compete with. The bulk of what exists in the realm of playable content for D&D just... isn't made by them.
People can make analogies all day comparing this business to that business, but truth be told D&D is in a very unique and specific position that I can't think of a 1 for 1 for - which means that it's leaders need to have that in mind when making business choices, because what flies for Apple or Matel or anyone else won't necessarily work for them. They're just not in the same position as all these other companies, their IP isn't as 'theirs' as they may legally want to claim the rights to, and the harder they insist it is, the less likely the community will be to return to them and trust them again. It's a kind of catch 22, the harder they hold on the more they lose.
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Wargamer.com has talked to Adam Bradfor, the founder of DND Beyond. He had some choice quotes about the direction Wizards of the Coast is going with OneDND:
“Through founding and overseeing DDB, I had a front-row seat to the direction Wizards of the Coast wanted to go with things, and that played a key role in my departure from that former job.”
“The thing that separates our hobby from many others is its cooperative nature and inclusiveness”, he adds. “Open gaming has set a precedent that has been a vital ingredient in the explosive growth of the tabletop roleplaying space for decades.”
The game requiring cooperation to exist is a big deal, I think the Executives have forgotten a rather important element of what makes D&D actually work ~ it's tantamount to fanfiction libraries trying to monetize access to content that wasn't even made by them. For starters, the people consuming your product likely don't all have money to spend on it, so making it cost money means you're cutting down on your consumers - and secondly, it's in a sort of ephemeral category of made-by-the-people, more than made-by-the-company.
Which means their attempts to monetize it are going to leave a bad taste in the community's mouth, since that's largely, well, their content to begin with. The majority of the content I've interacted with for 5e has not been made by WotC, and I've bought at least 6 official D&D books, so we're talking about quantities that WotC simply cannot and never will be able to compete with. The bulk of what exists in the realm of playable content for D&D just... isn't made by them.
People can make analogies all day comparing this business to that business, but truth be told D&D is in a very unique and specific position that I can't think of a 1 for 1 for - which means that it's leaders need to have that in mind when making business choices, because what flies for Apple or Matel or anyone else won't necessarily work for them. They're just not in the same position as all these other companies, their IP isn't as 'theirs' as they may legally want to claim the rights to, and the harder they insist it is, the less likely the community will be to return to them and trust them again. It's a kind of catch 22, the harder they hold on the more they lose.