I have been playing D&D for 40+ years. I am ashamed to say it's a pillar of my personality? I was very excited when Wizards bought D&D. 2e was pretty much dead. I still went to Origins and GenCon at the time, just us old dudes all hanging out pretty much. The OGL brought life back into the D&D community during 3.5 and 5e.
I stuck with 4e when you made the change. Every time I visit a new city, my wife and I always look for a gaming store and buy something to support the shop. I am telling you, if there was third party 4e support, it wasn't in any store I went into. This will happen again.
The current D&D community is the most vibrant I have ever seen it. It's cool to play D&D now. We aren't secretly hanging out in darkened basements anymore. Well Hasbro, way to kill it man. You have totally lost the trust of the majority of the community and probably won't regain it. You obviously never really understood the D&D community from the beginning. Your belief that this will all die down pretty much proves this. We tend to view things in good and evil. Evil is bad BTW. You can guess which category you been thrown in.
I have a bit of disposable income at my age and buying every release was a given for me. I have purchased my last D&D book. I have personally brought hundreds of customers to you by passing on my passion and bringing in new players. Like I said, I have been playing D&D for 40+ years, longer than the folks that have made this poor decision have been alive.
Looks like I will be running PF2e or Savage Worlds going forward.
The upside to this is that I might be able to get a hotel room at GenCon in a couple years once you kill the community.
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
2. Once trust is lost, it's very hard to regain it. It generally takes time.
3. They have released a new OGL, now they are back peddling. Once all the fans have forgotten about this in a month, what is to keep them from changing it again?
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
Where exactly does it say they made a mistake? All they've said is that the 15× larger new OGL was meant to do what the existing OGL does and that they sent contracts to force creators to agree to a draft. It is all lies and gaslighting and trying to make it look like the community overreacted.
I don't plan to jump ship until it sinks completely, but they haven't actually reversed any of their greedy decisions yet, just postponed them.
Whether the apology was insincere or not is entirely irrelevant. All that really matters, and the only thing we can actually judge them on, is what is in the new OGL when they release it.
Whether the apology was insincere or not is entirely irrelevant. All that really matters, and the only thing we can actually judge them on, is what is in the new OGL when they release it.
Doubt it will mean much unless it's controlled by a third party at this point. They have said that they can revoke past licenses as they like.
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
"We made a mistake" may be the grossest understatement in the history of statements. They were literally threatening to destroy the 3rd party D&D industry. How do people not seem to understand this??
The 3rd party industry is moving on. What we do at this point is basically moot. WotC can sign the ORC or One D&D will be mostly unsupported by 3PP.
And of course, they haven't attempted to make amends and they have no intention of doing so. We know this because their own employees keep telling us. I'm not sure what more you want.
Whether the apology was insincere or not is entirely irrelevant. All that really matters, and the only thing we can actually judge them on, is what is in the new OGL when they release it.
It's completely relevant! They tried some heinous underhanded tactics to strong-arm 3pp and when they got called out they slap together a response full of lies and gaslighting. The "wait and see" mentality holds no water with WOTC.
How a business chooses to conduct themselves with the community that helped grow them is all that matters. They could scrap OGL 2 all together, but the damage is already done. I dont see a clear path to them mending that anytime soon.
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
A lot of us are running campaigns and we have people who will not play on D&D Beyond. I have one campaign where I lost two players due to this and my main campaign is good so far, but they are talking about leaving D&D Beyond. I've already ported myself over to one of the major pay VTT's and are planning on moving my players over in two months when I finish my current content (ton of maps built out already set for D&D Beyond), but the next chapter won't be on D&D Beyond.
The "mistake", shows the thinking of the execs and what the future holds for the game. I don't know about you, but the idea of D&D Execs salivating about turning me into a pay piggie and using microtransactions to milk me, is something from a grade F module, not something I'd want to experience in real life, but here we are. Latest leak is they want to introduce new monthly pay tiers - the highest being $30/month. I noped out after reading it from DND Shorts.
It's a non-apology, they say the players were scared. We weren't scared, we are pissed. They also tried to claim several lies within their statement which we know aren't true.
The plan is to develop a AI DM and eventually cut dnd beyond off from further updates till it just withers away and dies. DnD bought DndBeyond because it outsold Dnd and brought more players in with it's interactive sheets and player resources. They're planning on making it so to get access to homebrew items you'll need to be of a high enough tier sub to even use/see them.
The plan is to develop a AI DM and eventually cut dnd beyond off from further updates till it just withers away and dies. DnD bought DndBeyond because it outsold Dnd and brought more players in with it's interactive sheets and player resources.
To be clear, d&d beyond did not "outsell d&d," it sold d&d. WotC was never a competitor to DDB, that's like saying Nintendo is a competitor with game stop.
But yes, WotC did buy DDB to sell directly to customer (higher profit margin) and to do their digital platform thing they plan for 1d&d.
To understand why Hasbro bought D&D beyond, you need to understand the Microsoft business model. Microsoft originally created a few select programs, including Excel and Dos, but has primarily acquired new software (starting with PowerPoint) as the company expanded. It’s a great business model for software, and protects the larger company from failure risk.
D&D beyond developed the best online toolset for 5e and was purchased by Hasbro to give Hasbro ownership of that toolset. I am actually surprised that Hasbro is trying to develop their VTT internally instead of working to purchase the best current VTT instead, and then integrating it with D&D beyond.
BTW - this business model is used in a ton of technology fields, and not just Software. For example, this is a core strategy for Halliburton.
The big mistake Hasbro is making is that their executive leadership doesn’t understand the gaming industry. It’s the exact same mistake that TSR made under Williams, and a common error made across all industries - the CEO and COO need to be both businessmen and extremely familiar with their industry.
Gary Gygax knew the industry, but Gary wasn’t a businessman. It’s why TSR 1E failed.
Lorraine Williams knew business, but didn’t know the gaming industry. It’s why TSR 2.0 failed.
Peter Adkison, Lisa Stevens, Ryan Dancey et al were both businessmen and they had an extremely deep understanding of the gaming market. That unique combination allowed WotC 3.0 to be so successful.
Hasbro 4.0 is filled with good businessmen, but they didn’t get the gaming market. 4.0 failed.
Hasbro 5.0 recognized that they needed to return to the success of 3.0 after the failure of 4.0, and used the opportunity to integrate people who understand the gaming market back into the holistic design of the system. 5.0 exploded.
Given the direction that 6.0 appears to be going, it doesn’t bode well for the next version.
The issue with that is that the "admitted they made a mistake" did not actually admit wrong doing, tried to gaslight us about intent by saying things which don't match the facts at hand, tried to claim that ppl could make hateful content under their name(which they already couldn't because of trademark law), and much more.
There are plenty of things they could have said, but that apology had me more mad then I've been in years.
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
They got caught, and they lied, and now they want us to all pay them $30 a month to play with AI dungeon masters.
I doesnt' matter what the new OGL says. They tried to deauthorize the OGL and put the screws to the little guys for kicks. Ant new OGL will be a farce that nobody will trust. NO 3rd party content for DnDONE. Sad. I also LOVE Dungeons and Dragons, but I agree with the OP and have had it with Wizards of the Coast.
I have been playing D&D for 40+ years. I am ashamed to say it's a pillar of my personality? I was very excited when Wizards bought D&D. 2e was pretty much dead. I still went to Origins and GenCon at the time, just us old dudes all hanging out pretty much. The OGL brought life back into the D&D community during 3.5 and 5e.
I stuck with 4e when you made the change. Every time I visit a new city, my wife and I always look for a gaming store and buy something to support the shop. I am telling you, if there was third party 4e support, it wasn't in any store I went into. This will happen again.
The current D&D community is the most vibrant I have ever seen it. It's cool to play D&D now. We aren't secretly hanging out in darkened basements anymore. Well Hasbro, way to kill it man. You have totally lost the trust of the majority of the community and probably won't regain it. You obviously never really understood the D&D community from the beginning. Your belief that this will all die down pretty much proves this. We tend to view things in good and evil. Evil is bad BTW. You can guess which category you been thrown in.
I have a bit of disposable income at my age and buying every release was a given for me. I have purchased my last D&D book. I have personally brought hundreds of customers to you by passing on my passion and bringing in new players. Like I said, I have been playing D&D for 40+ years, longer than the folks that have made this poor decision have been alive.
Looks like I will be running PF2e or Savage Worlds going forward.
The upside to this is that I might be able to get a hotel room at GenCon in a couple years once you kill the community.
They've already admitted they made a mistake. Why not wait and see what the actual OGL says before jumping ship? Or do you believe that when a mistake has been made, there is no way to rectify the situation? Must we cancel everyone and everything that makes a mistake, even if they attempt to make amends?
It was always 'cool' to play D&D.
1. The apology seemed rather insincere to me.
2. Once trust is lost, it's very hard to regain it. It generally takes time.
3. They have released a new OGL, now they are back peddling. Once all the fans have forgotten about this in a month, what is to keep them from changing it again?
Where exactly does it say they made a mistake? All they've said is that the 15× larger new OGL was meant to do what the existing OGL does and that they sent contracts to force creators to agree to a draft. It is all lies and gaslighting and trying to make it look like the community overreacted.
I don't plan to jump ship until it sinks completely, but they haven't actually reversed any of their greedy decisions yet, just postponed them.
Whether the apology was insincere or not is entirely irrelevant. All that really matters, and the only thing we can actually judge them on, is what is in the new OGL when they release it.
Doubt it will mean much unless it's controlled by a third party at this point. They have said that they can revoke past licenses as they like.
"We made a mistake" may be the grossest understatement in the history of statements. They were literally threatening to destroy the 3rd party D&D industry. How do people not seem to understand this??
The 3rd party industry is moving on. What we do at this point is basically moot. WotC can sign the ORC or One D&D will be mostly unsupported by 3PP.
And of course, they haven't attempted to make amends and they have no intention of doing so. We know this because their own employees keep telling us. I'm not sure what more you want.
We can also judge them on the fact that they are led by a bunch of conniving, lying toe rags.
It's completely relevant! They tried some heinous underhanded tactics to strong-arm 3pp and when they got called out they slap together a response full of lies and gaslighting. The "wait and see" mentality holds no water with WOTC.
How a business chooses to conduct themselves with the community that helped grow them is all that matters. They could scrap OGL 2 all together, but the damage is already done. I dont see a clear path to them mending that anytime soon.
A lot of us are running campaigns and we have people who will not play on D&D Beyond. I have one campaign where I lost two players due to this and my main campaign is good so far, but they are talking about leaving D&D Beyond. I've already ported myself over to one of the major pay VTT's and are planning on moving my players over in two months when I finish my current content (ton of maps built out already set for D&D Beyond), but the next chapter won't be on D&D Beyond.
The "mistake", shows the thinking of the execs and what the future holds for the game. I don't know about you, but the idea of D&D Execs salivating about turning me into a pay piggie and using microtransactions to milk me, is something from a grade F module, not something I'd want to experience in real life, but here we are. Latest leak is they want to introduce new monthly pay tiers - the highest being $30/month. I noped out after reading it from DND Shorts.
It's a non-apology, they say the players were scared. We weren't scared, we are pissed. They also tried to claim several lies within their statement which we know aren't true.
Here's a good break down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWaq6pQQW4
Let us just say that we are curious. My sub is up to march. There is no new content except dices and the encounter builder is still in beta.
i am reading about monetization right now from the ceo and nothing directly to grow dnd beyond tools.
The plan is to develop a AI DM and eventually cut dnd beyond off from further updates till it just withers away and dies. DnD bought DndBeyond because it outsold Dnd and brought more players in with it's interactive sheets and player resources. They're planning on making it so to get access to homebrew items you'll need to be of a high enough tier sub to even use/see them.
To be clear, d&d beyond did not "outsell d&d," it sold d&d. WotC was never a competitor to DDB, that's like saying Nintendo is a competitor with game stop.
But yes, WotC did buy DDB to sell directly to customer (higher profit margin) and to do their digital platform thing they plan for 1d&d.
To understand why Hasbro bought D&D beyond, you need to understand the Microsoft business model. Microsoft originally created a few select programs, including Excel and Dos, but has primarily acquired new software (starting with PowerPoint) as the company expanded. It’s a great business model for software, and protects the larger company from failure risk.
D&D beyond developed the best online toolset for 5e and was purchased by Hasbro to give Hasbro ownership of that toolset. I am actually surprised that Hasbro is trying to develop their VTT internally instead of working to purchase the best current VTT instead, and then integrating it with D&D beyond.
BTW - this business model is used in a ton of technology fields, and not just Software. For example, this is a core strategy for Halliburton.
The big mistake Hasbro is making is that their executive leadership doesn’t understand the gaming industry. It’s the exact same mistake that TSR made under Williams, and a common error made across all industries - the CEO and COO need to be both businessmen and extremely familiar with their industry.
Gary Gygax knew the industry, but Gary wasn’t a businessman. It’s why TSR 1E failed.
Lorraine Williams knew business, but didn’t know the gaming industry. It’s why TSR 2.0 failed.
Peter Adkison, Lisa Stevens, Ryan Dancey et al were both businessmen and they had an extremely deep understanding of the gaming market. That unique combination allowed WotC 3.0 to be so successful.
Hasbro 4.0 is filled with good businessmen, but they didn’t get the gaming market. 4.0 failed.
Hasbro 5.0 recognized that they needed to return to the success of 3.0 after the failure of 4.0, and used the opportunity to integrate people who understand the gaming market back into the holistic design of the system. 5.0 exploded.
Given the direction that 6.0 appears to be going, it doesn’t bode well for the next version.
The issue with that is that the "admitted they made a mistake" did not actually admit wrong doing, tried to gaslight us about intent by saying things which don't match the facts at hand, tried to claim that ppl could make hateful content under their name(which they already couldn't because of trademark law), and much more.
There are plenty of things they could have said, but that apology had me more mad then I've been in years.
They got caught, and they lied, and now they want us to all pay them $30 a month to play with AI dungeon masters.
I doesnt' matter what the new OGL says. They tried to deauthorize the OGL and put the screws to the little guys for kicks.
Ant new OGL will be a farce that nobody will trust. NO 3rd party content for DnDONE.
Sad. I also LOVE Dungeons and Dragons, but I agree with the OP and have had it with Wizards of the Coast.
Hope and lIght!
Edited to add: <Cackle>