Very Excited about OGL 1.0 and the move to Creative Commons. My entire table is now looking forward to the movie in release week and are much more positive.
This last 2 months have had the feel of a betrayal and potential divorce, when I am not rolling dice I am also a marriage counsellor (amongst other hats) - and there are some parallels which we can see.
To restore a relationship after a betrayal (affair, mismanagement of finances, addiction), there needs to be grace on the side of the wronged, and a path to redemption displayed by the one in the wrong. The path to redemption is not only recognising and turning away from what they did, but actually moving further back in the other direction to prove their sincerity and put in safeguards to prevent it happening again.
After an affair, as well as cutting off contact with the third party, the cheater would also commit to sharing phone passwords and privileges.
For the addict, as well as (for example) removing all alcohol from the house, they commit to changing drinking night into a 12 Step night such as AA
It is then up to the wronged party to decide if they want to fight for the relationship, and if they do, then they take this as the first step and offer grace - believing that the relationship can heal over time and looking for the best (or at least better) in the person instead of constantly finding every fault and holding the past sins over them forever with no path to redemption. (This is what brings separation and divorce more often - not the original act, but the lack of grace and no pathway in place). This is not forgetting the wrong - still mindful, just not colouring every activity thru it.
WotC I am choosing to believe have offered us this - They have acknowledged what they did was not accepted by the community, they have not only walked their act back, but have also gone further by putting this into the CC and all of the protections that offers. It is now up to us as the community to decide if we want to work towards restoring the relationship by offering grace (and not holding this over WotC forever), or by walking away. Some of us we will, some of us we won't, and some have already walked away; but I am choosing to see this as a huge step in the right direction by WotC, with the ball now in the community's court.
I won’t be walking away, nor will I forget what they did to the community. What needs to happen next is accountability, as countless businesses and livelihoods have been needlessly damaged. The executives who conceived OGL1.1 (and then perpetuated such an unmitigated disaster when their own staff were brave enough to show the world what was happening) must be held responsible for the damage done.
There was a report a few hours before the latest news dropped that Hasbro canned about 15% of their staff... could some of them been part of the OGL 2 team?
not specifically because of the OGL that was just icing on the cake Hasbro has had a tough year overall and the furor around the OGL did nothing to help the company in addition the 15 percent lay off their president and Chief operating officer Eric Nyman is leaving the company after 18 years
There was a report a few hours before the latest news dropped that Hasbro canned about 15% of their staff... could some of them been part of the OGL 2 team?
I am happy with the OGL news today, but saddened by the lay-offs.
I am going to try and put my cynicism aside. It is unlikely that will happen. It might, but my guess is the license issue was not a lower down the corporate hierarchy thing. The vision and direction of that was likely a boardroom thing with VP\s and above. Given that the reason for the layoffs was slow toy sales (or so it is being reported), we are not likely looking at Wizards layoffs.
Speculation of course, not factual in any way.
It is not a good thing when someone looses their livelihood. That in fact was much of the outrage and fear around this whole thing. People were looking at this and worrying for their jobs in the secondary and tertiary markets served by TTRPGs and WOTC. Time will tell on who looses their job. Probably toy division people. I hope all of the people laid off land on their feet.
1) Fire Chris Cao and Cynthia Williams. This happened on their watch, kick them.
2) VTT is still up in the air. The entirety of the rules available to WotC need to be replicable on VTT platforms. If Wizards wants to win the VTT wars, they need to make a superior product. I want to note that I was super hyped for the Wizards VTT, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw the Rock of Gibraltar now. They need to prove that they are trustworthy.
3) Stick with OGL 1.0a with the release of One DnD. If they don't, this is just going the way of every even-number version before now.
Chris Cao has indicated that he thinks of this as an MMO. It's not an MMO. It's a social experience. He doesn't know what he's talking about and as such, he's more of a liability than he is an asset. Kick him to the curb.
Cynthia bears responsibility for this. This happened on her watch, under her supervision, and Microsoft experience isn't the bonus points you think it is since we didn't get Halo 2 on PC and Microsoft has been in violation of antitrust laws for around 30 years. She is not trustworthy because of her background at Microsoft. That experience is not a high mark. Fire her on these bases.
That's the start of what I need. My PF2E book will get here tomorrow or Monday. I will be transitioning my group to another system that they like, and none of them will trust Wizards any farther than the legal limits Wizards places on themselves. The CC of the SRD is a good move. Now do the above to gain a measure of our trust. Then make your VTT an objectively superior product to your competitors and you have a good chance of getting us back.
I want to note that I was stoked for the VTT. I was expecting a monthly fee of $!5-$25 for access to the VTT and the entire library of official WotC products. I expected it to be better than the experiences I've had on Roll20. Meet those expectations, and you get my money. Compete in a fair market. Earn my money, don't seek to obtain it by fiat. Because I won't give it to you by fiat, I'll make my own game with hookers and blackjack. Make a superior product and you get my money. Don't, and I bounce.
I love all the folks telling Wizards to "make a superior product" when the very standards the community holds them to means third-party businesses can completely and utterly steal 100% of Wizards' output and integrate that into their own products. it's like saying "win this race and we'll pay you", except all the other racers get to start at the finish line. Smooth, DDB community.
Like Jurid said - a path to redemption is necessary. Making that path fundamentally impossible to walk is worse than simply saying "no redemption for you." Hold the company to high standards, by all means. Let's make them achievable standards, though.
I love all the folks telling Wizards to "make a superior product" when the very standards the community holds them to means third-party businesses can completely and utterly steal 100% of Wizards' output and integrate that into their own products. it's like saying "win this race and we'll pay you", except all the other racers get to start at the finish line. Smooth, DDB community.
Like Jurid said - a path to redemption is necessary. Making that path fundamentally impossible to walk is worse than simply saying "no redemption for you." Hold the company to high standards, by all means. Let's make them achievable standards, though.
Their big 'competitor' has stayed in business and done well giving their entire stock of rules content away for literally free, and people still buy their stuff.
Maybe the problem is with Wizards. If they make good stuff, people will buy it.
I won’t be walking away, nor will I forget what they did to the community. What needs to happen next is accountability, as countless businesses and livelihoods have been needlessly damaged. The executives who conceived OGL1.1 (and then perpetuated such an unmitigated disaster when their own staff were brave enough to show the world what was happening) must be held responsible for the damage done.
The preliminary financial results that hasbro released last night (and precipitated a 5% drop in the stock price) also announced the firing of the president/COO of Hasbro, and that by the Feb 16th conference call more "organizational changes" may happen. We can hope. If we all maintain the pressure by NOT re-subbing, that will help.
From everything we saw there it looks like DnD and Magic are what is keeping Hasbro from tanking on the stock market. The corp needed as much of the bad press to go away.
Imagine what that article would have looked like if, along with the loses in revenue in the other divisions it said, and the growth sector of their business may also take a hit as the WOTC arm is currently loosing digital subscriptions and players, and there is a new movie out with a small boycott trend at the moment. It would have ended the only positive news in that article and investment would have likely moved on.
I know this is hot finance talk, but this is what I have been reduced to. Talking about my hobby in terms of investor calls and market trends. I sound like a damn magic player!:)
I am so glad they have righted the ship. I have reactivated.
I love all the folks telling Wizards to "make a superior product" when the very standards the community holds them to means third-party businesses can completely and utterly steal 100% of Wizards' output and integrate that into their own products. it's like saying "win this race and we'll pay you", except all the other racers get to start at the finish line. Smooth, DDB community.
Like Jurid said - a path to redemption is necessary. Making that path fundamentally impossible to walk is worse than simply saying "no redemption for you." Hold the company to high standards, by all means. Let's make them achievable standards, though.
To be fair as you said the race was well under way when they decided to get in it. And when they made that decision the first thing they decided to do was to take out all the other competitors.
Roll20/FG/ect all built up the VTT community and deserve the right to compete. Without them dnd 5e wouldn’t be worth what it is today. And really this is what is best for the community. Having them all compete for our business based on the merit of their product.
The community literally got everything it asked for.
Learn from History take the win and move on. Keep an eye on everything they do but don’t get vindictive over it. They surrendered just about as completely as they could.
Note: I didn’t say blindly follow everything they say and take things for granted but be gracious winners.
The community literally got everything it asked for.
Learn from History take the win and move on. Keep an eye on everything they do but don’t get vindictive over it. They surrendered just about as completely as they could.
Note: I didn’t say blindly follow everything they say and take things for granted but be gracious winners.
No, not everything the community needed was gained in this battle. The war continues.
Oh like what? And I mean that with pure curiosity and pure intent. I really don’t understand 100% of everything that’s going on.
also full disclaimer I don’t use dnd beyond at all minus discussing builds and UA stuff :-)
Oh like what? And I mean that with pure curiosity and pure intent. I really don’t understand 100% of everything that’s going on.
The "Open D&D" guys won't stop agitating until the entire executive suite for Wizards of the Coast is fired and never permitted to work again, as well as most of the senior development team for D&D and quite possibly the janitors in the Wizards HQ building. Essentially, the ask is now a scorched-earth policy of "no one who had anything to do with this, or anything to do with anyone who had anything to do with this, is allowed to put food on their table ever again".
The community literally got everything it asked for.
Learn from History take the win and move on. Keep an eye on everything they do but don’t get vindictive over it. They surrendered just about as completely as they could.
Note: I didn’t say blindly follow everything they say and take things for granted but be gracious winners.
No, not everything the community needed was gained in this battle. The war continues.
Oh like what? And I mean that with pure curiosity and pure intent. I really don’t understand 100% of everything that’s going on.
That's OK, neither do the people still fighting their imaginary "war". The only difference is, you recognize it
Really, this entire thing has been a validation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I can respect the desire for scorched earth demanding people are held accountable. But I also thing that isn’t ultimately up to the community and we should look forward ahead to the future of dnd. This is probably the biggest concession a Corporation has ever made to its base in my life time. Also … they just laid off %15 of their staff and Hasbro Executives left.
My thing is this really interests me … and I want to get a good idea of what others are thinking.
To me this was a very big move. I love the dnd community and want to understand what’s up. What better place than to pick the minds of those who are smarter than me and get their take.
I had not expected Wizards to take the steps to win back their customers. After the initial leak, week of silence, and tone-deaf non-apology, I had expected executives with too much pride to correct course. I hoped for the best but didn't much expect it.
But the best possible outcome is what we got. Someone near the top got convinced not just to reverse course on harm, but to make amends. It's like we just held an intervention for WotC, which then realized the needed path to save D&D's long-term viability. If it had plodded forward with its plans, the community would have jumped to competitors, and WotC would be left high and dry with an ever-shrinking pool of customers. Meanwhile, this whole kerfuffle gave other creators a massive boost. It's a win for everyone except for Hasbro's short-term profits, which were inevitably already lost with the attempted OGL change.
Even people calling for the firing of those most responsible might get their wish, but on the timetable of Hasbro's taking stock of who's helping the company, not to appease the crowd--and that's as it should be. I'm sad to hear about the firing of Hasbro employees, but that's probably related to toy sales and not to the OGL issue.
From the jump, I've taken the posture that WotC can win back my dollar. They've met my criteria for doing that. I feel like I have whiplash: getting really into D&D again (I arrived late to the boat of discovering 5e), thinking I'd need to switch back to other systems, and then getting pleasantly surprised. Just made plans with friends to watch the movie. Glad I get to do that.
It is ia big deal. Wizards has essentially given up on monetizing/profiting on 5e, or at least to any significant degree more than they already have. They've completely given up on control of the ecosystem and thrown the doors wide open for anyone to do anything (for good or ill). 5e, to the extent that the System Reference Document defines 5e, no longer belongs to Wizards of the Coast. It's an incredible concession I would never have dreamed they'd make, and it's legitimately pissing me off to see people badmouthing the decision and refusing to acknowledge that this is further than people demanded Wizards go.
The problem is that Wizards kinda already burned a lot of bridges, and they don't get to rebuild them with one announcement. Even if you're the type to be mollified by the move, no one is going to forget this fiasco any time soon. Paizo is profiteering like a Mafia don on the whole mess, and they're still pushing for wider adoption of their still-unfortunately-named ORC and thus pushing for adoption of Pathfinder as the de facto industry standard for TTRPGs, to the active and malicious detriment of D&D and D&D players. I can't imagine the big* third-party publishing houses like Kobold Press aren't going to carry on with development of their own in-house stuff either, not when everybody knows the can's just been kicked down the road by a year or two. When One D&D releases we'll all be seeing what license it's released under, since One will include a new SRD that will not in any way be beholden to OGL 1.0a the way the 5.1 SRD was.
One D&D is an open question, and people who just had their entire careers and livelihoods threatened by Wizards aren't going to wait until 1DD drops to secure said careers and livelihoods. The fight is over for 5e, but it's only deferred at best for the future of the game. We'll see if anybody bothers making 5e content anymore, even though it's now safer to do so than ever.
Yeah I'm feeling much better about it - and anyone reading my posts around here can probably testify that positivity is not my strong suit lol. That said, they walked it back even more than I thought they would, and are at least DISPLAYING WITH ACTIONS that they heard us and understood. I didn't hear any snarky childish tidbits in the last statement detailing the responses to the survey or anything, it was professional and simple and plain just the way a good corporate apology should be, and tethered to actual actions which is the only time I give companies any credit - words are free after all.
I think it's hilarious that they screwed up so bad that they could have had a lot more if they just hadn't been so greedy in the first place - and now they're having to bend it all backwards and put things into creative commons just to try and win back their player base. A really good lesson in business right here for any 16 year olds that are watching and going to college in a few years!
I think maybe my family will go see the movie now, which is cool because we were looking forward to it and we don't really go anymore. I'm glad WotC learned their lesson.
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Very Excited about OGL 1.0 and the move to Creative Commons. My entire table is now looking forward to the movie in release week and are much more positive.
This last 2 months have had the feel of a betrayal and potential divorce, when I am not rolling dice I am also a marriage counsellor (amongst other hats) - and there are some parallels which we can see.
To restore a relationship after a betrayal (affair, mismanagement of finances, addiction), there needs to be grace on the side of the wronged, and a path to redemption displayed by the one in the wrong. The path to redemption is not only recognising and turning away from what they did, but actually moving further back in the other direction to prove their sincerity and put in safeguards to prevent it happening again.
It is then up to the wronged party to decide if they want to fight for the relationship, and if they do, then they take this as the first step and offer grace - believing that the relationship can heal over time and looking for the best (or at least better) in the person instead of constantly finding every fault and holding the past sins over them forever with no path to redemption. (This is what brings separation and divorce more often - not the original act, but the lack of grace and no pathway in place). This is not forgetting the wrong - still mindful, just not colouring every activity thru it.
WotC I am choosing to believe have offered us this - They have acknowledged what they did was not accepted by the community, they have not only walked their act back, but have also gone further by putting this into the CC and all of the protections that offers. It is now up to us as the community to decide if we want to work towards restoring the relationship by offering grace (and not holding this over WotC forever), or by walking away. Some of us we will, some of us we won't, and some have already walked away; but I am choosing to see this as a huge step in the right direction by WotC, with the ball now in the community's court.
I won’t be walking away, nor will I forget what they did to the community. What needs to happen next is accountability, as countless businesses and livelihoods have been needlessly damaged. The executives who conceived OGL1.1 (and then perpetuated such an unmitigated disaster when their own staff were brave enough to show the world what was happening) must be held responsible for the damage done.
I also hope there is accountability for it, but I am still happy at the outcome so far.
There was a report a few hours before the latest news dropped that Hasbro canned about 15% of their staff... could some of them been part of the OGL 2 team?
not specifically because of the OGL that was just icing on the cake Hasbro has had a tough year overall and the furor around the OGL did nothing to help the company in addition the 15 percent lay off their president and Chief operating officer Eric Nyman is leaving the company after 18 years
I am happy with the OGL news today, but saddened by the lay-offs.
I am going to try and put my cynicism aside. It is unlikely that will happen. It might, but my guess is the license issue was not a lower down the corporate hierarchy thing. The vision and direction of that was likely a boardroom thing with VP\s and above. Given that the reason for the layoffs was slow toy sales (or so it is being reported), we are not likely looking at Wizards layoffs.
Speculation of course, not factual in any way.
It is not a good thing when someone looses their livelihood. That in fact was much of the outrage and fear around this whole thing. People were looking at this and worrying for their jobs in the secondary and tertiary markets served by TTRPGs and WOTC. Time will tell on who looses their job. Probably toy division people. I hope all of the people laid off land on their feet.
Here's what I want:
1) Fire Chris Cao and Cynthia Williams. This happened on their watch, kick them.
2) VTT is still up in the air. The entirety of the rules available to WotC need to be replicable on VTT platforms. If Wizards wants to win the VTT wars, they need to make a superior product. I want to note that I was super hyped for the Wizards VTT, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw the Rock of Gibraltar now. They need to prove that they are trustworthy.
3) Stick with OGL 1.0a with the release of One DnD. If they don't, this is just going the way of every even-number version before now.
Chris Cao has indicated that he thinks of this as an MMO. It's not an MMO. It's a social experience. He doesn't know what he's talking about and as such, he's more of a liability than he is an asset. Kick him to the curb.
Cynthia bears responsibility for this. This happened on her watch, under her supervision, and Microsoft experience isn't the bonus points you think it is since we didn't get Halo 2 on PC and Microsoft has been in violation of antitrust laws for around 30 years. She is not trustworthy because of her background at Microsoft. That experience is not a high mark. Fire her on these bases.
That's the start of what I need. My PF2E book will get here tomorrow or Monday. I will be transitioning my group to another system that they like, and none of them will trust Wizards any farther than the legal limits Wizards places on themselves. The CC of the SRD is a good move. Now do the above to gain a measure of our trust. Then make your VTT an objectively superior product to your competitors and you have a good chance of getting us back.
I want to note that I was stoked for the VTT. I was expecting a monthly fee of $!5-$25 for access to the VTT and the entire library of official WotC products. I expected it to be better than the experiences I've had on Roll20. Meet those expectations, and you get my money. Compete in a fair market. Earn my money, don't seek to obtain it by fiat. Because I won't give it to you by fiat, I'll make my own game with hookers and blackjack. Make a superior product and you get my money. Don't, and I bounce.
I love all the folks telling Wizards to "make a superior product" when the very standards the community holds them to means third-party businesses can completely and utterly steal 100% of Wizards' output and integrate that into their own products. it's like saying "win this race and we'll pay you", except all the other racers get to start at the finish line. Smooth, DDB community.
Like Jurid said - a path to redemption is necessary. Making that path fundamentally impossible to walk is worse than simply saying "no redemption for you." Hold the company to high standards, by all means. Let's make them achievable standards, though.
Please do not contact or message me.
Their big 'competitor' has stayed in business and done well giving their entire stock of rules content away for literally free, and people still buy their stuff.
Maybe the problem is with Wizards. If they make good stuff, people will buy it.
From everything we saw there it looks like DnD and Magic are what is keeping Hasbro from tanking on the stock market. The corp needed as much of the bad press to go away.
Imagine what that article would have looked like if, along with the loses in revenue in the other divisions it said, and the growth sector of their business may also take a hit as the WOTC arm is currently loosing digital subscriptions and players, and there is a new movie out with a small boycott trend at the moment. It would have ended the only positive news in that article and investment would have likely moved on.
I know this is hot finance talk, but this is what I have been reduced to. Talking about my hobby in terms of investor calls and market trends. I sound like a damn magic player!:)
I am so glad they have righted the ship. I have reactivated.
To be fair as you said the race was well under way when they decided to get in it. And when they made that decision the first thing they decided to do was to take out all the other competitors.
Roll20/FG/ect all built up the VTT community and deserve the right to compete. Without them dnd 5e wouldn’t be worth what it is today. And really this is what is best for the community. Having them all compete for our business based on the merit of their product.
The community literally got everything it asked for.
Learn from History take the win and move on. Keep an eye on everything they do but don’t get vindictive over it. They surrendered just about as completely as they could.
Note: I didn’t say blindly follow everything they say and take things for granted but be gracious winners.
Oh like what? And I mean that with pure curiosity and pure intent. I really don’t understand 100% of everything that’s going on.
also full disclaimer I don’t use dnd beyond at all minus discussing builds and UA stuff :-)
The "Open D&D" guys won't stop agitating until the entire executive suite for Wizards of the Coast is fired and never permitted to work again, as well as most of the senior development team for D&D and quite possibly the janitors in the Wizards HQ building. Essentially, the ask is now a scorched-earth policy of "no one who had anything to do with this, or anything to do with anyone who had anything to do with this, is allowed to put food on their table ever again".
Please do not contact or message me.
That's OK, neither do the people still fighting their imaginary "war". The only difference is, you recognize it
Really, this entire thing has been a validation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I can respect the desire for scorched earth demanding people are held accountable. But I also thing that isn’t ultimately up to the community and we should look forward ahead to the future of dnd. This is probably the biggest concession a Corporation has ever made to its base in my life time. Also … they just laid off %15 of their staff and Hasbro Executives left.
My thing is this really interests me … and I want to get a good idea of what others are thinking.
To me this was a very big move. I love the dnd community and want to understand what’s up. What better place than to pick the minds of those who are smarter than me and get their take.
I had not expected Wizards to take the steps to win back their customers. After the initial leak, week of silence, and tone-deaf non-apology, I had expected executives with too much pride to correct course. I hoped for the best but didn't much expect it.
But the best possible outcome is what we got. Someone near the top got convinced not just to reverse course on harm, but to make amends. It's like we just held an intervention for WotC, which then realized the needed path to save D&D's long-term viability. If it had plodded forward with its plans, the community would have jumped to competitors, and WotC would be left high and dry with an ever-shrinking pool of customers. Meanwhile, this whole kerfuffle gave other creators a massive boost. It's a win for everyone except for Hasbro's short-term profits, which were inevitably already lost with the attempted OGL change.
Even people calling for the firing of those most responsible might get their wish, but on the timetable of Hasbro's taking stock of who's helping the company, not to appease the crowd--and that's as it should be. I'm sad to hear about the firing of Hasbro employees, but that's probably related to toy sales and not to the OGL issue.
From the jump, I've taken the posture that WotC can win back my dollar. They've met my criteria for doing that. I feel like I have whiplash: getting really into D&D again (I arrived late to the boat of discovering 5e), thinking I'd need to switch back to other systems, and then getting pleasantly surprised. Just made plans with friends to watch the movie. Glad I get to do that.
It is ia big deal. Wizards has essentially given up on monetizing/profiting on 5e, or at least to any significant degree more than they already have. They've completely given up on control of the ecosystem and thrown the doors wide open for anyone to do anything (for good or ill). 5e, to the extent that the System Reference Document defines 5e, no longer belongs to Wizards of the Coast. It's an incredible concession I would never have dreamed they'd make, and it's legitimately pissing me off to see people badmouthing the decision and refusing to acknowledge that this is further than people demanded Wizards go.
The problem is that Wizards kinda already burned a lot of bridges, and they don't get to rebuild them with one announcement. Even if you're the type to be mollified by the move, no one is going to forget this fiasco any time soon. Paizo is profiteering like a Mafia don on the whole mess, and they're still pushing for wider adoption of their still-unfortunately-named ORC and thus pushing for adoption of Pathfinder as the de facto industry standard for TTRPGs, to the active and malicious detriment of D&D and D&D players. I can't imagine the big* third-party publishing houses like Kobold Press aren't going to carry on with development of their own in-house stuff either, not when everybody knows the can's just been kicked down the road by a year or two. When One D&D releases we'll all be seeing what license it's released under, since One will include a new SRD that will not in any way be beholden to OGL 1.0a the way the 5.1 SRD was.
One D&D is an open question, and people who just had their entire careers and livelihoods threatened by Wizards aren't going to wait until 1DD drops to secure said careers and livelihoods. The fight is over for 5e, but it's only deferred at best for the future of the game. We'll see if anybody bothers making 5e content anymore, even though it's now safer to do so than ever.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yeah I'm feeling much better about it - and anyone reading my posts around here can probably testify that positivity is not my strong suit lol. That said, they walked it back even more than I thought they would, and are at least DISPLAYING WITH ACTIONS that they heard us and understood. I didn't hear any snarky childish tidbits in the last statement detailing the responses to the survey or anything, it was professional and simple and plain just the way a good corporate apology should be, and tethered to actual actions which is the only time I give companies any credit - words are free after all.
I think it's hilarious that they screwed up so bad that they could have had a lot more if they just hadn't been so greedy in the first place - and now they're having to bend it all backwards and put things into creative commons just to try and win back their player base. A really good lesson in business right here for any 16 year olds that are watching and going to college in a few years!
I think maybe my family will go see the movie now, which is cool because we were looking forward to it and we don't really go anymore. I'm glad WotC learned their lesson.