Gamer Geek thread: D & D and the new OGL dustup

So one thing that has come out of this -- folks in the TTRPG community are learning how hard it is to do actual journalism, and some folks trying their hands at it for the first time are getting burned because they don't know what they're doing and what they should be asking. Even Linda Codega, who has done a solid reporting job overall, has done some problematic things (heavily editorializing in tweets, for example). But then you have the DnD Shorts guy who got burned by a source because he thought he could trust what they said when they were way off base. He's not the first person that's happened to, but it's a tough lesson to learn on something this big.

Journalism's hard. A lot harder than they expected it to be, I'm sure.

 

Yeah, there's a lot of flagellation, self and otherwise, over on Reddit. Equal parts "Calm down", "Keep the pressure on, don't believe anything that's not on paper for lawyers to examine the language", and yes, "Journalism is hard, sources are hard, what you can actually say is hard".

There is also speculation whether D&D Shorts got caught out or he intentionally overstated things because there were 500,000 clicks just sitting right there...

 

I just got this email from my daughter's school:

• The Shelton Esports team is currently recruiting for the spring season. If your student is interested in playing for SHS this season, or if you have any questions, please email sheltonesports@ sheltonpublicschools.org. The following games are being offered this season: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 3, Madden '23, NBA 2K '23, Rocket League, League of Legends, Hearthstone. College scholarship opportunities are available as well.

Scholarships to play Madden. This mofo mighta gotten a full ride back in the day if this absurdity were available.

 

"R/Wallstreetbets gets involved, shorts Hasbro significantly". LMAO.

 

I'm going to drop the last three D&D Shorts videos. He's pretty well tapped out on the subject. He shares his insider mails and a backgrounder on WotC's business decisions in the third, which is a pretty good updater on how things stand. If you're only going to do one, do the insider video.

It boils down to this: Hasbro wants to decrease the number of IP's they're marketing and to develop five of their existing or to be purchased lines to billion dollar a year properties. They made that number this past year with Magic: the Gathering cards, their first. I personally question whether they can sustain those numbers because part of how they got there was flooding the market, but anyhow.

D&D makes $150m a year, and is targeted to be the next billion dollar property. That's an enormous nut to make. The CEO of Wizards has never played D&D. Chris Cao, the WotC Video guy driving a lot of this, is a career electronic game guy. He too does not actually play D&D. He's on record as saying that gamers are essentially all the same, though. There's no way to generate that sort of income that does not boil down to turning the game into "Call of Duty". They want to go electronic, including AI Dm's (!) and generate money via subscriptions (up to $30 a month but you get all the flashy stuff others are buying al la cart) and microtransactions for costume and weapon skins and anything else desirable they can get paid cash for. Everyone pays at least a floor cost monthly to be on D&D Beyond or their new VTT.

This fundamentally misunderstands their customer base. It may make money for Hasbro, but it is completely wrong culturally. We can all continue to play our existing games. We'll see how successful they are with the electronic gaming end of it in a few years I guess.

 

Publishers Respond as WotC Takes Aim at Virtual Tabletops With OGL 1.2

 

Hasbro Announces Organizational Changes and Provides Update on Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2022 Financial Results

 

Welp, it's all over now. Community got what it wanted and more.

 

Wizards has folded under fannish pressure. They announced today that they will continue under the existing OGL, it will be made permanent, and that D&D will be licensed under Creative Commons. (Had not seen yours when I posted, JR, it was "there is a new post in this thread, would you like to see it?" when I started typing.

What they didn't say one word about is virtual table tops, where I expect them to be predatory and much more unyielding. That's where the real money to mine is if they can execute the plan without the entire player base telling them to go piss up a rope. OTOH, everyone is very forewarned and they won't be sneaking anything past. I imagine that the existing VTT's have their lawyers looking at things already. It will be very blatant if they do go for that.

I remain skeptical until the exact wording is out there to parse, but yes, it looks like a win.

 

Wow, so the Tri-Lambs actually pulled it off. Good for them.