Don't bother. The average D&D consumer knows nothing of OGL and OSR.

Mega Corps routinely piss off a small segment of their customers and get away with it. Hoping the WotC gets their comeuppance for OGL 1.1 reminds me of people here who used to think Big Daddy Hasbro was going bash some heads when they learned how woke Wizards is. Wrong. If I learned anything from Fury Road it's that hope is a waste of time. 

People will forget, much quicker than you expect. The only benefit for people who care will be the new systems that rise from the ashes of the OGL.

WotC knows exactly what they're doing:

1. They made their books kid "safe" by removing "race" and all the other changes over the last few years. Parents and grandparents are now more comfortable than ever buying a random D&D book for Jr. 3PP are not welcome because they cannot be controlled. This secures the baseline revenue.

2. The noticed how mental people get about digital bobbles like skins, loot boxes, NFTs, etc. They are steering the ship in that direction and have no intention of sharing with 3PPs unless they submit to total control. Because they fear that 3PPs could do it better. This is the big risk with big reward. If it fails, so what? They locked in the main revenue at 1 above.

I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!

I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".

As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.

Quote from: Bruwulf on January 12, 2023, 11:48:42 AM
I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!

I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".

As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.

WOTC does know what it's doing full well, there's business analysts that have weighed pros and cons, spreadsheets and reports were reviewed and generated, and a project of this magnitude doesn't go out the door by some schlep in marketing Just Because.

They are intangibles that WOTC was either unaware of or was counting it would go in another way.  The Uknown Unknowns that the market and populace are fickle creatures with individual tastes.  That's the uncontrollable outcomes that WOTC was either taken of unaware or was hoping would go another way.

The VTT/Digital market is what WOTC wants here more than ever, are they willing to shrink their brand recognitiion enough and have enough Social and Fiscial capital to weather the storm of the majority of the market does not pay for their product? That's the curious part.

Yeah this could be a fuck up. I'm just stating my opinion. "Time will tell" is not really an opinion that can be discussed. But maybe it's not worth discussing. In any case, you got some amusement out of it, so all's good.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on January 12, 2023, 12:01:25 PM

Quote from: Bruwulf on January 12, 2023, 11:48:42 AM
I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!

I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".

As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.

WOTC does know what it's doing full well, there's business analysts that have weighed pros and cons, spreadsheets and reports were reviewed and generated, and a project of this magnitude doesn't go out the door by some schlep in marketing Just Because.

They are intangibles that WOTC was either unaware of or was counting it would go in another way.  The Uknown Unknowns that the market and populace are fickle creatures with individual tastes.  That's the uncontrollable outcomes that WOTC was either taken of unaware or was hoping would go another way.

The VTT/Digital market is what WOTC wants here more than ever, are they willing to shrink their brand recognitiion enough and have enough Social and Fiscial capital to weather the storm of the majority of the market does not pay for their product? That's the curious part.

I think it's more accurate to say WotC thinks they know what they are doing. I'm sure all their internal data and spreadsheets said this was a great business decision, but they failed to understand the customer. All their data likely showed a positive cash flow, but they didn't anticipate people saying "we don't want that."

Will this hurt WotC/DnD? Of course.
Will it cripple them? Fuck no!
Even if they loss 5% of the market share, that still leaves them with, what?, 50-55% of the entire tabletop gaming industry? Maybe more. Yeah, they'll lose money and their shareholders will demand answers, but they aren't going to lose their dominance in the field. At least not in the long term.

There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.

Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 12, 2023, 12:37:51 PM
There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.

Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.

Makes sense that's the only metric they care about. DDB subscriptions is their entire business model moving foward. Without subs, who will play their VTT?

The ACKS guy wrote a great article about this debacle and he has skin in the game. A theme from that piece is: Don't assume your enemy is a dolt and will fumble it. Assume they know what they're doing and plan accordingly. If they fuck up, you got lucky. If not, you're prepared. Seems like good sense to me.

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 12, 2023, 12:37:51 PM
There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.

Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.

I've attached the alleged email here, it does say as much.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2023, 09:15:41 AM
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:

A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).

But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby.  Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.

They've lost the Cs. The Cs are the most cued in to Twitter & the D&D-adjacent social network of all of them. And no Ginny Di type Influencer is going to destroy their rep with the in-crowd by siding with WoTC.

If WoTC have any hope left, it lies with the Bs.

But it sounds a lot like Cynthia Williams is utterly delusional, sitting in her Fuhrerbunker pronouncing that this will all blow over soon, once Steiner releases the D&D movie, or somesuch. And Keitel, Jodl and Kripps are still too scared to tell her the truth.

It's like some powerful arcane entity, has compelled WOTC to self destruct?

Quote from: S'mon on January 12, 2023, 04:13:42 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2023, 09:15:41 AM
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:

A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).

But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby.  Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.

They've lost the Cs. The Cs are the most cued in to Twitter & the D&D-adjacent social network of all of them. And no Ginny Di type Influencer is going to destroy their rep with the in-crowd by siding with WoTC.

If WoTC have any hope left, it lies with the Bs.

But it sounds a lot like Cynthia Williams is utterly delusional, sitting in her Fuhrerbunker pronouncing that this will all blow over soon, once Steiner releases the D&D movie, or somesuch. And Keitel, Jodl and Kripps are still too scared to tell her the truth.

Greetings!

*Laughing* "The Fuhrerbunker!"--and Jodl, Keitel, and Kripps! All smarmy yes-men to the Fuhrer. Great references, my friend! WOTC's delusional state of mind and attitude--geesus. The mind-disease has absolutely consumed them. The most uber Woke-BS combined with the most smug corporatist mania--topped off by a constant supply of giggling Kool-Aid. So self-destructive. So pathetic and sad.

For a decent time frame here, we had D&D at the height of its popularity, and a huge boom in creativity and truly diverse markets--a gaming renaissance that I would think overturned what was accomplished during 3E, and anytime previously. 5E accomplished that.

These morons didn't learn a damned thing from the 4E fiasco. No, they doubled down and brought in corporate execs from Microsoft and elsewhere that aren't even gamers, don't even play D&D, and have zero comprehension for the D&D fan-base. Snippets of info indicate there is even an attitude of contempt and total disregard.

Let's drive D&D off a cliff! Yay!

Fucking morons. They really need to bathe in *napalm*.

I'm so disgusted with all of these scum at WOTC. Fuck them all.

(I hope you are also doing well, my friend!)

So sad, and absolutely mind-boggling.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK