How many companies have revenue over 750k that use the OGL?

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Yeah, I think it was the principle of the thing that bothered everyone. A million dollar kickstarter would have to pay $50k - which sucks for the kickstarter, but not by "much" - and doesn't really add anything to WotC's coffers, for how much bad will it generates.

It could be a real problem for the most successful publishers too. If you're lucky enough to run two million dollar kickstarters in one year then the second would have to pay 250K, which on top of all other expenses would make many projects economically unviable.

 

[ECMO3]

I think there are many, and given the current landscape I don't think a single company currently using the OGL will comply and pay royalties even if OGL1.1/2 is published and contains that provision.

I think companies, including those over $750k will fall into two groups:

1. Those that continue to publish under OGL 1.0a and make WOTC go to court and stop them. There is a big problem with this approach for WOTC - even if the courts side with WOTC (a big if) this would cause a bigger fan revolt then we see now.

2. Companies will stop publishing 5E content and move on.

I think both of these things will happen. You will have companies blow off the OGL and you will have others that stop publishing, but I don't think anyone signs on to the new license. There may be a small number of companies that sign a separate marketing agreement if they think an official WOTC tie-in will be better for their bottom line, but I think that will be a separate agreement, not the OGL.

 

[Corinnguard]

Can the top executives at Hasbro and WoTC who started this OGL mess be personally taken to court? curious

 

[Morrus]

Can the top executives at Hasbro and WoTC who started this OGL mess be personally taken to court? curious

For what?

 

[Oofta]

Can the top executives at Hasbro and WoTC who started this OGL mess be personally taken to court? curious

For making a bad decision? If they could, our courts would be packed. Heck, I would have been hauled in more times than I can count.

 

[Morrus]

For making a bad decision?

That's not really a 'thing' to be sued for. You get sued for breaches of contract, or copyrght infringement, or a thousand other things, but it has to be something specific.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The 750k mark is like 20th level. While the vast majority will never hit it, everyone likes to imagine they can.

This is a fundamental truth of human psychology, isn't it? It inform politics hugely worldwide too, but particularly in the West.

For making a bad decision? If they could, our courts would be packed. Heck, I would have been hauled in more times than I can count.

If the decision was utterly reckless, and/or clearly made for bad reasons (like nepotism or helping a buddy or something), and clearly was against the health of the company, Company Directors in the UK actually can get taken to court. Sometimes they even are. Not 1/10th as often as they should be, but it can and does happen.

Nothing WotC have done seems to meet that standard. Grossly misunderstanding your competitors and audience isn't reckless, it's just dumb, and being dumb doesn't reach the threshold needed.

I think a better idea would be to license access to DDB, but that's a different topic.

If they'd had that as a fixed carrot, they'd have got some signatures. If they'd done that and just poison-pill OGL1.0a/made 1.1 opt-in, and had slightly better language in a couple of other places, they'd have tons. Missed chances. Dumb not reckless though!

I was just asking because I know the total TTRPG market isn't really all that huge to begin with.

I think the main idiocy with the 25% is that the only people they sent the OGL 1.1 and term sheet to were the exact companies that either do make over $750k, or are very near to it. So exactly the people you don't want to scare/upset? They intentionally tried to scare them into signing a document which would make it 15% instead. Even 15% unfortunately would destroy profitability for many of those companies. Even if you were somehow making 30% profits (great in ANY industry, outstanding in RPGs - 10% is considered "good" - Profit Margin.), that'd halve your profits, right then and there. Talk about a blow!

And we see now it didn't even matter to WotC! They could drop that provision without caring! Because they went straight to 0%!

Dumb not reckless lol.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's not really a 'thing' to be sued for. You get sued for breaches of contract, or copyrght infringement, or a thousand other things, but it has to be something specific.

UK company directors can get into trouble for "bad decisions", but they do have to be pretty damn naughty before they do. The only one that could easily happen, is, relevant to recent discussions, leaking, which is verboten (for UK company directors, anyway). I think it's a criminal offence rather than a civil liability (you may also be subject to that of course), though.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Also, corporate employees generally can't be sued personally for doing their job, unless they've done something criminal. You have to sue the company.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Could the shareholders sue them for taking actions that seriously damaged the shareholders investments (at least it SHOULD damage the percieved value)? That these actions were a case of fraudelent behaviour?