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What's Past is Prologue: Understanding the OGL Licensing Controversy in Light of the 3e/4e Transition
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8885775" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>First off, genuine congratulations on writing by far the least partisan (basically non-partisan) summary of the whole 4E situation I've ever seen anyone, including actual journalists, write. Someone on reddit made a similar post and it was an utterly partisan mess full of wild opinion, falsehoods and misunderstandings seemingly the result of not having actually been there. It got like 1.5k upvotes lol.</p><p></p><p>But this is genuinely a great summary of the situation. I'd actually even forgotten about the bit where they managed to convince everyone you needed a computer. I'd personally have added some stuff about how the head of WotC (or Hasbro, I forget) managed to also make it sound like their intention was to make D&D into World of Warcraft, which he clearly didn't intend as literally as many took it, but damn what a way to stigmatize your own product given this was 2008, and there was already a huge tension between MMORPG players and TTRPG players, because whilst many people were both, a lot of people had friends or even DMs who'd <em>de facto</em> stopped playing TTRPGs for MMORPGs in the previous four years (2004-2008).</p><p></p><p>Also somehow mishandling the launch video so badly that it didn't seem like a joke-y celebration of D&D through the years but an attack on previous editions so clumsy it seemed like a Simpsons bit (replete with questionable "European" accent on the narrator!) should go down in history. I hadn't seen advertising that ill-advised since some mid-90s videogame ads (which often took a "That game you like? IT SUUUUCKS AND YOU SUUUUCK! Play [obvious competitor to that game] XTREME FACE SMASH 4 and you will stop being a loser and also get hot chicks!" tone)</p><p></p><p>Anyway, didn't need those bits, great summary.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah I think investment here is a major factor that a lot of people (including me) have been rather overlooking.</p><p></p><p>WotC/Hasbro have apparently got 350 people working on the 3D VTT. That's bonkers levels of investment. Tens of millions a year (I believe [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] estimated it at possibly $35m/pa). I dunno how much investment D&D has had in development, but I suspect it's a <em>hell of a lot</em> less than $35m/pa.</p><p></p><p>Of course investment works both ways to some extent, and if WotC is really in that deep with the success of 1D&D/3D VTT (which are one and the same, essentially, see the announcement video), they may well be invested enough to be willing to be somewhat flexible on the OGL 1.1 if they think it will be helpful.</p><p></p><p>But I think they may have done critical PR damage already, just as early 4E decisions really smashed up 4E's PR. They've got a year and a half or so to "right the ship", but unless they do something pretty drastic and 1D&D starts seeming more like a "killer app" and less like 5E with a lot of house rules (some good, some shrug, some bah), this seems like it bodes ill for them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8885775, member: 18"] First off, genuine congratulations on writing by far the least partisan (basically non-partisan) summary of the whole 4E situation I've ever seen anyone, including actual journalists, write. Someone on reddit made a similar post and it was an utterly partisan mess full of wild opinion, falsehoods and misunderstandings seemingly the result of not having actually been there. It got like 1.5k upvotes lol. But this is genuinely a great summary of the situation. I'd actually even forgotten about the bit where they managed to convince everyone you needed a computer. I'd personally have added some stuff about how the head of WotC (or Hasbro, I forget) managed to also make it sound like their intention was to make D&D into World of Warcraft, which he clearly didn't intend as literally as many took it, but damn what a way to stigmatize your own product given this was 2008, and there was already a huge tension between MMORPG players and TTRPG players, because whilst many people were both, a lot of people had friends or even DMs who'd [I]de facto[/I] stopped playing TTRPGs for MMORPGs in the previous four years (2004-2008). Also somehow mishandling the launch video so badly that it didn't seem like a joke-y celebration of D&D through the years but an attack on previous editions so clumsy it seemed like a Simpsons bit (replete with questionable "European" accent on the narrator!) should go down in history. I hadn't seen advertising that ill-advised since some mid-90s videogame ads (which often took a "That game you like? IT SUUUUCKS AND YOU SUUUUCK! Play [obvious competitor to that game] XTREME FACE SMASH 4 and you will stop being a loser and also get hot chicks!" tone) Anyway, didn't need those bits, great summary. Yeah I think investment here is a major factor that a lot of people (including me) have been rather overlooking. WotC/Hasbro have apparently got 350 people working on the 3D VTT. That's bonkers levels of investment. Tens of millions a year (I believe [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] estimated it at possibly $35m/pa). I dunno how much investment D&D has had in development, but I suspect it's a [I]hell of a lot[/I] less than $35m/pa. Of course investment works both ways to some extent, and if WotC is really in that deep with the success of 1D&D/3D VTT (which are one and the same, essentially, see the announcement video), they may well be invested enough to be willing to be somewhat flexible on the OGL 1.1 if they think it will be helpful. But I think they may have done critical PR damage already, just as early 4E decisions really smashed up 4E's PR. They've got a year and a half or so to "right the ship", but unless they do something pretty drastic and 1D&D starts seeming more like a "killer app" and less like 5E with a lot of house rules (some good, some shrug, some bah), this seems like it bodes ill for them. [/QUOTE]
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