D&D 5E Who tried to end the OGL?

[Cadence]

I’m sorry but people trot out correlation and causation without understanding that causation cannot be proven without proper controls for all other existing variables which is difficult if not impossible in the real world, and certainly not possible for the financial world where there are numerous variables, none of which can be fully controlled making anyone who discusses correlation and causation in that context sound like someone who read something smart off the internet once upon a time and just repeats it every time they see the word “correlation”.

What's your favorite text/review paper on causal inference? (It's been on my list of things to read up on for a couple years now).

 

[TiQuinn]

What's your favorite text/review paper on causal inference? (It's been on my list of things to read up on for a couple years now).

Oh I’m sorry it’s been a couple of decades since I’ve had to dig into research sites for a grad paper. If you’re so interested, consider attending a university.

 

[Oofta]

What “general trend” and who said “spike”?

This whole sideline with the impact of ST on D&D sales started with this post (bold added)

It's a good thing they never released Magic under the OGL, otherwise Disney would have been able to create its own Trading Card Game ...
The worth of D&D is in the name, not in the rules. There are, in my opinion of course, better games out there, but stuff like Stranger Things made people interested in D&D, not RPGs in general.

Now, in my opinion D&D is the best TTRPG for me. I've played others here and there, looked into other games. D&D, 5E specifically, suits my needs best. Obviously there will be other people for whom other games are better.

In any case, there is no evidence or even correlation whatsoever that ST made people interested in D&D. I just don't get it ... the show had geeky kids in a basement playing a game for a few minutes. It's not like it was the positive advertisement imaginable.

Then there was the reply

So you’re saying they had zero correlation? No one was drawn to D&D by virtue of Critical Role or Stranger Things. It was entirely internal organic growth?

Which is not at all what I said. I reject the idea that ST caused D&D's popularity, it was growing rapidly before the show was released and continued to grow at the same pace afterwards. But are there a number of factors contributing to 5Es success? Obviously. I would also list things like the acceptance of geek culture, superhero and fantasy movies making it okay to be a fan of fantasy. Throw in other cultural factors like people wanting to connect on a more personal level and parents that grew up playing D&D sharing it with their kids. I'm sure there's other factors I can't think of.

But overall, I do think a big part of 5E's success that people don't consider is that they did one of the most extensive playtests ever done for the game rules up to that point. There's no way it can be the best game for everyone in the potential target market, but I think it does a pretty good job.

 

[Umbran]

I’m sorry but people trot out correlation and causation without understanding...

If you want to lay this all at the feet of how others don't understand causation, you can do that.
It won't convince us that our reading and responses weren't justified, mind you. But you can do it.

 

[TiQuinn]

But are there a number of factors contributing to 5Es success? Obviously. I would also list things like the acceptance of geek culture, superhero and fantasy movies making it okay to be a fan of fantasy.

Okay, thank you, that was the exact clarification that I was asking about before people started braying about correlation and causation.

 

[TiQuinn]

If you want to lay this all at the feet of how others don't understand causation, you can do that.
It won't convince us that our reading and responses weren't justified, mind you. But you can do it.

I promise you. I’m not at all interested in convincing you of anything.

 

[Hussar]

so there is no particular reason to suspect a causal relationship.

Ah but there is a particular reason. If there is a causal relationship then it supports the narrative that WotC is incompetent and 5e is only popular because it rises on the backs of folks who aren’t WotC. That 5e is successful despite WotC.

There are some pretty clear biases leading into that conclusion. And some pretty clear intentions behind that particular interpretation of recent events.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

I have no reason to disbelieve the stated reason: they were afraid someone like Disney or Meta would eat their lunch, and the hit to the existing OGL ecosystem was collateral damage.

There is a very good reason to doubt this claim, and that is the fact that the new license went WAAAYYY beyond what was necessary to protect from a megacorporation entering the market. The revenue reporting requirement was for anyone who had a mere $50k of revenue a year and the punitive tax kicked in at just $750k of revenue. No megacorporation would bother unless they expected at least tens of millions dollars of profit but it would kneecap existing 3PPs like Paizo and Kobold Press. The license also required you to register every single product you sold no matter how little money you made and for each product you had to provide "information on where You intend to publish the Licensed Work, and its price, among other things.” This allowed WotC/Hasbro to police content and reject your product if it contained content that was “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.” There is no way that Hasbro was worried about Disney or Meta creating any D&D product that was racist or homophobic, that's a clause directed at small time publishers like Justin Lanasa. Further, no one would be able to make  any money from streaming their games or videos talking about D&D. To do so you would have to negotiate an individual license for yourself with WotC/Hasbro. That is totally unnecessary to keep another giant corporation out of the market. Add in the ability to change the license anytime they wanted and this was clearly an attempt to control the entire D&D market.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A lot of people claim that D&D's success is because of Stranger Things and Critical Role. There are a lot of contributing factors of course, but there was no significant increase in sales of D&D after the release of either because it was already on a significant upward trend. It always feels dismissive of the fact that a lot of people just happen to have fun playing the game, it simply works for many. Which is no reflection on other games, I just don't see many other games like [spin the wheel of RPGs to get a random game] Call of Cthulhu having such broad appeal.

Maybe folks hearing that should stop being so dismissive themselves.

 

[SteveC]

Maybe folks hearing that should stop being so dismissive themselves.

I think this is a really good point. We honestly don't know exactly why D&D became so popular. Back when it started the uptick, the people over at WotC were surprised. I'm sure there are a bunch of reasons.

To ignore Stranger Things and Critical Role, along with other pop culture icons talking about being gamers is just ridiculous. I was watching Stranger Things with my wife when it came out and it was a phenomenon. Both of us had people talking about D&D who had either dismissed it decades ago, or were strangely interested now.

That is absolutely not an elaborate study, but when you live through something, you can have some insight about it. I remember when the Lord of the Rings books movies came out, I was asked about Roleplaying games multiple times by parents because I didn't seem threatening to them (their actual words, I was sort of a gaming Daywalker). Popular culture does influence trends.

I think it's so strange that there's this big divide over what happened to spike interest. We don't know, but we do know that WotC wasn't marketing to anyone outside of gaming channels, so I'd suggest that if this was a spontaneous revival, it should be studied by marketing classes around the world.

Edited to add: Lord of the Rings movies, not books. I am old, but I am not that old.