Why We Should Work With WotC

[Aspirinsmurf]

So I agree with those saying 1.0 is a lost cause. They need it gone to take back control over digital content, the core of their development strategy under current leadership. I don't see any outcome that doesn't end with 1.0a "de-authorized." The best case scenario (at least until there is a challenge in court, if any) is that 1.x will offer functionally the same terms as 1.0a, but only for print and "static media", with options for VTT producers limited under their VTT policy.

I think you're right about this largely being about digital platforms. But we really shouldn't let them divide and conquer us piecemeal like that. You might be willing to trade away the rights of anyone making a VTT, but they certainly wouldn't. They, on the other hand, might be willing to trade away something that's important to you in exchange for some other concession that's important to them.

This is the basic reality of collective bargaining. I think solidarity is a strategic imperative here. And our only real common goal is for OGL 1.0a to stay.

 

[Minigiant]

pretty sure WotC makes a profit on both

Not enough for the shareholders.
If you budgeted to make a 2 mil profit and you make 1 mil profit, you didn't make a profit in the corporate world.
It's all about the VTT, baby.
The VTT gives sustainable growth in profits. Corebooks don't. Adventure books don't. Monster manuals and Player options books might.

OneDND will bring growing profits year after year with

1. Player Options
2. Monster and Trap Books
3. Translating 1 and 2 to DDB
4. Subscription to the VTT
5. Microtransactions of 1, 2and cosmetics

And the OGL1.0a stands in the way of this somehow. So WOTC is adamant of a new OGL that lets them create a VTT with the best integration between it and the TT game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not enough for the shareholders.
If you budgeted to make a 2 mil profit and you make 1 mil profit, you didn't make a profit in the corporate world.

it's worse then that...

If you make $3 profit every day for a month, then make $4 profit every day for the next week, then make $5 profit every day for the following week and then make a profit of $4 for the next week... in Corp shareholder talk you just LOST money... you made $3 a day for 4 weeks and then in the next 3 weeks made more per week for 3 weeks... BUT you made $1 less profit.

I spend hours of my life every year with graphs and spread sheets trying to explain to people who are making sometimes up to 10x or more my income that "Making money is good"

growth has somehow replaced income as the goal... "I can't just be making money I need to make MORE money then last time we counted"


Edit: I think I said this earlier this week but a few years ago I needed to explain that spending several hundred thousand dollars in about 3 months ABOVE normal operating expense to guarantee a 2% increase on revenue (not profit) was a loseing bet. The amount of time it would take to break even would be years, and we could not guarantee the growth would last that long...

 

[Minigiant]

it's worse then that...

If you make $3 profit every day for a month, then make $4 profit every day for the next week, then make $5 profit every day for the following week and then make a profit of $4 for the next week... in Corp shareholder talk you just LOST money... you made $3 a day for 4 weeks and then in the next 3 weeks made more per week for 3 weeks... BUT you made $1 less profit.

I spend hours of my life every year with graphs and spread sheets trying to explain to people who are making sometimes up to 10x or more my income that "Making money is good"

growth has somehow replaced income as the goal... "I can't just be making money I need to make MORE money then last time we counted"


Edit: I think I said this earlier this week but a few years ago I needed to explain that spending several hundred thousand dollars in about 3 months ABOVE normal operating expense to guarantee a 2% increase on revenue (not profit) was a loseing bet. The amount of time it would take to break even would be years, and we could not guarantee the growth would last that long...

Tell me about it.

I've had several orders of whiskey with higher ups about the increased amounts I have to make this year. And they didn't even adjust for inflation.

Hasbro told WOTC they need to make more than last year. Their revenue last year was very high. They can maybe miss expectations with the promise of VTT profit.

If we aren't giving them an alternative to the projected revenue of an exclusive D&D VTT and DDB, we are wasting our breath.

Even Paizo knows how this works, that's why the ORC is going to an independent. Because if WOTC goes down and Paizo goes up, Paizo would be in a position that if they go public they'd do the same thing with the ORC if they owned it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I've had several orders of whiskey with higher ups about the increased amounts I have to make this year. And they didn't even adjust for inflation.

yup. I feel for you. Nothing is worse then when the people above you are giving unrealistic goals... I used to wonder if they were just setting people up for failure (malicious) or didn't know wat they were doing (dumb).
I long ago stopped wondering the whys... I'm not sure it matters.

Although I do want to go back to my Economics teacher in high school and tell them off for selling me the idea that the people who knew more got ahead and as such you could trust the people above you to know more then you.... ARGH!!!

 

[Scribe]

So, why not just release an actual 6E and have that (and everything going forward) be part of the new license?

They are terrified at the prospect of an edition change, when they are factually intellectually bankrupt, and the 'biggest edition ever' is in the 1.0 OGL via the 5.0 SRD, which could be supported by 3PP, even to the degree of a new "Pathfinder" like product.

They dug a hole, by simply being a subpar publisher, for their own damn game, while simultaneously making their products more and more generic, half-hearted, or incomplete.

Its actually delicious.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You hurt yourself. You got yourself so worked up, you inflicted trauma.

Mod Note:

Your post was mostly OK. Then you closed with the part I quoted. That’s kinda “victim blame-y”, and therefore uncool. Don’t do that going forward.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They are terrified at the prospect of an edition change, when they are factually intellectually bankrupt, and the 'biggest edition ever' is in the 1.0 OGL via the 5.0 SRD, which could be supported by 3PP, even to the degree of a new "Pathfinder" like product.

They dug a hole, by simply being a subpar publisher, for their own damn game, while simultaneously making their products more and more generic, half-hearted, or incomplete.

Its actually delicious.

yeah... some of that hits a little harder then I think it needs to, but I agree, the last ting they want is round 2 of the piazo/D&D break up.... but I think it will come no matter what

 

[Scribe]

yeah... some of that hits a little harder then I think it needs to, but I agree, the last ting they want is round 2 of the piazo/D&D break up.... but I think it will come no matter what

 

[Autumnal]

well, you are wrong, they just did not take economics 101

The truth is that many people in business suck at the basics of capitalism, like the division of labor when it comes to dumping loads on employees, as well as proven matters of fact like how working more than 40-50 hours per week degrades productivity.

So rather than setting myself up to lose by focusing on the one thing that won't change, I want to focus on what changes I can make. Dwelling on what can't be changed and is inevitable is just setting oneself up for disappointment..

And if some part of the core activity is itself unacceptable, then…?

This is a hyperbolic example: faced with laws that enable slavery, I don’t want slightly kinder fugitive slave laws, I want abolition. If I can’t currently meaningfully strike at the root of the problem, I’ll do all I can to avoid supporting those who profit from slavery and to make their regime costlier and less rewarding.

if, as seems the case, the basic rights grabs of the new OGL can’t be changed, then I will not be their customer, and I will support publishers using terms I find morally acceptable with my money and voice. That’s how I plan to avoid disappointment down the line.