Wizards Rolls Multiple Nat 1's - Leadership Failures Around D&D OGL - Part 6c

Per Wizards of the Coast, the intent of the OGL had designs to be beneficial to the community and fans.

They claimed that its' design was to benefit Creators.

They claimed that it was designed to not be abused by Major Corportations to use for promotional and commercial purposes.

They claimed their intent was always to get the input of the community.

Finally, they said that these changes would allow them to be good stewards of the game.

But are any of these true?

No.

It Wouldn't Benefit Creators

In the original draft of the OGL that was leaked, Creators would have been hurt terribly.

In the language of the draft, it would actually give Wizards the right to steal Creators' work.

If a Creator had their work put under the OGL, Wizards could essentially end the Creator's business.

This is still true with the first true "draft" that was released, through a loophole of Wizards not defining what constitutes "hateful" or "discriminatory".

Due to terms being undefined, Wizards could consider any action they wish as "hateful" or "discriminatory" and then immediately end the Creator's ability to work.

Then Wizards would also have a "nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license" to use that content for any purpose.

Essentially, they could take the idea from the Creator, and the Creator would have no legal means to oppose Wizards, and Wizards wouldn't pay them.

That is the definition of Stealing.

The new language of the first true "draft" still gives Wizards that right, just with different words, through terms 3, 3a, and 3b.

Basically, you could sue Wizards for having something "too similar" to your work, but you would need to prove they intended to steal.

Wizards would explicitly make you sign that access and opportunity isn't enough to be considered stolen (which they would have both access and opportunity easily).

If you did manage to win they would only pay you monetarily and they would not be required to take their version down.

So, still stealing, but at least you might get a little bit of money out of it this time.

Not only this, but per the OGL, Creators earning a certain amount of money would then be forced to pay Wizards 20%+ of Revenue, before taxes, cogs, expenses, etc.

This would put most creators out of business to start, and those who could survive probably wouldn't have a viable business at that point.

Plus, Wizards would have been able to lower the threshold at any point, making this royalty requirement a reality for more and more creators over time.

Supposedly in future "drafts" of the contract, they will take out any of this, but we have not seen that to be true yet, if we ever do.

Every version of recent OGLs also deauthorize the original OGL, there are some who believe that creators would have to back pay on what they have sold under the original OGL that has been in place for 20 years.

Along with this, the newest version of the OGLs would prevent creators from doing work in most mediums, restricting them further.

As you can imagine, none of these benefit Creators in the slightest, and only Wizards would benefit.

Wizards Never Intended to Get Community Feedback

Wizards had originally reached out to a handful of creators, under an NDA.

Businesses do not force NDAs on something that is a draft, especially if that draft was always intended to go out to the community.

When the Creators were in a room, Wizards proposed the original changes, with "slightly" better terms for them, then expected those creators to sign in a week's time.

Another thing about drafts, people are never expected to sign them within any timeframe.

The only reason the community ever found out about this was that the original contract was leaked by brave employees.

When it hit the news, Wizards had no response for over a week, while the community became outraged, and more internal leaks came to light.

It is likely that Wizards was formulating a response due to the outrage that was occurring that they didn't plan on happening.

If the OGL was a draft that had always been intended to go to the community first, it should have been no problem to make an announcement the same day as the leaks.

They wouldn't really be leaks in that case anyways.

But Wizards didn't have any response for quite some time, and the response they did have was full of PR Speak as we've been discussing.

The combined evidence shows that there was never an intention to tell the community.

Another strike against this being beneficial to Creators who would have been blindsided by the demanded changes.

The Only Major Corporation is Wizards in the Industry

Per Wizards, they were planning to utilize the OGL to protect the Community from "Major Corporations".

But, what major corporations are there?

Paizo, Kobold Press, Green Ronin, MCDM?

In comparison to D&D (not even Wizards of the Coast as a whole), none of these competitors are remotely near the same size.

If you were to combine all of D&D's competitors, they would make up less than 10% of Wizard's profits, with some even claiming it would be less than 1%.

Then, the OGL changes would essentially put all of these businesses either completely out of business, or hurting deeply.

On top of this, it would completely prevent some of the most innovative businesses in the industry from being able to continue to develop their products.

The only Major Corporation that would be benefiting from this agreement would be Wizards of the Coast.

It would benefit Wizards both Promotionally and Commercially.

In the industry, Wizards of the Coast is the only Major Corporation.

How is This Good Stewardship?

So who benefits from the leaked OGL or the first "draft" OGL?

It certainly isn't any of the Creators.

The damage to all other competitors wouldn't benefit the fans.

The damage to all companies that are trying to innovate wouldn't benefit.

Due to all of this, none of the fans would benefit as the industry would be going through a stranglehold.

Only Wizards would benefit, which is not a way to be good "Stewards".

At the end of the day, Wizards' public response to their leaked OGL was full of completely false "PR Speak" that was designed to sound nice but ultimately was a complete lie.

It's also a lie which none of the community believed.