Editing Wizards of the Coast (section)

==Then 2023 happened==
Evidently Hasbro/WotC decided 2023 was the year to pull an Activision Blizzard and make absolute asses of themselves.

The first major incident happened just before the turn of the year, in November 2022. Magic the Gathering was celebrating its 30th anniversary, which is admittedly a pretty big deal, considering the many, many CCGs that have died with a whimper or been relegated to niche status while it keeps trucking along. To mark this momentous occasion, WotC and Hasbro decided to create a special anniversary release set. All well and good so far, but when the details of this set were announced, it achieved an unprecedented level of hatred across damn near the entire MtG community (which is no small feat, mind you). In a decision that truly displays how out of touch the suits at Hasbro/WotC are, the 30th anniversary cards were only available in a box of four booster packs that retailed for ''$999'', which had to be ordered directly from them. These cards were functionally reprints from MtG's first editions of the game, which included many cards on Wizards' reserved list (for those not in the know, the reserved list is a long list of cards that WotC has basically vowed to never reprint). This included cards like the notorious Black Lotus, the other Power Nine cards and the like. However, these cards were all printed with a special 30th anniversary back which rendered them all illegal for officially sanctioned play. While this certainly helped avoid the potential lawsuits that could've been incurred from violating their reserved list agreements and helped avoid utterly destroying the market value of the original cards, it still rubbed many people the wrong way that they would skirt that line in the first place. Of course, that was if anyone even got them from the box. As mentioned, these cards were only available in booster sets, which of course means all the cards included in the ''$999'' box were totally randomized. That's right, players had to pay a thousand bucks for the ''chance'' to get the equivalent of a proxy of a Black Lotus or similar card that was not legal for organized play. Pretty much anyone who actually enjoyed the hobby was, at best, less than pleased, considering the obvious greed on display. Suffice to say, this was a major misfire for the company and though WotC claims the stock sold out in around 30 minutes of the product's launch, there is much doubt as to the veracity of these claims.

Not only did the utterly disastrous 30th anniversary celebration for MtG that's seen the brand become a financial liability happen, but in preparation for their upcoming One D&D ventures, WotC decided to create OGL 1.1. By exploiting the very literal phrasing of the OGL 1.0a, which dictates that 3rd parties or content creators operating under it are at perfect liberty to utilize any authorized versions of the OGL for their works, Wizards figured that as there was explicitly a lack of wording to make OGL 1.0a "irrevocable"; they could simply de-authorize OGL 1.0a and ''force'' all the licensees to adhere to the new OGL 1.1, lest they get bullied out of the game by Hasbro's fleet of lawyers. This is despite the intentions of 1.0a and the FAQ clarifications stating that the intent was for 1.0a to remain as a fully authorized license agreement "in perpetuity". The new OGL, of course, is ''far'' more restrictive on how D&D's SRD is utilized and demands that any individual, group, or organization that makes $750k or more annually on content that falls under OGL 1.1 must report all earnings to WotC and pay a ''25%'' royalty fee (or a "paltry" 20% if using Kickstarter as the medium, this being WotC's "preferred" platform for crowdfunding) for all such content. To make matters worse, this OGL was to be thrown at most relevant parties in such a manner as to give them as little as ''one week'' to sign on the included contract. Way to piss off an entire online fanbase by clamping down hard enough to make [[Games Workshop]] go "Holy shit, calm down you guys." The only reason this particular plan didn't play out exactly as described is due to the honorable, well-intentioned efforts of several WotC employees who leaked OGL 1.1 ahead of schedule. 

Then again, they were still making a mint off the [[Magic the Gathering|cardboard crack]] through all of this, so in hindsight we should have seen this coming. It also goes to show that WotC can't seem to genuinely learn from their mistakes, as this is playing out even more poorly than their attempt to alter the OGL during their disastrous 4th edition ventures. At the very least, thanks to an insider leak, we know they [[Capitalism|only see customers as an obstacle to their money]].

Due to the near universal backlash OGL 1.1 faced after the leaks, WotC attempted to backpedal, claiming 1.1 was [[bullshit|merely a draft]] of the final product (despite having sent it to various 3rd parties with a contract included). Their apology was filled to the brim with fairly typical corporate condescension, gaslighting and handwaving; the new OGL "2.0" will be rephrased in a way that doesn't "scare" the community while protecting WotC's assets and interests from being preyed upon by [[what|larger corporations seeking to exploit their IP]]. It takes a special kind of small-dick energy to be intimidated by companies that don't even make 1/100th of their annual revenue, but then again, this ''is'' Hasbro we're talking about. 

This open revolt led to more allegations coming out from current and former employees, including insanity like AI DMs for their proprietary VTT and intentions of ramping up the subscription prices while cutting back on perks for any tiers below the absolute top (which includes banning ''homebrew'' of all fucking things). Most damning of all was their apparent intention to start selling [[/v/|fucking lootboxes]] because Hasbro's CEO was under the delusion that the game "was undermonetized". All of this came out in the wake of a massive wave of folks cancelling their D&D Beyond subscriptions, an upset so massive that WotC tried to pull a fast one and hide the unsubscribe button, and the news merely dumped a truckload of gas on an already raging fire. For the record, WotC has denied everything about this except for carving apart all the books to make microtransactions, because they're banking on all those sheep still buying all the parts from their favorite books.

Another response was made about a week later that was written by the Executive Producer of D&D, one that wasn't nearly as condescending to the community as a result of the above rioting. This post promised to forward a review copy of the new OGL, one that the public can scrutinize, criticize, and ridicule as part of their desperate ploy to stop the massive bleeding wound that they inflicted on themselves. This took the form of a newer OGL 1.2, which eases certain restrictions, waived the horseshit about royalties and stated that it would be irrevocable (until they revoked it, by once again leaving just enough legal wiggle-room for them to update/de-authorize this OGL at a later date), but ultimately still proved far from desirable by the community.

Ironically, WotC's intention to revoke/replace the original OGL 1.0a has spurred a significant number of its former contributors and competitors to unite under Paizo's banner to create the "Linux" of RPG Licenses, referred to as the Open RPG Creative License (simply, and perhaps appropriately, referred to as the [[Orc|ORC]]). The ORC, having been drafted by several of the original authors behind the OGL 1.0a, is intended to be explicitly and unmistakably irrevocable, perpetual, and once established, owned by a non-profit 3rd party so that it cannot be altered or managed by any individual/group who might be tempted to modify the terms for personal profits. Paizo also expressed a willingness to defend OGL 1.0a's status in court, though such efforts would prove unnecessary.

[[Critical Role]], the most widely popular D&D podcast despite what [[skub|/tg/ thinks of it]], actually took /tg/'s most frequent advice and decided to stop playing D&D. It's unlikely this decision was prompted by Wizards' cunt-like behavior, since their new system is one they're publishing themselves and game development takes longer than CR could possibly have known what was coming, but the timing of the announcement was widely viewed as a passive-aggressive bitchy condemnation of Wizards' attitude. A real "you need us more than we need you" situation.

In the end, Wizards of the Coast cancelled the update from 1.0a and made the announcement that it was here to stay for good, [[FAIL|after weeks upon weeks of losing every shred of goodwill trying to push the change.]] In a slightly surprising move, they also committed the entire 5.1 SRD to the Creative Commons License ''before'' the announcement itself, ensuring that all info contained within was indeed irrevocably free for third-party use going forward. Thanks to the headwind from people abandoning the system, their biggest rival Paizo experienced record growth, all the while the community talks about boycotting the upcoming movie. Whether people will forget about this come D&D Beyond or not, who knows? What we do know however is the effect that the community has on a fanbase, and how one [[Matt Ward|Wardian]] move can cause so much harm.

Despite this, one can surmise that these changes will be restricted/exclusive to 5e. There is absolutely no way that WotC/Hasbro executives aren't fuming in impotent rage that the D&D community managed to stymie their plans to further monetize one of their biggest cash cows. Though OGL 1.0a and 5e are safe for the foreseeable future, they are under no compunction to release their upcoming OneD&D or VTT projects under OGL 1.0a and with how much money they've invested in those ventures, they'll almost assuredly attempt to create a new OGL more in line with their goals to secure their future products. Though with the substantial popularity boost their competitors received, the massive loss of D&D Beyond subscriptions and having thoroughly gotten on their community's bad side over the past few months, WotC will likely be keeping a low profile for a little bit before poking that hornet nest again.

... or maybe not as they proceeded to ram their dicks right into the hornet's nest .