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balketh
@balketh

The released 'aPoLoGy' and 'uPdAtE' on the OGL from WotC is, well, to put it mildly, fucking embarrassing. Here's a link. I'm not gonna go through each line (most, but not all), b/c there's some SOLID GOLD corporate shitspeak in here, absolute bottom-feeding mewling kowtowing garbage from scum-sucking putrid wretches and liars that needs, NEEDS to be highlighted for the completely bald-faced lies they are. Enjoy!


This entire response is the most pathetic attempt at turning an L into a W, absolutely some playground-level 'yeah but I also won ahahah!' while Everyone Laughs At Them. It's a self-beatdown of legendary proportions. Let's dive in.

The first paragraph is total dogshit. They start off by revealing that their 'UPDATE' to the OGL was actually a revision - something OGL1.0a doesn't include a provision for (and yes, the legal distinciton between 'update' and 'revision' is probably worthy of the hair split in court.) Their 3 major goals are bullshit. Coming from the internal leak about how management only views D&D in its success by way of DNDBeyond subscriptions (cancel yours, or convince a friend to cancel theirs, today!), I don't believe these goals for a second.

'Prevent D&D content being used in hateful and discriminatory products'? That wasn't ever the purpose of the OGL, the OGL was about commercialization. If you wanted it to be part of the OGL, you'd have 'updated' the OGL with a clause about it 5 years ago, when it was already a huge thing. Using 'woke' as an excuse to make greedy corpo changes.

'Prevent D&D being used in NFTs and web3' only because you saw NFTs stopped being profitable in the long term. Get the fuck outta here. Also, 'OGL content is limited to TTRPG content' - yeah, it always was. It says as much in the OGL1.0a.

'OGL is for the content creator, homebrewer, aspiring designer, players and community' - then WHY DID YOU SPECIFICALLY PUT IN WORDS THAT GIVE YOU ALL THE IRREVOCABLE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF ALL WORKS UNDER THE OGL2.0, INCLUDING PROFIT, BUT TACITLY LEAVE 'OWNERSHIP' ITSELF TO THE CREATOR? THAT DOESN'T STAND UP, BUCKO.

THEN they start calling the new version of the OGL a 'draft'. They do it twice on the same line of paragraph.

My fool. My douchebag. My good dumbass. You were literally set to release the OGL yesterday. Like, full send. Not just a testbed, not for review. It goes on to state they sent out this content to publishers and content creators for feedback.

The fuck you did. The leak happened BEFORE content creators allegedly received their info. It happened from inside the internal offices of WotC. Some claim it's another intentional """leak""", a corporate tactic to 'accidentally' do something and double back like they're doing, BUT.

I do NOT think that's the case here. Because WotC specifically have a full pipeline already set up for receiving feedback on Unearthed Arcana and OneD&D rules tests. They pester you about it on going to the fucking website. There's no way in hell they couldn't have put out a feedback form for this. The leak, IMO, was genuine. If it wasn't, then it only adds to teh self-own and huge ratio+L.

'In addition to language allowing us to address discriminatory and hateful conduct' - this was NEVER the issue with the OGL release. They're using this as a shield of good intentions to cover their fuckup. If they cared, they would have done something years ago. Did they fire Mike Mearls? No. End of point.

'our dRaFtS included royalty language designed to apply to large corporations attempting to use OGL content.' Something that has been happening for, oh, I dunno, twenty five years or more now?!. Fuck me, the stupidity and greed! Also, the language in question? Had a minimum bar of $50k. That's not a large corporation. That's anyone whose work goes viral by fucking accident. It could have fucking ruined small content creators' lives if they'd gone viral unprepared. WotC trying to knock on their door like the fucking IRS "hello yes let us see all your money HM SOME OF THIS BELONGS TO US PENALTY FINE PUNISHMENT".

"hOwEvEr, It'S cLeAr FrOm ThE rEaCtIoN tHaT wE rOlLeD a 1." On your fucking deception and sleight of hand checks, you little fuckers. "It has become clear that it is no longer possible to fully achieve all three goals while still staying true to our principles." You never were going to achieve those goals with the revised OGL2.0. They've been trying SO HARD to turn this from a huge L into some kind of smug moral victory, but this is the real effort, here.

Some bullshit about what the next OGL will contain re: inclusivity (not the issue of the OGL), and they're so concerned to point out that the OGL only covers TTRPGs and their ilk, not games or anything else whaaaaaaaaaMYMONEYYYYYYYYY. But other 'expressions', such as eDuCaTiOnAl and cHaRiTaBlE cAmPaIgNs, lIvEsTrEaMs, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc, remain unaffected by the OGL update. Sure, Fine, you've already got your fucking mitts in those anyway.

But this is the real kicker. The real cherry. They squeezed this in HALF WAY THROUGH, at the END OF THE PARAGRAPH:

"Content already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected."

That was the core concern of the OGL update, sharing top spot with the language that lets them 'Modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever' - not just fucking hateful or discriminatory content. Followed by the bullshit with royalties, to which they add:

"What it will not contain is any royalty structure. It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds." Lies. Wrong. Bullshit. You were LITERALLY GOING TO BE ABLE TO, AND WERE GOING TO, LEGALISE THE THEFT OF ANOTHER'S WORK FOR YOUR PROFITS.

"Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t. Any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point." Given that you were going to release this YESTERDAY, and the wording, AFAIK unchanged since the December leak, is LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU STATE HERE, given you undermine the meaning of the word 'own', it's bullshit. 100% lies. They waffle on about the risk of others thinking we stole content from creators, which is what they were trying to legalise in the first place.

"As we continue to invest in the game that we love and move forward with partnerships in film, television, and digital games," you mean, the 4 games you just cancelled? Also, using the term 'invest' gives you away instantly. You don't love the game. You love money.

"The new OGL will contain provisions to address that risk, but we will do it without a license back and without suggesting we have rights to the content you create." Bald-faced admittance that they were literally trying to """suggest""" (read: nothing in a legal document or license is a suggestion. Ever. Never ever. They have and will throw millions of dollars of lawyer time fighting you for this) that they have rights to the content you create. Which they want. For profit. They want MONEY. They want GREEDY PILES OF MONEY. BIG NUMBERS GO UP MAKE SHAREHOLDERS HAPPY. I'm harping on about it so you understand HOW blatant and disgusting this is.

All the problems with the new OGL stem from the wording surrounding the 'deauthorization of the OGL1.0a', and the wording regarding the rights given to WotC for all works UNDER the OGL (which all OGL content since 3E released would now fall under), which, by the way, were this:

"This agreement is, along with the OGL: Non-Commercial, an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement. We can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days' notice."

"You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose."

So you... Own... your work. But you CAN'T make exclusive deals with that work anymore. And also, anything, anything that you could do with that work? Including license it? Profit from it? Get royalties from it? You let us do it, forever. So you OWN the work. But... Any benefits of ownership, we get to access too. It's just not called 'ownership'. We'll call it... 'Blownership'. Because that's what WotC wants you to be doing to them, thanking them profusely while they profit off of your hard work.

But when presented with that flaccid, unwashed offering of an OGL1.1 or 2.0, you know what we did?

Reared back and kicked them in the moneydick so hard they collapsed to the ground and struggled to breathe for 24hrs. We stunned them out of their release date. We FORCED them to do this.

Then, weakly, they try to go on with "A couple of last thoughts." Like this is a fucking critique, or an intervention that isn't directed AT THEM. They've fought every sentence to try and turn this into some kind of smug self-high-five W they can add to the books, but this is literally EA's-defense-of-loot-boxes-and-grinding-reddit-post levels of L already, but it gets even more cringe. And here it is:

"You’re going to hear people say that they won, and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans. Those people will only be half right. They won—and so did we."

Pause for raucous laughter from the writer, that quickly grows manic, clipping the audio and what sounds like wrestling with the mic, probably strangling it.

On the ground, writhing in agony from the HUGE ball-kick they took, absolutely MASSIVE kick to the nads. The campaign to cancel DNDBe-gone subs was so big it FORCED THIS RESPONSE, and here they are... Claiming they won too, choking on their own testicles.

'yOu FoRcEd Us To EaT oUr OwN bAlLs, A vIcToRy FoR bOtH oF uS rIgHt?!"

"Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL; the drafts you’ve seen were attempting to do just that." Lies. You were ready to release it yesterday. Lies lies lies.

"We realize we did not do that this time and we are sorry for that." This SOUNDS like an apology for not seeking feedback, but it actually comes after this line: "We want to always delight fans and create experiences together that everyone loves." So, grammatically, they're apologizing for not delighting fans and creating experiences that everyone loves.

Cheeky fucking cunts, they put in an apology and used legalese grammar to ensure they weren't admitting fault for not seeking feedback. At the same time, they try to imply without stating so that it was intentional: "the drafts you've seen were attempting to do just that."

Fucking LIES.

"Our goal was to get exactly the type of feedback on which provisions worked and which did not–which we ultimately got from you." wHiCh wE uLtImAtElY gOt FrOm YoU. They say, writhing on the ground in agony.

"Any change this major could only have been done well if we were willing to take that feedback, no matter how it was provided–so we are." 'Willing'. Willing. When you're willing to take feedback, you put out forms, you beg the community to fill them out. That's willing. This? This was an all-out defense against feedback. You literally DELETED POSTS OFF YOUR OWN FORUMS ABOUT IT. You COVERED IT UP.

'nO mAtTeR hOw It WaS pRoVidEd.' - a swift kick in the pocketbook, is how.

"Finally, we’d appreciate the chance to make this right.".

TOO FUCKIN LATE. Critical Role might have gotten by not responding to this, waiting until the actual OGL was released, but Paizo jumped ship and took the next five biggest 3PP producers with them, save MCDM, who set out to make their own ruleset anyway. The Open RPG Creative license being set forward by Paizo is already everything you promised you'd try and do with your update, BY THE PEOPLE THAT MADE THE ORIGINAL OGL, on a better version of your own fucking game. You fucked up! You shot both feet off.

The time of the Dragon is over.

The time of the ORC has come.

Thank God For Commander Stephanie Sterling for teaching me the ways of shitting on corporations.


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in reply to @balketh's post:

Oh good, this is precisely the reaction I had to their statement. It's literally wall to wall lies and bullshit, and I'm happy someone else saw it that way and got as angry as I did. Well said.

Although... I don't understand exactly what these licenses do that creative commons doesn't already do in the first place, other than have "gaming" or "roleplaying" in the name and tie your game to a specific company. There's gotta be something I'm missing.

First, thank you kindly for reading my tirade. I wasn't getting any notifs for it and wondered if I'd missed the mark or if it was just TL;DR.

But also: Creative Commons comes with a lot of caveats you have to include yourself. To safely replicate what the OGL did/does, you'd have to do CC-BY-SA, which is different to CC-BY-NC-SA, for example (The difference being NC - non-commercial). OGL being 'owned' by WotC made it the buy-in 'cost' for riding the coat-tails of D&D.

Using CC (correctly and safely) is definitely successful, but you could go viral in the community if you OGL'd your work and plat'd on DTRPG or what-have-you.

That's my take on it, at least.

While true, coin purse implies small change in favour of a more direct analogy, where as pocket book conveys the pain it literally caused them to have to write this after (insider reports today confirm that) we forced them to do this via cancelled D&Dbegone subs.

But I grieve with you.