Today, Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons executive director Kyle Brink released a new statement regarding the recent controversy over possible changes to the Open Gaming License (OGL).
Blink is Wizards No We have no plans to change or add new terms to OGL 1.0a (the gaming license that has covered D&D since 2000), and we have no plans to release a new version of the license.
Wizards distributed the 15,000-participated “OGL Playtest” survey to the D&D community last week. As a result of the responses received, Wizards plans to move the System Reference Document v5.1 to the Creative Commons license immediately.
You can read the full text of the detailed statement here.
important point
- Wizards said, “We will keep OGL 1.0a intact. Untouched.
- Aimed solely at TTRPGs, Wizard is covered by the new OGL license, but that strategy has been abandoned and all content is irrevocably covered by Creative Commons.
- “SRD 5.1 is available under a Creative Commons license.”
- These are concurrent licenses, and Creative Commons is generally perceived to be more open. Third-party authors can choose the method they use to release their content.
Today’s announcement has the practical effect of removing Wizards and Hasbro from any actual (or perceived) obligation to manage licenses. Instead, it is governed by Creative Commons. It is an independent non-profit organization that provides a standardized methodology for “granting copyright permission to creative and scholarly works.” Ensure proper attribution. allow others to copy, distribute, and use those works; ”
If you have ever used information or graphics on Wikipedia, you have interacted with assets that are controlled under a Creative Commons license.
where do things stand now?
Since Linda Codega first reported the “draft” document on January 5, 2023, the tone and nature of communications from Wizards of the Coast have been passive rather than proactive. Community Several controversial reports involving her leaders, business writers and lawyers have featured prominently in both the game press and her mainstream media outlets such as CNBC and NPR.
And last week, we reported on the start of a public investigation and OGL “playtest”, as well as details on the history of OGL communications.
All discussion or speculation is irrelevant as of today. Existing rights under OGL 1.0a have not changed, and additional open rights are now available to the community through Creative Commons. However, there is an ongoing impact on community trust levels and the risks content creators will have to assess going forward.
upon twitterD&D provided direct links to new legal documents, including SRD 5.1 with Creative Commons preamble.
background and context
wider business environment
Hasbro, like other manufacturing companies, had a difficult fiscal year in 2022. Hasbro is also restructuring due to changing financial conditions, laying off his 15% of its workforce. Hasbro is not alone in this IP/product space. For example, Disney has a similar problem.
How does this affect wizard goals?
In the initial statement (a very informal post by the name of “staff”) released on January 13th, the company’s goals behind the new licensing scenario were threefold.
- Wizards “wanted a feature that would prevent the use of D&D content from being included in hateful and discriminatory products.”
- The ability to address the use of “D&D in web3, blockchain games, and NFTs by clarifying OGL content” did not extend to their use.
- To prevent “big companies” from using D&D for their own commercial and promotional purposes.
The way these goals were expressed allowed for a wide range of interpretations from the community, and made it possible to imagine multiple scenarios in which content creators, regardless of scale, would be affected. It wasn’t realistic, but it filled in the gaps in content and created a common consensus that it was hard to parse out what Wizards was actually trying to do.
Kyle Brink said in today’s statement about these goals: With this new approach, we put it aside and rely on your choices to define the future of play. ”
Importance of data
The playtest study was originally scheduled to run for two weeks from January 19th to February 3rd. week.
We encourage you to read today’s statement to see these statistics in their original context. However, these two are the most important data points.
- “88% don’t want their TTRPG content published in OGL 1.2”
- “90% will have to change some part of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.”
The current interaction between the D&D community and Wizards would be unsustainable with these outcomes. Wizards withdrew his updated OGL in recognition of this reality.
Coast hipsters follow these developments for further news, compilations and analysis.
Adrian Reynolds (She/She) It has DCI number 7801. Magic: The Gathering I started at Bryn Mawr University and continued independently. you can find her on her twitter @DreamtimeDrinne And on the DreamtimeDrinne#9349 Discord.When You’re Not Desperately Looking for a Game magicshe’s working to make the workspace more human-centric.
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