In the spring of last year, Wizards of the Coast's parent company acquired D&D Beyond, the digital subscription service that offers players access to character and encounter builders, spell lists, new player guides and helpful hints for Dungeon Masters.
It appeared to be an affable arrangement, however, changes to the Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License now stops players from creating new content under the original license and all new content that makes money must be announced to Wizards of the Coast directly.
Obviously, this decision has been derided. The original report from io9 showed that the Open Game License was "always intended to allow the community to help grow D&D and expand it creatively" in the new form of the document. It continued to explicate that the Open Game License "wasn’t intended to fund major competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming."
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Publishers like Paizo, Kobold Press and Green Ronin who used the original Open Game License to offer their products have been blindsided by OGL 2.0, with Paizo affirming that it will be seeking a new license for developers which will be “open, perpetual, and irrevocable.” Additionally, players are rallying to their side, cancelling their subscriptions for D&D Beyond after D&D personality Ginny Di suggested it as a strategy to voice their displeasure.
In fact, the response was so widespread that it caused the subscription management page on the D&D Beyond website to crash. The follow-up report from io9 reveals that executives feel out of their depth to deal with the negativity weighing the new OGL down.
"The result of these cancellations and their impact on the bottom line of Wizards of the Coast is not negligible, and has caused upper management to scramble to adjust their messaging around the situation, leading to the delays in the OGL release," continued the report. As a result, we are able to infer that the players' plan of action has worked wonderfully.
Featured Image Credit: Chris Bustrillos via Unsplash, Wizards of the CoastTopics: Dungeons & Dragons
