#Delusional #Company
There’s something very special about the way entertainment companies are run it feels like the people at the highest level are just these soulless husks in suits that don’t even understand what fun is I honestly wouldn’t be shocked to learn that half the CEOs of major entertainment brands have been
Lobotomized who remembers a couple years ago when EA tried to convince the world that their loot boxes aren’t a greedy cash grab meant to squeeze as many doubloons out of their customers as possible they were actually surprise mechanics meant to be fun no this isn’t Shady or unethical they’re fun surprise
Mechanics point I’m making is there’s no shortage of delusional companies in the entertainment space and now I think we have a winner for the most delusional company out there at the moment Wizards of the Coast slash Hasbro I’m gonna put them together because it’s still not
Super clear to me who’s the one at the helm making these bafflingly awful decisions that are sinking their companies so Wizards of the Coast is responsible for a lot lot of things that you probably love for example me magic cards while I’m not a huge Magic the Gathering player like actively competing
In like MTG Arena or anything like that I did get very into collecting the cards in fact throughout all of 2016 I spent it trying to collect every Masterpiece from the kaladesh set and I do have that finished as well as amen cat as well so
I was a big collector of Magic the Gathering and a big fan of the property so you can imagine my surprise and disgust when I learned that last month Wizards of the Coast pulled down its pants and planted their stinky ass in the face of every Magic the Gathering
Fan they announced the 30th Anniversary set for Magic the Gathering it was supposed to celebrate 30 years in the business however it was a complete [ __ ] disaster for so many reasons this is a great video right here that goes over everything wrong with it so I highly recommend checking it out if
You’re curious but I’ll break it down for you in a nutshell Magic the Gathering in their 30th Anniversary set announced that they’d be reprinting some of the most famous cards you know like the black lotus that I’m sure all of you have heard of before however this was a
Set that was priced at a thousand dollars per four packs for four packs you get randomized cards so you don’t even really get the cards you want you’re still gambling on them for a thousand dollars so you could just get like actual [ __ ] popsicle sticks in your pack but you paid a thousand
Dollars for it and not only that none of the cards are legal you can’t use any of the cards they’re fake you’re paying for proxies they’re not real [ __ ] cards so you’re paying a thousand dollars for four packs of randomized garbage hoping that you get like one of the Power Nine
And you can’t even use them it’s a giant scam like you’re just getting hosed for money it’s extremely greedy it was a terrible celebration for 30 years because this was just them spitting in the community’s face another slimy thing they did is they refused to allow local card shops to carry 30th Anniversary
Packs you could only get them directly from Wizard to the coast so it shut down card shops even being able to offer these it there’s a lot of other things that went into it but this is just the glaringly obvious stuff because it’s Wizards of the Coast just slapping the
Community and showing complete disrespect for them and this was only one of two major fumbles they’ve had in the last month their biggest one is what I’m actually here to talk about today Wizards of the Coast is behind Dungeons and Dragons as I’m sure most of you know
Dungeons and Dragons is arguably one of the most popular brands ever Dungeons and Dragons is something I’m sure everyone’s heard of even if you don’t play it even if you joke about it you call everyone a turbo nerd who plays it doesn’t matter you’ve heard of it it’s
An extremely recognizable name and now Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are using it like a come rag they have just potentially ruined what made Dungeons and Dragons such a massive success there’s another great video going over this topic in detail so I highly recommend checking this one out
If you’re curious as well the links to both of these videos will be in the description I just want to hit on the broad topic here and go over everything so Wizards of the Coast is targeting Dungeons and Dragons because they believe it is under monetized which is
Of course scary for the communities that love these games I’ve only done one full Dungeons and Dragons campaign and I had a great time doing it don’t really want to talk about the the GM behind the game that was a whole can of worms that you
Know we don’t need to get into the weeds of but the game itself I really loved it and I definitely understand people’s passion for it so the community’s outrage here is warranted 100 because their idea completely shuts down pretty much everything that made this game so
Popular so let me go ahead and put a bib on you as I feed you these vegetables hasbros not doing so hot financially they dropped 40 percent last year and they’ve had to cancel quite a few projects and they started to realize well Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro
Started to realize that Dungeons and Dragons being their biggest IP isn’t super well monetized when you look at the actual you know nitty-gritty of it it’s estimated that Dungeons and Dragons has pulled in about 1.3 billion however they’ve only seen around 100 to 150 million in revenue from the and D so
They’re leaving a lot of money on the table and they’re doing everything they can to get their hands on those extra schmeckles that they’re not currently putting in their pocket so they started turning their attention towards the community and speculating on how could they monetize that sector because that’s
By far where most of the money is being generated something like critical role which is the biggest stream on Twitch when it comes to the amount of money that it’s bringing in like subs and all of that critical role is a third-party Dungeons and Dragons production that is
Their own custom experience and campaign that is so big that it even got its own Amazon Prime show so there’s a lot more like critical role but they’re by far the biggest it’s very much so that Dungeons and Dragons has the most success because of their open game
License and who better to monetize than the people who create their own content better than them this takes us to the open game license for those who don’t know any Dungeons and Dragons content that is created by anyone other than Wizards can only do so because of the
Open game license a document that effectively allows people to create and profit off of their own original Dungeons and Dragons content no paperwork needed no need to pay anyone royalties just go for it I would argue that the open game license with Dungeons and Dragons is solely responsible for
Its massive explosion over the last decade because this Dungeons and Dragons content The Homebrew all these custom campaigns have been a massive success online and now you can take that old open game license and shove it right up your ass because it is worthless now according to new information as well as
Again some unconfirmed leaks but there is a lot of meat behind the authenticity of it there’s a lot of things that suggest that this is accurate and I’ll get into that in a moment according to these upcoming changes all of that is obsolete so three things that you’re
Immediately going to have to do is you’re going to have to agree to these new terms that are coming out you’re going to need a badge on your work and you’re going to need to report everything that you’re selling using the Dungeons and Dragons property as well as
Report all of your earnings like 50 Grand plus stuff like that but that’s not the worst of it at all that’s that’s small potatoes compared to the bigger changes so one major thing that is now 100 going into effect as I understand it is if any of these custom campaigns are
Making above 750 000 in a year they’re now going to be subject to royalties that will need to be paid to Wizards of the Coast now you might be hearing that number and being like wow that’s a lot that sounds reasonable these are major players like critical role I mean they
Should be paying royalties and you can debate that all night and day till the cows come home that’s fine but it only gets more brutal from there and more suffocating so it’s not only just targeting the major big boys it’s kind of targeting everything at least
According to the leaks and mind you this this seems to be applied retroactively so anything that existed on the old open game license is now obsolete that whole agreement is unauthorized yesterday January 4th a journalist named Linda codega stated that she received the new ogl from a reputable unnamed Source you
Will owe 25 on any money that you make that exceeds 750k the leak also says that if you release on Kickstarter you only have to pay 20 which sounds strange but the director of games at Kickstarter John Ritter retweeted the thread with the leak and said that Kickstarter was
Contacted after Wizards decided to make ogl changes so this is where the information is coming from this is where the leak all started now I think there is a lot of Merit behind this being a very real possibility considering that a higher up at Kickstarter re be tweeted
This document as well as giving more insight that Wizards of the Coast did contact them about that 20 share so that feels like this is something that they’re strongly considering implementing some time relatively soon now let’s get to the change that is by far the scariest one for the community
In here it says one of the caveats is the company can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever provided we give 30 days notice so what does this mean well a lot of you may have found 750k to be reasonable like okay that’s a lot of money they can take
Some royalties on it that’s fine but with this in here it’s them saying okay it doesn’t really have to be 750k as long as we give you 30 days notice we can come swoop in and like terminate this whenever we want or they can modify it whenever they feel like it like hey
Junior I saw you in your high school theater troupe was running this uh YouTube channel for a DND custom campaign you guys made like what three grand in ad Revenue over the last year Well Hasbro’s really [ __ ] sinking down the [ __ ] right now we’re down another 40 this year so I think we’re
Gonna come take some royalties on that here’s your 30-day notice just you know giving you a heads up like they can now just continuously change things as long as they give you that notice there’s just no security there’s no stability for anyone that is making these third-party DND this content anything
Like that it’s just a very scary area for it to be in right now and if all of these leaks are accurate if all of these changes do come true I absolutely could Envision this being the end of Dungeons and Dragons because no one’s just playing vanilla Dungeons and Dragons not
To the level that people are doing these third-party stuff and their own custom Adventures so like if that element is gone most people are just not gonna really play like you know how many new people critical role brought to Dungeons and Dragons an incalculable amount that’s how probably the majority of
People have found it more recently is things like critical role and the other big players in the space so if they can no longer flourish well you’re gonna lose a lot of potential players are a lot of existing community members they’ll go somewhere else they’ll start their own stuff in a less restrictive
Environment it is absolutely a potential Community killer here they’ve made an enemy out of the people that use their property the the people that are the biggest fans they have now vilified and I just I don’t see how they could possibly view this as a positive change
That’ll end up making them more money that 100 to 150 mil that they’re making right now should all this go through I think gets slapped in half like I don’t see them making money on it of course I could be very wrong I’m not the most Savvy businessman in the world but this
Is like if you’re gonna kill the community who the [ __ ] gonna be buying [ __ ] from DND if there’s no longer a flourishing community so to support it so it’s just a nonsensical greedy change and if you want more information on it again this video goes into more detail
About all of it and there’s a lot of content and topics talking about all of it because it’s such a big deal so yeah again none of it’s fully confirmed but there is a lot to suggest that this could be right around the corner and I
Wanted to talk about it because I think this is probably the most delusional company move I’ve seen since Tumblr banned porn it just I don’t know what they’re thinking here the the greed is getting the best of their brains and they’re making rash terrible choices so
Yeah I wanted to talk about it a little bit and that’s about it see ya
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