Wizards of the Coast reportedly wasn't convinced by the thousands of fans who disagreed with upcoming changes to the D&D license, with management apparently feeling that they were "overreacting". This comes as WotC seems to walk back on its controversial Open Game License (OGL) plans, and as fans cancel D&D subscriptions in protest.
This development comes courtesy of Gizmodo, who spoke to several former and current employees of WotC. The report sheds some light on the decision-making being made by higher-ups within the company, and suggests that a response to the controversy was only made when the number of cancelled subscriptions posed a threat to WotC's bottom line.
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According to Gizmodo's sources, WotC management had told employees that fans were "overreacting", and felt that it would blow over "in a few months". This attitude only changed once there was a "provable impact" on the company's earnings.
This contradicts the official statement we got from WotC just days ago, which claimed that the proposed changes to the OGL – which were leaked – were not intended to be made official, and were just written up to gauge public opinion. Yet if the anonymous employees are to be believed, management didn't think much of the public's opinion.
An updated OGL is still planned, but WotC seems to be suggesting that it won't include some of the controversial elements that fans took issue with, such as preexisting D&D-inspired games having to seek approval from the company, and turning over 25 percent of sales on third-party products. That isn't confirmed, however, so many in the community are still fearful of what the updated OGL will entail.
Yet if WotC wants to earn back player trust, these features should be scrapped entirely. As we've previously reported, an open letter calling on the leaked OGL to be scrapped reached 26,000 signatures in just a matter of days. On top of that, anonymous employees say they received "five digits" worth of formal complaints, so at least 10,000.