Set of pen, notebook, and dices to play role game like dungeons and dragons. Purple bag to storage the dices. in Barcelona, CT, Spain
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Dungeons & Dragons fans were ready to roll for initiative against Hasbro after the company attempted to rewrite its two-decade-old open game license in order to boost revenue.
On Friday, though, the Rhode Island-based toy maker postponed its update of its licensing terms in order to address mounting concern from the D&D community, which largely viewed the proposed changes as overreaching and unfair to third party content creators.
Hasbro still intends to create a new open game license, but it said it will not include a royalty structure or give itself access to intellectual property created by third party content creators.
CNBC obtained copies of Hasbro’s reformed licensing agreements — open game license 1.1 and an FAQ section for OGL 2.0. According to the documents, Hasbro had sought to require independent publishers and content creators to report financial data directly to the company’s Wizards of the Coast division, which includes D&D. At a certain threshold, the revised agreement would have forced independent creators to pay significant fees.
The first agreement, OGL 1.1, contained a clause that would have given Wizards access to new and original content created by third party publishers. However, that was retracted in OGL 2.0.
D&D fans rallied around a petition called #OpenDND, signed by nearly 67,000 people, and began canceling their subscriptions to Wizard’s online toolkit, D&DBeyond, in order to protest changes to the license.
Hasbro said the two OGL documents were drafts, and the company always planned to make changes to the text. In a statement Friday, Hasbro said it still plans to revisit the OGL, but the final version will not contain a royalty structure or a license back provision.
Third party publishers told CNBC that Hasbro representatives approached high-profile independent content creators late last year to offer them a “sweetheart deal” if they signed on before the new licensing agreement was launched to the public. A document reviewed by CNBC showed a lower royalty rate than what was included in the proposed OGL 1.1. Representatives from Hasbro did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on this point.
Leaders in the Dungeons & Dragons community greeted the news of the delay with cautious optimism.
“At first blush, it seems like we won,” said Mike Holik, editor-in-chief of Mage Hand Press. “However, until we can confirm the terms of the license, specifically as it relates to software such as [virtual table tops], it’s not clear if this is a smokescreen or a real commitment to the community and its creators.”
The attempt to create a new game license comes as Wizards of the Coast looks capitalize on a surge in popularity of Dungeons & Dragons. The nearly 50 year-old game has had a renaissance over the last decade, the result of a combination of a new edition of its rules, which made it easier to play and more accessible to new players, as well as a surge in live streamed campaigns on Twitch and YouTube. It is also a major component of ក្រុមហ៊ុន Netflix's blockbuster series “Stranger Things.”
Additionally, a rise in videoconferencing programs, like ពង្រីក, ក្រុមហ៊ុន Microsoft Teams and Discord, have allowed players to congregate virtually without the need for a physical meeting.
“I think D&D is approaching a very significant inflection point in its lifecycle,” said Eric Handler, MKM Partners media and entertainment analyst.
Monetizing D&D
Chaotic neutral
សកម្មភាពប្រាក់រង្វាន់
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/13/hasbro-delays-new-dungeons-dragons-licensing-rules.html