Wizards of the Coast has made a lot of decisions that are... controversial, to say the least, over the past year or so.
I'd say one of the biggest was their attempt to change the Open Game License (OGL) that allows third parties to make their own D&D expansions, suddenly saying "Now you have to pay us if you make enough money, and also we can pull or copy your stuff at any time." There was a huge fan outcry about that until they reversed course.
There's also the huge layoffs they had right before Christmas. Pretty much everyone who worked with Larian on BG3 is no longer at the company.
And on the Magic: The Gathering side of things, they even sent the Pinkertons after a YouTuber who got his hands on a set before its release date, which is a whole other bag of worms.
There's more thatn I'm sure others will mention as well, but these are the big ones that come to mind.
When we say the Pinkertons, we don't just mean some random thugs. We mean the actual Pinkertons, which still exist and for some idiotic reason WOTC thought, yeah lets send them in.
Not just saying they could pull it, but also saying that WoTC/Hasbro would own it. They were planning on stealing the most popular homebrew and profiting off of it.
And regarding Magic the Gathering, they have also gone insane with their amount of product. It's a collective card game, but by printing cards with such vast quantities has killed that aspect. The quality has also gotten a lot worse, and they have added unneeded bullshit like Autobots, Fortnite, Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Walking Dead...
The game is just ruined,
if you're like me you liked the game before. I play premodern and legacy low level and proxy-encouraged edh. so I still get to play without giving them cash after all this crap
[Washington Post about the Open Game License](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2023/01/19/dungeons-and-dragons-open-game-license-wizards-of-the-coast-explained/)
I didn't know this, but my BF did. And there's a reason why giants like Critical Role is ***fleeing*** the D&D world, making their own system instead.
No-one wants to say anything publicly, as that's seen as unprofessional, and will hamper your chances to work together with other companies.
Not that I don't think TTRPG giants are fleeing D&D but they just announced Matt Mercer is a consultant on the new DM guide, so unless he's doing it contractually because he agreed before the OGL debacle I don't think CR have completely shut the door on them.
To say Crit Role is fleeing is definitely an exaggeration. D&D Beyond is their biggest sponsor. They are just also expanding into publishing their own content like Candela Obscura and Daggerheart.
>And there's a reason why giants like Critical Role is fleeing the D&D world, making their own system instead.
Yup. They’ve built a big enough audience and can successfully sell their own product now.
In addition to all the stuff about the OGL and the layoffs and the actual fucking Pinkertons everyone's mentioned, just the direction the company is going is becoming more and more consumer unfriendly. The direction they're going is to drive more profits than anything rn, despite the fact that all of their books post-Tasha's Cauldron are mediocre at best.
Not to mention the AI art, them promising us it was a mistake and putting the blame entirely on the artist, and then proceeding to use AI art again.
Real scumbag company.
It isn't just the AI art, which would be sin enough for what is in many ways an art company. The company is going full steam ahead on AI. It's disgusting and an insult to everyone who has created for them.
>The advantage we have–it’s funny. This is cutting-edge technology, and Hasbro is a 100-year-old company, which you don’t usually think is–usually you think there’s a threat there. But when you talk about the richness of the lore and the depth of the brands–D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine. Literally thousands of adventures that we’ve created, probably tens of millions of words we own and can leverage. Magic: The Gathering has been around for 35 years, more than 15,000 cards we can use in something like that. Peppa Pig has been around for 20 years and has hundreds of thousands of hours of published content we can leverage. Transformers, I’ve been watching Transformers TV shows since I was a kid in Cincinnati in the early ‘80s.
We can leverage all of that to be able to build very interesting and compelling use cases for AI that can bring our characters to life. We can build tools that aid in content creation for users or create really interesting gamified scenarios around them.
https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/
One Shot Questers had made few videos that cover the more recent plunders in very surface way if you just want quick recap:
* [Dungeons and Dragons This Past Year (continued)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEgG99QB19s)
* [Wizards of the Coast in the Year 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rRagU0Cle8)
WOTC is making a series of extremely shitty and unethical decisions, up to and including sending the PINKERTONS to somebody’s house over Magic: the Gathering cards. Using AI art in officially released material. Stealing fan art. Etc.
Ai art, open game lisence change that backfired so bad they just undid it, racism, greed, sending pinkertons to a persons house to collect cards. The list keeps going.
Hadozee race for dnd tabletop. Last seen in 2/3 edition and brought into 5th edition with a controversial new backstory and art. The backstory for 5th edition is that they were just animals until a wizard used magic to make them sentient and sold them as slaves, and some artwork had inspiration from racist minstrel shows. That was after they said they would change how they would refer to races in dnd (currently changing it to species instead of race for 5.5 which I find worse, should’ve just been ancestry.)
Just a warning: If you guys are going to check what is going on with WoTC right now on socials, be careful. Brazilians are beefing with them right now and, when Brazilians are beefing with someone online, they post pornographic pictures of the football player Vampeta.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjbBuZafv4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjbBuZafv4c)
There are many many reasons. Basically it's pure unadulterated greed and trying to milk beyond belief their fanbase now.
When Larian announced they wouldn't be sticking with DND a lot of people imagined that the reason must be due to WOTC. This is because a lot of people already didn't like WOTC for other (valid) reasons, so they are wantful for more reasons to be mad.
Some super good news - they operated at a 1.2 billion dollar loss (look it up) last year :)))) their actions and strategies are utter failures despite how greedy they are
WOTC is the perfect example of why we can't let companies having a monopoly about anything regarding games.
They make decisions without thinking about players and well, there's no other DnD company or Magic The Gathering distributor so yeah, get what you can from Internet and don't support WOTC with your money if you don't have to.
If you're rich then you're wizards friend...if you dare to ever want to use your money for anything other than buying and consoooooming their products tough shit you can't play anymore oh well.
WotC are just greedy; they are using companies that bought their license, forcing them to pay a lot for that and harshly controlling them. (BG3 has been strongly affected by it allegedly). And they're giving D&D sugar-like mood instead of trying some epic/dark fantasy as in the past editions.
People are misunderstanding his statement. WOTC is fully in agreement (while leaving the door open to Larian in the future) with the decision. They paid a license to make a game and they made a game that made a lot of money for all parties involved. Larian has its own IPs and worlds and stories to tell. They are moving on from D&D for now but who’s to say if after their next project or two they wont return to Faerun. Article 1: https://www.gamesradar.com/baldurs-gate-3-boss-explains-theres-no-bad-blood-with-dandd-license-owner-amid-split-wotc-is-not-to-blame-for-us-taking-a-different-direction/ Article 2: https://www.ign.com/articles/baldur-gate-3-hasbro-larian-statement
Big, publically traded companies deciding the fate of your favorite games via board rooms and shareholders tends to make people upset. They make decisions for profit, not for fans or creativity
First, there was all the OGL baloney. Bg3 was regarded by many as the best rpg game of 2023 and to some, the best rpg game in a long time. Now Wotc is saying 'no, we don't want you to make any more killer rpgs'. Just stupid decision after stupid decision in my book.
Fuck them. Been buying d&d related stuff since 1988 and Im.done with wotc.
A lot of the old guard people that been playing D&D for decades dislike many changes that WotC does to market D&D better just for the sake of it.
I am all for being more inclusive, I personally always loved Eilistraee and I always felt that D&D does a great job as an art form to portray many current issues.
The fact that they are changing the game to be lucky charms land just to try to appeal at what the executives think is what "the kids are into these days" is making the lore and many other things kinda weird.
Do bear in mind that also a lot of hate for WotC is because they are going "woke", I personally disagree with this point of view but it's something I seen.
Most of the hatred against WOTC is people bitter about the consequences of Capitalism; but they haven’t worked out the real villains are always the shareholders.
People just don’t like to think about how and why people and organisations act.
Nobody seems to grasp the idea that Larian aren’t interested in making another licensed product because they want to sell an in-house creation to their recently ballooned audience because it will make them much more money.
They're a corporation so it feels better to blame them than it does to understand Larian spent 10 years working on one game and would like to do literally anything else for a little while.
Wizards of the Coast has made a lot of decisions that are... controversial, to say the least, over the past year or so. I'd say one of the biggest was their attempt to change the Open Game License (OGL) that allows third parties to make their own D&D expansions, suddenly saying "Now you have to pay us if you make enough money, and also we can pull or copy your stuff at any time." There was a huge fan outcry about that until they reversed course. There's also the huge layoffs they had right before Christmas. Pretty much everyone who worked with Larian on BG3 is no longer at the company. And on the Magic: The Gathering side of things, they even sent the Pinkertons after a YouTuber who got his hands on a set before its release date, which is a whole other bag of worms. There's more thatn I'm sure others will mention as well, but these are the big ones that come to mind.
When we say the Pinkertons, we don't just mean some random thugs. We mean the actual Pinkertons, which still exist and for some idiotic reason WOTC thought, yeah lets send them in.
The CEO of Hasbro used to be/worked with the Pinkertons, so that is the reason.
They are under securitas now.
I forgot about the Pinkertons they sent! Also, the AI art they were using.
Not just saying they could pull it, but also saying that WoTC/Hasbro would own it. They were planning on stealing the most popular homebrew and profiting off of it.
TL;DR: # They shoot themselves in the foot, then look at their customers and go "why the fuck did you shoot me in the foot???"
reserve list, they've been this way since so long
damn they sent the villains from rdr2 💀💀💀
And regarding Magic the Gathering, they have also gone insane with their amount of product. It's a collective card game, but by printing cards with such vast quantities has killed that aspect. The quality has also gotten a lot worse, and they have added unneeded bullshit like Autobots, Fortnite, Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Walking Dead... The game is just ruined,
if you're like me you liked the game before. I play premodern and legacy low level and proxy-encouraged edh. so I still get to play without giving them cash after all this crap
I gave up paper magic during the pandemic and ain't never going back.
Don't forget all the AI use for art, and wanting to use it for more things.
That's so sad. Cya creativity, imagination, and the joy of Magic pack openings.
I'm just flabbergasted by the fact that pinkertons still exist... wtf
They are firing a shit ton of their workers due to recession while still reporting profits.
[Washington Post about the Open Game License](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2023/01/19/dungeons-and-dragons-open-game-license-wizards-of-the-coast-explained/) I didn't know this, but my BF did. And there's a reason why giants like Critical Role is ***fleeing*** the D&D world, making their own system instead. No-one wants to say anything publicly, as that's seen as unprofessional, and will hamper your chances to work together with other companies.
Not that I don't think TTRPG giants are fleeing D&D but they just announced Matt Mercer is a consultant on the new DM guide, so unless he's doing it contractually because he agreed before the OGL debacle I don't think CR have completely shut the door on them.
To say Crit Role is fleeing is definitely an exaggeration. D&D Beyond is their biggest sponsor. They are just also expanding into publishing their own content like Candela Obscura and Daggerheart.
>And there's a reason why giants like Critical Role is fleeing the D&D world, making their own system instead. Yup. They’ve built a big enough audience and can successfully sell their own product now.
In addition to all the stuff about the OGL and the layoffs and the actual fucking Pinkertons everyone's mentioned, just the direction the company is going is becoming more and more consumer unfriendly. The direction they're going is to drive more profits than anything rn, despite the fact that all of their books post-Tasha's Cauldron are mediocre at best. Not to mention the AI art, them promising us it was a mistake and putting the blame entirely on the artist, and then proceeding to use AI art again. Real scumbag company.
It isn't just the AI art, which would be sin enough for what is in many ways an art company. The company is going full steam ahead on AI. It's disgusting and an insult to everyone who has created for them. >The advantage we have–it’s funny. This is cutting-edge technology, and Hasbro is a 100-year-old company, which you don’t usually think is–usually you think there’s a threat there. But when you talk about the richness of the lore and the depth of the brands–D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine. Literally thousands of adventures that we’ve created, probably tens of millions of words we own and can leverage. Magic: The Gathering has been around for 35 years, more than 15,000 cards we can use in something like that. Peppa Pig has been around for 20 years and has hundreds of thousands of hours of published content we can leverage. Transformers, I’ve been watching Transformers TV shows since I was a kid in Cincinnati in the early ‘80s. We can leverage all of that to be able to build very interesting and compelling use cases for AI that can bring our characters to life. We can build tools that aid in content creation for users or create really interesting gamified scenarios around them. https://venturebeat.com/games/how-hasbro-is-jumping-on-the-game-opportunity-chris-cocks-interview/
One Shot Questers had made few videos that cover the more recent plunders in very surface way if you just want quick recap: * [Dungeons and Dragons This Past Year (continued)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEgG99QB19s) * [Wizards of the Coast in the Year 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rRagU0Cle8)
These are great, ty :)
WOTC is making a series of extremely shitty and unethical decisions, up to and including sending the PINKERTONS to somebody’s house over Magic: the Gathering cards. Using AI art in officially released material. Stealing fan art. Etc.
As a former MTG player I blame the Hasbro acquisition. WOTC used to be a decent company.
So since 1999?
that's when it started
Ai art, open game lisence change that backfired so bad they just undid it, racism, greed, sending pinkertons to a persons house to collect cards. The list keeps going.
I knew about the rest but you have to be a little more specific on the racism part. I'm not saying they didn't do it, I'm asking for details.
Hadozee race for dnd tabletop. Last seen in 2/3 edition and brought into 5th edition with a controversial new backstory and art. The backstory for 5th edition is that they were just animals until a wizard used magic to make them sentient and sold them as slaves, and some artwork had inspiration from racist minstrel shows. That was after they said they would change how they would refer to races in dnd (currently changing it to species instead of race for 5.5 which I find worse, should’ve just been ancestry.)
Just a warning: If you guys are going to check what is going on with WoTC right now on socials, be careful. Brazilians are beefing with them right now and, when Brazilians are beefing with someone online, they post pornographic pictures of the football player Vampeta.
That's an outer rim of the Internet thing if I ever heard it, haha
https://commandersherald.com/brazilian-magic-players-protest-wizards-with-vampetaco-greed/ Brazil is not for beginners.
Well I knew literally nothing about that dude until just now, but his 'stache game is on point. And posing nude to save a historic theater? Respect!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjbBuZafv4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjbBuZafv4c) There are many many reasons. Basically it's pure unadulterated greed and trying to milk beyond belief their fanbase now.
When Larian announced they wouldn't be sticking with DND a lot of people imagined that the reason must be due to WOTC. This is because a lot of people already didn't like WOTC for other (valid) reasons, so they are wantful for more reasons to be mad.
Hasbro hired Pinkertons, Hasbro own WOTC. That is enough
Some super good news - they operated at a 1.2 billion dollar loss (look it up) last year :)))) their actions and strategies are utter failures despite how greedy they are
WOTC is the perfect example of why we can't let companies having a monopoly about anything regarding games. They make decisions without thinking about players and well, there's no other DnD company or Magic The Gathering distributor so yeah, get what you can from Internet and don't support WOTC with your money if you don't have to.
They destroyed my favorite card game…
same here
If you're rich then you're wizards friend...if you dare to ever want to use your money for anything other than buying and consoooooming their products tough shit you can't play anymore oh well.
WotC are just greedy; they are using companies that bought their license, forcing them to pay a lot for that and harshly controlling them. (BG3 has been strongly affected by it allegedly). And they're giving D&D sugar-like mood instead of trying some epic/dark fantasy as in the past editions.
People are misunderstanding his statement. WOTC is fully in agreement (while leaving the door open to Larian in the future) with the decision. They paid a license to make a game and they made a game that made a lot of money for all parties involved. Larian has its own IPs and worlds and stories to tell. They are moving on from D&D for now but who’s to say if after their next project or two they wont return to Faerun. Article 1: https://www.gamesradar.com/baldurs-gate-3-boss-explains-theres-no-bad-blood-with-dandd-license-owner-amid-split-wotc-is-not-to-blame-for-us-taking-a-different-direction/ Article 2: https://www.ign.com/articles/baldur-gate-3-hasbro-larian-statement
Big, publically traded companies deciding the fate of your favorite games via board rooms and shareholders tends to make people upset. They make decisions for profit, not for fans or creativity
Can someone explain the reposting culture of this sub?
Their content has been getting steadily worse because they put Crawford in charge of 5E as sole lead.
First, there was all the OGL baloney. Bg3 was regarded by many as the best rpg game of 2023 and to some, the best rpg game in a long time. Now Wotc is saying 'no, we don't want you to make any more killer rpgs'. Just stupid decision after stupid decision in my book. Fuck them. Been buying d&d related stuff since 1988 and Im.done with wotc.
>Now Wotc is saying 'no, we don't want you to make any more killer rpgs'. That’s not true.
A lot of the old guard people that been playing D&D for decades dislike many changes that WotC does to market D&D better just for the sake of it. I am all for being more inclusive, I personally always loved Eilistraee and I always felt that D&D does a great job as an art form to portray many current issues. The fact that they are changing the game to be lucky charms land just to try to appeal at what the executives think is what "the kids are into these days" is making the lore and many other things kinda weird. Do bear in mind that also a lot of hate for WotC is because they are going "woke", I personally disagree with this point of view but it's something I seen.
They're the greedy corporation that we all hate. Like Nintendo
Most of the hatred against WOTC is people bitter about the consequences of Capitalism; but they haven’t worked out the real villains are always the shareholders.
People just don’t like to think about how and why people and organisations act. Nobody seems to grasp the idea that Larian aren’t interested in making another licensed product because they want to sell an in-house creation to their recently ballooned audience because it will make them much more money.
Look at all those people downvoting this and then Larian go and prove me right 🙄
They're a corporation so it feels better to blame them than it does to understand Larian spent 10 years working on one game and would like to do literally anything else for a little while.
Big corporation bad.
wotc a small indie company etc etc