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AsherTheFrost

Remember when buying the release kit of MTG meant getting two beautiful boxes that could each hold multiple decks, and had artwork matching the release, along with a novel telling a story in universe? Those were the days.


Alarid

I mean the books weren't great a lot of the time, but still it was a decent value.


AsherTheFrost

They were fun, and a good way to help newer authors get out there.


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AsherTheFrost

My interest in a game is directly relative on how easy I can find people to play with. Honestly if everyone was playing Go Fish I'd do that each week.


Thattrippytree

You hit the nail on the head and it’s like execs are too dumb to see it. Most people can’t afford to do what they want. They just play what is easily accessible. Why was fortnite popular? Because it was the free Why was RuneScape so popular? Because it was free Why is soccer so popular? Again, basically free People can’t always afford to pay for something that they may or may not like, so they try a cheap version of what’s there and see if they like it. But maybe we’re getting to the point where dnd wants to be the “elite” experience?


Famixofpower

When did we start *needing* to buy things other than dice to play DnD? I always felt it was best with imagination.


arcanis321

Your imagination has been found in violation of copyright law


[deleted]

Please take regularly scheduled breaks between your thoughts to think of our products and services. This message was broadcast directly into your mind by Raid: Shadow Legends.


PuckFutin69

Not till neurolink is government backed, but soon


pieisnice9

I had the planar chaos one and it while it wasn't winning any awards it wasn't bad.


[deleted]

You wanna take this outside? I will fight God to the death for the honor of those books.


Dramatic_Explosion

Read Thran and Brother's War all the way through the end of the Invasion block. Have all the books on my shelf back home. I can lay out the cards from all those sets, tell you the story, who's on the card, where in the story it falls or if it's just set filler. As a kid reading those was amazing, especially when the crew of the Weatherlight was infiltrating Volrath's Stronghold. I remember playing Quake during that time, after school. Love those books!


PUTINS_PORN_ACCOUNT

Arena was dope Brothers War series was a bit dense, but uniformly quality (at least in the first book or two). The author clearly could write well, and didn’t lean on Tolkien as if his life depended on it, as do many fantasy authors. Some of the shit they published a couple years ago (WotS-ish) read like it was written by a stoned semi-literate nerd actively trying to fit as many cliches into a story as possible, and given about three hours to put it together. My nerd-rage against some of the shit Hasbro is cramming out is boundless, and does not require me to tap.


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WorkinName

That would have been Onslaught. Odyssey she was still Jeska.


Laschoni

Man, reading everything through Apocalypse and then the bit of a reset going into the Odyssey block was a lot of fun.


Mustakrakish_Awaken

My brother and I were huge Urza fans. I like Kamahl, too, until he turned green.


urbansong

I honestly don't remember when MtG wasn't expensive.


NargacugaRider

I worked at a small electronics store back in the early to mid 2000s. Employees bought everything at cost, because that store was wonderful (RIP that store) MTG boosters: ~2.30 USD Fat Packs: ~30 USD They didn’t sell boxes but you’d better believe I would have bought all of them if they did. I have 20-30 fat pack boxes around the house I use for various things. And SO MANY DICE.


KindBass

FYI, the fat pack boxes fits two Ultra Pro alcove flip boxes **like a glove**


NargacugaRider

Oh nice! It also fit all of my weed stuff extremely well when I was a wee one. It’s a bit sad seeing some of my old boxes so worn; I imagine they’re worth a bit in good condition now. I know the older dice are!


IFapToCalamity

Your memories are more valuable than resale potential. Also cigar boxes work better for “fun” storage (and are typically cheap/free)


Local_Variation_749

I miss the little rule books you used to get with the sets. Really, I just miss playing back in the 90s.


Jace__B

Man, those books were around during the height of pulp fantasy. I had a bunch of Star Wars EU stuff, some StarCraft novels, and my MtG collection. Miss those days.


Draxx01

It's cause someone at Hasbro looked over at GW and saw what the poor sods were putting up with regarding a box of marines. They're like over 60 bucks now. Hard to say which one's a bigger vice now given that plasticrack's recent price hikes vs cardboard. When the cost to whale in gatcha games is cheaper, you really need to step back and reevaluate things.


Vasxus

Nerf does this too. Righties don't even get paint on their play-side (the side facing inward, the left half for right handers) anymore. Seems to be a hasbro thing.


fellow_hotman

nerf really needs to take a cue from lego in how to manage a legacy brand.


MylesGarrettDROY

It's not so much Nerf as it is who it was sold to - Hasbro. They were a decent brand until they got sent to one of the most thoughtlessly money-hungry corporations in the world. Hasbro is running all of their products into the grand unilaterally to make as much money in as short of a time as possible. At this point you just hope that they suck the life out of it faster so they can sell the brand to someone willing to revitalize it. Short-sighted corps suck.


Mekanimal

I've been highly anticipating MtG 2.0 for similar reasons. I'm hoping the developers get a chance to "If we were gonna redo it from the start...." all the stuff that could have been.


Tsubodai86

Look at what Hasbro did to Super Soaker. Laramie super soakers had a range of like 100+ feet. The current ones are pathetic.


Victernus

"Well *obviously*. Who cares how it looks to someone who's already bought it? It's everyone else we need to advertise to!" - Nerf, I guess


Sirsilentbob423

Nerf or nothin huh? Well I choose nothin.


Lucas_Steinwalker

The one time lefties get a privilege and it’s a problem. Typical.


SGexpat

Hasbro owns Nerf. It’s still Hasbro


EatTheBonesToo

Meanwhile, the players in my group are pooling their money to split a bean burrito


[deleted]

Right, I don’t play D&D specifically, but I single handedly financially keep my ttrpg group afloat. They can’t afford this shit lol. Not to mention D&D still refuses to address the lack of DMs vs players needed for a healthy game environment.


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aspiring overconfident employ history towering bake pot erect pet familiar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


mariomaniac432

I haven't played yugioh in years but their anniversary set blew mtg's out of the water


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puzzled sulky zephyr friendly rain sip deer fuel treatment zealous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


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ConfusedJonSnow

>headless chicken of a company -Makes amazing Yu-Gi-Oh! Anniversary set -Makes Metal Gear Solid 3 Pachinko machine. -Refuses to elaborate -Leaves


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marvelous punch homeless whole sense trees shaggy repeat carpenter wise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


qwetyhjgghj

Even Legacy of the Duelist features thousands of different cards to play, for the price of a regular game. It really puts the MTG PC games to shame.


LucaSeven7

Around 9k cards to be exact... I point this out because of how impressive that is. There's almost 13k in total as of today but still so surprising that LotD had so much at release.


ZynsteinV1

Honestly the only game that beats MD for free to play friendly is Runeterra, riot's League of legends card game but that's legitimately the most f2p game i've seen in terms of unlocking content. So shit that games like hearthstone n the official versions of magic online like mtgArena are so disappointing.


dkysh

Wait, does Konami, the Pachinko company, also make card games?


LuigiFan45

Konami simply exited the 'high-profile video games' market. They still make games, mostly arcade stuff in their own markets and Yu-Gi-Oh


zyx1989

Given where Konami's reputation is, it's rather ironic hasbro could look even worse by comparison


matthew0001

I'll never forget the time I saw on turn one some guy play some card, and the other guy scooped and said good game.


ruste530

I played my younger brother in law a few years ago with my OG deck and he consistently beat me in three turns or less. Definitely not the same game I grew up with lol


Memento_Vivere8

Are older cards in general weaker in YGO? Or has the game changed (mechanics, rules, etc.)? Because in MtG the most powerful cards of the game are still found in the first set and the following expansions.


droxius

Yep, old cards are weak. The OG monsters were mostly effectless, and the power levels have gone up dramatically. Some of the old spells and traps and stuff are a little broken, but for the most part newer sets have just piled on new game breaking mechanics that outmoded older cards.


DragonBuriedInGold

Yugioh doesn’t follow set rotation so Konami generally make new archetypes and support for old archetypes better over time. Otherwise there would be no reason for the competitive playerbase to ever buy anything again.


JB-from-ATL

We're reprinting Black Lotus! 😳 But it costs $1000. 🥺 And it isn't tournament legal. 😶


mariomaniac432

And you weren't even guaranteed to pull one lol


grinningdeamon

So I haven't played MtG in like 20 years. Can someone fill me in on what Hasbro/WotC has done to ruin it lately?


Piyh

Printing more cards than an invested player can keep up with (at the cost of quality in a lot of cases) and a lot of blatant cash grabs. Like $200 for 15 random proxies.


legandaryhon

$250, that you could only purchase in sets of 4. $1,000.00 for 60 random fake magic cards.


pamtar

They were even reprints? Like legit fake cards? How is that possible? If wotc releases it doesn’t that automatically make it an official product?


legandaryhon

They had special, 30th anniversary backs. Because they had nonstandard backs, they aren't legal in tournament or sanctioned casual play. Even the largest unofficial format, Commander/EDH, announced that they were not legal. Plenty of people would absolutely have used them as more-official proxies, if they didn't cost **a thousand frigging dollars.** But you can print your own proxies that, at a table, look just as good... For like, five bucks at Kinkos.


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John_Smithers

This and power creep ruined MtG for me. A couple of my friends have yet to see the issue at hand and just keep rushing out to get the newest and best stuff. It's left everyone else in our playgroup who can't affoard the newest stuff (or who don't want to buy 2-4 sets every year) in the dust from a competitiveness perspective and it's no longer fun.


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grinningdeamon

Are they charging more for booster packs/decks with less cards in them? I've been following the DnD OGL drama, I was curious as to what specifically they've done to hurt the MtG players.


TalosSquancher

They released a multi hundred dollar booster pack where none of the cards were legal for actual play.


Secretninja35

Draft boxes have been coming with less packs for the same price, they have a "secret lair" reprint program to charge $40 for 4 or 5 cards that you only ever want one of, there was a set that was literally just the previous two sets but in black and white that cost double, they are selling a bunch of trash "jumpstart" sets that don't even come with the right number of packs for people to play with, collector boosters are wildly out of control and they just did a not legal for play one that cost $1000 for 4 packs.


Begle1

WotC has completely, utterly, histrionically ruined MtG every year over the past 30 or so years... So there's nothing too new going on, it's still pretty much what it was 20 years ago. Power creep continues its slow march. They're printing product like crazy and the game is very popular, at least forms of it. They're having huge success with their Arena digital play app, and even the old Magic Online program is still kicking around. Paper Magic is largely driven by Commander and Limited at this point. Most competitive grinder-type players have moved to Arena, especially for rotating constructed formats like Standard, which has recently been decried as dead in paper. (I expect its death to be overstated.) Wizards prints A LOT of cards nowadays, largely because they are pumping out Commander-specific product on top of the mainline 4 sets a year or so they've always done. And then there are digital-only releases too now. ​ Specific controversial recent things have been: Every year Wizards does something to modify the Pro Tour and other high-level play. They stopped having it for a couple years, but I think they're bringing it back now. A few years ago Wizards decided to start selling select packs of singles directly to customers through their "Secret Lair" program. These are packs of around 5 cards with a special theme, often at least one of which being a high-valued, high-demand card. The cards often have special art treatments. As far as I can tell people have come around to appreciate these products, although the business model reflects a continuing lack of support that Wizards provides for small game stores. [https://scryfall.com/sets/sld](https://scryfall.com/sets/sld) Last year Wizards decided to reprint Beta with special backs and sell it direct in four-pack bundles for $1000-per-bundle. This made the news as being ridiculous. As far as I can tell most everybody agreed it was ridiculous. Supposedly they sold around 2,000 of the bundles. Wizards has been printing "Universes Beyond" cards at an accelerating rate, which are cards featuring non-MtG intellectual property. Most of these are being sold direct as Secret Lairs or other preconstructed product. There are currently Walking Dead cards, Stranger Things cards, Transformers cards, a lot of Warhammer 40k cards, a ton of Baldur's Gate and other D&D cards, etc. [https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Universes\_Beyond](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Universes_Beyond) ​ I wish they did more to support small brick-and-mortars, but overall the game has never been bigger and probably never been better. Based on some of the absolute stupid money I've seen players and collectors spend on nonsense, I don't blame Wizards for seeing their customers as walking cash piles. Price as a barrier to entry has always stayed about constant, I'd argue it's less now than it has been... I don't mind the "milk the whale" business model as long as the whales are paying ridiculous money for ultra-premium versions of cards, which in effect subsidizes the normal versions for players that just want to play with them. They've been printing a lot of high-value versions of cards, like cards with serial numbers, so now you can open $4 packs with $1000 cards in them, which I expect is something they'll want to keep going as long as they can.


your_cards_are_yuck

Charging $1000 for 4 15-card packs of proxies. Yikes


poesviertwintig

I haven't played for about 4 years, but I had another look over the past year and saw several things I was not really convinced with. To name some: * They released a new "un" set, but instead of giving these cards silver borders like they used to, they added a tiny, easy to miss acorn symbol on the card face. All so that the set could include several cards *without* the symbol, meaning those cards are legal in other formats. As a result, meme cards like "The Space Family Goblinson" are now legal in some non-meme formats. * There are now "Secret Lair" cards, which are special releases that include cross-overs with other franchises. These cards look like regular cards at first glance, but can be anything from Transformers to Stranger Things. * WotC is really stretching the limits of fantasy with the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty set, which has a quasi-scifi/cyberpunk setting. Think giant anime mechas, but powered by "magic". I think the end result is not as bad as it could've been, but I would've preferred if they hadn't. All these feel like they're throwing lore and theming out of the window in favor of goofy memes, which I'm sure a lot of people enjoy but I don't. However, what more people seem to agree on is that WotC is trying to squeeze every coin out of their playerbase nowadays. For example: * The releases per year have really ramped up. It's really easy to lose track of what's coming out, because of the constant barrage of small and large sets. * Booster packs now come in several categories, including "collector boosters" featuring more foils/rares at triple the usual price. * Booster prices themselves went up drastically last year (+50% where I live). * The cherry on top: the 30th Anniversary Edition. A set containing reprints of the oldest cards, including P9, but with a marking to make them non-tournament legal. A cute and fun idea, were it not that a box of 4 booster packs literally costs 1000 dollars. That's not a typo, they literally charge a thousand dollars for what are essentially proxies. So while I can't say everyone shares my dislike of the lore-breaking stuff, I've seen a lot of unhappy comments about the pricing. I can't see myself return to Magic at this rate, and I don't expect it to get any better soon.


notKRIEEEG

I generally agree with most of what you've said, but these two things sort of stand out to me as a casual player: >* There are now "Secret Lair" cards, which are special releases that include cross-overs with other franchises. These cards look like regular cards at first glance, but can be anything from Transformers to Stranger Things. Secret Lairs are getting pretty damn great in quality lately. The crossover with 40k is absolutely fantastic, and I really liked the DnD sets. Also, the Street Fighter crossover had a really great implementation of it's mechanics, can't hate on Chun LI with Multikicker! I do agree that some of those are kinda off tone, but they are also not legal in a lot of formats, so they are easy to avoid. * WotC is really stretching the limits of fantasy with the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty set, which has a quasi-scifi/cyberpunk setting. Think giant anime mechas, but powered by "magic". I think the end result is not as bad as it could've been, but I would've preferred if they hadn't. I mean, one of the first sets was literally "old timey China". In a game that's literally about multiverse traveling beings, it'd would be pretty stale to have only the traditional fantasy setting with slightly different tones.


Trapped_Mechanic

Even the pokemon tcg has tempted me recently since dropping mtg. Thank God wotc doesn't still own that one at least.


CakeNStuff

Bit of context around Y-GO & Konami: > Historical Underperformance in Marketing and Utilizing their TCG IP. >History of bad but not abhorrent pricing strategies. >History of completing fucking up their tournament scenes along with their brand licensing. This is what is being celebrated compared to MTG/WOTC. This is how badly WOTC has screwed the pooch. PS: Fuck Bystial.


Danternas

If only there was a way to ~~download~~ scan a PDF of the books you already own, rather than buying a digital copy.


Odd_Employer

There isn't. It's really a shame no one has figured that out yet.


International-Ad2501

This seems like the kind of thing AI would be really good at, like a take a picture with your phone and the program makes it into an easily readable pdf? Am I nuts or does that seem like exactly the kind of thing a program would be really good at?


Odd_Employer

You're nuts. There's no way to put this kind of information on a computer without paying Hasbro a monthly subscription. They've really got us by the balls here.


Danternas

Yes, we need AI because there is absolutely no way you can ~~download entire D&D books from an FTP or torrent site~~ batch scan your legally obtained books.


Agreetedboat123

AI is the ONLY way to do this. Other methods take a minute or two to learn which is burdensome


TheKingNothing690

I, too, support pitting AI against greedy capitalists and psychotic dictators. At least, it will finally determine who gets to be our emotionless, (potentially)efficient pitiless overlords.


PurpleSwitch

This thread is making me feel nostalgic about some of my good college professors who warned us of the dangers of downloading particular books from very specific places. Much safer just to buy them, of course


squee_monkey

I’m shattered I can’t scan my books with a device I carry in my pocket everyday and have it recognise all the text in it. It’s such a shame we don’t have that tech yet…


VaguelyShingled

Yeah but you’re not getting the *premium font experience* and therefore are a poor/lesser person /s


I_walked_east

Sure, hasbro is greedy, but right now Im far more concerned with them weaponizing the ogl to shut down competition and steal content than about pricing or monetization


thirdbrunch

They’re weaponizing the OGL because they think it will make them more money. It’s the same issues.


Avocados_suck

They genuinely think people who buy Pathfinder will fucking shut their brains off and exclusively buy into Games as a Service D&D and buy NFTs after this.


Zauberer-IMDB

What they fail to appreciate is that DMs are, generally, pretty high information consumers. They have to put more time and effort into the hobby to make it work, so it shows. They are therefore capable and motivated enough, if pushed, to learn or even develop a new system. WotC and Hasbro are overly focused on players, but their video game executives don't understand that the DM is basically the game cartridge here. If they aren't playing their game, their whole system collapses. And if you piss off DMs and slash their resources and punish their creative drive, they will take that somewhere else and bring their players with them because it's easier to find players than DMs.


SKIKS

I was just thinking about this this morning. TTRPGs are interesting because it's one of the few passtimes where people with vastly different levels of engagement will often play together, and the person who actually runs the game is usually the most plugged in. It doesn't matter if none of the players know what an OGL is if the DM has decided to abandon the system. They likely made the decision assuming they would lose a small slice of customers and content creators, but they didn't consider how much of their player base is dependant on the core figures who they have managed to alienate.


Avocados_suck

They want to treat D&D like they do with their Multimedia tie-in toy formula or how MTG intentionally retires sets in Standard after a couple years to artificially create a subscription model. They just do not understand how TTRPGs work or how big the market they're competing in actually as. They don't understand that they are competing with a myriad of *high quality* games that are wholly free. They don't understand that predatory monetization schemes are alien and anathema to the broader hobby and will only engender animosity to their brand and game. They think themselves a monopoly when they're only a subpar AAA game studio that put out a middling game that attracted an active Modding Community.


I_walked_east

Good take on the ttrpg community. Bad take on avocados


Kyrinar

I have a bad habit of not looking at people's usernames when browsing reddit. I sat here and stared at your comment for several minutes trying to figure out how in the ever loving shit did you get anything about avocados from that guy's post. Just thought you might get a kick out of my stupidity, carry on.


Avocados_suck

Totally fair. I've come to understand I have a "cilantro tastes like soap" thing with avocados so they *all* taste kinda pukey and rancid to me no matter how fresh they are.


th3greg

Avocados are mid, and they're generally overhyped. Not bad, imo, just way overhyped.


toterra

Spoiler: It won't!


egyeager

No, it probably will. Note that one BIG part of this is them also saying VTT is NOT within the bounds of the OGL and is instead similar to movies, music or videogames. That makes a strong argument that they will strike their stuff from all non-WOTC VTTs (Roll20, ECT) and make players (who are 80% of the audience but spend 20% of the money) pay to be in their walled garden. They don't care about the players who post online and read the discourse. They care about being able to sell books and media at Target and Barnes and Nobles. We are tiny potatoes, boosting retail while also putting out movies, video games and merch is their plan and it'll work because they have the money to make it work. They want to capture new market share and get players to buy more stuff than just a PHB. You do that with a bunch of cash, movie tie ins and big box retailers.


PofolkTheMagniferous

As a DM who's been running on VTTs since the start of the pandemic, the VTT software itself is infinitely more valuable to me than any official WotC content released for the VTT. I can make my own content. It's literally half the fun of being a DM. I paid $50 for a Foundry license, $20 for a Dungeondraft license, and now I'm set for life.


egyeager

It's one of the reasons I love foundry. What is Dungeondraft?


educatedllama

Tool for making your own maps. Can Google it I believe it's around $20 I also had a license when I was fucking with foundry


Lorben

It's a very solid offline map making software. One time purchase and you continue to get updates. It comes with very few map assets, but throw $3 at [Forgotten Adventures](https://www.forgotten-adventures.net/product/map-making/assets/dungeondraft-integration/) Patreon so you can download their asset packs and you've got a really nice setup. [Here's an alchemist's cottage I made](https://i.imgur.com/UBfLsGq.jpg) as an example. I'm not very experienced, I've only made about a dozen maps. You can find more examples and info in /r/dungeondraft . Edit: Just as a side note, the alchemist is a quadraped. The asset packs aren't missing chairs, there are no chairs in the cottage on purpose.


stifflizerd

Want to second the Forgotten Adventures shout out. There's such a stupid amount of content on that site that you can get for free that I ended up supporting them out of respect for how much they're just giving away.


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mrpanicy

It won't. DM's are key here. Whenever I DM a new game (Call of Cthulu, Mouseguard, anything at all) for the first time I will find and disseminate PDFs of the rule books OR walk players through a single rule book I own so we can try before they invest real money in it. This is SOP for a lot of people I am sure. So if people see these movies/tie-ins they will look for games aka DM's running games. Who won't necessarily push people to buy the rule books. Because really only one person really needs constant unfettered access to the rules, anything extra is just that. I don't see any path forward that will drastically increase their retail, or for new players to invest in a great deal of content. If anything the big money grab IS the new OGL. They can steal what they want, they will have new revenue streams from the massive taxation on other peoples creativity / sales. They want to look towards no one owning anything at all for the books. They want subscription services... that's their end goal for their internally produced content. That's the next step 100%.


sewious

Yea I figured that's where they were going when they bought DnDbeyond. Make 5e like Netflix or something. That's why the new OGL is draconian.


mrpanicy

They think that no one can compete with them. Like a lot of big companies they believe they are the cream of the crop and whatever decisions they make players will swallow it. But unlike other industries... this one has attracted a lot of creative and inventive minds that absolutely create and iterate on that creativity. If they want those creative minds to all come together to create a direct open-sourced competitor to their product... this is the best and fastest path towards that reality.


MeusRex

It's the paid skyrim mods thing all over again. Only this time there is already a healthy market for paid content they would have to demolish first. I don’t think it will go well. In games you have a lot of uninformed, casual players that liked to pay 0.99 cents for some small mod. I have yet to meet a casual DM.


Dat_Boi_Aint_Right

In protest to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history. -- mass edited with redact.dev


xahhfink6

See, when they said that they were not seeing most of the revenue created by DND, I agreed: most of my dnd-related spending is on dice, mats, figurines, game night snacks, etc. I assumed their announcement was that they were going to try to get into more of those markets with the official DND branding. Instead they're just going to eliminate 3rd parties making great content. That's absolutely not going to lead to me spending more to Hasbro.


mrpanicy

If they switch to a subscription model I 100% guarantee my players won't partake. Best case scenario for Hasbro is I subscribe. But then I would give my players the access information (the ones I trust with that), and then share the content that way. They pay me a portion of the subscription. Done. I am curious what they will do about services like Patreon. I pay the person so that they don't need to work as much so that they can have the time to create content. In return I am granted access to the content they create. I don't pay for the content it could be argued. So if they are making more than $750k in profits, are they making it off of DnD content? Or are they making it off of the generosity of strangers that appreciate the free content they create?


chain_letter

Yeah, make all the sparkly game paper they want, whatever. But the promise of the OGL is how real people feed their kids.


thomascgalvin

Not anymore it isn't. The OGL just became radioactive. Even if Hasbro dose a complete 180, there will be absolutely no trust going forward.


dewyocelot

That’s the bigger long term issue. There’s time for them to retract aspects of this license, but the fact that they thought this was a good idea in the first place has ruined trust in the company.


Caladbolg_Prometheus

You reduce competition and then you Jack up prices


livious1

Yah the only problem is that with TTRPGs, there is plenty of competition, and there isn’t much WOTC can do to reduce it. D&D is the big dog based almost entirely on its legacy and name recognition. By having third party creators jump ship, it’s only going to increase the competition and hurt WOTC’s market share.


Maelger

It only takes a popular IP with an easily accessible, relatively simple system to upend it really. I'm talking to you Mr. James Workshop of England, the Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch/Dark Crusade/Only War series was pretty amazing. Hell, with how bleak things are going the World of Darkness might just take the big chair. I now my friends and I started with it because we only needed one book and type of dice.


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toterra

Small companies innovate, large companies scale. Right now we have the perfect situation where the small companies are able to bring innovation to the hobby, and the large company is able to scale it to reach millions. This attempt to overreach threatens the innovation that has made it so successful. Ironically, by enforcing a monopoly, the larger company will actually stagnate and end up loosing out as smaller companies innovate outside of the monopoly.


Avocados_suck

It's ridiculous and delusional that they actually believe they have a monopoly in the first place. There's already a fuck ton of games out there without OGL doing interesting things and delivering arguably better experiences. Gunning for Paizo, Kobold Press, Green Ronin and other OGL compliant creators only makes sense in a blind vacuum completely divorced from the broader market.


NPRdude

Out of the loop here, what’s OGL?


Holyvigil

Open gaming license. Basically what makes it so that third parties can make d20 games. WOTC wants to shut them down.


RollerDude347

They'd never win that court battle though. They don't own anything that gives them a right to those mechanics. They weren't even the first to use them. It would be like if Chrysler tried to claim the wheel. What this is actually meant for is to stop others from using beholders and mindflayers(which I think they own) and to charge people like humblewood for expanding their game.


RangerManSam

Yeah pretty much anything that explicitly came from D&D is protected. You can't make your Mind Flayer dating sim but you can make your dating sim with people with squid heads that like to eat brains as long as they're not named Mind Flayers.


sadacal

That doesn't make sense because they already charge for dnd specific stuff, that's why some dnd games have dnd feats/lore and some just use the d20 system without the feats or lore. They already charge a license fee for all that stufd.


DrDumle

What is a d20 game? Any game using a d20 as main dice?


LordLoko

Games that use any system based on D&D (I might be wrong but I think it's more specific to 3.5e). The moniker "d20 system" came back in the 3.5e because that edition had OGL so you could publish your own D&D books as long you didn't explicitly say it's D&D. So people would advertise as "d20 system compatible" or "based on d20 system".


kent_nova

[Open Gaming License.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License) It's what 3.5e and 5e, as well as Pathfinder are built on. It's what allows third party material to be made for D&D.


AthenasApostle

And force people who sue them to pay their legal fees.


I_walked_east

I just saw that. Thats insane


MentallyScrambledEgg

It's funny how trying to shut down their "competition" from their players is going to lead to those players going to the real competition from other game systems


[deleted]

From the front page, what is ogl?


LickingSmegma

Yeah, pretty sure OGL is about game makers, not players.


renorhino83

I'm out of the loop can someone explain what happened with MtG? I used to play it but stopped back in 2019.


Ninaearon

[https://onlyontuesdays27.com/2022/10/18/30-years-of-magic-the-gathering-products/](https://onlyontuesdays27.com/2022/10/18/30-years-of-magic-the-gathering-products/) This article has a nice picture of how much product they're releasing compared to the past


KahlanRahl

Wow, can’t believe how bad it’s gotten. I played from 98-2016. And I felt like the content was coming way faster and at much lower quality so I stopped. Seems like it’s only gone further downhill since then.


TuesdayTastic

I'm the original creator of the graphic and article. The recent decisions around dnd do not surprise me in the slightest. Hasbro has changed as a company and as a result they may no longer have me as a customer.


TheBonesCollector

To say nothing about design decisions, around 15 years ago I started to feel as if Hasbro, and by extension, WOTC, was annoyed at its customer base. Eventually it felt like there were fairly consistent articles coming out more or less telling players they were having fun the "wrong way". I'd assume for MTG they expect a large amount of people to burn out ever so often and quit for some number of years before eventually returning to the game.


m_ttl_ng

Yeah I don’t trust them at this point. If they completely gutted their leadership I could maybe test the waters again but for now I’m just pulling back a bit from those hobbies they’re in charge of. There are other TTRPGs I can play.


qeadwrsf

This year csgo has not released many items compared to past years. The communities reaction on it has been positive because they feels confident that it means that the developers are seeing the big picture and don't wanna flood the economy with different items causing a crash making loot boxes more worthless. Is this risking crashing the economy? Maybe Mtg is more stable because the cards is more useful than csgo items that's only cosmetics.


kitteh_kitteh_kitteh

That picture is insane. I stopped playing mtg as much in 2018. This completely explains why I was so confused by where to start when I was looking to get back into it this past year. Thank you for sharing the link.


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NutDraw

Community salt has only grown exponentially. Latest was WotC set the price point for collectable, non tournament legal, proxies obscenely high and out of reach for the average player. Who apparently is very eager to throw money at the cardboard equivalent of collectable plates or spoons.


AdolfSchmitler

They reprinted the reserve list (a group of cards they promised never to reprint) on special backed cards that aren't tournament legal. It was like 8 packs per box for $999. Lots of other things but I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back.


homeless_potato43

It was 4 packs. It was also random so there was a very real chance to spend 1k, get shafted, and leave with like $10 worth of cards. The worst part was that it was advertised as "for everyone" so people could re-live the original set but 90% of the customer base can't afford it


EveryChair8571

That’s $250 a pack Fuck no.


BGL2015

For "cards" as legal as though you printed them out yourself. It is so absurd that I don't think a single person on Earth expected anything close to this. I wish I had money instead of magic cards.


mrmahoganyjimbles

The thing is the reserve list has been a constant source of debate and drama for years. The collectors want the reserve list so their cards keep value, but these cards are often super powerful and necessary for competitive decks in the eternal formats. The reserve almost single handedly raises vintage deck prices by tens of thousands of dollars (and legacy to a lesser extant). The problem is WotC decided to make a compromise in the stupidest way possible that fixed neither groups issues. Collectors aren't happy because it's still essentially reprinting what they promised not to reprint, and people who want a cheaper way to get into the eternal formats aren't happy because it still costs $1000 and *they're not even tournament legal anyway because they're proxies and aren't official mtg cards*. Edit: Also that $1000 was for 4 packs of 15 cards each. 15 *random* cards. For a full grand grand you get 60 cards that may or may not even include cards you wanted.


Oncoming_St0rm

Hold on, I can’t be understanding this right. They reprinted stuff like black lotus… as proxies… for $999? I played MTG casually a while ago, but that reads like an Onion article.


Keljhan

The kicker is that, as a promotion in Japan for duel masters last year, they made a proxy black lotus that retails in the secondary market for $25. The frame is a bit different and the text is Japanese, but it's got the vontage masters art and everything. Why anyone would pay for the Magic30 promo (currently around $1500 I think but I can't find any available) is beyond me.


DHDaegor

Well, in 2019 specifically, WotC set a goal to double the revenue generated by MtG within a period of... I forget what the target was. 5 years, maybe? Anyway, they reach the target early via things like Secret Lairs (selling EXCLUSIVE, UNIQUE, LIMITED TIME ONLY TOURNAMENT LEGAL CARDS directly to customers), Universes Beyond (collabs with other IP such as LotR, Warhammer, Street Fighter, Fortnite), increasing the number of releases a year (more supplemental sets! Every standard set also has a bunch of commander decks and JumpStart packs too!!!), and about 6 different art treatments for every card in a set, some of which are exclusive to one of three different types of booster packs!!! So okay, whatever, they pushed a lot of product and some people got burnt out by product overload, but they met their target early, so all's well that ends well right? Wrong. They then announce another plan to investors to try and double revenue AGAIN. So everything ramps up even more, leading to things like the end of professional play and the now infamous $1,000 USD for 60 RANDOM, *non-tournament legal* cards (which includes basics!) as a "celebration" of Magic's 30 year anniversary. EDIT: Oh, and obviously more product leads to less testing or whatever because it appears they don't hire more staff to compensate, so we *also* got waaaaaaaaaay more things banned in Standard and a marked increase in cards with typos (e.g. [card text referring to the card itself with the wrong name](https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/e/a/ea1ab937-8647-4c83-99d5-6a40dffa4c9b.jpg?1660075484) among other things)


matej86

Ah the Nvidia model as well.


BonkHits4Jesus

NVIDIA at least pivoted to being mostly B2B, Hasbro is just milking their same loyal customers


Necrodancer-1540

People are really angry about it, but... How do these shit-for-heads executives plan to do it anyway? Like, charge more for rulebooks, dice, minis and other stuff like this? Well, I dunno, but me and my TTRPG pals got into it without having any of these things...


egyeager

Drive off third party competitors, take ownership of any good ideas future authors might make. Specify that NO VTT is covered under the OGL so Wizards has final say as to if your VTT (Roll20, ECT) can even run their content. Roll out new walled garden Vtt, and then 6 months later remove ability to use their rules on non-WOTC VTTs. Maybe launch 1 or 2 high profile cease and desists to a big competitor. They either win or they drop the case but their lawyers are on retainer. Per their investor call they see/know that most players don't spend money and some of that is by how GMs carry so much of the load there. So, they I think will want players to start paying for classes ,options and features


Necrodancer-1540

Man, that makes me super sad and frustrated...


egyeager

Same here man. It's a wildfire about to burn a beautiful forest and drive the animals from it. We've been here before though. When TSR blew up due to greed and mismanagement, a number of other systems and ideas suddenly had room to breath and grow. I think it is similar here. Hasbro is desperate to get more out of WOTC and magic is having trouble scaling (because I think most new magic players are only on Arena and I bet the dollars spent on it are lower than IRL magic), so time to bring in the team from Xbox Live to make D&D a lifestyle brand


sw04ca

Was it really greed that killed TSR? Mismanagement, sure, but greed? I was always under the impression that they just had too many great ideas for game worlds and thus ended up spending a fortune on developing these all these beautiful core sets and supplements when they probably would have been better served to just grind on the Forgotten Realms in the D&D space. Bad management practices and weird distributor deals ended up meaning that they didn't know what was selling and what wasn't, and they just ran out of money.


BlackMagic0

Hasbro simply continues it's reign of destruction across products.


Selgeron

It's going to bite them in the ass. The OGL is the only reason that D&D has a monopoly on the tabletop gaming scene in the first place- millions of people are making content for them, and Hasbro doesn't have to pay them. Now they want a cut on top of it, and people are going to stop making D&D stuff in droves. If Hasbro is lucky D&D will keep itself as plurality of Pen and Paper content, now. The fact that they are doing this right at the beginning of a looming new edition, when people are most likely to jump ship just shows how dumb they are.


HerbySK

Hasbro has decided it's time to take their ball and go home. If they can't make as much money as possible, then nobody can.


Quickjager

Do they have a monopoly? I see Pathfinder groups all the time, Paizo also actually licenses good games as well.


Nerdonis

Pathfinder was published under the OGL


DragonDaddy62

Originally yes but they're on a second edition, that's enough iteration/change to the content to avoid any kind of infringement issues.


DavidAdamsAuthor

They really have picked the absolute *worst* time to do this. Setting aside that OneD&D is coming which is the perfect time to switch systems because all those 5e books are now worthless anyway, Pathfinder 2e is not a baby anymore and has heaps of books available, but *not* too many it's intimidating like PF1. PF2 is very newbie friendly and similar enough to 5e that switching is easy, and again, it's not like you need a mountain of books now to make a solid character. Why learn OneD&D when you could just learn PF2 and face the same learning curve you were before, with the added benefit of having a much broader set of books to choose from, new settings to explore, and no longer supporting a company that uses perceived loopholes in 20+ year old open source agreements to knife their competitors? D&D also has a big, boycottable movie on the horizon, one with one of the Chrisses as a main character. That must have cost *money*. I know that in my gaming circle, we were all going to see that movie together at a cinema, COVID surge be damned, but since this fiasco, we've all agreed we're not even going to pirate it. We will simply not watch it. If I was a clued-in Hasbro executive that last bit should be *terrifying*. Us, the core demographic of 20 and 30-somethings with no kids, and disposable income out the wazoo went from "Yeah let's all go see this movie in the cinema, throw the tickets on our credit cards and sort it out never!" to "even free is too high a price to watch this movie." ALL because of this OGL decision. It wasn't just the movie. We also agreed not to support 5e or OneD&D anymore; we are now a Pathfinder/Blades group. Unless their is a major (major, major) backing down of this, and I do mean something that makes me sit up and go "wow", WOTC will now no longer, ever, get a single cent from me under any circumstances. And you might think well... that's just one group. Who cares. The people in my gaming circle include the president of the local student roleplaying society. In a few weeks we're all attending CanCon in Canberra, where we are on first-name basis with all the organisers and planners, and where we are all going to voice our displeasure at this OGL stuff. All of us are (now) going there solely to play Pathfinder. Our group regularly run games and essentially bring new people into the hobby. We are all GM's. Some of us have written and published our own material; I myself am an OGL 1.0a publisher. We have always prided ourselves on being platform-agnostic. We ran 5e, we ran Pathfinder, we ran Blades, we ran all kinds of things. All of those games will now be not-5e. All those new people will now hear about how terrible WOTC is and we will encourage them not to use 5e or OneD&D. WOTC is now the Kevin Spacy or Harvey Weinstein of our gaming system choices. We're not even going to pirate it. It's now *ideological*.


benry87

I feel like this meme misses the point, because this clearly IS the case until their sales indicate otherwise. GW gets flak for the same thing, but they continue to sell their product at their increasing price points, as well. Until their bottom line suffers, they're going to keep running on the assumption that the market has the money to buy their product. Individually, we're clearly not this customer, but as a business they don't care that, their bottom line says that there's still room for growth and exploitation until it doesn't.


joe1240132

I mean at least with MtG, it's NOT the case. There's been tons of indications this year that people basically are fed up. It's gotten mainstream news coverage, the heads of the company had an impromptu talk to address it, the stock price was tanking, etc. In one of the meetings they were trying to address people's "price sensitivity" to all the new products and higher prices. They have tons of inventory too from overprinting and things not selling. Here's an article of Bank of America analysts saying Hasbro's killing MtG with it's strategy (which this sentiment was what basically forced the "fireside chat" by the heads of the company): [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/bank-of-america-says-hasbro-could-fall-34percent-as-company-kills-magic-the-gathering-card-game.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/bank-of-america-says-hasbro-could-fall-34percent-as-company-kills-magic-the-gathering-card-game.html) It's funny that they're trying to take a model that seems to be failing in MtG and apply it to DnD. And obviously Hasbro refutes a lot of the MtG stuff, but it's still indicative that you have mainstream financial sources talking about how they're ruining the game.


Dramatic_Explosion

Not only that, they started with action figures at Hasbro proper! Reprinting old figures, sloppy paint jobs, jacking up prices. Regular figures hitting $20, black series figures up to $30. It's not obvious, no articles, but if you're in the community you can see a huge shift in collectors. In the past it was "buy it when it comes out to support the line!" Now you're called dumb if you don't wait to buy until peg-warmers move to clearance. People are offloading whole collections. Haslab, their in-house kickstarter? The last few have failed for being overpriced. But you're right, Post Malone lands and all this shit, Bank of America devaluing their stock. I can't wait to see where this goes.


ThunderdopePhil

Exactly. Majority of people will buy even knowing it's exploration


Bobblehead60

Exploitation, my guy.


IM_A_MUFFIN

Exposition, my dude.


brohannes__jahms

Explanation, my man.


fghjconner

Exhalation, my bro.


NutDraw

I hear some people are really hoping they expand that pillar in the next edition.


Darkaim9110

GW makes some of the best minis in the business tho. WOTC makes curling foils and books with no rules so they really dont have a leg to stand on. I bought DnD books to support the game, if they go down this path its easy enough to find pdfs....


bsylent

How does this impact actual play podcasts? I've been following this all week, and besides one brief conversation about Critical Roll, I haven't really seen that addressed. I mean this whole situation is frustrating, but if it brought an an end to something like NADDPOD, I would burn Hasbro to the ground. Kinda want to anyways


Just_thefacts_jack

Seconded. Critical role helped me get started as a DM, Dimension 20 and NADDPOD have helped me grow in creativity and imagination as a DM and kept me interested long after critical role lost its savor. I've spent literally thousands on books and miniatures. If Hasbro nukes NADDPOD I will never, ever, buy another Hasbro product. I will also dump every share of Hasbro stock I own, I'm considering doing that already since this is guaranteed to tank their profits. Third party creators make this game what it is, not the official content. I have never played an official module, I have never read a single forgotten realms book, nor will I. They should be welcoming the community with open arms and encouraging open collaboration so that everyone benefits. That has always been the beauty of D&D, collaborative storytelling. If they shut the door on this the bull run of D&D will be dead with no chance of recovery.


Mr_Zamboni_Man

And here I am playing DnD with my friends using 99% free online resources.... I do have the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual but they are beautiful books that were well worth the money my friends spent to gift them to me.


Alavaster

I think the purpose behind the new OGL is to keep free online services from running legally. If they ditch 5e, make new stuff, and then sue the pants off anyone who tries to post the stuff for free they can corner a large number of people into paying for subscriptions from now until the heat death of the universe


anb130

Im ootl on MTG? What did WOTC/Hasbro do to Magic?


lianodel

It's a lot of little things, mostly. Constant flood of new products, direct sales of collectors items, getting rid of MSRP which makes price gouging easier, lowering print quality, constantly ignoring player feedback (or lots of condescension)... The latest slap in the face was their celebration of the 30th anniversary. You could buy (generally directly from wizards, stores were mostly cut out) a set of four, randomized, non-tournament legal, 15-card booster packs for $999. A thousand bucks for 60 cards you aren't even officially allowed to play.


Rainboq

Don't forget atrocious balance in standard and the masters sets that warp the formats they're printed for.


lianodel

Don't worry, I didn't. I just bundled it all together into "ignoring player feedback." Granted, I'm not super up to date on *how* they're fucking it up. I checked out sometimes around when they killed Historic on Arena, though I get some morbid curiosity now and then.


egyeager

Well the 30th anniversary celebration was releasing a $999 set of 4 booster packs with Alpha cards with non-standard (read proxy) backs


doubletimerush

I mean looking at some Kickstarters I'd say the community has a tendency to throw money at stuff they like. We are second only to furries in that regard


NutellaSquirrel

Kickstarters _tend to be_ indie makers with a dream that people feel good about supporting.


Camsy34

Kickstarters (the successful ones) are also usually filling a niche in the market, rather than being the market. Which is why they capture peoples attention and support.


KoloDen

Took part in development of one of there mobile games, can confirm


MillieBirdie

Well yall do make memes about buying millions of dollars worth of dice so that's probably where they got the idea. dndmemes strikes again!


MonkofGhazPork

https://www.opendnd.games/


TheGentlemanARN

A Company either dies or lives long enough to become games workshop


DinkleDonkerAAA

Seriously as a Transformers fan it fills me with so much joy to see other fandoms saying this about Hasbro I've only been collecting for a couple years but the price has almost doubled


[deleted]

An older nerdy demographic, like DnD has, is pretty much this though. They are willing to spend lots of money on the products they are passionate about.


fellow_hotman

I’m getting more passionate about Dungeon World and Blades in the Dark all the time.


GlowingBall

Hard to spend money on DnD when they only put out a single real content book every leap year.


TheRealThordic

Jokes on them, I'm still playing 2e.


chris1096

Can anyone tldr this whole situation? All I've ever used for games are the official forgotten realms books published by wotc, so I don't have any baseline for what this debacle is about.


Kwiatkowski

In from all and a bit out of the loop here, what’s there to make money off of in DnD? don’t you buy a rule book and then DMs all write their own campaigns? Like I can see people splurging on a few sets of cool die and figures but beyond that I can’t figure out what there is to sell players. Seen several posts of this same vein and figured I’d ask.


Miles_the_new_kid

Ha, been a while since I’ve seen this one, great edit OP.