Open Game License Those individuals, groups and publishing companies that license their works under the OGL and similar documents are sometimes collectively referred to as the "
open gaming movement". The OGL led to the development of the stand-alone
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game which is a modified version of the 3.5 game. Academics Benoît Demil and Xavier Lecocq, in the economic journal ''Revue d'économie industrielle
in 2014, stated that the OGL had an immediate impact on the tabletop role-playing industry with an increase in new TTRP publications where the "majority of the new entrants adopted" the d20 license; d20 products sold at a higher rate than non-d20 products until the mid 2000s. They commented that "the emergence of open source licensing for RPGs facilitates user creativity and innovation, as dozens of D&D''-compatible supplements have been created under the Open Game License". However, Walsh highlights the "primary benefit" is knowing the exact terms in order to not be sued by Wizards of the Coast and avoiding "having to prove your fair use rights or engage in an expensive legal battle over copyrightability in court". Orland stated that Section 9 coupled with statements made by Wizards of the Coast in the original 2001
FAQ, seem "to suggest that companies could continue using the old license to make products based on the old ruleset that was published under OGL v1.0a (even if upcoming rules changes are covered more directly by OGL v1.1)". Lin Codega, for
Io9 on January 5, 2023, wrote that "by ending the original OGL, many licensed publishers will have to completely overhaul their products and distribution in order to comply with the updated rules. Large publishers who focus almost exclusively on products based on the original OGL, including
Paizo,
Kobold Press, and
Green Ronin, will be under pressure to update their
business model incredibly fast". Law stated that "the most concerning section of the legal document adds that Wizards of the Coast has full rights to any content created by the OGL. This would allow
Dungeons and Dragons to take any homebrew content and publish it in official
Dungeons and Dragons material without permission or compensation to the original creator". Christian Hoffer, for
ComicBook.com in January 2023, stated that "if the OGL viewed by io9 is indeed the final OGL planned for
One D&D, it would have seismic consequences for the thriving ecosystem that surrounds
Dungeons & Dragons". Hoffer highlighted the debate on if the OGL could be deauthorized and commented that regardless, "the intent of the new OGL is to force publishers to comply with the new OGL, with its easily revocable status and its tiered royalty structure". Hall also highlighted that
Kickstarter negotiated with Wizards of the Coast to lower the royalty amount for creators who use their platform. Hall wrote, "Kickstarter has recently seen increased competition from alternate crowdfunding outlets, including Gamefound and Backerkit. A partnership such as this, formally enshrined into the OGL 1.1, would encourage the largest D&D crowdfunding campaigns to use Kickstarter’s services".
Vice,
The Guardian,
Financial Times and many other industry focused outlets reported on negative reactions from both fans and professional content creators.
ComicBook.com reported that it had "spoken with over 20 small to mid-sized creators who have said that in-progress projects set to be published under the OGL have been placed on hold due to" the terms in the leak. over people have signed the "#OpenDND" internet petition within days of its launch. This included "several well-known D&D community members" such as "''
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus'' writer M.T. Black, prominent D&D streamer Mara Holmes (who recently ran a streaming show for Wizards of the Coast on
D&D's streaming channel), and Mike Shea, publisher of
Sly Flourish".
Io9 reported that per their sources at Wizards "the result of these cancellations and their impact on the bottom line of Wizards of the Coast is not negligible" and led to scrambling by upper management "to adjust their messaging around the situation".
Starburst commented that "historically when the owners of
Dungeons and Dragons attempt to restrict what people can do with the game, it leads to a boom in other tabletop roleplaying games. This is happening right now". Both Kobold Press and
MCDM Productions announced upcoming new tabletop RPG systems with both stating their respective systems would be open games.
Paizo then announced a new Open RPG Creative License (ORC), an open, perpetual, and irrevocable system-agnostic license, as a direct response to the reported changes to the OGL. They stated that the license would not be owned by Paizo or any RPG publisher, to protect against future attempts to modify or rescind it. Another initiative is from Free League Publishing, which announced two licenses, for its Year Zero game system and another for its upcoming fantasy RPG
Dragonbane. On January 13, 2023, Wizards issued a response via D&D Beyond; this response did not contain the updated OGL which will be released at a later date. The statement walked back several changes to the OGL such as removing the royalty structure and the license back language and indicated that other forms of expression, such as VTTs and livestreams, would not be impacted by the updated OGL.
ComicBook.com commented that this statement "did not address" the OGL deauthorization concerns.
Proposed OGL1.2 draft Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, for
The Washington Post, wrote that "pushback from fans, who criticized WotC’s response as far from an apology and a dismissal of their legitimate concerns, led WotC to backpedal further. A second bulletin Wednesday [on January 18] included more details about the path forward, along with a mea culpa from [Kyle] Brink, the executive producer, on behalf of his team".
Creative Commons On January 27, 2023, Wizards of the Coast outlined the feedback received from over 15,000 survey submissions during the open comment for OGL1.2: "88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2", "89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a", "86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy" and "62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons". As a result, Wizards decided to release the SRD 5.1 under an irrevocable
Creative Commons license; it would also no longer attempt to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a. Codega opined: The Open Game License was genuinely a revolutionary contract—established two years before the Creative Commons license was developed—and tabletop games across the board, not just
D&D, benefited from the free and unrestricted usage granted in the OGL. The OGL should have been the contract to stand the test of time as a testament to the power of open source licensing for intellectual property. But then, as with most good things that are given away in the spirit of joyous creativity and hope for community, capitalism happened. [...] The commitment to putting the updated
D&D rules into the Creative Commons rather than trying to re-establish the OGL or even establish another GSL-alike is, in my opinion, a good decision. ==See also==