The Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying community is in an uproar over a decision from the game’s owner, Wizards of the Coast, to institute a more cutthroat, profit-seeking approach to licensing its content.
Wizards, a subsidiary of publicly traded Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) Inc, is trying to walk things back, but it may be too little too late.
Before, anyone could create and sell their own third-party D&D content under what’s called the Open Gaming License (OGL), but earlier this month a revised OGL leaked that would have instituted a 25% royalty on third-party income and included a clause allowing Wizards to use such content at will.
Over the weekend, Wizards issued a statement retracting the changes, but only after a wave of cancellations of Wizards-owned online content hub D&D Beyond.
Now, investors will be watching to see if the backlash impacts the toy giant’s bottom line. Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) shares are down modestly this week, dropping 2.6% since Friday’s closing bell.
The makers of another prominent roleplaying game, Pathfinder, have announced their own open gaming license for creators who want to make Pathfinder content. On the D&D side, Kobold Press, a popular third-party creator, has said it plans to create its own tabletop roleplaying game with a new system.
Some popular creators have also called for a boycott of the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves, scheduled for release in March. The film cost $45 million to make, according to reports.
Even the statement walking back the offending OGL changes struck the wrong note with players.
“It’s clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1,” Wizards said in a statement. “... You’re going to hear people say that they won, and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans. Those people will only be half right. They won—and so did we.
“Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL; the drafts you’ve seen were attempting to do just that.”
D&D players, and perhaps ultimately Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) investors, don’t seem to be buying it.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel