The attempt to create a new license comes as Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast unit looks to capitalize on a surge in Dungeons & Dragons' popularity.
Teams and Discord, have allowed players to congregate virtually without the need for a physical meeting.
A Dungeons & Dragons classic dragon hand painted by Alan Cooley, 27, of Huntington Station, New York, at Main Street Game Cafe in Huntington on November 26, 2019.Williams noted that the vast majority of purchases related to Dungeons & Dragons comes from dungeon masters, the game organizers who create the settling and challenges players face, despite these players only accounting for 20% of the game's overall user base.
Under its current open license, Hasbro allows third party creators to use the game's mechanics, its dice rolling system and framework for combat, and to develop their own settings, monsters and magical items at no cost. Companies such as Paizo, Kobold Press, Hit Point Press and The Griffon's Saddlebag, among others, have carved out a spot in the market to sell companion books to D&D players.
"Now, what struck me as was unusual in this agreement is that the numbers spoken of are revenue, meaning gross revenue, not net revenue," said Noah Downs, a partner at Premack Rogers law firm and an intellectual property attorney. This means that content creators would have been charged the fee based on how much they generated in revenue, not their profit.
Prior to Hasbro's OGL postponement, both Downs and Holik told CNBC that by taxing third party content creators and snatching up their intellectual property, Hasbro and Wizards would destroy the Dungeons & Dragons community. In 2020, Wizards of the Coast addressed some of these concerns by altering legacy definitions of certain races, including orcs and drow, which had previously been reminiscent of real-world ethnic groups and portrayed negatively within the D&D literature.
"The license back language was intended to protect us and our partners from creators who incorrectly allege that we steal their work simply because of coincidental similarities," Hasbro wrote in a statement on D&DBeyond. "As we continue to invest in the game that we love and move forward with partnerships in film, television, and digital games, that risk is simply too great to ignore.
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