SmiteWorks Official Statement about OGL 1.1 and Open Gaming Licenses
SmiteWorks established Fantasy Grounds as the first virtual tabletop (VTT) to receive an official license for D&D back in 2015. In many ways, SmiteWorks paved the way forward for online D&D and for online roleplaying from many other game publishers and game systems. Our partnership with Wizards of the Coast has benefitted us greatly and I believe it has similarly benefitted Wizards of the Coast.
Regarding the OGL 1.1
I shared my thoughts with Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) privately on Monday, January 9th, regarding the OGL 1.1. I view it as being harmful to the RPG community, an overreach by WOTC, and I view it as being harmful to WOTC as well. I genuinely want Wizards of the Coast to succeed and continue to grow. I want them to do this alongside the many amazing game publishers and creators that coexist in the RPG space.
My thoughts were detailed on how I viewed the language in the OGL 1.1 to be anti-competitive and contrary to WOTC's stated goals. I predicted a very strong community response to the proposed language, and we've seen that play out very much as predicted. My hope is that WOTC will course correct in a very public way and will reinforce the OGL 1.0a and/or similar documents.
D&D is the most popular system for playing fantasy RPGs and this is based on a mix of name recognition, branding, quality of content, historical contributions, and intelligent design choices. It is also due to the OGL, where WOTC was viewed as a benevolent leader for an entire industry.
I look forward to an official announcement by Wizards of the Coast on this subject and I sincerely hope they succeed in regaining some trust that they have lost with this recent event. We want to help them in this endeavor and we would like to continue releasing great D&D content in an environment that is fair to everyone.
At the same time, I publicly offer my support for the Open RPG Creative (ORC) license proposed by Paizo, Kobold Press, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, Chaosium, and other publishers. We are happy to continue working with all publishers, big and small, to provide players with the greatest choice of games available and to lift all boats.
We are committed to our fans above all others. Our license with D&D is still live and active. It renews annually and has been renewed already for 2023. Should we ever lose our license, customers will continue to have access to anything they have purchased. This includes being able to reinstall content. This is the same for every single publisher on our platform. If something is ever unable to be sold due to license issues, we would still be able to provide access to customers for anything they've ever purchased.
We appreciate the support that our fans have provided us since 2004 and since I took ownership of SmiteWorks in 2009. We are eternally grateful and we will do our best to support your gaming needs and wishes for decades to come.