- Baldur’s Gate 3 boss explains there’s no bad blood with D&D license owner amid split: “WOTC is not to blame for us taking a different direction” Gamesradar
- ‘Let’s just have closure on Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s been great. We’ve done our job’: Larian CEO says he hit the brakes on DLC plans because the team’s heart wasn’t in it PC Gamer
- Larian Studios Won’t Make Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC, Expansions, or Baldur’s Gate 4 IGN
- Larian Started, Cancelled ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ DLC, Will Not Make ‘Baldur’s Gate 4’ Forbes
- Baldur’s Gate 3 Dev Is Working Toward An RPG That “Dwarfs” It GameSpot
Tag Archives: license
Washington limits Dr.’s license due to COVID misinformation, unethical practices – Idaho News
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Man without license drove through crowd outside Guaranteed Rate Field – Chicago Tribune
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- Chicago man faces multiple charges in hit-and-run that injured 4 outside ballpark Yahoo News
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US blocks export license renewals for China’s Huawei
BEIJING (AP) — China’s government accused Washington on Tuesday of pursuing “technology hegemony,” as the United States has begun stepping up pressure on tech giant Huawei by blocking access to American suppliers.
The Biden administration has stopped approving renewal of licenses to some U.S. companies that have been selling essential components to the Chinese company, according to two people familiar with the matter. Neither was authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and they spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The company, which makes network equipment and smartphones, has been on the U.S. Commerce Department’s entity list, which comprises those subject to licensing requirements, since 2019. It has been allowed to buy some less advanced components. But the new restrictions could cut off Huawei’s access to processor chips and other technology, as large U.S.-based companies such as Intel and Qualcomm are forced to wind down business with it.
Bloomberg News and the Financial Times first reported the administration move.
Huawei Technologies Ltd., China’s first global tech brand, is at the center of a conflict between Washington and Beijing over technology and security. U.S. officials say Huawei is a security risk and might facilitate Chinese spying, an accusation the company denies.
“China is gravely concerned about the reports,” said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning. She accused Washington of “over-stretching the concept of national security and abusing state power” to suppress Chinese competitors.
“Such practices are contrary to the principles of market economy” and are “blatant technological hegemony,” Mao said.
The White House and Commerce Department declined to comment about specific deliberations regarding Huawei.
“Working closely with our interagency export controls partners at the Departments of Energy, Defense and State, we continually assess our policies and regulations and communicate regularly with external stakeholders,” the Commerce Department said in a statement. “We do not comment on conversations with or deliberations about specific companies.”
The move to halt licenses for Huawei comes after GOP Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced earlier this month that the committee would conduct a 90-day review of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry Security. McCaul said he was ordering the review because the agency had not been responsive to two-year-old requests for information on export control licenses that the agency has granted for China.
In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this month, McCaul said the agency had “failed to uphold its legal obligation to produce requested documents and information.” McCaul on Tuesday called reports that Commerce is halting exports “a positive step” and called on the department to declare it a permanent decision.
Mao said Beijing would “defend the legitimate rights” of its companies but gave no indication how the government might respond. Beijing has made similar declarations after past U.S. action against its companies but often does nothing.
The ban on sales of advanced U.S. processor chips and music, maps and other services from Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit crippled Huawei’s smartphone business. The company sold its low-end Honor smartphone brand to revive sales by separating it from the sanctions on its corporate parent.
The Commerce Department agreed to grant export licenses to U.S. companies to allow them to sell less-advanced chips and other technology to Huawei that was deemed not to be a security risk. That followed complaints suppliers would lose billions of dollars in annual sales.
Huawei scrambled to remove U.S. components from its network and other products and has launched new business lines serving factories, self-driving cars and other industrial customers. The company hopes those are less vulnerable to U.S. pressure.
Huawei says its business is starting to rebound.
“In 2020, we successfully pulled ourselves out of crisis mode,” Eric Xu, one of three Huawei executives who take turns as chairman, said in a December letter to employees. “U.S. restrictions are now our new normal, and we’re back to business as usual.”
Last year’s revenue was forecast to be little-changed from 2021 at 636.9 billion yuan ($91.6 billion), Xu said.
The tightening of export controls on Huawei comes just days after Japan and the Netherlands agreed to a deal with the U.S. to restrict China’s access to materials used to make advanced computer chips.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit China next week. It will be the first visit to China by a Cabinet-level official in the Biden administration.
__
Madhani reported from Washington.
Dungeons & Dragons Scraps Plans to Update Its Open Game License
Wizards of the Coast, publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, announced today that they will no longer be pursuing deauthorization of the Open Gaming License 1.0a, abandoning plans previously stated in the drafted OGL 1.2. This statement comes after relentless fan backlash against the decision to deauthorize that was revealed after io9 reported on a leaked OGL 1.1. After three weeks of near constant pressure, it appears as if Wizards of the Coast is fully paying attention to the fanbase.
The deauthorization of the OGL 1.0a was a huge sticking point for fans and third party publishers who made a living using the license that was granted nearly two decades ago. Opinions varied on whether or not Wizards of the Coast could even legally deauthorize, with many people, including Ryan Dancey, vocally arguing that it was never intended to be deauthorized and the very act of doing so was not built into the legal wording of the license.
Brink said in the statement that “these live survey results are clear. You want OGL 1.0a. You want irrevocability. You like Creative Commons.” This sentiment was expressed so overwhelmingly in the playtest OGL 1.2 that Wizards of the Coast had to pay attention. Originally they were going to keep the playtest open for two weeks, however Brink writes, “the feedback is in such high volume and its direction is so plain that we’re acting now.”
The concessions D&D makes in this announcement are huge: they will not attempt to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a, they are putting the entirety of the Systems Reference Document for D&D 5.1 into the Creative Commons, and they are abandoning its previously-stated intentions for Virtual Tabletops.
One thing to note is that Brink states that putting the entire 400-page SRD into the Creative Commons means that fans don’t need to “take [Dungeons & Dragons’] word for it.” That Brink would explicitly acknowledge the lack of trust between fans and publishers and Wizards of the Coast is incredible.
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Finally, the company finished the statment with an olive branch, publishing the SRD immediately, and stating, “Here’s a PDF of SRD 5.1 with the Creative Commons license. By simply publishing it, we place it under an irrevocable Creative Commons license. We’ll get it hosted in a more convenient place next week. It was important that we take this step now, so there’s no question.”
[Editor’s Note: This article is part of the developing story. The information cited on this page may change as the breaking story unfolds.]
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
D&D maker still wants to revoke earlier versions of “open” gaming license
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of D&D-maker Wizards of the Coast trying to destroy its original Open Gaming License with fire.
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D)-maker Wizards of the Coast’s (WotC) latest attempt to update its decades-old Open Gaming License (OGL) still includes the controversial statement that “the Open Game License 1.0a is no longer an authorized license.” The news comes after the company’s first attempt to draft an OGL update with similar language (and other controversial changes) was met with widespread fan outrage and alienation from the creator community.
WotC says this proposed “deauthorization” of OGL v1.0a won’t affect any original content that was published under that earlier license since its debut in the early ’00s and that such content won’t need to be updated or relicensed to comply with any new OGL language. But any content published after the proposed OGL v1.2 goes into effect would not be able to simply choose the earlier license instead, according to the update as drafted.
In an explanatory post on the D&D Beyond blog, WotC Executive Producer Kyle Brink said that WotC realizes this planned deauthorization is a “big concern” for the community. But he added that it’s a necessary move to enforce the new OGL’s restrictions on illegal and/or hateful content, including “conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing,” as determined by WotC.
“We can’t use the protective options in 1.2 if someone can just choose to publish harmful, discriminatory, or illegal content under 1.0a,” Brink wrote. Ensuring an “inclusive play experience” in this way was a “deeply important” goal that was not included in the original OGL, he added.
Whether WotC actually has the legal power to fully revoke the earlier OGL version is still an open question, though. That’s because the original OGL contains a clause clearly saying that players can “use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify, and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.”
The original OGL doesn’t contain any specific language saying it’s irrevocable. But in an FAQ posted when the original OGL was published, WotC directly stated that “even if Wizards made a change [to the license] you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option.” And in a recent interview with tabletop gaming site En World, original OGL architect and former WotC VP Ryan Dancey said the company “does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license.”
Coming to the Commons
Aside from the OGL v1.0a deauthorization, the new draft language scales back many of the most controversial portions of the original leaked update, including plans to require revenue reporting, collect royalties for the biggest content creators, and force a license-back to WotC for original content. The new draft language also explicitly notes that the new license is “perpetual, non-exclusive, and irrevocable,” with only a few technical sections being eligible for modification in the future.
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of the coming discussion between Wizards of the Coast and the D&D community over proposed OGL updates.
D&D‘s core mechanics would be licensable under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), which WotC says “is not placing any limitations at all on how you use that content.” While that’s not strictly true, that license does give “a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license” to that rules content on the condition that the licensor appropriately credits WotC for its creation.
For “quintessentially D&D content” published by WotC (e.g., classes, spells, monsters, and other creative content made by the company), the new license would allow use, modification, and distribution with a few restrictions. In addition to limits on illegal and/or hateful content, as discussed above, the draft language bars anything that infringes on third-party IP or implies an official endorsement from WotC.
A survey allowing members of the public to comment on this new draft OGL language will go public sometime Friday, WotC said, and will be available until February 3. Further updates based on that feedback will be published on or before February 17, according to the company, and that kind of iteration on feedback “will extend as long as it needs to… until we get it right,” Brink wrote.
D&D maker promises to get player feedback for coming “open” license update
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of the coming discussion between Wizards of the Coast and the D&D community over proposed OGL updates.
When Wizards of the Coast (WotC) rolled out proposed changes to its decades-old Open Gaming License (OGL), most average players and smaller creators had to hear about it via a leaked copy of a version sent to big content makers. Now, WotC promises any coming changes will be done through a “more open and transparent” process that will start a “robust conversation” around any new proposals.
In a post on the D&D Beyond forums today, WotC Executive Producer Kyle Brink writes that “new proposed OGL documentation” will be shared publicly on or before Friday, January 20. At that point, community members will have at least two weeks to offer feedback via a survey that will include specific questions and open-response fields.
WotC compared the new process to the one it uses for playtests of Unearthed Arcana documents, which are often used to solicit feedback on draft mechanics and gameplay ideas that haven’t been fully tested. Once the new OGL survey concludes, Brink says WotC will “compile, analyze, react to, and present back what we heard from you.”
We’re sorry (that you noticed)
Brink clarified a few types of fan-made content that the new OGL explicitly won’t affect, including videos, contracted services (e.g., paid dungeon master services), and virtual tabletop content. Brink also reiterated WotC’s recent promise that the new OGL won’t charge any royalties, won’t impact existing content licensed under OGL 1.0a, and won’t require you to license creative content back to WotC (all elements that were contradicted in the leaked version of OGL 1.1).
Brink’s post also offers WotC’s most direct apology yet for the OGL fiasco that led many tabletop publishers to abandon WotC in recent weeks.
“We are sorry,” Brink writes. “We got it wrong. Our language and requirements in the draft OGL were disruptive to creators and not in support of our core goals of protecting and cultivating an inclusive play environment and limiting the OGL to TTRPGs. Then we compounded things by being silent for too long. We hurt fans and creators, when more frequent and clear communications could have prevented so much of this.”
Brink’s post and other WotC communications have referred to the leaked OGL 1.1 as a “draft” that was shared with major content creators “so their feedback could be considered before anything was finalized.” But some in the community have challenged that characterization, saying OGL 1.1 was distributed with an attached contract that allegedly came with a signature deadline and pre-negotiated preferential terms for some funding sources.
“Wizards is going to try to say what we’ve seen of OGL 1.1 is a draft that they sent out for feedback. That’s a lie,” major D&D creator The Griffon’s Saddlebag said on Instagram last week. “Never once did WotC ask for feedback or say that it was a draft or any of these things. … The thing is that nobody signed it, that’s why they’re backpedaling and waffling on this.”
Wizards of the Coast has not responded to a request for comment from Ars Technica on the ongoing controversy surrounding OGL changes.
Hasbro delays update to Dungeons and Dragons open game license as fan base revolts
Barron’s markets editor Ben Levisohn, managing editor Kristen Bellstrom, Barron’s reporter Carleton English and associate editor Jack Hough discuss ‘Magic: The Gathering’ and the diminishing value of their latest card collection.
Hasbro rolled a “natural one” – an automatic miss – to convince fans that rewriting its two-decade-old open game license was about anything but boosting revenue.
Their child company, Wizards of the Coast (WOC), which owns the smash hit table-top role playing game “Dungeons and Dragons,” had changes to its open game license leaked, sparking an uproar among the fan base.
In 2000, WOC released OGL 1.0, which allowed third party creators to use WOC characters, rules, game systems, and products in their creations. This symbiotic relationship has led to the emergence of a cottage industry that includes some hit shows like Critical Role, Dimension 20, Not Another D&D Podcast, and Dungeons and Daddies: Not a BDSM Podcast which, in turn, brought more attention to the game and WOC than had been in decades.
Some have called this past decade a renaissance for D&D, with pandemic lock-downs only contributing to the game’s meteoric resurgence in popularity.
GROWING ‘KIDULT’ TREND TAKES TOY INDUSTRY BY STORM
A week ago, a leaked OGL 1.1 was released that, largely, undid this relationship and, among other things, required some major third party creators to pay upwards of 20-25% royalties to WOC for use of their game system and products.
This has caused a massive backlash among the fan base with 67,000 signing an online petition and costing the company an estimated $400,000 loss in monthly revenue. After a week of dealing with popular revolt, Hasbro released a statement walking back their new license.
“It’s clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1. It has become clear that it is no longer possible to fully achieve all three goals while still staying true to our principles,” the company released in a statement. “It will not contain any royalty structure.”
FILE – This April 26, 2018, file photo, shows the Hasbro logo in New York. Hasbro’s third-quarter profit missed Wall Street’s view and its revenue slipped as consumers watched their spending on toys more closely due to inflation concerns. (AP Photo/R (AP Newsroom)
“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.”
Reception to the announcement has been cold among those demonstrating against the company. While some noted this was a win, others claimed this changes nothing and WOC still intends to change the OGL. The boycott resulted in an estimated 40,000 canceled subscriptions with that number rising daily. Rage within the fan base only swelled as recent comments from WOC’s president came to light.
HASBRO’S ‘MAGIC: THE GATHERING’ COLLECTIBLE CARDS SUFFER A ‘MAGIC CRASH’: JACK HOUGH
“D&D has never been more popular, and we have really great fans and engagement,” Wizards of the Coast President Cynthia Williams told investors in December during a UBS virtual fireside chat. “But the brand is really under-monetized.”
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D&D has seen a surge in popularity with third-party content creators, being featured in Netflix’s hit “Stranger Things,” and will surely see another bump from the upcoming movie “D&D: Honor Among Thieves.” The release of OGL 1.1 has officially been delayed.
Wizards of the Coast Breaks Their Silence on the Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License
Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that publishes Dungeons & Dragons, revealed details of its new Open Game License on Friday and attempted to answer questions about the future of the D&D community that were raised after io9 broke the news about the contents of a draft of the document last week.
A leaked copy of an updated “OGL 1.1,” received and reported on by io9 last week, outlined restrictions on third-party publishers including a 25 percent royalty payout for revenues over $750,000, and a copyright clause that appeared to cede ownership of content over to Wizards of the Coast (WotC). All of these concerns were taken up online, as D&D fans, content creators, and third-party publishers responded to the report with concern. Several prominent game publishers announced plans to stop creating new licensed content to focus on their own systems.
The update from Wizards of the Coast says; “the next OGL will contain the provisions… [so that it] covers only content for TTRPGs. That means that other expressions, such as educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc., will remain unaffected by any OGL update. Content already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected.”
This seems to imply that the Fan Content License, which was previously mentioned in the OGL 1.1 draft as continuing under the new licensing agreement, will be used to protect Wizards from fan content like Actual Play podcasts and videos. The fact that they are also saying that VTTs will be unaffected is a significant change, as earlier editions stated that “non-static” media would be disallowed under the new OGL 1.1. This is likely a massive relief to numerous companies that are working on creating and innovating in the VTT space, but without the fully updated OGL, there are no rock-solid assurances yet.
Another announcement is the fact that any updated OGL “will not contain is any royalty structure.” This is a huge change from the previous iterations, which had a tiered royalty structure that required all commercial projects to report to Wizards of the Coast. One of the reasons for this change seems to be the response that people had to the language about copyright and ownership in the OGL 1.1. The update says, “any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point. 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.”
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The announcement goes on to include the expansive IP projects that Wizards is taking on—a movie, a television series, and digital games. It’s clear that Wizards of the Coast cares much more about protecting the cultural currency of Dungeons & Dragons before they think about anything else—including fans, content creators, and third-party publishers.
While the updated OGL 2.0 isn’t going to be released today, it will be coming. There will be no backing down entirely for Wizards of the Coast. They’ve committed too much time, money, and effort into their IP to allow it to be written off totally under the OGL 1.0(a) and the suits in Hasbro will not allow everyone to make off with their name and numbers.
Additionally, the final thing to note about this update is that Wizards of the Coast is doing some incredible spin doctoring in order to lay the groundwork to try to salvage the situation that they find themselves in. The company would love for you to think that this is all part of the plan, but none of this was part of any plan.
The drafts that io9 received were not a thought experiment. They were intended to gauge a reaction, but from individual publishers that Wizards could silence with an NDA, not from the public at large. For all intents and purposes, the OGL 1.1 that was leaked to the press was supposed to go forward. Wizards has realized that they made a mistake and they are walking back numerous parts of the leaked OGL 1.1, saying that, “any change this major could only have been done well if we were willing to take that feedback, no matter how it was provided–so we are.”
However Wizards wants to spin it, the fact is that if hundreds of thousands of fans hadn’t said something on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit, the current capitulation would have most likely happened after the OGL 1.1 was released. “Finally,” Wizards of the Coast ends their statement, “we’d appreciate the chance to make this right… We won’t let you down.” It may be too late for that.
[Editor’s Note: This article is a breaking news story, and the information cited on this page will change as the story unfolds. Our writers are updating this article as new information is released.]
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Microsoft Office 2021 Lifetime License Drops to $30 for Windows or Mac With This Epic Deal
Microsoft Office is an essential suite of tools for both your professional and personal computing needs, but if you don’t already have access to its apps on your own computer, you may be annoyed at having to pay monthly to access them.
Rather than stumping up the full price directly at Microsoft, you can snag a lifetime license to Microsoft’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Publisher and Access for just $30 instead via StackSocial. That’s back at the lowest price we’ve ever seen, and a whopping 91% off the usual price of $349.
The offer applies to both the Windows and Mac version of the software, which means you can ditch the subscription (with recurring charges) that Microsoft offers for these essential apps. This popular deal has already sold out and been restocked a few times, but we don’t know how much longer it will remain in stock so be sure to grab one for yourself before it’s gone.
Microsoft
This wildly popular offer for a Microsoft Office lifetime license is still available for $30. It’s available for both Mac and Windows, so be sure to grab the right one for the computer that you use regularly.
StackSocial’s deal is a phenomenal bargain when compared to the online Microsoft 365 subscription suite that costs $10 per month or $100 per year. There is a free online version of Microsoft Office, too, but it has far fewer features.
While the price almost seems too good to be true, we tried it ourselves, and it worked like a charm. (The two big caveats: You get a single key — which only works on a single computer — and there’s no Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Storage included.) In fact, StackSocial has been offering a version of this deal since the beginning of 2022. But this lowest-ever price won’t last, so take the plunge while you can.
The deal for Mac users expires Jan. 1 and the discount on the Windows version will end Jan. 4.