New GSL Announcement

Pale said:

So why do they seem to care what third-party publishers do with 3.5 OGL material? If there position is as secure as you make it out to be, why bother with the so-called "poison pill" clause at all?

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I have NO idea. It makes no sense at all. Except, perhaps their view of RPGs is bigger than my view (which only includes table top gaming).

Pale said:

So why do they seem to care what third-party publishers do with 3.5 OGL material? If there position is as secure as you make it out to be, why bother with the so-called "poison pill" clause at all?

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I don't think they specifically care about 3.5 or feel threatened by it.

I think the attempt to break from the OGL and move to a new license is designed to allow Wizards to alter the terms over time, and encourage upgrading along with them, by fans and publishers, asw they release new versions of the game.

Pale said:

I thought that White Wolf had a larger share of the market towards the end of the Second Edition days.

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According to the WotC survey from 1999/2000, 66% played D&D monthly. 25% played Vampire and 15% played Werewolf, so even if there was no crossover that only gives White Wolf 40% of monthly gamers.

That's just what games they were playing though, not what they were buying...

jmucchiello said:

I have NO idea. It makes no sense at all. Except, perhaps their view of RPGs is bigger than my view (which only includes table top gaming).

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Or it might be that even though those sales don't remotely rival the sales of D&D, they'd still like to get those sales to go with the ones they have. Every sale is profit. The more sales they make, the greater the profit. The fewer competitors they have, no matter how small those competitors may be, the greater the profit. The numbers don't need to be huge to add up.

Every person who sticks to 3.5 instead of moving up to 4th edition is a lost sale for WotC. Just like every person who buys some other competing game instead of D&D is a lost sale for WotC. Every single one cuts that tiny little bit deeper into their potential profit. So all those games combined, are definitely competition to WotC, even if WotC does overshadow them all.

Beyond maintaining their dominance, there's not much WotC can do about that. But the thing with the "poison pill" is, WotC might think maybe they can do something to at least minimize the sales they're potentially losing to 3.5 by using the terms of the GSL to reduce the overall number of their competitors (and the significance of the remainder), by locking the major players into being D&D support instead of direct competition.

madelf said:

Or it might be that even though those sales don't remotely rival the sales of D&D, they'd still like to get those sales to go with the ones they have. Every sale is profit. The more sales they make, the greater the profit. The fewer competitors they have, no matter how small those competitors may be, the greater the profit. The numbers don't need to be huge to add up.

Every person who sticks to 3.5 instead of moving up to 4th edition is a lost sale for WotC. Just like every person who buys some other competing game instead of D&D is a lost sale for WotC. Every single one cuts that tiny little bit deeper into their potential profit. So all those games combined, are definitely competition to WotC, even if WotC does overshadow them all.

Beyond maintaining their dominance, there's not much WotC can do about that. But the thing with the "poison pill" is, WotC might think maybe they can do something to at least minimize the sales they're potentially losing to 3.5 by using the terms of the GSL to reduce the overall number of their competitors (and the significance of the remainder), by locking the major players into being D&D support instead of direct competition.

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While this is certainly one strategy, and I wouldn't fault the business perspective that would dictate that WotC adopt this strategy, there is potential fallout from it. A true poison pill provision can increase the number of customers that choose not to buy the new edition based on principle. I've gone into more detail in other threads, so I won't delve deeply into my reasons here.

The short of it is that WotC can choose to leverage market position to do what they wish. Whether it is presented as pushing competing products out of the marketplace, or even discouraging support for products that are built upon an inferior foundation, you run the risk of alienating some of your existing customer base. These are luxury products, after all. WotC needs to determine if the risk of this alienation will be counterbalanced by the influx of new market share.

If they are weighing the impact of lost sales opportunities for people that don't adopt the new edition because support for the old edition still exists, how many sales might they lose when picky fans don't adopt the new edition because WotC used market leverage to drive that support away?

I'm not even sure WotC intended to have the proposed exclusivity provisions stamp out competing products. I think they have more intent to keep mixed OGL/GSL products from infringing upon the intellectual property they are looking to open up.

In that context, I can accept that a product released under both licenses would be a bad thing. However, I will be very unhappy if the exclusivity provisions dictate that a given company cannot support differing OGL and GSL products.

Yet, in many other ways, I am excited by the prospects of the GSL. I can see a lot of very interesting and exciting ways that WotC can provide more opportunities to provide a rich support channel for the game and any given setting through the third party publishers and the GSL.

I hope they have found a way to remove the poison pill aspects while still protecting the access that the GSL provides. As a customer, I see no problems with having support for all of my favorite games from excellent publishers. Even if some of the support products are for GSL based games while other support products are for OGL based games.

I'm closing this due to length, especially because WotC has answered the OGL questions! Time for someone to start a new thread.