Well, the edition war happened and 4e is dead, so the correlation is certainly there.
No, the correlation is not there.
We had a saying in Aircraft Maintenance:
"Just because a Pilot was scratching his butt when an indicator malfunctioned, doesn't mean that the Pilot scratching his butt had anything to do with the malfunction."
A Correlation means that the end of 4E and the edition wars are reciprocal, parallel, or complimentary to eachother, and there's just no evidence of this. Just because they happened concurrently does not prove correlation, cause and effect, or even contribution. If you had data (or anybody had data) that showed a significant amount of potential 4E fans didn't buy 4E or stopped buying 4E because of the edition warring - then you'd have proof. Without it, all you're doing is making claims with no evidence to support them - and making them as if they are self-apparent fact.
They aren't.
As with
depraved indifference, I don't believe
correlation means what you think it means...
There's been an edition war with every edition change, and the people waging that war are a vocal
minority. 4E is dead simply because an overwhelming amount of gamers voted with their wallets. Period.
C'mon Man. Your declaring this stuff from thread to thread to thread is nothing more than salvo's in yet another edition war.
If you're so against edition wars, why are you insisting on continuing them in this manner...?
I think the OGL and Pathfinder probably had more to do with it than the relentless, if disorganized, campaign of hatred and dis-information that characterized the edition war. But, I'm sure both contributed to 4e's "failure," and colored the 'lesson' WotC learned from it.
Relentless edition wars are not new with the advent of 4E. There is no proof that edition warring had anything to do with the demise of 4E, just as there is no proof of the same for the demise of 3E, 2E, 1E, and every other edition. Editions have natural life cycles based on the interest it garners among the fan base...but every edition will eventually reach a point where it's no longer a money maker through the sales of new books. That's just the way it is, and just what happened to 4E.
The edition wars are nothing more than a sideshow...a very unpleasant sideshow, but a sideshow nonetheless. They'll always be present, with each and every edition.
But if you don't like them so much, stop contributing to them.
The GSL makes cloning 4e on the level that Pathfinder cloned 3.5 impossible (well, illegal). And, while some sort of vague immitation using the OGL might stand the legal test, it's unlikely any 3pp would have the resources to carry through on the necessary legal defense to get there.
With nothing to 'rally around' the 4e fanbase will either feel forced into 5e or away from D&D altogether, there's not enough non-WotC 4e resources to make a go of it. That will, of course, be taken as final proof of the edition's failure.
With the use of the OGL, there can be much more than just a
"vague imitation". The OGL has been used for some very good products. And those "retro-clones" are far from "vague imitations".
You're making broad assumptions and wild forecasts based on little or no evidence, and doing so as if this was fact.
It's not fact. But it is edition warring.
1. Nobody knows if WotC will keep 4E materials available for sale as electronic downloads or not...nobody except WotC themselves. They may even make them available for POD. With what WotC has been saying lately, I'd be very surprised if elctronic versions of all the old materials (the previous pdf's, though not necessarily in pdf format) didn't start becoming available again before the release of 5E. They've straight out said they are working to bring them back.
2. DDI
is going to continue 4E support at least up through the release of 5E, and most likely longer, and possibly in perpetuity. If they don't get enough 4E fans to switch to 5E, I can't imagine them not wanting to keep those fans as customers. The best and easiest way is simply to continue DDI 4E support: as all it requires is maintenance and not development, and can garner a continuous revenue stream.
3. If WotC doesn't continue 4E DDI support, and doesn't make 4E books available through download (or POD), I'm certain that somebody will make an OGL version...if not many someones. And I honestly do not think there would be any legal resistance.
4. As long as anybody is playing 4E, which I'm certain people will, then 4E will never, ever, EVER, be a
failure. I think you're going to be looking for that
"final proof" you seem so looking forward to appearing, for a very very long time. Seems to me, that time would be much better spent playing and talking about games you like, rather than waiting for an
"I told you so" moment. I find this to be a very unenjoyable way to participate in such an enjoyable and wide ranging hobby as ours, and I think that's very sad.
