Forked Thread: What is WOTC's Goal with the GSL?

[Corjay]

Forked from: What is it about the GSL that is really a deal breaker?

Look how many people have sued, and won, against things like phone companies, despite having signed a contract saying they agree to be held to the things they are now suing about? Just because the companies signed on to the GSL doesn't make them slaves to the will and whim of WoTC with no recourse.

At what cost? See, that's part of the issue. A large corporation has a budget and staff lawyers, plus they can pay outside counsel. What hasn't really been discussed here is that WotC, at the appearance of a breaching product, can file for the injunction. Whether they get it or no, the costs alone to appear and defend against this are high. An IP lawyer, or someone in a related field, might be expected to charge $175-$300 an hour to defend one of these cases. What small publisher can afford that?

THANK YOU!!! That is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make. Wizards has a huge warchest compared to even Goodman Games or Mongoose (let alone someone like Alea or other PDF/POD only publishers). Wizards can just keep dragging out a court battle long before it even gets to the court room and can keep going long after a company that is aledgedly in violation of the GSL runs out of money to fight a court fight.

That's what I was trying to get at when I said "You're saying that you believe Wizards will ever allow the situation get to the end of the trial. I am saying that that is not a likely strategy for Wizards, no matter how solid Wizard's case it."

So you're saying that they want to crush small publishers?

Crush, no. Wear them down into a fine powder, yes. I'm not a lawyer, but I am a strategist. And to me Wizards actions (combined with the license) have been working towards very specific goals.

1) Increase the value of the D&D name while devaluing everyone elses.

2) Increase their own market share while making it harder for others to be on equal footing.

3) Make the environment as unfriendly as possible.

4) Untimately resulting in 5E with no free license.

Allow me to explain. (and remember, Wizards today is very different from the Wizards of the GSL)

How do you increase the value of the D&D name?

• Get it out there. In order for the name to have value, it must be recognizible. So it has to be everywhere. Creating the d20 logo was a mistake. It made the d20 logo recognizible, not D&D. So wizards is giving away their logo. It helps sell their licensees books while making the D&D name more recognizible.
• Make sure the name represents consistant quality. McDonalds isn't known for quality, but their IP has value because its consistant. The GSL has quality standards. Well, how many products need to be of low quality before the company is in violation of the GSL? That is not spelled out. Mongoose's early stuff was considered very low quality. They got better, but would the current Wizards find them in violation of the GSL for their low quality? I don't know, but hold that thought.
• Make your product a higher price. This one is odd, but true nonetheless. Microsoft's products aren't known for quality, but they sell. And they're usually more expensive. But if I see a $300 piece of microsoft software sitting next to some other company's software that costs $50 (esp if I never heard of the other company's software), I'm going to assume the Microsoft one is better, simply because it costs more. My girlfriend is an IT person and she's proven to me time and again that that is not true, but it is a hardwired assumption. Alea may make excellent products, but they are so cheap that one could assume that Wizard's products MUST be better (and that difference in pricing is reflected in their pricing).

How has Wizards increased their own market share and made it harder for other companies to be on equal footing.

• The rules were mostly ready back in Dec, when they said they were putting them into binders. Hell, the rules were complete enough for them to go into beta testing in Sept last year. But no 3rd party company saw them until customers did. The license was mostly done, if not completely done in Jan, but no one saw it until after the rules were seen. Why? Companies turned in NDAs so they wouldn't have talked. So what was the problem. Wizards attempted (successfully?) to make 3.5 a dead market. With every player and company waiting to see the 4E rules, few released products and fewer still bought products. How many LGSs want to take a chance on going back to selling products for a system that haven't sold well in a year? How many publishers want to try that? (Necromancer does it as a hobby and Orcus doesn't even want to.) Six months ago, if Green Ronin, Paizo and Necromancer all rejected this license, how many customers would be looking forward to 4E? That was their plan. It worked well for them. Customers evaluated 4E based on what they saw instead of what their favorite company did. Had companies seen the license back in Jan, their 4E PHB sales would have been sharply lower.
• Wizards product catelog for next year includes power cards. Does the GSL allow for 3PPs to produce power cards? No. That's a big no no. Wizards is still trying to launch their online version of 4E. Will 3PPs be allowed to sell their products there? GSL says no websites or online versions of their products, except PDF books. Will the DDI be an exception to this? I didn't see this in the GSL so until I hear otherwise, I'm assuming no. Can you produce minis? No. Well can you produce minis of your stuff and just not have the logo on it? No, there's no mixing of GSL and non-GSL products (as per the GSL). So if you made a monster called an owllion, you can't make a mini of it. So Wizards is going to be selling products in areas that their licensees simply cannot.

How do they make the publishing environment unfriendly?

• The GSL is a rather 3PP unfriendly document. I've stated possible scenarioes in previous posts. (I'm rushing since it's almost 1am here).

Lastly can you find a company that believes with all their heart that 5E will have a free license? Can you find one that believes it beyond a reasonable doubt?

I agree with your first three bullets with the exception that Microsoft sells cheaper, not more expensive. It's apple that sells expensive.

Your next bullet regarding the readiness of the license is purely speculative, and the official word from WOTC was that they weren't satisfied with the license and kept working on it until its release. That said, it is fishy how the final license ended up so dangerous. That, and only that, will I concede without further proof.

The next bullet has no weight. Anyone can produce power cards. There's nothing WOTC can do to stop that. The only thing is that they can't be formatted the same or contain WOTC property.

Regarding your last point, you may want to restate your points here, as I don't want to search everywhere for them. At least post links.

 

[pemerton]

Anyone can produce power cards.

Not for existing powers. Without a licence, this would breach copyright. And if attempted under the GSL, it would violate clause 5.5, because it would reprint core rulebook text.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I agree with your first three bullets with the exception that Microsoft sells cheaper, not more expensive. It's apple that sells expensive.

Microsoft Office Standard MSRP $239.99
Open Office free to download
Google Office free (for now)

Your next bullet regarding the readiness of the license is purely speculative, and the official word from WOTC was that they weren't satisfied with the license and kept working on it until its release.

The OGL and SRD back in 2000 was released to publishers in draft form. It wasn't finished, but there was a gentleman's agreement between Wizards and 3PPs that they wouldn't touch what Wizards said don't touch. If Wizards wanted to be the "champion of the little guy", they could have done the same again. They had the license done enough to announce back in Jan that the new license would be called the GSL. They may have been tweeking it since then, but enough of the basic framework was done to know that it would be vastly different then the OGL. Not only that hte rules were sent off the printer in march. Yet no company saw them until june. Why? They could have sent all the rules off to companies along with draft licenses and companies that wanted to accept it could have more time to playtest their material.

The next bullet has no weight. Anyone can produce power cards. There's nothing WOTC can do to stop that. The only thing is that they can't be formatted the same or contain WOTC property.

3. Licensed Products. The license granted in Section 4 is for use solely in connection with Licensee’s publication, distribution, and sale of roleplaying games and roleplaying game supplements that contain the Licensed Materials and are published in a hardcover or soft-cover printed book format or in a single-download electronic book format (such as .pdf), and accessory products to the foregoing roleplaying games and roleplaying game supplements that are not otherwise listed as excluded in Section 5.5
("Licensed Products").
5.5 Licensed Products. This License applies solely to Licensed Products as defined in Section 3 and to the specified uses set forth in Section 4. For the avoidance of doubt, and by way of example only, no Licensed Product will (a) include web sites, interactive products, miniatures, or character creators; (b) describe a process for creating a character or applying the effects of experience to a character; (c) use the terms "Core Rules" or "Core Rulebook" or variations thereof on its cover or title, in self-reference or in advertising or marketing thereof; (d) refer to any artwork, imagery or other depiction contained in a Core Rulebook; (e) reprint any material contained in a Core Rulebook except as explicitly provided in Section 4; or (f) be incorporated into another product that is itself not a Licensed Product (such as, by way of example only, a magazine or book compilation).

For power cards, at best it is ambiguous. For minis and stuff for DDI, thats out. Personally, if they do not allow minis, it's not a big leap for me to believe that a 3PP is not allowed to make cards for use with said disallowed minis (esp if they can be used with the minis game).

 

[pemerton]

For power cards, at best it is ambiguous. For minis and stuff for DDI, thats out. Personally, if they do not allow minis, it's not a big leap for me to believe that a 3PP is not allowed to make cards for use with said disallowed minis (esp if they can be used with the minis game).

I responed to this in the other thread. I can't see anything that would stop me publishing monster X as a GSL product, then publishing a miniature for that product as an unlicensed product.

Of course, I couldn't label the mini as a D&D product, nor include a stat card.

As for power cards, nothing stops me doing power cards for my own powers - but I can't do them for core rulebook powers.

 

[CountPopeula]

Forked from: What is it about the GSL that is really a deal breaker?

I agree with your first three bullets with the exception that Microsoft sells cheaper, not more expensive. It's apple that sells expensive.

That's not exactly true. Microsoft Office 2008 is $150. iWork 2008 is $79.00. Vista upgrade is $160, 10.5 full install is $130. The 80 gig Zune and 80 gig iPod are both $250. Apple does have very expensive professional-level programs like Final Cut, but Final Cut costs about 1/3 to 1/2 of what competing Avid Media Composer costs.

What you're thinking is that Apple hardware is more expensive that Dell and Gateway. Although Dell's Alienware subsidiary is priced comparable to Apple's hardware, possibly a little higher than Apple. When you factor in performance, Apple is comparable to Alienware, possibly superior in pure benchmark tests. So this is basically a false assumption too, when apple is priced next to comparable products as opposed to $400 laptops from walmart.

As for Microsoft selling cheaper... no. Microsoft sells more expensive in almost everything they do, excluding XBOX. Of course, it was hard to out-expensive Sony there. Microsoft also sells its name. "C'mon, everyone uses Windows, don't be difficult." This is something Wizards does with D&D, sells the game on name more than merit. Although D&D does have a lot of merit to sell it on, brand loyalty sells more than products, it sells ancillary products.

And every brand wants to be a lifestyle brand now. Coke t-shirts, NASCAR romance novels. Stuff like that.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

That's not exactly true. Microsoft Office 2008 is $150. iWork 2008 is $79.00. Vista upgrade is $160, 10.5 full install is $130. The 80 gig Zune and 80 gig iPod are both $250. Apple does have very expensive professional-level programs like Final Cut, but Final Cut costs about 1/3 to 1/2 of what competing Avid Media Composer costs.

What you're thinking is that Apple hardware is more expensive that Dell and Gateway. Although Dell's Alienware subsidiary is priced comparable to Apple's hardware, possibly a little higher than Apple. When you factor in performance, Apple is comparable to Alienware, possibly superior in pure benchmark tests.

There you go, bringing facts to a debate . . . tsk tsk.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I can't see anything that would stop me publishing monster X as a GSL product, then publishing a miniature for that product as an unlicensed product.

6.2 No Backward Conversion. [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]Licensee acknowledges and agrees that it will not publish any product pursuant to the OGL that features the same or similar title, product line trademark, or contents of a Licensed Product.

[/FONT][/FONT]

Ending emphasis mine.

As far as I am concerned, the above GSL quote should read "non-GSL" instead of "OGL." If some other company comes up with another license that works similar to the OGL, Wizards can change the GSL to include that license. WEG (before Gibson decided to sell WEG) talked about doing exactly this. Plus there are other open licenses out there already that could be used in a similar manner.

So if they can change the GSL to include other licensed products, they can also change it to include any non-GSL licensed product. Remember, Wizards' original intention was for the GSL to be on a company by company basis.

If an Owllion was in your GSL product, you agree that the contents will not be in a non-GSL product. Well you can call it something else. Then Wizards can fight you that the artwork is in violation of the agreement since the artwork is similar to the GSL product.

 

[Scribble]

The motive for the GSL I think was the question string:

Did the d20 STL work?

If not- Why not?

How can we make it so a similar license WILL work?

I think the answer was, no it didn't because it was essentially meaningless after a while.

The way to get it to work seems to be to allow more access to the brand part of D&D, but because it's the brand they also have to be stricter and more protective.

I guess they went a bit too far, and didn't realize that gamers tend to be slightly paranoid...

 

[Corjay]

First, dmccoy, saying "non-GSL" is too broad. It would be unreasonable especially considering that they simply want to phase out the OGL, not restrict publishers from their own licenses.

If an Owllion was in your GSL product, you agree that the contents will not be in a non-GSL product. Well you can call it something else. Then Wizards can fight you that the artwork is in violation of the agreement since the artwork is similar to the GSL product.

Sorry, but this is just plain wrong. Artwork can only be covered under copyright, not license. What a license can do is say that artwork cannot contain WOTC IP, but they cannot restrict it just because it is "similar" to GSL product. It's like Lucas IP. You can depict a character with all the trappings of the Jedi as long as 1) the word "Jedi" isn't part of the title, 2) it is not a Star Wars character, and 3) it is not a race unique to Star Wars, but there's nothing they can do about a lightsaber or wearing Japanese-style robes while wielding one, as lightsabers existed in science fiction before Star Wars, and the clothing is not unique to Star Wars.

 

[dmccoy1693]

First, dmccoy, saying "non-GSL" is too broad. It would be unreasonable especially considering that they simply want to phase out the OGL, not restrict publishers from their own licenses.

So if someone made an OGL in all but name just to get around the current GSL and released a game with that new license and publishers released material for both 4E and that other game, you are certain that Wizards would have no problem with it, ever, regardless of staff changes and whoever Hasbro appoints to the company's top job? Is this what you are saying?

As long as the potential for abuse is there, it is not acceptable, as far as I am concerned. The OGL+d20 combo was perfect because it was abuse free. Wizards didn't like BoEF so the company just went OGL. Fearing a new edition, go OGL. Want to make your own game with modified d20 rules, go OGL.