Open Letter to WotC from Chris Dias

[Morrus]

And slowly we spiral into the key issues.

While I didn't have a ton of sympathy for the letter..



As the halfling noted above, WotC could be wrong. The have been wrong about other things in recent years.

3E, and the 3E PHB, were really, really successfull. Former insiders agree on this, industry watchers agree on this. Some data has been presented on it. They coincided with the OGL. The OGL did not hurt them, at least much. Maybe the OGL helped. 3E plus d20 dominated the market like no game has in a long, long time. Again, I think this is "data", don't think its going out on a limb.

Now, I think that the decision to drop the OGL was rationalized by the d20 glut, but was really driven by people in R&D pissed off about other designers "stealing" from them. But I just think this, and base it on little dribs and drabs that have come out.

I do know that 4E has not even come close to dominating the market like 3E. And its main competition is other kinds of D&D. Again, basically data. Not saying which sells more, but the market share situation, at least roughly, is pretty clear.

I think that if WotC had handed Green Ronin and Paizo an OGL type arangment early on, the market would be different today. Maybe there would need to be a mechanism to move certain 3rd party content into DDI...but I think that this would have helped WotC, reduced the market divisions, and they would make more money.

But thats just what I think.

You're not showing causation, though. I do not believe that 4E's sales are affected by the existence or lack of a license, nor by the quality of it.

I believe that any trends are affected to a minuscule degree by the GSL, and that any prime movements in these trends are due to the products WotC is putting out themselves.

Whether we like it or not, the main compaint we see levelled at 4E is not about the GSL, it's that people don't like the game itself. 99% of people who play RPGs have never heard of the GSL; they had not heard of the OGL, either. 3PPs simply aren't a factor in this, in my opinion.

Given the premise that - anecdotes aside - none of us know any of these sales figures, if D&D is selling drastically less product it will be due to the game itself, not 3PPs or the lack of them. It is anecdotally apparent that a lot of people prefer Pathfinder to 4E as a game in itself, and did not like the upgrade to 4E.

So I return to my repeated statement - there is no evidence that altering the GSL would make any noticeable difference in 4E's sales figures. WotC clearly don't believe it would, and all we have to go on is a parallel success of 3E along with the timing of the OGL; but I argue that one did not cause the other. I think that market was ready for 3E, it needed 3E, and lots of 3E PHBs were sold. And, further, that 99% of those who bought a 3 PHB had never heard of the OGL or knew of any 3PPs.

So, in absence of any such proof, there remains little to no motive for WotC to change its stance on this. Especially given their apparent intent to move towards subscription services rather than actual product.

We should never mistake our little semi-informed (yet highly anecdotal) bubble on the web for the whole world.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I hear you.

But let's say that statement is wrong and for the sake of discussion Wizards is the most incompetent company on the face of the planet.

Hey they're not the government.

What's it to you?

I'd be sad, but beyond that I doubt it would affect me much.

Why should any of that matter to Wizards?

I know I don't matter to Wizards. They owe me nothing. I know that. Doesn't mean my company and many other companies just like mine can't provide them a valuable service.

It would be like if the world was enriched by the fact that we humans gave the world plastic. Ok. Bad example. It would be like if the world was enriched by us giving it pollution and tons of CO2 in the atmosphere... oh wait another bad example. Ummm... how about if the world was enriched by us removing the dodo bird...

Ok, I've got it.

The world is enriched by us giving the world South Park! Yes! That's my example I'm running with! The world is enriched with South Park!

Edit: sorry for the bunny trail. I just thought we all could use a little off topic humor to lighten the thread some.

 

[Wicht]

What's it to you?

I think a lot of it boils down to this question.

Those who feel WotC should treat 3pp like non-entities feel that its really none of our business to ask them to be nicer.

Those who would like to see WotC act like they are partnered with their 3pp colleagues do need to answer the above question.

For myself, my answer is this: I'm a nice guy. I'd like to see WotC succeed and thrive. I'm not convinced their RPG department is exactly thriving at the moment. I could be wrong, but it looks to me like they are a department trying to find their way. I would also like to see 4e 3pp succeed and thrive and, Morrus apparently excepted, they are not. They seem to be diminishing from few to fewer yet. Even Open Design's latest project (Midgard) could not muster 4e support from the Patrons. Dragon Age beat out 4e for alternate ruleset to Pathfinder.

And again, not to belabor the point, but Paizo's 3pp support stands in stark contrast to WotCs. Paizo goes well above and beyond what the OGL requires them to do in cooperating with 3pps. This earns them good will and the good will earns them business.

Much of what is needed to make the relationship between WotC and those companies who want to support them (ENWorld excepted) better are just small little things. It doesn't take a whole lot to make people aware of the fact that you are aware of them and approve of them.

 

[Wicht]

As I said, in any other industry, what's been proposed by the open letter is arrogant.

Except of course that there is another company who is doing exactly the things being requested. All the writer is asking is for WotC to follow the example set by another, successful, company.

 

[xechnao]

In any other industry, this wouldn't be seen as "manipulation," but rather "business." Figuratively speaking, you're saying that allowing third parties to create Burger King franchises is good for the Burger King brand. That's true; it is. Improved visibility is always a good thing. But what would you say if the franchisees said they shouldn't have to pay Burger King the franchise fee? That would be an arrogant request, don't you think? If Burger King didn't charge the franchise fee, they'd get free advertising, but so would the franchisee. The reality, though, is that "Burger King, Inc." are the ones with the market power because they're the ones that worked hard to create a marketable product. They absolutely should charge a franchise fee, and market forces allow for that. That's good business, not "manipulation."

Burger King may also want a fee license deal as an entry filter of quality control of its partners. Also Burger King should be controlling if partners conform to quality standards and this thing costs. So, a license fee or some deal of some kind of partnership contribution should be something to cover for this cost too.

 

[Frylock]

Except of course that there is another company who is doing exactly the things being requested. All the writer is asking is for WotC to follow the example set by another, successful, company.

That's not an exception. It's a false comparison. You argue as if Paizo is in WotC's position. They aren't. WotC creation is the base of Paizo's success. They're in a different market position, and if it weren't for the license on which they rely to create Pathfinder, they probably wouldn't be so helpful to their 3PPs either.

 

[Balesir]

Plus they really need to let people add their own content to the Character Builder. It's something a lot of gamers could use, that would as a fringe benefit would make it easier for 3pp.

I totally agree - and this is part of what I wrote about above. But, by moving to a "we hold all the data" model they have painted themselves into a corner on this; how can they have everyone's houserules in their database? With the offline CB it would have been possible - easy, actually, as has been demonstrated, ahem. But they appear to want not merely to offer product their customers will pay for, but to control those customers as part of the deal.

Since late 2008 I have been working with one of the (maybe the) fastest growing PC game producer and publisher, Paradox Interactive. One of their differentiators with other producers is that, as a point of principle, they do not use DRM of any sort. It's not that they like pirates - they hate them. But they like paying customers more, and it seems to them that offering paying customers a product that is clearly and significantly worse than what they could get from hacked versions on torrents is just taking the mickey. The key to beating the pirates, in the view of their CEO, Frederick Wester, is not offering cheaper (duh!), or trying to control your customers - it's offering better than the pirates ever could at a decent price. It seems to work for PC games and it's at least worth a try for RPGs.

I know this has been all about how WotC treat customers, not 3pp - but I think the two are linked. The 3pp, if they do their job well, are, after all, there to service WotC's customers; a genuine will to give customers the best product they can would naturally bring 3pp into the loop. And giving customers the best product you can, at a fair price, seems stubbornly to remain the best way to achieve sustained success in business as far as I can see.

 

[enrious]

I know I don't matter to Wizards. They owe me nothing. I know that. Doesn't mean my company and many other companies just like mine can't provide them a valuable service.

They disagree. And honestly, since no one that I've seen post on this has any control over how/what Wizards does, we're basically just wasting disk space on the server.

Edit: sorry for the bunny trail. I just thought we all could use a little off topic humor to lighten the thread some.

Heh, couldn't hurt.

I get the passion. I don't think it's a bad thing from a publisher. I think everyone else who's posted here and elsewhere on this subject has passion, as gamers. Publishers and writers don't stop having gaming passion, or at least, if they do I'd hope they find something they are enthused about.

It's just that...none of us have any control over it. I get the original Open Letter and why it was posted. None of us wants Wizards/D&D to fail. We want it to succeed. We all just have different beliefs in how that happens and it's hard to know that at the end of the day, none of them matter.

Old anecdote of a baseball umpire once commenting that on a given pitch, there were 40,000 opinions on if it was a ball or a strike, but his was the only one that counted.

And that's Wizards, for better or for worse.

In any event, go write a book that greatly expands and improves on the kingdom and mass combat rules so I can support a PFRPG 3pp.

I feel for the 4e 3pp that agree with Open Letter. I understand the people who disagree.

I just fail to see why years later we're all still so eager to play this as a zero-sum game.

 

[Wicht]

...if it weren't for the license on which they rely to create Pathfinder, they probably wouldn't be so helpful to their 3PPs either.

Maybe I am naive, but I like to think they are helpful because they genuinely love the game industry.

They have acknowledged (publically and more than once) their thankfulness for the OGL and their desire to continue to promote the concept of open gaming. Like I said, their support of 3pp goes far beyond what the OGL requires, and those publishers who work with them are very appreciative of the fact.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I just fail to see why years later we're all still so eager to play this as a zero-sum game.

I thought long and hard about this back in the 3E->4E transition and I finally figured out why we argue so.

We play a game of heroes. In game, we become braver, stronger, more confident. We become the people that can overcome any adversity. We become great and powerful. We slay giants and we down demons. But the one demon we can't fight is the eventuality of time. Eventually time moves on and we get older, the world moves on without us. And a new edition comes with changes many of us were not comfortable with. Like a beloved character that died and was turned into a ghoul, it pains us at a deep level. Suddenly that hero is seen by us as corrupted. Tainted. Finally we are saddened.

While Pathfinder was that new character that let us be that same hero again, we all know that somewhere deep down, the wound is still there. Someday, we hope, it will heal fully and we hope to never again to feel the pain that many felt when we first heard that the gnome being in the monster manual and a tiefling in the phb.

To the heroes in all of us. Long live the heroes.

In any event, go write a book that greatly expands and improves on the kingdom and mass combat rules so I can support a PFRPG 3pp.

I go now and do exactly that. Good night everyone.