On 4th edition, OGL, and the end of all things
It seems to me that the automatic switch to 4th edition by the gaming public is taken for granted and not analyzed carefully enough.
Can somebody explain to me why all these people with a bazillion hardcovers on their shelf, many (if not most) of which have barely been read - are in such a rush to switch and scrap $1500-$2000 in mostly new and modern hardcover books?
Does the answer change when it's only $200 in hardcovers on the shelf?
Why does that happen? Why?
When the switch to third edition came, 2nd edition was about 12 years old. Rules wise, it was a much older system still – essentially being first edition with a tweak here and there. The bulk of the game was circa 1978 in design, and it was creaky as hell. 2nd edition was played by a lot of people why just used the first edition books to play it.
Art direction wise, the 3.x game presented itself as radically different, too. The printing quality of 2E material was nowhere NEAR that of 3rd edition WotC.
Third edition was a huge change in comparison with this. System wise, rulebook wise, art, presentation – everything changed.
When 3.0 changed to 3.5, there were some changes in the crunch but it wasn’t that big a deal. Yes, people preferred switching to 3.5 to maintain pace with the new books - but there was something else that mattered to many gamers too: The switch was incremental and more name than substance. And the OGL was maintained so the switch impacted there as well in terms of perception.
If you stayed behind in editions – the message would be clear: you would be marooned as nobody would support it. Dungeon and Dragon magazine would no longer support 3.0. The D20 3rd party press would no longer support it on an ongoing basis. If you wanted any new products at all -– you needed to switch to 3.5.
That’s the difference. That’s the key.
So the overwhelming majority of people did switch to 3.5 - and fast..
Well this recent claw back of Dungeon and Dragon magazines may have thrown a wrench in things for WotC. Now we’ll be upgrading to “stay current” with what, exactly?
If 4th edition throws out the OGL and breaks with 3.5 – I really am not so sure there will be this unified great mass exodus from 3.5 to move to 4th as there was before.
There are 90 some hardcovers out for 3.x from WotC alone. There are more rules than we could ever want – and for most of us – ever read. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of these books are very recent. They are new – and they look and feel modern too. This is not some dusty old game book that is about to be replaced by something looking a bazillion times better and glitzier.
And it isn’t going to be accompanied with an urgency to “stay current” with the Magazine’s support and the rest of the third party press, either.
Please don’t get me wrong. I believe a majority of people will migrate to 4th edition. But if there is no OGL for 4th ed, the third party press will continue to support 3.5 via the OGL by default in the short to medium term. Given that there are no WotC “official” magazines to stay current with anymore, and given that there is a good chance that the only “magazine” which will be out there, Pathfinder, will continue to support the OGL system – I am not so sure that we will see a complete mass exodus at all.
Because staying “current” will no longer have the same meaning. If WotC drops the OGL for 4th edition – they will only ensure that the third party press continues to support 3.5. The old system will continue to be supported by third parties – and that has never happened before.
Now – I don’t think WotC thinks this amounts to much of any threat. And certainly in the long term they are probably right. But I’m not so sure they are right in the short to medium term.
As a consequence, I expect that we will see a far higher fragmentation of the market when 4E comes out than we ever saw form 2>>3 or the 3 to >> 3.5 switch. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be a migration to 4th – but I don’t think it will have the same speed and domination of the market that we saw with the change to 3.x.
WotC has created a monster with 3.5; it won’t be easy for them to kill it.
Certainly, this is reason enough to clean up the existing licenses to ensure there are no official settings that continue to support 3.x D20. That probably is a factor in all that has been done recently as well (though I don’t think it’s the primary factor involved).
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that Paizo and Green Ronin are a threat to WotC. I am saying that WotC is a threat to WotC. Like Microsoft and WinXP, WotC’s biggest competition to 4th ed will be its own version of 3.5 of the game. To the extent that Paizo and Green Ronin and the other 3rd parties continue to support 3.5 through the OGL, a WotC 3.5 which is supported by third parties on an ongoing basis by those parties will keep WotC 3.5 viable and remain the biggest competition to 4th ed.
I do think that the sheer size and volume of material that 3.x has generated will be so large, and so new, that it will not be possible to just wave it all away and get people to switch en masse to 4th ed. Not this time – at least – not now.
If Wotc was wise, they would ensure that 3rd party support for 3.x ends when 4th edition starts. One could say that is what the end of all these licenses signifies – and they may be right to a degree. The surest way to ensure that support for older editions ends is to permit support for newer editions of 4E.
I don’t think WotC is wise enough to do this though. I think they are too greedy, too sure of their position as market leader and too dismissive of the possibility of failure.
Nevertheless, if they leave Paizo/Necro, Green Ronin, Goodman Games and a handful of the other larger 3rd parties with nothing else to do other than support 3.x OGL – then it’s a good bet that a lot of them will try to support 3.x OGL by default in the short term. And that will persuade many (not most – but many) to stay with using their WotC 3E books much longer than they otherwise would have.
I think a wiser course would be to kill off support for 3.5 by ensuring there is an OGL with 4E. I don’t think WotC is that smart.
In short: these damn tea leaves are not easily read.