A lot of this thread (including some of my own posts) has been the discussion of exactly what you've mentioned. That's fine (and interesting) to discuss... because hoo boy, I think WotC really did mismanage the GSL despite some extreme efforts on the part of brand management not to neuter it.
Bitching about the GSL and WOTC policy and talking down 4e sales are part and parcel of the edition war.
4e haters have been misrepresenting these issues and spreading confusion and uncertainty about these issues since before the gsl hit. Sorry I guess that's another bannable fact but there it is.
Speaking of which... Admin here. Ladies and gentlemen, desperately trying to start edition wars when you've been warned not to - heck, when your last attempt got you a two week suspension - gets you booted. So use this post of an example of what not to do. Trying to proselytize "teh troof!" as only you see it doesn't win you a lot of credit.
Anyone should feel free to PM me if you wish to discuss this, or if it's the least bit unclear. ~ Piratecat
It's frankly dishonest and misleading to talk about the performance of 4e or the reaction to the GSL, or the fate of 3pp, without talking about the edition war and the tone of the hostility to 4e and factors relating to it, like the GSL. The edition war had an enormous impact on the reception to 4e, and people's understanding of it. Omitting mention of it is dishonest. Necromancer games and the issues surrounding it certainly relate to the edition war quite clearly.
This influence was felt in many ways, but here's one example. I hope it's not offensivly accurate enough to earn a permenent ban, but I guess that's up to you:
4e 3pp would have had a much better chance of succeeding if the majority of criticisms of 4e and related issues (like the ddi cbuilder) had been presented rationally and grounded in fact, and discussed issues like the weakness of 3pp splatbooks in the face of the cbuilder, and actual key issues of omitted content WRT the GSL SRD (such as deities and certain races).
There are many, many isues that have emerged since 4e and the gsl were released, that could have been recognised much earlier- take a look at the closing comments from One Bad Egg as an example of the kinds of issues I mean. I'm not suggesting that those guys support my argument, but they point out key issues with 4e 3pp, and these are issues that more people could have been aware of earlier if rational discussion had been the order of the day.
Time and time again we hear from 3pp people who were blindsided by issues which, in hindsight, should have been obvious to many of us. There are many reasons why these issues were not more commonly recognised, and the edition war is certainly one of the big reasons.
Then as now, criticism of 4e was dominated by 4e-hating edition warriors who were not rational, often ignorant of the facts, or simply dishonest in their tirades. The majority of criticism was unfounded and drowned out real efforts to critique the system and the issues relating to it, like the GSL and ddi. There are any number of legitimate criticmsms to be made against 4e, GSL, ect, but no matter what people try to pretend, these were not the criticisms being leveled by the majority of people who were criticising 4e early on- they still aren't.
In turn, this meant that people considering for isntance, 3pp for 4e, were far less able to find good info, and may also have been sidetracked by many of the faux criticisms presented. And both sides of the edition war contributed to this- by seeing these dodgy criticisms refuted(as was commonly the case), people considering or pursuing 3pp may have felt that they had a good grasp of the criticisms of 4e, when in reality there were many issues they remained oblivious to, or neglected.
This was particularly bad in the GSL arguments, where the gamut ranged from legitimate criticism, to bizzare conspracy theories, to people flipping out about clauses that were in fact standard legal language for pretty much any contract. Finding real info in that mess was extremly difficult- people are still arguing about it on this thread!
There have been improvements over time, for instance the thread about what kind of products people are interested in buying from 4e 3pp providers. But these are a minority signal in the noise that is the edition war- and that includes elements of it that the enworld mods apparently don't recognise.
If you're going to have a real conversation about the GSL, 3pp, any of it, then you need to talk about the edition wars. But please, continue to censor frank discussion of the issue, because heaven forbid we recognise some of these issues, put some of the false criticisms to bed, and actually make it easier for somebody to publish 3pp for 4e.
