Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events

[TheFindus]

You (TheFindus) have stuck with D&D for 30 years, through multiple editions - but a significant portion of players don't (possibly a majority of players). A significant portion of customers are lost with each new edition - an amount when combining all previous edition players, I believe, is a larger group than players of the current edition. As history has shown, this is a situation that will only increase with each subsequent edition. So, more customers have been left behind than new customers have been gained...and history shows that a significant portion of WotC's new customers will not switch when a new edition comes out. When 5E comes out, as is eventually inevitable, many of the current customers will fall away to continue with 4E - unless WotC maintains DDI support for 4E! The same thing is true for all other previous editions. Remember, 4E will likely be a "previous" edition someday also.

I would not say that during the 3.x times of DnD, too many people played the older versions of DnD compared to the number of people that played 3.x. I would guess that the number of DnD players not playing 3.x at that time was, well, insignificant revenuewise.

This changed with 3.x because of the OGL. These rules are free, creating competition for a new version of DnD. So competitors could still make a fortune with a product that is DnD without WotC being able to do anything about it.
Now, I do not think that anybody thought a lot about a new, fourth edition when the OGL was invented. But for 4E, WotC shot themselves in the knee with this.
And I see that as one of the 3 major reasons why a lot of people are not playing 4E now: they have 3.x to go to with full product support. If that support had stopped, more people would play 4E. Why buy 4E books if you have a shelf full of 3.x books that you can use? At least that was one of the 3 major reasons people said they did not turn to 4E. That, and of course, the design paradigm of 4E. And the fact that WotC sucked at digital content (promises, but not so much of a delivery).
Why should Paizo make 4E products if they can scavenge on the OGL? If you ask me, WotC should have put a 4 year OGL-licsence-running out-phase into the OGL to stop the competition. Cancel the liscence in 2008, be done completely with 3.x in 2012. I was not surprised at all to see that they did not offer a new OGL-type liscence for 4E. Because if 5E comes out, the same stuff would happen again. It is bad for WotC 4E business.

 

[James Jacobs]

Why should Paizo make 4E products if they can scavenge on the OGL? If you ask me, WotC should have put a 4 year OGL-licsence-running out-phase into the OGL to stop the competition. Cancel the liscence in 2008, be done completely with 3.x in 2012. I was not surprised at all to see that they did not offer a new OGL-type liscence for 4E. Because if 5E comes out, the same stuff would happen again. It is bad for WotC 4E business.

Just an observation... having worked at a version of Paizo that revolved around directly building on WotC's intellectual properties (Dragon and Dungeon magazine) and having worked at a version of Paizo that revolved around "scavenging on the OGL," I must say... scavenging is a LOT more healthy and, to be honest. a LOT more fun and rewarding.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

People!

Don't think of DDI as Wal-Mart: you're twisting the analogy very painfully. Wal-Mart is the retailer, not the producer.

Think of WotC as Coca-Cola Co. That company currently has more than 3,300 different brands under its corporate umbrella.

So the analogy would be WotC as an RPG company with Dungeons & Dragons 4Ed as one of their products. Gamma World is another. Previous iterations of D&D and GW- as well as past products like Boot Hill and future products as yet unknown- each satisfying part of the RPG buying public.

The question is whether WotC has the $$$, skills, and personnel to support more than 4Ed and GW, including past & present RPG IPs.

 

[renau1g]

Yeah I'd imagine the freedom of developing your own work/world is more fun than having to work on someone else's being subject to their final say.

I still lament Paizo not doing Dungeon...my players have suffered mightily with 4e's efforts, but I have begun translating a couple old Dungeon modules/AP's to 4e and once again have excellent stories to run my PC's through.

 

[BryonD]

I would not say that during the 3.x times of DnD, too many people played the older versions of DnD compared to the number of people that played 3.x. I would guess that the number of DnD players not playing 3.x at that time was, well, insignificant revenuewise.

This changed with 3.x because of the OGL. These rules are free, creating competition for a new version of DnD. So competitors could still make a fortune with a product that is DnD without WotC being able to do anything about it.

First an aside, I agree that WotC won't be supporting older editions through DDI any time soon.

It is interesting to imagine a one stop digital home for "Dungeons and Dragons". And it is even easy to imagine how that *might* end up being a huge winning choice after some start up. But, it is really hard to see that being in WotC's current plan.



On you comment here, it is difficult to divide between the effect of the 3X ruleset and the effect of the OGL. Clearly Pathfinder would not exist if it were not for the OGL. So it is a fundamental piece.

But, you can't write off the appeal of the rules. (As always, no comment intended on anyone's individual tastes, I am talking about overall market).

Pazio announced Pathfinder in March 2008. It was before 4E was released, but the market mood toward 4E was loud and clear. If a groundswell of fans were going, a lot of 3PPs would have held their nose and gone GSL. No doubt they would have set aside a lot of their IP first. But they would have gone that way. And even baring that, had Paizo still not gone 4E, they would not have gone 3E if there was not a clear market there. (I think the awesome results exceed their "very good" expectations, but the expectations of "very good" were reasonably founded.)

3E (or at least D20/OGL) was frequently criticized for stifling innovation because such a huge chuck of the market went that way. Again, the OGL was critical, but if players were not at least ok with the ruleset, the OGL would have sunk at the dock.

From a market point of view, 3E brought diverse gamers together. 4E simply doesn't offer the inclusion.

Now, I do not think that anybody thought a lot about a new, fourth edition when the OGL was invented. But for 4E, WotC shot themselves in the knee with this.
And I see that as one of the 3 major reasons why a lot of people are not playing 4E now: they have 3.x to go to with full product support. If that support had stopped, more people would play 4E. Why buy 4E books if you have a shelf full of 3.x books that you can use? At least that was one of the 3 major reasons people said they did not turn to 4E. That, and of course, the design paradigm of 4E. And the fact that WotC sucked at digital content (promises, but not so much of a delivery).

Heh, got long winded above....

Yeah, "design paradigm"....

 

[freebfrost]

I would be interested in knowing when the last time anyone from WotC did that for any non-WotC product on the WotC website.

That would have been the TSR Mail Order Hobby Shop. Pre-internet.

 

[czak]

Pazio announced Pathfinder in March 2008. It was before 4E was released, but the market mood toward 4E was loud and clear. If a groundswell of fans were going, a lot of 3PPs would have held their nose and gone GSL.

Just a minor quibble - I don't think the groundswell was the driver for the move to pathfinder, rather, I think it was the lack of a license (and all the crossed wires and changed plans at wotc around the licensing paradigm).

Paizo did not have the option of going GSL. The company had to keep publishing products in order to stay in business. IRCC Paizo needed between 8 and 6 months lead time to publish material. No license ahead of the game release and no access to the rules to actually write something meant switching to 4th ed was not an option.

If you go back and check the paizo forum archives, Vic Wertz and others were quite open about the process and why the decisions at various steps were made.


I do agree with you about the market mood, they did poll their fans to see what their options were - now how useful polling your forum and internet opinion is.... *shrug* It worked for them in this case, but was still a big gamble.

 

[BryonD]

Just a minor quibble - I don't think the groundswell was the driver for the move to pathfinder, rather, I think it was the lack of a license (and all the crossed wires and changed plans at wotc around the licensing paradigm).

Well, I didn't say it was groundswell, I said it was "lack" of one.

Again, I agree that the were multiple pieces to the issue, and I recall the conversations. But the did have an option to use the GSL. It was just a very poor option. And the gap was certainly a concern as well.
But the market moods towards both systems were at least as critical as anything else in getting us where we are.

I certainly don't think they were disappointed that GSL issues stood between them and their chance at supporting 4E....

 

[TheFindus]

Just an observation... having worked at a version of Paizo that revolved around directly building on WotC's intellectual properties (Dragon and Dungeon magazine) and having worked at a version of Paizo that revolved around "scavenging on the OGL," I must say... scavenging is a LOT more healthy and, to be honest. a LOT more fun and rewarding.

I am sure it is.
And from a DMs point of view, I have to admit that LOOTING every product financially available for the game you are playing is the best thing you can do. And since I like a lot of the stuff Paizo publishes, I loot it quite often - while playing 4E. And while Dungeon and Dragon magazines were much more expensive in the print version here in Germany, the content was much better under Paizo. Again, more to loot there.

But I am sure that WotC does not like the competition Paizo is. They do not like the fact that you can use the OGL for free and support an old version of DnD to an extent which this game has never seen before, resulting in a rift between gaming DnD communities.
Please, do not get the wrong impression about my choice of words here: If I were in Paizo's position, I would be a "scavenger", too. And in a big way. For me as a customer, competition is good.

 

[Zil]

I am sure it is.
And from a DMs point of view, I have to admit that LOOTING every product financially available for the game you are playing is the best thing you can do.

But I am sure that WotC does not like the competition Paizo is. They do not like the fact that you can use the OGL for free and support an old version of DnD to an extent which this game has never seen before, resulting in a rift between gaming DnD communities.
Please, do not get the wrong impression about my choice of words here: If I were in Paizo's position, I would be a "scavenger", too. And in a big way. For me as a customer, competition is good.

I think that your choice of wording is not really appropriate. I'm referring to "looting" and "scavenging". These words have very negative connotations and are not really appropriate descriptors.

A more apt analogy is to describe the OGL like an open source license which is, afterall, what is was modelled after. In a software world analogy, WoTC announced that they were no longer going to maintain or develop the 3.x D&D software branch. Because it was released via an open source license (i.e. the OGL), anyone else was free to step up to the plate and become the maintainer of the 3.x branch. So Pathfinder is thus the next version of the 3.x software that WoTC abandoned and Paizo is simply the new maintainer.

In the open source world, you don't go around saying that people taking over abandoned software projects are looters and scavengers. It's not polite and isn't really a true reflection of what has happened which is actually a positive thing - namely that software that people like is being supported rather than abandoned.

Now as for whether WoTC knew what they were getting into when the effectively "open-sourced" D&D, I'm sure many did know what they were getting into. And if they didn't, then they clearly weren't paying enough attention to the project model they were adopting.