Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events

[BryonD]

By building off of the very things that are popular, you can expand your audience and sell more books.

I agree with you.

There may have been some money that was diverted from WotC to 3PPs. But for every dollar that went that way, three dollars came to WotC because somebody loved the direction a 3PP took their D&D game and kept buying D&D books because of it.

3E lasted a solid life cycle. If the competition was hurting it, it would have gone away much quicker.

 

[Zil]

There is a difference between what I think helps my game as a gamer and the strategical business decision somebody has to make as a manager of a company. I think I made myself very clear that as a gamer I use, loot and scavenge every bit of material I bought and think I could use to improve my game.

I'm not talking just about just my own personal game. I'm talking about the greater gaming community, and in particular the D&D umbrella which includes all previous versions of the game and close relatives/offshoots. I'm talking more about the hobby than my personal game.

Yes, I do understand that business decisions don't always align perfectly with my personal wishes and desires. And business decisions don't always align perfectly with what is best for the hobby. However, sometimes they can align well. And I think the OGL did align well for WoTC.

It no longer does, but that is because they tried to escape from the OGL with 4E and they've discovered it wasn't so easy. They could have better used the OGL ecosystem in 3E days and they could have released 4E via the OGL.

I do want WotC to succeed as a company because I like the new version of the game very much. Maybe you feel the same way about Pathfinder. And although this seems to be completely off the topic of this thread, we are discussing the effect of the OGL on WotC's ablitity to be successful with 4E. And I still argue that the OGL took a huge chunk out of that success.

And I say that it didn't have to take such a huge chunk out of 4Es potential sales. If they had initially released 4E via the OGL then there would have been less incentive for Paizo to have gone their own way. Perhaps they may still have, but they were on the fence for a while and if WoTC had gone with the OGL for 4E they wouldn't have necessarily have driven Paizo into being a direct competitor.

I'm actually pleased with how things turned out because I get to continue to have support for the version of the game I prefer, but the 4E crowd still has their own version and support through WoTC. Everyone wins and gets to play the game they enjoy. WoTC might not earn as much money as they were hoping, but I doubt they are losing money from 4E. What they may be losing is their position as market leader, but all that means is that they need to better position their game so that it appeals to more people. Whether that is by improving on the game or otherwise better positioning the game to appeal to more people, it's something they need to work out. And when they do, hopefully you'll be happier with the version of the game you enjoy.

Again: Would you not have bought WotC products if Freeport, Ptolus and the Scarred Lands had been 1. nonexistant or 2. published under a more limited version of the OGL, a GSL let's say?

I never said I wouldn't have. However, I don't really care for the Forgotten Realms as a campaign setting so until Eberron came around I might seriously have been tempted elsewhere to another game that had a more interesting setting. If I had, then I wouldn't have been buying that many WoTC crunch books since I wasn't using the 3E d20 system anymore.

The reason being that people were ready for a new edition and really liked the new version of DnD. That was the reason why they bought so many PHBs, not because they said: "Oh, without Ptolus/Freeport, I do not want to play 3rd edition".

You are missing the point I was trying to make. The issue is that people might get bored of the limited options available from WoTC so having these other OGL 3.x options available from third party publishers helps these folk keep playing the same game which means WoTC has the potential to keep selling stuff to them even though they are playing someone elses campaign setting (or using someone elses book of magic items or monsters or whatever). The alternative in a non-OGL version of 3E is that people are more likely to drift away to a completely different game system that is not d20/3.x based and then those people are far less likely to buy WoTC products.

And again, to make this very clear: as a DM, I like the fact that I have Paizo's products to choose from that I can loot for material. But it is not my job to make money in the RPG business. It is WotC's job to do that. And they should not have created the OGL in my opinion. It hurt them really badly.

Wizard's completely botched the release of 4E. That is what hurt them. Even still, I think they are still making money - just not as much as they would have liked. The only sad thing is that they are at risk of seeing D&D fall from being the #1 fantasy RPG game.

If 4E had from the get-go been released as OGL I think we would have a completely different ball-game now. It was the 4E release decisions more than anything that have lead to the relative decline of D&D 4E.

Have you ever wondered why WotC did not publish the old campaigns in hardcover format? Maybe they thought that they would not sell because of the sheer amount of campaign worlds out there. Maybe that caused a glut in the market. At least I felt that there were too many campaigns to choose from.

You just said earlier that the TSR campaign worlds were doing well when justifying a non-OGL based release of 3E. I don't follow where you are going with this sub-thread.

WotC wants to make a pirate campaign. Oh, wait, because of the OGL, Green Ronin already has one. What about a mega-city full of adventure? Oh, Mr. Cook came up with that after he left.
As a gamer, I do not care if I buy Ptolus from Cook or WotC. But as WotC, I probably want the gamers to buy Ptolus from me only perhaps? I would argue that the OGL created missed opportunities for WotC, because it gave the competition the chance to fully implement interesting game worlds using the 3rd edition rules.

There were and are a limited number of employees at WoTC working on D&D products. They can only do so much. WoTC clearly decided to focus on putting out crunch via the various splat books because that was where they saw the money, i.e. books for players rather than campaign worlds or lots of adventures.

All that said, there is some third party support of 4E. Open Design/Kobold Quarterly manages to support both versions of the game (in addition to other non D&D game systems such as their BRP based patronage project and possible Dragon Age in their Midgard patronage project.) I think having 4E patronage products and having 4E articles appearing in Kobold Quarterly is good for 4E. There would be a lot more of that type of support for 4E if it had been released as OGL.

Finally, I think that competition can be healthy for the game. Designers writing for the various versions of D&D can be inspired by each other and strive to better their own version be it with superior adventures, more fluid mechanics, or whatever.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but i wanted to comment to this one part.

Again: Would you not have bought WotC products if Freeport, Ptolus and the Scarred Lands had been 1. nonexistant or 2. published under a more limited version of the OGL, a GSL let's say?

Personally yes it would have effected me buying WotC books if they did not exist. The reason being is, 3pp offered niche products that WotC didn't offer which keep me playing. With out them I would have instead done what I did in previous years. Go play other games, which means buying their core rule books and their splat books etc. All money not going to WotC. Now if 3pp gives me niche products I keep playing DnD and keep buying more WotC. So for me personally having 3pp and a wide variety keep me buying more WotC books than if there hadn't been any or a lot less.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I am not sure whether WotC would have sold less books without the OGL if they had cooperated with other companies on a different basis. Can anybody educate me on this? Would you have stopped playing DnD without the 3.x OGL in 1999/2000? At least I was drawn back to DnD and the third edition not because of the OGL but because of the rules.

I can say with near-certainty that I would have stopped playing regularly circa-2003 and probably never upgraded to 3.5 as a result. My first campaign was winding down at that point and it was only OGL material that fueled my interest in continuing to run the system at that point.

Which isn't to say I wasn't still a WotC customer. In addition to core rulebooks, I spent several hundred dollars every year on WotC products until 2008. But it wasn't WotC producing that "I gotta run a campaign in Freeport!" type vibes (to use one example).

And I don't think that was a failure on WotC's part. 90% of everything is crap, and it's even tougher to produce something that really EXCITES someone (and that can be a very idiosynchratic reaction). Few companies in this industry manage that even once. It's why pre- D20 I was switching to a new game every few months and had been doing so for years.

The OGL got hundreds of companies producing stuff for D&D. Which meant I had a constant supply of material to get me excited about playing and running the game. Which kept me engaged as a customer for WotC.

As long as WotC maintained itself as the core of this little galaxy of support products, they benefitted from it. As 3.5 demonstrated, this remained true across edition boundaries. (3.0 material became obsolete - it didn't fuel an insurgency of 3.0 players using the Mongoose Player's Handbook.)

But once WotC decided to abandon that network, they left a vacuum that could be filled. And it was filled. And it's kicking WotC's ass in a way that nobody has ever done.

 

[TheFindus]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but i wanted to comment to this one part.

Personally yes it would have effected me buying WotC books if they did not exist. The reason being is, 3pp offered niche products that WotC didn't offer which keep me playing. With out them I would have instead done what I did in previous years. Go play other games, which means buying their core rule books and their splat books etc. All money not going to WotC. Now if 3pp gives me niche products I keep playing DnD and keep buying more WotC. So for me personally having 3pp and a wide variety keep me buying more WotC books than if there hadn't been any or a lot less.

I understand your point.
But the question I am asking is whether the OGL was absolutely neccessary to let 3rd party publishers offer material that would not have been created. To give you an example: I played the Freeport adventures. Now it may be that there was some sort of piratey stuff in some of the DnD magazines, but I don't know. At the time, I thought the Freeport adventures fit into my campaign, so I used the material.
Why was the OGL neccessary for these adventures? Would it not have been possible for Green Ronin to publish these adventures under some other legal agreement with WotC that gave them the right to publish this, but gave WotC the right - after a couple of years - to not let them use the material again. You know, use it for a timespan that makes your business possible but does not take away the rights of WotC to cancel the usage of the 3rd edition rules. Say, use the rules with a yearly liscense fee. And then use all of the published rules (which, if I recall correctly, did not offer the full rules). I am getting the impression that you think that legally the OGL was the only way to achieve a deep involvement of 3rd party publishers. Well, we know that it is not. There is (to stick with the software thing) software you can use when you pay a liscence fee.
That would have kept the rights to the rules solely with WotC.

All of what you are saying would have been possible with a different legal solution, but WotC would not have given away their IP.

 

[TheFindus]

It no longer does, but that is because they tried to escape from the OGL with 4E and they've discovered it wasn't so easy. They could have better used the OGL ecosystem in 3E days and they could have released 4E via the OGL. ´

First let me say that I am enjoying this conversation very much.

I understand your point.
But I think there is one aspect that you might be overlooking. Now this is with hindsight, but lets just say Paizo would have gone with 4E at first. And then, when the deition war storm broke loose, they would have realized that there are a lot of people who just do not like 4E because of the design, which these people think sucks big time.
This is a target group that WotC did not reach anymore and taht would have been looking for somebody to pick up the 3rd edition stick and march on with it. And I am 100% sure that Paizo would have done that. It is just too big of an opportunity, too many business chances there.

And the OGL would have made that possible.

As I posted above, in my opinion this could have been avoided with some sort of other legal agreement. Something that gives the right to use the rules to a company but retains the rights to stop that usage with WotC. Combine this with a lower fee than the 5000$ (was that the OGL fee, I do not remember) and I gues WotC would have been good to go.
I would say, same effect as the OGL, no loss of IP.

I'm actually pleased with how things turned out because I get to continue to have support for the version of the game I prefer, but the 4E crowd still has their own version and support through WoTC. Everyone wins and gets to play the game they enjoy. WoTC might not earn as much money as they were hoping, but I doubt they are losing money from 4E. What they may be losing is their position as market leader, but all that means is that they need to better position their game so that it appeals to more people. Whether that is by improving on the game or otherwise better positioning the game to appeal to more people, it's something they need to work out. And when they do, hopefully you'll be happier with the version of the game you enjoy.

I agree with you completely here.

You just said earlier that the TSR campaign worlds were doing well when justifying a non-OGL based release of 3E. I don't follow where you are going with this sub-thread.

I do not think they were doing well, because they build up competing products within the company that people could buy. But the fact that they were able to create all these worlds shows that you had a lot of design potential which could have been used to satisfy by far the most DnD players.
Maybe we just have different memories, but I remember the 3rd edition times being fun, sure, but also as a time when there were a lot of D20 books that one simply could not use. A complete glut. It was hard to find something that I really wanted to use.

 

[TheFindus]

REspectfully, you are looking at it all wrong. In fairness, your point of view is probably the one some in WotC have (just a guess), but its wrongheaded and counterproductive. With the OGL synergy is the key to success. So Green Ronin has a successful pirate city? Riff off of it and make a book about ship to ship combat. Come up with an Adventure Path in which the PCs are marooned with cannibal pirates on an island. Develop a book of sea monsters. Enter into an agreement with Green Ronin and create a new set of adventures set in that city.

So Monte Cook has a successful book in Arcana Evolved. Pick a race from the book and, with Monte's permission, expand on that race and create more material for that race. So Tome of Horrors is wildly popular? Use some of their monsters in your published adventures.

By building off of the very things that are popular, you can expand your audience and sell more books.

If I thought that would really work, then more power to it. I just don't think this works. The main reason being that we cannot determine success in this industry correctly. That is the reasson nobody except WotC knows how successful their product is. Same is true for Paizo.
But if you are trying to say the could have used stuff they thought was cool to use or fun or fitting, they could have.

And, again, was the OGL the only way to achieve this (if you really want to - I have the impression 3rd edition worked well for WotC)? I have said this in the last 4, 5, 6? posts: find a legal agreement that lets companies use the rules but keeps the IP with WotC. This happens all the time in other industries.

 

[TheFindus]

@TheFindus
I at least skim a significant portion of the threads here at ENWorld, and fully read a good many of the most trafficed ones, and I don't recall any threads complaining about the price of DDI. Quality? Yes...Price? No. I haven't seen it mentioned (not even once) in any of the threads about why people have unsubscribed, or what it would take to get people to subscribe/resubscribe. I've seen people stating that in this economy they can't afford an indulgence like DDI, but that isn't the same as complaining that the price is too high or asking WotC to reduce it.

Perhaps you could enlighten me with some links to these threads and the applicable posts...?

Interesting name.
I almost missed your reply.

I was not referring to ENWorld only. I read a lot of threads that complained that the price for the DDI subscription is too high because of the use people get out of it. They complained about the price because they did not think it is worth paying for what DDI has to offer. In fact, there was one thread that talked about a different subscription price policy.
I remember a thread on the WotC forums that was quite long that was almost entirely about the price and the online version of the CB. Over 150 pages of complaints on 6 euros a month. It is always a question of how much are you willing to pay for your money, of course.

But what I was and am saying is that I pay 6 euros a month for more than what I was able to get in the old days for 14 euros. With DDI you get the information in the books, so I also buy less books. But, really, this is sooo far off topic, we should not discuss in this thread.

Here are some threads I found in just the short time I have now:


http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/299918-should-they-price-dungeons-dragons-insider-way-people-actually-use.html

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26636229/What_am_I_paying_for

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26496729/Heres_what_I_would_pay_for

Edit: Oh, that looks awful. I do not know what to do about the colour now, though. Sorry for that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

With the OGL synergy is the key to success. So Green Ronin has a successful pirate city? Riff off of it and make a book about ship to ship combat. Come up with an Adventure Path in which the PCs are marooned with cannibal pirates on an island. Develop a book of sea monsters. Enter into an agreement with Green Ronin and create a new set of adventures set in that city.

The only problem with this idea is that it meant WotC would be delving into the minutia/niche parts of the hobby that would probably not generate the sales numbers necessary to justify the expense of putting man-hours to it. The whole point of the OGL was so other companies could produce things like a book of ship-to-ship combat, or modules for a pirate campaign etc.

The problem WotC had with 3E, 3.5 (and now 4E) is that the products which sell at the numbers they need to justify the expense of producing them... is the baseline books. The first wave of PH, DMG, MM, and splatbooks for the classes in PH.

As soon as those are done, they are now on the downward slope towards running out of money-making material. Now WotC actually made a good decision in holding back the gnome, halforc, druid, barbarian, bard, and sorcerer... in that it actually extended their baseline products into the second series of books. So they got a second wave of fairly good sales. But once those three books PHII, DMG2, MMII were on the shelf... they again have run up against the wall.

PH3 and MM3 have run into diminishing returns. They've tried to replicate the sales boost of 3.5 without the stigma of 3.5 by releasing Essentials... but they've found that because those are basically glorified 'splatbooks' for the existing 4E player, they are not necessary purchases (not nearly to the same extent 3.5 was).

So what is left for them? There are no books remaining in 4E that would create the same sales numbers that they got two years ago... the same way there were no 3.5 books for them to release when they made the decision to create 4E. Because despite claims to contrary... I do not personally believe that 'adventure paths' or niche books do that for them. If they did... we'd have another three or four Hammerfast/Von Rukoth books on the schedule, we wouldn't have seen the Player's Options: Dragonborn and Tiefling books end after just those two, and a couple more hardcover adventure books like Revenge of the Giants and Tomb of Horrors would be scheduled.

Instead... what is really left for WotC? It's DDI. A monthly revenue stream that generates for them for the year the equivalent sales of two hardcover books for every person who subscribes to it. And what's most important is that they're getting this money from the people who they probably wouldn't get the equivalent money from had they just released a bunch of hardcover books. I subscribe to DDI... but I didn't buy PH3, nor will I buy Heroes of Shadow when that gets released. Monster Manual 3? Didn't buy it. Any of the Essentials? Didn't buy it. Champions of Sword and Spell? Wouldn't have bought it had it been released. Heck, even the products they still DO have on their schedule for the year I still don't intend to buy... because I am quite happy playing D&D using the dozen products I bought in the first two years of the game's lifecycle.

However, I will still continue to subscribe to DDI... because the tools I get from it are just so damn useful. So that's $70 they'll get from me that they otherwise would not. And the fact that they are following this tack of release gives a pretty good indication that there are probably many more people like me... than there are of people who would have bought at least three of the hardcover books they would have released this year had they not changed their publication decisions. A few of you probably are diehards who intended to buy every book... but I don't think there are enough of you to sustain the sales that WotC needs.

Print is not 'dead' per se... but I do think we are approaching the point where print is now 'niche'.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Why was the OGL neccessary for these adventures? Would it not have been possible for Green Ronin to publish these adventures under some other legal agreement with WotC that gave them the right to publish this, but gave WotC the right - after a couple of years - to not let them use the material again.

Possible? Yes, of course.

Would it have happened? No.

First, for any kind of one-on-one arrangement this adds additional legal expenses to both WotC and the other company involved. It's doubtful WotC would be interested in spending that money; and those costs would certainly be passed on to the licensee.

Second, companies simply are not interested in spending money to develop products which can then be yanked from the market on somebody else's timetable. It is not a responsible or an effective way of doing business.

The proof is in the pudding: The type of license you're talking about largely exists in the 4th Edition GSL. Virtually nobody is using it.