Dang. Told myself I'm staying off the boards for awhile. Sigh.
I first heard of Paizo while I was a young freelancer. A friend told me I'd improve my adventure writing abilities by read their material. So I subscribed. Three days later. Paizo announcedthat their license to Dungeon and Dragon magazines is not going to be renewed and they're launching a monthly adventure series called Pathfinder (long before anyone thought it would be a stand alone rpg). It wasn't hard to figure out that their bread and butter just pulled out from under them and if this crazy idea didn't pay off, most if not everyone at the company would be out of a job.
That, in my opinion at the time, was a rather low move. But to lower my opinion of wizards even more, the company clammed up. No press release manning up to their actions. No announcement of their plans. Nothing. In the space of a single day, my opinion of Wizards went from the good publisher that makes a great game to the evil Microsoft of the rpg industry. Paizo got alot of good will that day.
That was the first of many incidents where Wizards behaved like they do not care what the hard core customer's reaction would have been. As Chris Perkins said, "As the clouds continue to pass overhead," so will 4E come as they were presenting it.
During all this, Paizo was publishing APs and were producing some quality content. The little company that was wondering if they'd survive a year was looking healthy. Finally theyput a poll up on their website. They said that many people have expressed a disinterest in what is being previewed for 4E and expressed an interest in staying with 3rd ed or some close varient. So the poll asked, what should paizo do: go 4E, stay 3E or a few other options. Paizo said if they stayed 3E they'd have to reprint the rules since it would mean their doom to support an out of print game. Finally they announced that they listened to their fans and are releasing the new version of the much played system with some rules changes in an open playest. They then listened to their customers' mountains of feeedback and incorporated much of it into their game. Additionally, there have been threads on Paizo's website where customer's suggest a product and it get's made. It really is an amazing feeling when a company you love puts out a product you suggest.
So short of the long, Paizo earned their goodwill. Conversely, Wizards earned their loss of good will from many. Personally, I've moved on and donut Wizards' products that help in my pathfinder game (the tiles specifically), but their position is of their own making. Blaming the OGL or Paizo for their situation is like the lazy office worker blaming the hard worker in the office for getting fired. The situation is their making.