D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[Mark CMG]

The half a million dollars is what the 4e DDI generates right now. 67k subscribers as I type this, and that's only the confirmed subs. It could easily hit almost 100k. That's half a million dollars a month.

Possibly twice that if 4E had been OGL and Paizo was backing it too. Half the D&D market WotC hoped to have for 4E (maybe more) doesn't play 4E and WotC seems to want to correct that. Could they hit those numbers you claim or even more if they made 5E OGL and coax Paizo back on board? We will see. As to the claim that a 5E OGL and 5E DDI don't play nice together, that's obviously only if they make the DDI something that won't play nice. If they make 5E OGL, I'm sure they'll find a way to make the DDI accomodating to the OGL. It only needs to be worked from that side, since the OGL would work fine with a DDI and online tools that allowed some individual customization and sharing of OGC between DDI users. The only reason the online tools didn't work with OGC in the past is because the online tools were made to not work with OGC.

 

[Hussar]

Possibly twice that if 4E had been OGL and Paizo was backing it too. Half the D&D market WotC hoped to have for 4E (maybe more) doesn't play 4E and WotC seems to want to correct that. Could they hit those numbers you claim or even more if they made 5E OGL and coax Paizo back on board? We will see. As to the claim that a 5E OGL and 5E DDI don't play nice together, that's obviously only if they make the DDI something that won't play nice. If they make 5E OGL, I'm sure they'll find a way to make the DDI accomodating to the OGL. It only needs to be worked from that side, since the OGL would work fine with a DDI and online tools that allowed some individual customization and sharing of OGC between DDI users. The only reason the online tools didn't work with OGC in the past is because the online tools were made to not work with OGC.

How?

This is the question I keep asking and no one seems to be able to answer it.

How can you have a d20 OGL, and a DDI at the same time? What's to stop someone from producing a character builder and a Hypertext SRD? We already see this happening. This isn't idle speculation, it's historical fact.

Within months of the release of 4e, we had a site offering an online character builder with the functionality of the DDI character builder. Within months of 3.5 being released, we had a fully functional d20 Hypertext SRD. Again, this isn't something I'm pulling out of my vas deferens here, this happened.

So, if they went OGL with 4e, what would have happened to the DDI? We'd have more subscriptions because there are free versions available? Really? Because that's the argument you're making right now. If 4e had been OGL, somehow, despite free versions being produced within months of release, we'd have twice as many subscriptions?

Excuse me for being a teensy bit skeptical here. We never had OGL online tools because no one could make any bloody money out of it. Heck, the pay tools that we did have were minor, and the company that produced them, despite the popularity of d20, folded.

Think about that for a second - even at the height of the d20 boom, we didn't see one single successful pay offering of d20 tools. Not one. They all went belly up.

But, somehow, magically, it'll all work out this time around? What is the key element that I'm missing here? Because, as far as I can see, there's no money to be made here. We've had almost ten years for someone to make a d20 DDI toolset. But, it's never materialized. There has to be a reason.

 

[Alzrius]

How?

This is the question I keep asking and no one seems to be able to answer it.

How can you have a d20 OGL, and a DDI at the same time? What's to stop someone from producing a character builder and a Hypertext SRD? We already see this happening. This isn't idle speculation, it's historical fact.

Much like the historical fact of several people posting here with answers regarding your "how?" question.

 

[Jawsh]

How?

This is the question I keep asking and no one seems to be able to answer it.

How can you have a d20 OGL, and a DDI at the same time? What's to stop someone from producing a character builder and a Hypertext SRD?

What you seem to be missing is that DDI isn't about the rules. It has the rules in it, yes, but people aren't paying for it just for the rules. It's a suite of value-added stuff. If it was just about the rules, it wouldn't be making any money at all right now, during 4E. As you say, people can get the rules elsewhere. Heck, they can pirate the rules if they want to.

The only thing stopping little companies from producing their own character builders and Hypertext SRDs is that they can't do it as well as WotC. They simply cannot add the same value that WotC can. Not because WotC is official, but because WotC is the only company with the expertise and resources to sustain a value-adding model. And they're the only company out there that has sufficient traffic to their website to get people clicking and buying into the DDI. WotC sucks at making software, granted. But compared to WotC, those 3rd party developers are scrubs. The best they can do is HTML and plaintext.

I think it's simply ridiculous to think that DDI and all its subscribers will instantly vanish the moment an OGL becomes available.

 

[Hussar]

They don't have to all instantly vanish. That's hyperbole. All that has to happen is a significant percentage have to vanish and the resulting loss is not made up for by selling more PHB's, which is the major argument in favor of the OGL.

Much like the historical fact of several people posting here with answers regarding your "how?" question.

Could you please point them out to me? Because, I'm certainly not seeing them. All I see are a few vague suggestions that if we make it OGL, the resulting losses from DDI income will be covered by increases in book sales.

Look, I'm more than willing to entertain the possibility that I'm wrong here. I would LOVE someone to show me why I'm wrong. But, no one has yet provided anything of the sort. Why wouldn't free tools pull subscribers? Because the DDI tools are just that good? Really?

With all the bitching and moaning about the tools, do you really think so?

The DDI is not content support. At least not primarily. The primary functions are the Compendium and the Character builder. Dungeon and Dragon are nice, but, they're not why people subscribe. Since both the Compedium and the CB are not content driven, but rules driven, an OGL 5e DDI could be fairly easily reproduced as free tools. We've seen that already for 3e and we saw it happen for 4e.

The only reason that Emma's doesn't have a 4e CB is because WOTC exercised their rights and shut them down. And look at the flak they took for taking a purely legal, and completely justifiable action. In an OGL game, they couldn't even do that.

So, again, and please, short words because I'm apparently just not getting it, how can you have a rules based DDI and an OGL without losing significant numbers of subscribers to free options made legal by an OGL?

 

[DEFCON 1]

What you seem to be missing is that DDI isn't about the rules. It has the rules in it, yes, but people aren't paying for it just for the rules. It's a suite of value-added stuff. If it was just about the rules, it wouldn't be making any money at all right now, during 4E. As you say, people can get the rules elsewhere. Heck, they can pirate the rules if they want to.

Are you kidding?

You might be the only person I know who seems to be arguing that Dragon and Dungeon Magazines are the reason people sign up for DDI. Because those are the only two things you get that aren't strictly about "the rules".

The Character Builder? All about the rules. Monster Builder? All about the rules. Rules Compendium? Duh. And believe it or not... it is THOSE three items that have inspired people to sign up. People want programs that allow you to easily manipulate the rules to create a character, manipulate the rules to create a monster, or check out the rules quickly. Dragon and Dungeon are just little extra things we get in addition to it.

The only thing stopping little companies from producing their own character builders and Hypertext SRDs is that they can't do it as well as WotC. They simply cannot add the same value that WotC can. Not because WotC is official, but because WotC is the only company with the expertise and resources to sustain a value-adding model. And they're the only company out there that has sufficient traffic to their website to get people clicking and buying into the DDI. WotC sucks at making software, granted. But compared to WotC, those 3rd party developers are scrubs. The best they can do is HTML and plaintext.

HTML and plaintext FOR FREE is more worthwhile and just as usable as the "pretty" UI interfaces that WotC has made for their programs for 6 bucks a month. And you are downgrading the desire and skill of many of our community who would spend many of their off-work hours building these programs if they could. Someone would make a monster builder just as a thought exercise, or because they wanted a monster builder that could add templates to monster automatically (cause that's something people have been clamoring for since the beginning of the MB). Believe me... if someone was allowed to make these things for 4E, they would. Even if to just "stick it" to Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Henry]

Actually, the compendium and the Character builder are WHY I stopped subscribing to DDI -- they replaced a good but imperfect Character Builder with a vastly substandard one, and introduced changes to keep people from downloading their compendium via webcatchers and a valid account, and these changes subsequently made it much more difficult to actually read the online content as a whole. When they broke their own Compendium to "reduce piracy", they lost my actually monthly ten bucks coming in over a year ago and I haven't bothered with it since. I use personal tools like a form-fillable character sheet and a power builder, both completely legal because they don't have any copyrighted expressions of rules or mechanics included, and I haven't looked back.

And until they fix those horrific speed and interface problems, the DDI is useless to me. So far, based on word from existing subscribers, they haven't.

HTML and plaintext FOR FREE is more worthwhile and just as usable as the "pretty" UI interfaces that WotC has made for their programs for 6 bucks a month. And you are downgrading the desire and skill of many of our community who would spend many of their off-work hours building these programs if they could. Someone would make a monster builder just as a thought exercise, or because they wanted a monster builder that could add templates to monster automatically (cause that's something people have been clamoring for since the beginning of the MB). Believe me... if someone was allowed to make these things for 4E, they would. Even if to just "stick it" to Wizards of the Coast.

They make free character building tools for Pathfinder, and it still doesn't hold a candle to the official product. Hypertext SRD? Yes, there are superior versions to the PRD out there -- but again, it's basically recycling existing text (no disrespect meant to the fine folks at PFSRD.) And yes, Paizo's money is not made primarily by the rules they generate.

My point is on something like a character builder, free efforts still get trumped by official "for-pay" efforts most of the time. PCGen OGL vs. the for-pay modules back when it was under license was further proof. I bought most of the big modules available back then, and would totally haul them back out for personal use were I playing in any 3.5 games any more.

 

[IronWolf]

You might be the only person I know who seems to be arguing that Dragon and Dungeon Magazines are the reason people sign up for DDI. Because those are the only two things you get that aren't strictly about "the rules".

The Character Builder? All about the rules. Monster Builder? All about the rules. Rules Compendium? Duh. And believe it or not... it is THOSE three items that have inspired people to sign up. People want programs that allow you to easily manipulate the rules to create a character, manipulate the rules to create a monster, or check out the rules quickly.

To me the Character Builder and Monster Builder are value adds, not rules. They definitely utilize the rules, but what people want are electronic tools that make using those rules efficient and easy.

Make super cool character builders and people will pay to use them. Same with monster advancers as well. Of course of the flip side, if you make a poor tool then people will not use DDI as they tool isn't worth the cost.

If WotC goes OGL again they would need to make sure their subscription tools were better than anyone elses as they need to provide some form of value add.

 

[Alzrius]

Could you please point them out to me? Because, I'm certainly not seeing them.

Okay.

Presumably the same way they [WotC] were able to sell Core Rulebooks in the 3E era despite the Hypertext SRD and PCGen being out there.

I think you do it by making better tools. While Paizo might not have a character gen tool, there are what appear to be pretty successful character generators out there that people pay to use. I'm looking at you Hero Lab. Hero Lab isn't exactly cheap and contains information already readily available on the d20pfsrd. It even has PC Gen for competition, yet it seems to have a solid customer base despite they repackage freely available rules. It is a very good character generator and people will pay for that.

Add other perks to DDI that people want to pay for. Online character storage in the cloud accessible from a multitude of devices. There are any number of things they could do to steer people towards DDI with enhanced perks while releasing OGL.

I agree.

Paizo releases the vast bulk of their material as open content under the OGL. The only stuff that isn't open content is the fluff. They are doing great and they don't even have a DI web app.

One of the successes from Pathfinder is that it's easy to get into the game. There are at least a dozen people I've personally hooked onto Pathfinder because access to the rules was free. Eventually all of these people bought the core book and many went on to buy heaps of material, despite the fact that it's all free.

WotC could likewise just release all of their rule material as open content. What they need to do though is recognize that if they want to become a $50 million a year product then they need to transform themselves into more of a software product than a traditional print product. The end goal is to make a DI product that people will flock to because it's where everything is at in D&D.

...and the same way Hero Labs is making pretty decent money off of the Official Pathfinder Character Generator, despite it costing 50 bucks or so to get the core books for it. I ponied up, because at the time there was no (and still is no) decent FREE Pathfinder Character Generator out there, because "free" usually means "volunteer" -- and the number of people willing to put the real time in to make things like Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, the adventure paths, etc. actually available to these generators is just not there.

If you're dedicated enough, you can volunteer for PCGen, learn their .lst structures, and put all that content in, talk to developers or code yourself when there's a new mechanic that needs to be implemented, etc. --

OR

you can go shell out 30 bucks for hero lab, and 30 bucks for APG, UM, and UC, and POOF! done. I'm not the only one who's done it -- last I heard, they were doing pretty well for themselves (not "million dollar company" well, but making a small profit.)

Just because it's OGL, doesn't mean free beats it every time. Most of the "free" stuff is just because of the reference documents -- freebies someone had to sit down and actually put lots of man-hours into are relatively uncommon.

 

[Jawsh]

They don't have to all instantly vanish. That's hyperbole. All that has to happen is a significant percentage have to vanish and the resulting loss is not made up for by selling more PHB's, which is the major argument in favor of the OGL.

Could you please point them out to me? Because, I'm certainly not seeing them. All I see are a few vague suggestions that if we make it OGL, the resulting losses from DDI income will be covered by increases in book sales.

The only thing you seem not to be convinced about is the degree of the losses that the DDI would incur. People are saying it's not as bad as you think it is. I think you were the one who claimed that the losses would be $500,000/month. That's hyperbole.

Look, I'm more than willing to entertain the possibility that I'm wrong here. I would LOVE someone to show me why I'm wrong. But, no one has yet provided anything of the sort. Why wouldn't free tools pull subscribers? Because the DDI tools are just that good? Really?

With all the bitching and moaning about the tools, do you really think so?

I don't know if I should be making moral arguments for an inhuman corporation like WotC, but we expect the customers to act morally and not pirate the material, so I think it should be fair to expect WotC to act morally too. The fact is, charging a DDI subscription for just the rules is not a good value, and it's not moral. WotC should not take their customers' money and give them only the rules in return.

There's a distinction you're not making between the rules themselves, and the tools used to manipulate them. Packaging bare rules is easy. Making tools is hard. People bitch about WotC because WotC is big, and we expect more out of the industry leader. People don't bitch about 3rd party tools because they tend to be free, and people expect less from 3rd parties. But the 3rd party tools are invariably worse than WotC's offerings. There are more bugs and less support in 3rd party solutions.

As a labor of love, some gamer who's also a programmer in his day job might code some tools to use the OGL. However, what he won't do is support it.

The DDI is not content support. At least not primarily. The primary functions are the Compendium and the Character builder. Dungeon and Dragon are nice, but, they're not why people subscribe.

And you know this how? Is there a poll I missed?

In an OGL game, they couldn't even do that.

Not necessarily. I am arguing for complete openness on WotC's part. I want to see a true Open Gaming License. However, there are still provisions possible to prevent software from using the Open Gaming Content.