Greg Benage
Legend
I think Wizards has to be sure they bring their customers with them. This can't be a repeat of the move from 3.5/OGL to 4/GSL. This is subjective, but I haven't seen anything yet in the playtest that's likely to significantly fracture the fanbase and create an appealingly viable market for legacy content. Indeed, I think they have a conscious aversion to that kind of change. And the model promises this kind of incremental change forever. It's a "boil the frog" strategy that's much less likely to create another Paizo.After all, ultimately, WotC is operating under the constraint that 3PPs, now and forevermore, can use the universe of Open Game Content that already exists under the OGL 1.0a. 3PPs (including new start-ups) will have to prefer working under the OGL 1.1 to get them to take it up, which means there's a natural limit to how bad the deal can be. If WotC wants people to report revenue and potentially pay royalties, they are going to have to offer something to make that worthwhile.
If they bring their customers with them, then safe-harbor access to the future D&D market is a pretty tasty carrot. Whether it's tasty enough probably depends on the royalty details and the product strategies of the individual publishers. From Wizards' perspective, though, as long as my customers come with me, I really don't think I care terribly much about whether most large 3PPs do.
That said, if I'm running this for Wizards, I probably care about some of them. If I do, I'm going to offer some more carrots. But I'll offer them individually, in dialog with those publishers. I'll discuss what kind of royalty structure makes sense. I won't be looking to write carrots into the licensing agreement. I believe @Morrus has mentioned that Wizards is already reaching out--whether or not carrots are in hand, I have no idea.