What's Past is Prologue: Understanding the OGL Licensing Controversy in Light of the 3e/4e Transition

[billd91]

Yeah that's the interesting thing here - I'll be honest, when I heard about 1D&D having a playtest and so on, I expected to see a bunch of "OH YEAH!" ideas and "Of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner! D'oh!" as well as of course some "HELL NO".

But it's mostly been "Huh, kinda cool I guess", "Well it's an improvement, technically" and "That just doesn't seem particularly good". It's hard to care strongly about it. Especially as the only solidly "kinda cool" stuff I've really seen are things like the race/species changes, which would be trivial to backport to 5E.

At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices. Especially as the most potentially controversial and exciting change of recent years was actually fully negotiated before 1D&D, the ditching of default racial attribute bonuses.

See, for me, this is partly what an edition change should be for a successful version of the game. Incremental improvements here and there to collect the things you've learned to do better. A major shift is just a good way to risk losing customers on an unproven hope to gain more. It may be fodder for a separate game, optional module, whatever. Gambling on a major shift without something really forcing you to do so or being at such a low trough you've got little to risk strikes me as irresponsible.
This, to me, would be especially true for an edition timed for an arbitrary release date - a 50th anniversary - rather than hard data about sales in decline. I would have been perfectly willing to shell out money for a 50th anniversary D&D, very similar to 5e. For one thing, the art would be new, organization of the materials would (hopefully) be improved, and my current books are 10 years old and showing their wear.

...until they effed over their supporting ecology of 3rd party publishers, resources, and the thousands of people that will affect.

 

[billd91]

Even Apple doesn't take 25%.

Don't they take 30?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)

 

[eyeheartawk]

Don't they take 30?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)

I mean, DMs Guild takes 50% and you can't sell your stuff anywhere else. Compared to those terms 25% seems generous, right?

 

[TwoSix]

Even Apple doesn't take 25%.

True, but I don't think the plan is to encourage more products so they can make royalty money. I think the plan is to discourage development of products outside of the products that plug in cleanly into D&D Beyond.

Any product that doesn't use D&D Beyond isn't neutral, it's actively detrimental to selling D&D Beyond subscriptions. Because any customer that has a favored product that can't be used in D&D Beyond carries the possibility of switching to another form of play (analog, other electronic products, etc) that wouldn't require a D&D Beyond subscription.

I think they're willing to suffer the pain of a negative backlash in 2023 to clear the decks and hope that people are more interested in the new shiny coming in 2024. Maybe not, I'm sure we'll find out. But seeing analog 3pp Kickstarters and such as possible stumbling blocks to greater D&D Beyond adoption sure seems logical to me.

 

[Dausuul]

True, but I don't think the plan is to encourage more products so they can make royalty money. I think the plan is to discourage development of products outside of the products that plug in cleanly into D&D Beyond.

Any product that doesn't use D&D Beyond isn't neutral, it's actively detrimental to selling D&D Beyond subscriptions. Because any customer that has a favored product that can't be used in D&D Beyond carries the possibility of switching to another form of play (analog, other electronic products, etc) that wouldn't require a D&D Beyond subscription.

I think they're willing to suffer the pain of a negative backlash in 2023 to clear the decks and hope that people are more interested in the new shiny coming in 2024. Maybe not, I'm sure we'll find out. But seeing analog 3pp Kickstarters and such as possible stumbling blocks to greater D&D Beyond adoption sure seems logical to me.

If this is the case, each person who cancels their DDB sub over this is going to hit them where it hurts.

 

[Incenjucar]

Don't they take 30?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)

The margins on books and gatcha/loot boxes are very, very, very different.

 

[James Gasik]

Magic missile? That's what she said!
-Michael Scott, Hasbro IP Attorney

Are you sure that's not Lionel Hutz?

 

[Umbran]

what I was trying to say is that they are investing a very large amount, and when companies invest a large amount, they often increasingly seek to control the environment around that investment, even when it doesn't really make complete sense.

Yeah, we don't fundamentally disagree, then.

There have been a lot of PR backfires through corporate history where attempts at increasing control that made sense politically inside the company - we have heard that apparently a lot of people at WotC are quite bitter about the OGL, despite the tiny amounts of money involved with 3PPs - but that didn't make actual financial sense when the reputational damage involved was assessed.

Yep. People in corporate leadership have egos that can be bruised. Go figure

 

[Umbran]

At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices.

Well, that sounds like they are actually aiming at the stated design goal of backwards compatibility - if you want that, there's only so much you can change.

 

[Haplo781]

Well, that sounds like they are actually aiming at the stated design goal of backwards compatibility - if you want that, there's only so much you can change.

Backwards compatibility is a PR goal. Changing it enough to force you into the walled garden is a monetization goal.

Guess we'll see which one wins out.