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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark CMG" data-source="post: 5908049" data-attributes="member: 10479">If Paizo is just beating WotC in the market, then it is likely they have about the same market share with but a slight difference, whether that is roughly 40% each, or 45% each, or 35% each, regardless of if it is 6 mil each, or 2 mil each, or 350K each.I've been watching people dismiss annecdotal evidence for years, and claiming that no matter how much of it you hear, it isn't data.  And then I watch what actually happens in the market, as far as we can discern from what little actual numbers we can gather, and it somehow manages to coincide.  I've come to find it fascinating when individuals dismiss a preponderous of annecdotal evidence.  I've come to the conclusion that ignoring annecdotal as not indicative of what the market comes to profess is unwise.I think it has been key to the shift in the market.  What we know for sure is that the market has shifted and that WotC was sure that moving away from the OGL wouldn't be a problem.  What we know for sure is that the shift away from the OGL wasn't as fruitful as WotC desired or expected.  What we don't know is what would have happened if WotC continued to embrace the OGL beyond roughly 2005 when, seemingly, some of their management team decided that they could move away from the OGL.  What we do know is that Paizo was able to take the existing ruleset, tweak it somewhat, and capture roughly half of the WotC market share through providing what WotC has been unable to produce with lasting consitency.  So here we are.  We can ignore where we are and make many claims about why we are where we are, but it doesn't change where we are.  Nor does it change the choices that were made regarding the OGL.An OGL 4E would have allowed 3PP to come up with solutions that WotC might have incorporated in revisions, but once those who understood the OGL were gone from WotC and only its detractors were left that was never going to happen.  However, the OGL wasn't gone, and isn't going away, and the management at WotC still seems to be unable to realize that fact.  So, what they are left doing is skipping stones across a green screen with a delusion that the market is still OGL-free if they so decide.  The fact that they haven't embraced it for 5E out of the gate, and that they aren't talking in terms of the innovations they can glean from twelve years OGC, is evidence enough that they haven't learned a lesson from the GSL and have no real clue that the market has already decided the direction to take.  Others aren't ignoring the lessons.  Others are embracing the OGL.  With each consumer who claims to be playing D&D while playing Pathfinder or some other non-actual-D&D ruleset, the brand continues to weaken.And, seriously, is it impossible for anyone to see that if D&D once controlled all of the market with (O)D&D, and then controlled less of the market with AD&D, and now splits the majority of the market with Paizo, and that D&D doesn't even control half the market?  Even if one assumes that between them Paizo and D&D have 80% of the RPG market, and if Paizo holds roughly half that, then it stands to reason that D&D holds only 40%, or less than half the total RPG market.  It boggles the mind that folks can ignore this likelihood.In the meantime, plenty of serious projects (OGL and otheriwse) are progressing and WotC's chance to capture or recapture a significant market share continues to diminish.  And the sad part is that the designers who are at the mercy of the legal geniuses who are thwarting the progress that could be made will likely be the ones most remembered for the whatever comes of this NEXT debacle.  Some of the designers who made their name with the OGL, who came onto the WotC radar because of the OGL, will become the ones renown for being on board as D&D lost the market with 5E because some folks in a legal department wouldn't let them mine the veins of ore they helped discover while being discovered themselves.  Cruel irony, indeed.</blockquote>

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