Academic Studies Recent Edition Wars

[Umbran]

Give the D&D IP rights to a holding company that has no other business model and I think we'd see some action in this regard.

Probably not even then. Deep pockets make the tactic possible, but don't mean you'll do it. There are two basic times it is worthwhile to try such a lawsuit:

1)The damages the court will award you are substantially higher than your legal fees and other costs associated with the suit (note, the time your execs spend on it counts!).

2)If you win, you stand to reap more extra money out of the IP than you paid in legal fees. (This may be "in the long haul").

The current 3pp folks are, compared to WotC/Hasbro, small fry with small sales. Trying for (1) is trying to squeeze blood from a stone. And, when WotC itself is no longer getting sales from prior editions, (2) is unlikely.

Basically, one of the 3pps has to make it big-time before there's an economic advantage to such a suit.

 

[Dausuul]

You're right. Law is not sorcery. It and the courts, however, are subject to all the foibles of humanity. People will and do use the law and manipulate courts for their own aims even out of proportion to their pretext for using the law in the first place.

Absolutely. But the courts do not like being manipulated in this fashion, and they do take measures to prevent it. A lawsuit has to have some shred of plausibility to it; and a suit filed in bad faith can leave the plaintiff open to a countersuit.

Can an unscrupulous company with smart lawyers get around these limitations? Sure, it happens all the time. But that doesn't mean it would be feasible to do it in this particular case.

 

[ggroy]

Basically, one of the 3pps has to make it big-time before there's an economic advantage to such a suit.

What would be a likely scenario, besides something like a Pathfinder significantly beating 4E D&D in sales?

 

[Umbran]

What would be a likely scenario, besides something like a Pathfinder significantly beating 4E D&D in sales?

I don't think Pathfinder would have to beat 4e sales to pique WotC's interest. A sizable fraction of 4e sales would do it. However, I don't think WotC would go after Paizo even then.

Why not? Because the case would be really hard to make stick. WotC put out a big lump of stuff in the SRD and said, explicitly, "This stuff is OPEN! Have at it!" So long as Paizo kept itself to the stuff in the SRD, the case is pretty darned bullet proof. Plus, the PR backlash would sour the pot - WotC cannot expect to get any sales from cheesed off fans of Paizo if they attempt this.

The case against clones of earlier editions would be easier, as WotC didn't release them under the OGL, indicating what was open. They'd have an easier time trying to get a court to judge that one of them took content that was not just system. However, the chance that a retroclone will make it big enough to matter seems darned slim, to me.

Honestly, I don't see it likely that any tabletop game in the generic heroic fantasy genre is going to make it big enough for WotC to care for the foreseeable future. Nor is any game working in a mechanics-space near D&D. Any challenge will come from a game that, like White Wolf's WoD, differs in genre and mechanics so much that it it is nowhere near D&D.

 

[Dausuul]

Honestly, I don't see it likely that any tabletop game in the generic heroic fantasy genre is going to make it big enough for WotC to care for the foreseeable future. Nor is any game working in a mechanics-space near D&D. Any challenge will come from a game that, like White Wolf's WoD, differs in genre and mechanics so much that it it is nowhere near D&D.

Very true. I also think that if a challenge to D&D does arise, it will succeed by drawing on a notably different fanbase - some group that does not currently find D&D appealing for whatever reason.

 

[tomBitonti]

While inaccurate in many details, the paper does present an interesting idea. My condensation of it reads, basically, that (1) there is a tension between RPGs as a vehicle for collaborative story telling, and the sharp control exercised in the 4E version of D&D, and (2) those tensions have caused a reaction in that a members of the community have chosen to not adopt the new product edition, with a large enough subset in this category that a prominent member of the commercial community (Paizo) has selected to produce a product to server that non-adopting subset.

In this, I find what is interesting is the presentation of RPGs as vehicles for collaborative story-telling, and what that implies in terms of customer-producer relationships.

I agree that the paper gets a lot of the details wrong. I can handle that because I read the paper as a Thesis, subject to critical responses to correct the details. (And, as a critical work subject to critical responses, one is allowed to respond with a statement that paper is wrong, and details are very inaccurate.) Plus, I think the inaccuracies are due to the nature of online critical dialogues, where the focus is on getting your writing out early and using the online community to work it to a better state. I think, though, that critical responses would have to composed at a similar level as the article itself.

 

[Jack99]

The main doomsday scenario I can think of offhand for Hasbro/WotC becoming very litigious, would be if several OGL products become extremely popular and makes significantly more money than WotC's main rpg product lines of 4E D&D or subsequent editions (ie. 5E).

For example, a scenario of Pathfinder PFRPG becoming the #1 best selling rpg and making more profits than WotC's 4E D&D line of products. Though in this hypothetical scenario, I would guess that Paizo and Hasbro/WotC may possibly settle out of court with Hasbro/WotC acquiring Paizo and rebranding Pathfinder as the new 5E D&D.

What would be a likely scenario, besides something like a Pathfinder significantly beating 4E D&D in sales?

I doubt there is anything even remotely likely about your scenario. I think you grossly over-estimate how much Pathfinder will sell, even in the wildest dreams of Erik and Lisa.

Just for argument's sake, how many of the 6-7 million D&D players do you think even know that Paizo is making a 3.75?

 

[darjr]

will do

I'll ignore the article as well.

However the thread it spawned, here, is actually interesting.

 

[ggroy]

I doubt there is anything even remotely likely about your scenario. I think you grossly over-estimate how much Pathfinder will sell, even in the wildest dreams of Erik and Lisa.

It was a hypothetical scenario where Pathfinder becomes the #1 bestselling RPG.

In general the only way anybody will know the value of Pathfinder, is what price a publicly traded company is able to buy Paizo at and how the goodwill is taken into account on the publicly traded company's 10K.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)"

At the present time, I wouldn't be surprised to see Paizo's equity value being that of a small publishing company which doesn't have much of a historical back catalog of intellectual property which can collect royalties.

Just for argument's sake, how many of the 6-7 million D&D players do you think even know that Paizo is making a 3.75?

I question that 6-7 million D&D players figure. Where did it come from and how exactly was it obtained?

Though with that being said, I wouldn't be surprised to find that most casual players will be largely clueless about PFRPG. The only exceptions would be the casual players who have been talked into playing an alpha or beta version of Pathfinder.

 

[ggroy]

I don't think Pathfinder would have to beat 4e sales to pique WotC's interest. A sizable fraction of 4e sales would do it. However, I don't think WotC would go after Paizo even then.

Why not? Because the case would be really hard to make stick. WotC put out a big lump of stuff in the SRD and said, explicitly, "This stuff is OPEN! Have at it!" So long as Paizo kept itself to the stuff in the SRD, the case is pretty darned bullet proof. Plus, the PR backlash would sour the pot - WotC cannot expect to get any sales from cheesed off fans of Paizo if they attempt this.

What do you think is the likelihood of Hasbro/WotC buying up Paizo in a friendly merger/acquisition, and then rebranding Pathfinder as 5E D&D?