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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6170928" data-attributes="member: 17106">What's you're point? Are we comparing errata page counts? I know there were an enormous amount for both. And in any case, errata is only one part of the equation.Through the 3e era, three hardcovers probably come out to a bit less than $100.At the moment, I'm not. I was once, albeit not at over $100 a year (there may also have been products that other people bought for me, and game-related expenses for non-gaming products).I do.I'm not a lawyer and I don't want to delve into the legal complexities too much, but you can't copyright game mechanics. D&D belongs to us, not Hasbro. In what other game would we expect to pay anything for access to the rules. Do kids playing soccer have to pay for a FIFA license on the rules? Do people playing chess in the park have to pay for those rules? There are certainly things you can buy as part of playing those games (equipment, uniforms, etc.). In fact, you can buy books with the rules. But you don't have to. Games are free.People optionally pay into games because the products make their life easier, and that's how companies make money. It's easier to buy a Monopoly board than to make your own. It's easier pay for access to a tennis court than to build your own. It's easier for me to buy a PHB than it is to try and copy the SRD and make it into something usable.If it produced enough good quality content and you got enough use out of it, it could be.To convince me to pay?In a strange (kind of twisted) way, my input matters more on that level than that of someone who does pay in. There's a group of people who will buy anything with the D&D label on it. So why would WotC listen to them? They'll buy no matter what. There are also many people who won't buy no matter what; again, WotC isn't interested in those. I'm a person who will buy under some circumstances, but not others, meaning that the company actually has some control over me. And I'm essentially in charge of a gaming group, meaning that if I do buy something, others likely will as well.And, perhaps most importantly, if I play their game, than I recruit other people. Even if they only make a real profit on a fraction of players, it's in their interest to recruit more of them. That's the whole theory beyond the OGL. The game itself is an "acquisition engine" as Ryan Dancey called it, which recruits players, a portion of which will buy a lot of (not required but useful) stuff and make the company money.Paizo is on the same boat; they'd rather you play PF for free than play something else, figuring that if you do, maybe you'll eventually buy something. I've never bought a PF product, but I have bought things from Paizo's site just to support them.Your perspective certainly matches WotC's  going into the 4e era. Before, the idea was more "let's get everyone playing d20 and then maybe make some money off of some of them", which was replaced with "let's get as much money out of our customers as we can and if anyone isn't interested in paying in, screw them". Both approaches have some validity; high margin, low volume vs low margin, high volume. As a consumer, I simply prefer the old OGL way, and thus, here I am in the thread about fairly criticizing WotC.</blockquote>

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