Company Identity and licensing...

[Haffrung Helleyes]

It doesn't work because Wizards basically says in the GSL that they can shut your company out any time they want, for no reason, and that you have to immediately destroy all your unsold backstock, and you can't republish your material under the OGL, and that if you sue them, or they sue you, you have to pay their legal costs regardless of whether or not they're totally in the wrong.

In essence, the GSL says, 'you can come along for the 4E ride, but if you do, and we decide later for any reason to destroy your company, you're toast'.

So it's a really bad idea to piss off Hasbro if you're doing 4E.

Ken

 

[lurkinglidda]

Let's pretend I don't work for WotC and that I'm just Joe Average for a moment:

Having different versions of the same product line published and sold by two different companies would be confusing to the customer and possibly counter-productive, being the antithesis of effective branding.

This is a great point. One of the major rules of marketing is: A Confused Customer is a Non-Buying Customer.

Granted, folks who play RPGs are generally very intelligent (I'm not saying that to kiss up. I say it b/c it's my strong belief) and can figure out the differences fairly quickly. However, a noob would be confused and walk on down the aisle. Your existing audience will understand, but this approach does not work for acquisition. You don't have to do extensive market research to know that in this industry acquistion is KEY.

If I was running my own third party shop (again, consider I'm not a WotC person talking right now) I'd go with one route or another, not both.

 

[Caedwyr]

What is so different about RPGs from multi-platform supported versions of computer software? Or video games? Heck, you frequently have different distributors for different global regions on a lot of game software. Users don't seem to get too confused.