Could the D20/OGL end up hurting WoTC?

[Psion]

He did not say "revoked", he said "put an end to the OGL". Theoretically, since the OGL has not been tested in court, there is no guarantee of it being unable to be revoked.

Is this wishful thinking from someone publishing non-OGL products?

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, they do, Mike, because people don't have infinite amounts of money. If a guy goes to a game store with $30 and he wants a new book for his D&D game, he's only coming out of that store with one book. It might be a WotC book but it very well might not be. You can pretend that the millions of dollars generated by d20 companies have had no impact on WotC, but I think that's plainly false.

And yet the only problem with this model is that you are (apparently) assuming that gamers have a "gaming budget" wherein its more likely to be an "entertainment budget" instead. In that regard, you're also competing against CCGs, DVDs, computer games, and Taco Bell.

I can only speak theoretically and anecdotally, of course, but personally, WotC has not lost sales because of d20 books in my account. The WotC books that I haven't bought, I wouldn't have bought regardless of whatever OGC product is out there. I'm -- and I believe Mike is saying he believes more customers are like this -- demand driven, not supply driven. Just because something's available from WotC and I'm a gamer doesn't automatically mean I have any demand for that product. In general, I've ignored FR material, the Races series, the Complete series, and a few other products from WotC. It's not because I've picked up something else from a d20 publisher instead, it's because I was never going to buy those in the first place.

Not only that, naturally (since rpg products are a luxury item) my demand is also pretty elastic. I think that's what Mike was trying to say and I agree with him completely.

 

[Mark]

Grimsyr Harptongue warned me not to let you retain your post, Pramdalf Stormcrow...


Signed,
Markoden (King of the Cretorhim)

 

[Psion]

And yet the only problem with this model is that you are (apparently) assuming that gamers have a "gaming budget" wherein its more likely to be an "entertainment budget" instead.

FWIW, I do. Have a gaming budget separate from other expendiatures, that is.

Not willfully, mind you, but my wife raises much less of a fuss when I nab a DVD that the family can watch (and even things I only get for myself, like anime or farscape, get tucked in the DVD wing of the budget) than when I buy $100 worth of books.

Rational, no. But there you go.

 

[Rasyr]

Is this wishful thinking from someone publishing non-OGL products?

Actually, no it isn't. I have been a supporter of the OGL since the beginning. I was part of the group on Dancey's private email lists who helped to hash it out.

When the new ICE formed (remember the old ICE was being killed at about the time that the OGL was first released), it was too late for it to be able to jump into the d20 market, as there were aleady dozens, if not hundreds of companies already in place and flooding the distribution channels. Couple this with ICE's small size, and splitting resources on a completely different system from its house system would have been a bad decision for ICE.

Nobody has ever said that ICE will never do anything with OGL products or material. In fact, there are some plans in the works already (cannot talk about them though, at least not yet).

However, one thing that a business needs to do is to look at the potential risks. That includes any risks that might be involved with the OGL. Can Hasbro kill it off in some manner? Quite possibly, but it would take effort on their part. SO the question then becomes, would that be worth it for them to expend that effort? That is the question that still needs to be answered, and likely never will until it actually happens.

In all, I try to be optimistically pessimistic about things. I hope for the best, but always expect the worst. That way I can often be pleasantly surpised.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Since Green Ronin is almost the leading company in the d20 field (or among the top three), it means your own company generated millions of dollars. You must be rich!! Congratulations!!! (I envy you, making so much money with rpgs...)

I've heard an estimate that about 20 people have become millionaires through pen and paper roleplaying. I'd like to think that Chris is among them because a million bucks isn't that much these days, and believing that the head of one of the biggest d20 companies can achieve that level by putting out consistently quality material gives the rest of us something to strive for!

I may disagree with Mr. Pramas about OGL ideology, but not nearly so much as I disagree with Mr. Gygax, and neither one stops me from admiring their work and wishing them the best possible fortunes from it.

I'm not taking aim at you, Turanil - after all, your post is protected by a +5 smiley of flame resistance - just saying that, by my lights, it's a good thing if Green Ronin is indeed generating millions of dollars.

[EDIT]: Just wanted to add that, looking at OGL practice rather than theory, Green Ronin is notably generous with open content designations.

 

[seankreynolds]

I think you can knock that number down to 1,000-1,500.

Yeah, sorry, I was considering only the biggest d20 print publishers with that number: Green Ronin, Mongoose, and Sword & Sorcery mayb manage a 10,000 unit print run, but you're right--most d20 publishers are happy to get 1,000-1,500.

Nonetheless, I think it's undeniable that d20 as a whole has had an effect on D&D's bottom line. So does WotC care that GR released the Black Company? Probably not. But it should care that Black Company, Hamunaptra, Midnight, Scarred Lands, Warcraft, Diamond Throne, Iron Kingdoms, etc. are all out there and all offering viable alternatives to WotC's own material.

True, but every d20-logo'd book requires the Player's Handbook, and the PH is pure money for WotC now (they've recouped all the development costs by now, so their profit per core book is greater). Sure, if Joe Gamer buys a $30 d20 book from some other company, yes, WotC has "lost out" on the $2 profit they would make if Joe instead bought the latest $30 Eberron book, but Joe still had to buy his PH for $30, and that's about $4 in WotC's pocket.

I don't think we can really determine the actual effect without a nine-dimensional graph (# gamers vs. $ spent on WotC vs. $ spent on non-WotC vs. core book sales driven by d20 vs. people who use the SRD instead of a core book, etc.), but the WotC axis is just so big that every other part is almost insignificant by comparison. You're right, we should compare WotC to all non-WotC publishers ... but I still think it's a very small effect at best. Especially as the d20 license allowed WotC to stop making nonprofitable products (like adventures) and hand that business to someone for whom it is profitable (smaller publishers) and still reap the benefit of people needing to buy WotC books to use those nonprofitable products.

And sometimes those products help grow the market (which offsets the "only so many gaming dollars" problem). Take the Black Company setting for example. I'm certain there were non-gamers who picked up the game just because they're interested in the Black Company. Some of those may become gamers, and thus start spending money on gaming materials ... including WotC products, as they need the PH to play d20 products, and that may get them interested in non-BC gaming. WotC would never pursue the BC license because it's not mass-market enough for Hasbro to risk spending money on it ... but Green Ronin is willing to take that risk because it's easier for them to make a return on their investment. So GR takes a risk, and succeeds, and more people enter the d20 hobby, which is derived from D&D. WotC wins. (And catching up with the thread, I notice that's basically what Joe Mucchiello and some others have said.)

I have a vague memory of some business guy from WOTC (Jim Butler?) mentioning that the first print run of the PHB was 500,000 copies, and had sold out. That was about 6-12 months after PHB 3.0 was first released, about the same time they raised the price on the core books from $20 to $30.

Yeah, that's just me (a) being conservative with my numbers, and still dwarfing non-WotC sales with those conservative numbers, and (b) hesitant to reveal information that may be proprietary, as I can't remember what figures are public and what aren't. In any case, the 3.0 PH print run was HUGE. And it sold out VERY quickly.

WotC already has a long history of moving release dates for card games and CCG expansions to the detriment of competitors. And I think that same mentality was part of the reason why 3.5 came out 2 years before originally scheduled. Think about it for a sec. Malhavoc announces its alternative PHB (the first such to be announced) and what happens? Shortly afterward 3.5 is announced. Malhavoc is told there are no issues about using the name Arcana Unearthed, and shortly afterwards Unearthed Arcana is announced (the gap between the two long enough for UA to actually be written). Valterra announces his controversial book, and boom! the d20 license gets changed before he can publish.

I don't believe 3.5 had anything to do with the announcement of AU. I was at WotC when we were working on 3.5, I was gaming with Monte while he and others were playtesting AU. I don't recall anything about "we have to beat Monte to the punch," but I could be wrong.

I don't believe there was any territorialism with the name AU. Monte asked WotC if it was OK, they said yes it was and IIRC told him that they were already planning a book they were going to call UA.

Anthony Valterra saw that they were going to change the d20 license by adding content restrictions, tried to get his book done before they did so, but the book was delayed until after the addition of the content restrictions to the license, so he made it a non-logo'd book.

Does the OGL hurt WotC's bottom line? Yes, it does. This may only be a tiny drop in the bucket to them, but it still affects the bottom line.

In the same way that a human is "affected" by the amount of blood lost from a mosquito bite.

 

[diaglo]

my hat of d02 knows no limits.

so in truth the OGL has aleady hurt WotC in my eyes.

i still buy their products. but not with any love or respect for them.

 

[der_kluge]

If we applied this logic to other forms of entertainment - books, movies, DVDs, it falls apart. Only a lunatic would say that everyone who went to see The Incredibles will never see any of the other movies that were playing at the theater that night. The same thing applies to DVDs, books, whatever. What is so magical about RPGs? I'm honestly curious.

No, that's just not true. RPGs aren't like movies - in that they are not standalone products which can be enjoyed with any other RPG product. They are more like Operating Systems. If someone switches to Linux over Windows, that customer's demand for Windows-based software just decreased dramatically since it's not compatible anymore. So, if someone switches to Arcana Unearthed, or Grim Tales, their demand for supplements to Eberron just went in the toilet.

 

[Sir Elton]

Nobody has ever said that ICE will never do anything with OGL products or material. In fact, there are some plans in the works already (cannot talk about them though, at least not yet).

Tim, this is great news. Here's hoping that the new environment would work out for the new ICE. Although, I'm pessimistic about ICE jumping in with two feet.