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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark" data-source="post: 1956212" data-attributes="member: 5">Why would you use The Forge as an example?  Do they even contribute significantly to their own sales?  Seriously, is there any hard data on how well any single company that waves the Indie Game Company banner does please point me to it?  The few I've spoken with directly run the gambit from discussing it like an expensive hobby that they get some joy from pursuing to those who scramble to get an idea for a game or two into print and make enough to justify printing costs, and some months even their time.Are you sure that "all" RPG sales really meant just that or rather that it was shorthand for companies in "all successful corners of the market" like SJG, WW, WotC, etc.  I don't think I'd even place Palladium that high, though, since while I suppose it's longevity is some measure, I don't think of them as a juggernaut of new products coupled with a variety of lines leading to notable financial success (like SJG, WW, and WotC, seem to exhibit).  I'd be tempted to slide Fantasy Flight Games, and maybe AEG and Green Ronin up into the mix, though the latter two still rely heavily on the d20/OGL sales even though they might be on the cusp of being large enough to consider.Anyway, that woiuld all make more sense to me in the context of what was being proffered by Dancey back then, IIRC.As far as WotC embracing open content development more fully (beyond the SRD and a few OGL'd passages or variant rules books), across the board, it wouldn't serve their interests or the market.  Except for the ocassional nod to one of their old cronies/employees, once WotC seriously starts pointing up this developer or that developer they would essentially create a middle tier of "approved" third party publishers and likely collapse the market as a whole.  It would be tantamount to them handing out free use of the D&D license to some and relegating all others to lower-class citizen status.  While that wouldn't likely harm most of the publishers on the lowest rungs, and it wouldn't take away the ladder, it would effectively strip publishers from the middle of the ladder and remove the rungs in that section, leaving some hand-picked pubs above and most below.  This might serve those above for some period of time, those below would no longer be any real help toward core book sales.  Those above might be stronger toward that end for some time, but sooner or later they would either need to be content with the level to which they were elevated or need to become more competitive with WotC directly, at which point they too would no longer be of use to WotC.  Nope.  IMO, WotC needs to do their own thing and keep playing the lofty, benevolent patron and custodian of the licensewith only passing praise to some publishers lest they undermine what they get from the grand experiment.</blockquote>

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