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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 1569156" data-attributes="member: 3312">As a student in general of the concept of open gaming, I think you probably already know what my answer will be.The OGL acts to increase the efficiency of the transmission of ideas in game design.  In fact, it increases the efficiency of that transmission almost all the way to 100%.  Weird, wonderful things happen as efficiencies approach perfection that can't and don't happen when there is even minor friction in the system.When a "good idea" appears, that good idea can spread to as many new products in which that idea is appropriate, without any limitation caused by a need for permission, approval, or review.  That means that publishers have no good argument for not using such "good ideas" and instead using a "less good" idea of their own invention.  Consumers, once educated to this fact, will start to impact the market by either rewarding or punishing publishers (by purchasing or not purchasing) the work they produce based on how well that publisher is maximizing the value of the total shared base of "good ideas".We've just gone through two transition periods in the OGL/D20 market, and both improved things, in my opinion.Phase One was the initial period following the publication of the OGL and the SRD.  I liken Phase One to a whole bunch of people who have told themselves for years "I could do that" when looking at TSR/WotC releases actually being given permission to try.  The result was an absolute explosion of pent-up demand for "the right to try".  Some good, mostly bad, but at least very, very diverse.Phase Two was the period we are now emerging from, when the pent-up demand was mostly spent.  The people who were left were the people who really did intend to try and make "publishing games" a part of their life, something they would do either as art or industry, but would do to the best of their ability.  Of course, that period also produced some good, and mostly bad products, because even with the "will" to do things right, good game design is a lot harder than it looks, and doing good work turns out to be as much a function of sheer hard work and attention to detail as any other professional occupation requires.Phase Three is where we are now.  In Phase Three, the people who sieved out of Phase One ("pent-up demand") who really intend to keep trying, were forged in the fires of Phase Two ("learning to be professionals"), and now we're in Phase Three, which I define as "honing the craft".  The number of people doing OGL/D20 design "for a living" is now probably 100x the number who were doing it "for a living" in 1999.  The result is that more creativity and innovation is being applied to the game system all at once than in any time in the game's history.  The result should be a sprial of upward quality as these people learn from each other, feed on each other's ideas, take the best that is available and re-use it, and try to make their new innovations match the quality level of the stuff they are re-using.If I could draw a graph of unit volume, I would graph a high point in the twelve months after 3E launched, as the "pent-up demand" people met an audience enraptured by the idea that all these people were actually doing it.  From the middle of of 2001 to the end of 2003, that graph would slowly show declining sales each month as purchasers got tired of buying stuff just to watch the show, and started to concentrate dollars on stuff they felt likely to be of high quality.  My hope is that from this point forward until the next Phase, the graph will show an upward direction, as the increasing quality of the products available induces people to buy them, and with each purchase, get more confident that the work they're buying is good, and thus feel more willing to buy the next thing as well.</blockquote>

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