Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

[doctorhook]

I don't think there even is a "Paizo effect". Paizo is just another smaller competitor for WotC, and I don't think Pathfinder is doing nearly as good a job bringing new players to RPGing as 4E does. While 4E fans can market their product as "the newest and coolest version of D&D", lots of PF fans seem to be stuck nerdraging at potential new players about how much "teh newest verison of D+D suxx! (U shud buy Pathfinder instead!)".

 

[Mark CMG]

That is a bit misleading though.

The bulk of 4E was a known quantity well before the official release date.
The debates about the strengths and weaknesses before the release date weren't substantially different than they are now.

And the "GSL" was announced before Pathfinder started. And there was a long road of 4E pseudo-OGL trial efforts before the GSL came to be.

What 4E was or was not going to be is secondary to the licensing issues. It is misleading to claim that the content of 4E and it's release date were at the heart of the problem in Paizo and WotC coming to some accord. Without licensing favorable to both parties, it was never going to happen anyway and Paizo held out as long as they could before abandoning the hope. At the point at which they walked away from the table, their design and print schedules would not allow them further time be wasted on what proved later to have been a lost cause.

 

[BryonD]

I don't think there even is a "Paizo effect". Paizo is just another smaller competitor for WotC, and I don't think Pathfinder is doing nearly as good a job bringing new players to RPGing as 4E does. While 4E fans can market their product as "the newest and coolest version of D&D", lots of PF fans seem to be stuck nerdraging at potential new players about how much "teh newest verison of D+D suxx! (U shud buy Pathfinder instead!)".

Well said


Edit: Heh, My sarcasm gets XP as sincere. I mean, come on, this has to be the most nerd-raging, unsubstantiated, irrational post in the thread.

 

[Kaodi]

El Madhi's "poll" missed the most important question(s), I think, which Perram later referenced in his: "Are you a Pathfinder player who has never played D&D? "

 

[Wicht]

I don't think there even is a "Paizo effect". Paizo is just another smaller competitor for WotC, and I don't think Pathfinder is doing nearly as good a job bringing new players to RPGing as 4E does. While 4E fans can market their product as "the newest and coolest version of D&D", lots of PF fans seem to be stuck nerdraging at potential new players about how much "teh newest verison of D+D suxx! (U shud buy Pathfinder instead!)".

And yet, my son had my cousin over for a sleep-over and we played Dungeons and Dragons with him, using Pathfinder, gave him a set of extra dice as he was going home, and he took his character sheet because he has a friend who plays Dungeons and Dragons. Not once did we denigrate 4e as we played and I suspect if I buy him a Core Rulebook for Christmas, Paizo has a new 12 year old gamer.

 

[El Mahdi]

...The bulk of 4E was a known quantity well before the official release date...

For me, I don't agree with this one. I thought I had a really good grasp on what 4E was going to be from articles, sneak peeks (most of them right here on ENWorld - it's what brought me here in the first place), and the "Classes and Races" and "Worlds and Monsters" books. But when I got my core book set in the mail and read them, it seemed like a whole different animal to me than what I expected. I've heard the same thing from a lot of others. I think we had some idea of what it would be, but as a complete whole, a lot of us were quite surprised.

Paizo choices were well informed on:
The mechanical changes in 4E
The flavor changes in 4E
The market responses to 4E
The license implications of 4E

I don't agree with this either, I think it was purely for the license implications only.

 

[BryonD]

What 4E was or was not going to be is secondary to the licensing issues. It is misleading to claim that the content of 4E and it's release date were at the heart of the problem in Paizo and WotC coming to some accord. Without licensing favorable to both parties, it was never going to happen anyway and Paizo held out as long as they could before abandoning the hope. At the point at which they walked away from the table, their design and print schedules would not allow them further time be wasted on what proved later to have been a lost cause.

Sorry, I'm not sure I'm entirely following your point. I can't tell where you are agreeing and where you are disagreeing.

I know there were multiple elements to the choice. I don't claim that any one of them was or was not "at the heart". I don't know. But I know they have made comments about all of the above playing into their choice.

There is zero doubt that the GSL was a big deal, and being in control is an important factor.

But they also clearly stated that the OGL SRD was a better game system for the way they wanted to go.

Obviously, they could have built their own game from the ground up had they wanted to go that route.

 

[Mark CMG]

Going off memory here, but by the time they decided to stick with the OGL it was known that wotc would not be using the OGL. It was known they would be using an still unseen GSL and 3PP kept waiting and waiting while the GSL was still a no show.

So paizo had to make a call as they could not stop making products while waiting for the still unseen GSL and new rule set.

Correct but with the stipulation that at that point I believe the GSL had been seen but had changed a couple of times and was touted as WotC as still being potentially amended. As it turned out, it was never going to be amended enough to prove favorable.


I think the assessment of AllisterH is also spot on. It is clear that even if the GSL had been more favorable, the restrictive nature of the DDI, in regard to what it could allow of 3PP material, makes any expansive ambitions of a 3PP under the GSL a relative death march. Certainly, there are ways to pick up some table scraps (as compared to being a more fully-fledged 3PP partner in the 3.XE era). Even the strongest of GSL partners seems to be liquidating stock from the last two years.

 

[Wicht]

4E was never going to be OGL,

Actually, WotC originally said 4e would be OGL. They then backed off of that, but it had been said.

And while Paizo had an idea of the direction of 4e (like many of us did) there is a vast difference between having access to the prereleased material and actually getting to see the bulk of the rules. IIRC, and I think I do, WotC did not let Paizo see the rulebooks before their general release. They wanted the 3pps to commit to coming on board purely on faith. While at the same time they also continued to move the release date of the GSL.

 

[AllisterH]

I never got the impression that WOTC hated all 3PP products.

Indeed, they WANT adventures produced. What WOTC found annoying my guess was that "supplementary rules a.k.a monsters/feats/etc" products were competing directly with their own products.

That's NOT what WOTC wanted for the OGL IMO.

When integrating a 3pp product with a WOTC product into a campaign is the same diffculty (as it was during 3.x era), there's no great incentive to choose the WOTC product over the 3pp product.

When even DRAGON AND DUNGEON material gets incorporated into DDI for 4e (as mentioned earlier, how does this work if Paizo ran both magazines still), yeah, the WOTC product is likely to be more chosen.

As an aside, it should be mentioned that DDI might also be possibily cannibalizing sales from WOTC dead tree line. On 4e forums here, @ penny arcade, @rpg.net etc, when asked by people "what products should I buy?".

The answer is usually..."PHB (might be ESSENTIALS soon), DMG and then get yourself DDI."

(hell, we don't even mention MM and if you're an old hat DMing, I'd drop buying the DMG as well)