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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6293725" data-attributes="member: 22424">It's actually not as hard as it might seem. WotC have three big advantages:- Massive name recognition. Here, I'll note that Mongoose used the OGL to produce a pocket PHB that, despite whatever anger WotC may have felt about it, had no appreciable impact on PHB sales. Likewise, an 'official' character builder will always do well against an 'unofficial' one, regardless of content.- They get to control the release schedule. So, no reason they couldn't release the new books (and material) to DDI, and thus the official generator, a couple of months ahead.- And, of course, they get to control what gets released as 'open'. Since virutally none of the 3.5e supplements contained any open material, an official generator would have had a huge advantage. (And while existing generators might include material from "Complete Warrior" et al, they do so only so long as WotC don't shut them down; you can bet that if WotC were in direct competition, they would.)In fact, the bigger difficulty is how (and whether) to include third-party materials into the 'official' DDI generator. Failing to include them, especially if that material becomes popular, reduces the perceived value of the DDI sub, while allowing their inclusion is potentially problematic for legal and technical reasons.Yes. WotC never managed to get a decent one together, and then they gave up.</blockquote>