Kalontas
First Post
This means that probably the OGL is irrelevant for the success of 5e.
No, it only means the pre-orders are irrelevant as an argument towards the summarised success in the end - as 3E didn't have an equal competitor.
This means that probably the OGL is irrelevant for the success of 5e.
No, it only means the pre-orders are irrelevant as an argument towards the summarised success in the end - as 3E didn't have an equal competitor.
It does not ignore any factor. My point was not that pre-orders are important for financial success. My point was that the OGL is not an important thing for financial success as fans do not think it makes the product more valuable for them, since they are equally willing to buy the product if they know that the product is not under OGL. Simply put, the fans do not care whether the product is under OGL or not.This ignore several important factors. First, that preorders are not the only measure of (financial) success. I would place more importance on the number of customers who actually knew what they were buying, later on.
When WotC went to a 'new edition' they decided to aggressively combat the existing game, openly deride its adherents, and radically redefine the design goals. If WotC had stayed OGL and instead revised 3.5e or created a new ruleset based on 3e, they might have maintained their market share. While not without its critics, the 3.0 to 3.5 transition resulted in most people converting to the latter, even though 3.0 was still available. There's no reason to think the same thing couldn't have happened again if handled right.
Would they have been able to satisfy critics of 3e, or attract new business while doing so? That's harder to say. But it's hard for me to see the OGL has a hindrance; its more like a check on the power of the company.
Huh? It means that fans want to buy the game no matter if it is OGL or not (4e was not an OGL game). Now, of course, as you say, fans will stay with the game only if it is good enough, especially if there is some competitor around.
But this is a different matter. To put it another way: it does not mean that if 5e is OGL, that 5e will be a good game.
The third party licensing structure for 5e is an interesting question, but it is closely connected to whether third parties will have access to DDI.
What would 5E rules released under the OGL bring to WotC? In my opinion:
1)Good Will from the Gamer-proselytizers. Those folks who used the OGL to create and publish whatever variant of 5E suited their creative little fancies, allowed them to create the adventure content to share that they wanted, and in general work out issues they have with the game system with no repercussions. With the GSL, there was a feeling of "we don't want you anymore" to the community of tinkerers, who, in my perception of it, where usually those same grass-roots proselytizers.
2) Feeding game design innovations back into 5E. People forget that many of 4E's innovations can be traced to Mearls, and Mearls was an OGL Master before he was a WotC Developer. Who knows who the next Mearls is waiting to be tapped for a future D&D?
Everyone who dislikes the OGL can feel free to tell me how wrong I am and how unnecessary it is.![]()
Money saved is money earned. There is an asset here-the passion of the fans. Give them access to the rules and the opportunity to produce game material, and they will take it and run with it, effectively creating promotional material and doing your advertising for free. Even to this day, I think a lot more money is spent promoting 4e than PF, but look at the business success Paizo is having.If i was a wizard EWxec my question how does this make money for Wizards?
This has meaning beyond what you intended, I think, and not in ways that would make WotC amenable to going back to OGL.Give them access to the rules and the opportunity to produce game material, and they will take it and run with it
This is true. But it is not true that 3.xe was a success because it was under the OGL. After all, as many people suggest, Wotc did not support the OGL beyond the core books and arcana unearthed.If pre-orders are a measure of anything, they're a measure of success of the previous edition of a game. Because people haven't seen the new edition yet, they don't know whether it's good or bad - but if the previous edition was successfull, they will buy the next edition, in hopes of continued quality.
And that's what happened with 4E. Guess what did not happen - it did not hold the market share.
No. This is your suggestion but it does not follow from any facts that it might also be true. After all, many 4e fans complain of rules and product bloat and if it were not for the DDI utilities they would have had a very difficult time to follow new products. Some third party publishers tried to publish for 4e but they stopped since their sales were very low. They believe that 4e fans did not want third party material because it were not compatible with the DDI online tools.A very prominent reason for that was GSL - undeniable fall of the number of 3PP materials meant far less material, meant far less players holding on to the game.
Maybe, maybe not. As noted above, a number of publishers tried to support 4e with the GSL but they did not have any luck in the market. OTOH, the OSR is experiencing significant growth. The OSR would never support 4e, even if it were OGL, yet it is doing better than 4e third party publishers.Also, the GSL directly caused Pathfinder - as repeated numerous times in this thread, Paizo was ready to work for 4E, but GSL shut them so much, they profited more from their own retro clone. And how!
I meant it. There isn't really any danger that fans will make a product will directly compete with a WotC product, and there isn't really any danger of saturating the market. If those things were the case, an OGL might be a much worse business decision.This has meaning beyond what you intended, I think, and not in ways that would make WotC amenable to going back to OGL.
I believe that 3rd party support and fan created material create a synergistic effect with D&D, rather than subtracting from D&D's pie.
Synergy: the sums are greater than the whole...
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Except Paizo did exactly that, using the OGL.I meant it. There isn't really any danger that fans will make a product will directly compete with a WotC product, and there isn't really any danger of saturating the market. If those things were the case, an OGL might be a much worse business decision.
But not while WotC was still using the OGL. So I'm telling the execs "when we closed our license, we lot market share, so open it up again".Except Paizo did exactly that, using the OGL.
Except Paizo did exactly that, using the OGL.
Continuing the pretense: Note the Wizards exec does not believe the Ryan Dancy arguments, he vetoed the OGL for 4e. "So what is this demonstrably works?"Money saved is money earned. There is an asset here-the passion of the fans. Give them access to the rules and the opportunity to produce game material, and they will take it and run with it, effectively creating promotional material and doing your advertising for free. Even to this day, I think a lot more money is spent promoting 4e than PF, but look at the business success Paizo is having.
If I were talking to a WotC person, my case would be: this model demonstrably works, so copy it.