Coming from the very first person to attack me in this forum in my very first discussion on the GSL and always more than happy to make personal attacks against me. If it came from dmccoy, I might actually consider it.
Well, not everyday I get called the diplomatic one. *marks date on calender* jmucchiello and I haven't been attacking you. It is difficult to read tone of voice over pure text so it is easy to misconstrude stuff as attacking or condescending or etc when none was intended. Now that we're more aware of your specific knowledge and the gaps in it, we can work with that. And yes, the gaming industry has a number of odd quirks.
Quirk 1: Clear licenses/contracts mean alot. Most companies can't afford to visit a lawyer on a regular basis, because most are run by a guy in his basement working off of a shoe string budget and hoping to have enough to show for it to keep his wife happy. Not many understand the complexities of copyright law. I think the only ones outside Wizards that understands it very well are Necromancer Games and Kenzer & Co. Why? Because they're both run by lawyers. I know Kenzer knows it quite well since they've been doing it since 2E D&D and won some of the forementioned TSR lawsuits.
I assume by the examples you put forth that you mean competing systems within the same company (Spelljammer and Dragonlance being from the same company), yet you're talking about competition between systems outside the company, so I'm confused. Competition is good outside the company, but yes, it is bad for a company to compete against itself so openly in roleplaying systems, because it's a division of resources and no inherent certainty in the absence of focus. (It's different for trading card games, because they're very rigid, so in-house competition can be withstood, but that's a different issue.) In other words, as a personal request, could you please clarify?
Alrighty. The lines between companies are secondary to the lines between game systems. Comparison: HDDVD vs Blueray. Does it matter which system is better? No. Does it matter which one holds more info per disc? No. Does it matter which titles are available on HDDVD and which are on Blueray? No (Technically a company could have been making movies for both if they played their cards right.) What matters is market share. Blueray eventually won because one of the last few movie studios on HDDVD saw the number of units (aka potential buyers) for theirs was substantially lower then Bluerays.
Bringing that back around to the gaming industry. WotC D&D currently has somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the market. Meanwhile a mere 10 years ago, White Wolf was outselling TSR. Two things are well known in the gaming industry: 1) D&D is the gateway game to the rest of the industry, and 2) the further you get from D&D, the less likely you are to return to D&D. Wizards learned that second tidbit from studies conducted after their takeover of TSR. Dancey's idea for stopping that 2nd half by reducing the barrier of returning, different systems.
Ever listen to what the 3.5 grognards are saying as to why they do not want to upgrade to 4E. Many of them say the reason is, "We have plenty of 3.5 books, why should I start over." Translation: The cost of starting over with an incompatable system is higher then they want to pay. Effectively, Wizards proved Dancey's theory. That is why Pathfinder will be a success. You'll note that the fluff and the system of 4E is different, to different for crossover material. The cost of starting over would be lower if the FRCS was similar. You can't take the fluff from the book "Races of Faerun" and apply it to 4E FR. The cost of starting over would be lower if the planes worked the same. And on and on.
Back to Dancey's theory. The jump back to D&D after a gamer gets tired of D&D and goes elsewhere would be easier if the D&D system was used for much more then ... well, D&D. Say it was used to for a spy game. Spycraft is a modern game that uses the same basic system as D&D, but its uses a modern adaptation of that system (aka d20 modern). Effectively, they means that Wizards "competitors" were really their "allies." Ever single company that uses the d20 system in a different way then Wizards is providing an outlit for gamers that were going to leave D&D anyways. By keeping those gamers close, those gamers are more likely to return to D&D when they're done taking their strole away from D&D. Gamers are going to leave D&D from time to time (Wizards knows this and isn't upset by this). They just want those customers using their system the whole time.
The theory worked.
I agree with your view of WOTC's motive in this case, but I disagree about it violating creativity of any company. There's nothing that stops those companies from creating those exact same creatures under entirely different names.
Oh sure. But then, you don't have a different adaptation of a monster, you have a different monster. You aren't "owning" something and making "your take" on it distinctive; you're creating a new monster manual. Plus, they're the stuff that Wizards doesn't own. Wizards doesn't own the word Goblin. Why does everyone else have to agree that Wizards interpretation of the Goblin is the correct one? When you talk to a fellow D&D gamer, you talk about Goblin-squashing, Wack-a-gnoll, or Black Dragon Slaying, you know what they're talking about. Now if another game started talking about Magraduke-slashing, Kibble-punching, and Fusha Dragon Smacking, the first thing you'd ask the person is, "Are you sure you're playing D&D and not Toon?"
Its getting late so I'm going to end this here. Do you get what I'm getting at?
By the way, I consider you more reasonable for things like this and for actually making an honest effort [read: pure motive] to provide the evidence I ask for.
