Goodman is clearly going to the GSL.

[Fifth Element]

Just because Goodman games is announcing the end of 3e product sales has no bearing on the October 1st start date. They're clearly trying to get as much sales out of the PDF's as they can over the next 3 months before they release their first 4e product. It's not like they announced a product to be released before then.

This is my thinking as well. Just because they're not going GSL doesn't mean they don't realize that 3.5 sales will likely fall off more and more the longer 4E is out. A big sale before discontinuing the 3.5 stuff makes sense. But the discontinuation doesn't have to be about GSL, it could just be about it not being profitable any more.

 

[tenkar]

I think if Goodman was going GSL or had a separate license it would have been announced. This looks more like a D20 sell off to me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is my thinking as well. Just because they're not going GSL doesn't mean they don't realize that 3.5 sales will likely fall off more and more the longer 4E is out. A big sale before discontinuing the 3.5 stuff makes sense. But the discontinuation doesn't have to be about GSL, it could just be about it not being profitable any more.

We're talking about PDFs - does keeping them online cost them that much money?

 

[tenkar]

We're talking about PDFs - does keeping them online cost them that much money?

DCCs are published under the D20 license, not OGL. D20 license expired end of June. Selloff lasts till the end of 2008. Might as well get what you can for them now before having to retcon them to OGL or convert them to 4e.

 

[sjmiller]

We're talking about PDFs - does keeping them online cost them that much money?

DCCs are published under the D20 license, not OGL. D20 license expires relatively soon. Might as well get what you can for them now before having to retcon them to OGL or convert them to 4e.

Well, since the d20 license was more restrictive than the OGL, wouldn't just removing the d20 logo from the book be sufficient for a retcon?

It's a shame that they are going this route. I was just getting interested in the DCC modules when I recently lost my job. So, buying up modules is not possible now, but could have been in the future. Guess I will have to scour used game stores now.

 

[jaerdaph]

This doesn't answer anything about whether or not Goodman is going with the GSL or not.

The DCCs have the d20 logo on them. No publisher, regardless if they are going 4e with the GSL, going "copyright" to make 4e products, or sticking with the 3.5 rules, can continue to sell products with the d20 on them when the grace period expires in a few months.

It probably isn't cost effective for Goodman to redo all the PDFs to remove the d20 logo, remove any references to the core rulebooks within the text, and remove any other language claiming compatability with D&D. Edit: It's not always as simple as removing the logo or slapping on a sticker.

 

[EricNoah]

Regardless of the reason, thanks for the heads up. I would have been a most unhappy camper if I'd woken up one day and found there was no more opportunity to buy DCCs for 3.x. I grabbed six I didn't own for about $24 -- a good deal.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not sure what to think of this news.

First, is there a link to their announcement? I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth, particularly in regards to how long we have before the d20 DCC's go away permanently.

Secondly, I'm not sure this means anything regarding the GSL. As many have noted, this could simply be due to the d20 STL approaching. That said, I'm surprised that they're just flat-out ending sales of their d20 DCC's. However much trouble it may be to remove the d20 logo (and honestly, that does seem like all it'd be - I thought you could still mention the "PHB," "DMG," and "MM" even under the OGL, for example) I think it makes more sense to do that and keep the PDFs available. The major drawback of the GSL is that you can't keep OGL versions of products published. It makes little sense for Goodman Games to dump their largest and most successful line, since there'll still be an OGL community buying the PDFs to some degree.

I'm also dubious because if they're just cancelling sales of their DCC PDFs, why not their other d20 PDFs? Are the Wicked Fantasy Factory d20 products also going away forever? What abotu XCrawl products? There's more to Goodman's d20 line than just DCC.

 

[Delta]

If you buy them now, they will be available in the future!

I don't know which ones would be useful for a given future campaign. And I'm not buying all of them. So this sucks.

 

[jdrakeh]

It probably isn't cost effective for Goodman to redo all the PDFs to remove the d20 logo, remove any references to the core rulebooks within the text, and remove any other language claiming compatability with D&D. Edit: It's not always as simple as removing the logo or slapping on a sticker.

It's also rarely as difficult as some publishers make it seem Some friends and I were discussing this last night and concluded that one guy, given a month, could perform all of the necessary editing for an entire line (or two) of PDF game products, given access to the source files. To put things in context, we all work in IT and have desktop publishing or coding experience (e.g. there was a time when I edited roughly 20,000 images per week for commerical distribution via print and web).