Green Ronin not signing GSL (Forked Thread: Doing the GSL. Who?)

[kenmarable]

I think that you need to go back and reread what was happening then. The reason that you see this "incorrect information" so often is that it isn't incorrect.

The process, as announced, was

(1) Pay $5,000.
(2) See the GSL, presumably as part of the development kit (of course, in practice, not even then....the GSL was not available when you'd presumably be plunking down your cash...!). In any event, the release date of the GSL cements the fact that you invested before you saw it, if you invested at all.
(3) If you didn't like it, ask WotC for a refund.
(4) Get refund when WotC sent it.

I.e., you had already invested by the time you saw the GSL. You were just able to withdraw your investment at a future point. Of course, WotC having your money and not having a specific timeframe in which to refund would (presumably) be a real incentive to sign the thing.

RC

As freelancer who had money involved (via Open Design), I was VERY aware of what the deal was (and saw many, many more private "it's almost there" messages than the public saw).

 

[Vocenoctum]

We're still not at an agreement yet over whether or not GLUT means "crappy product" or "more product than the market would bear."

IMO, some of each. The problem is that Distributors and Shop Owners didn't recognize the difference, it seems.

I mean, prolific pretty much = glut, no matter how good the product is.

True, but so long as they're selling, and recognizable quality, Good Glut can be fine as long as the market is fine.

Well, let's try to put a number on it.

I know you're speaking in general terms and not specifically to me, but to be clear I'm just an observer with a good memory and reading skills. The "industry" is always unhappy with exact numbers being let out, and even when they give a number, it's widely accepted as a lie...

What percentage of the TOTAL d20 product supply in retail distribution came from "high quality" yet "prolific" 3PP?

Quality is subjective. In early d20 days, gameshops didn't know one random company from another. So called "Splats" always were good sellers previously, so they invested heavily, often purely at a whim I would guess.

If you were running a game store, how many dollars would you invest in proven-but-prolific good-glut vs. unproven crap-glut?

I would be VERY surprised if even the most inexperienced game store owner invested more than 10% of his rolling capital outside of the "Big Names."

See, I think this is where the problem comes in, in regard to the timeline I believe to be accurate. There were no "big names" back then. Mongoose had a full line, BadAxe had books coming out, GR was of great renown for the adventures, but... well, who knew how much any of them would sell? Who knew quality?

Alderac had a long running line of L5R and the swashbuckler game, so maybe you go with them? But I doubt their d20 stuff did that great either. God help someone that recognized FFE's authors and bought them...

The lion's share of his investment will be in WotC product. And then Sword & Sorcery, Mongoose, GR, Necromancer, FFG, etc. all the way down the line until we finally hit some of these publishers (that nobody ever names) with products (that nobody ever names) that is clogging up the shelves.

Seriously, I'd name them if I could remember most of them. I may have some adventures on my shelves from The Lost Game Companies, but that's in the back next to Earthdawn and Hunter. I'd need spelunking gear.

If I still went to the gamestore I'd take a list, but these folks still have Vor books.

When folks talk about the GLUT, what they generally mean is, "Really crappy products from little crappy publishers that nobody wants to buy from utterly ruined the retailers."

The supposition is that this stuff was uniformly bad AND purchased in such quantities that it was capable of bankrupting the retail store.

The problem really was the gameshop/ distributors that didn't know what they were ordering. Once they got loads of stuff in, they didn't know how to get rid of it. In the end, they have shelves full of books taking up money/ room, and even when they sell something, they now are too gunshy to stock stuff.

Like publishers that made "vanity" products, covering what they like, you'll get gameshops that ordered lots of this or that, because they like that company.

Well now we're getting a little closer to specifics. I recall AEG and FFG in that "pamphlet adventure" space.

Do we have a specific scapegoat, at last?

Nope, because both companies made Good Glut and Bad Glut, and the gameshop had no knowledge of how to differentiate them.

I don't think anyone will ever specify it, because they are all pointing their fingers elsewhere looking for a scapegoat.

If the retail game industry is capable of being brought to its knees by an infinite army of monkeys cranking out RPG doggerel, I hardly think you can point the blame at the OGL that "empowered" the monkeys.

Again though, we're 6 years past that glut, IMO. After the so called "crash", followed by 3.5e, the gameshop inventory of new stuff shrunk a lot. I think a lot of them overreacted (and distributors) and then entered a phase of not ordering ENOUGH of the good stuff people wanted. In addition, they made excuses for why they didn't buy stuff and basically sent me elsewhere.

I mean, I couldn't find a good selection of M&M to feed that addiction at the time, so I ordered online.

I'm not sure how the gameshops around you are run, but go in and see how much stuff they have FROM 2002!

The Glut isn't (IMO) WotC's fault, but I'd say distributors and gameshops are 80% responsible for the way they handled it. Add in that publishers didn't seem to SEE the glut as it clogged up the drain, and you got a lot of publishers reacting to a sudden stoppage and looking where to put the blame.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think that you need to go back and reread what was happening then. The reason that you see this "incorrect information" so often is that it isn't incorrect.

I lack boardsearch, but your point would easily be proven by providing a link from the initial conversation, nay?

 

[The Little Raven]

(1) Pay $5,000.
(2) See the GSL, presumably as part of the development kit (of course, in practice, not even then....the GSL was not available when you'd presumably be plunking down your cash...!). In any event, the release date of the GSL cements the fact that you invested before you saw it, if you invested at all.
(3) If you didn't like it, ask WotC for a refund.
(4) Get refund when WotC sent it.

This is incorrect. The actual plan was...

(1) Sign the NDA.
(2) Read the GSL.
(3) Pay $5,000.
(4) Read the rules.
(5) Refund, if WotC goes along with it.

 

[xechnao]

The Glut isn't (IMO) WotC's fault, but I'd say distributors and gameshops are 80% responsible for the way they handled it. Add in that publishers didn't seem to SEE the glut as it clogged up the drain, and you got a lot of publishers reacting to a sudden stoppage and looking where to put the blame.

Distributors and gameshops had no way to know how to handle it. It is Wotc's and other publishers' fault.

 

[Desdichado]

Interesting. Horseshit goes through the filters? Thanks to Wulf I learned something very important.

In terms of glut and its effect, I think the discussion has so far talked about it as if product went straight from the publishers to the stores, which isn't true at all. I've heard a few anecdotal remarks about all kinds of problems that Diamond and some of the other distributors had with stock; I think the entire value chain was overloaded, and then overcompensated, producing the so-called "gluts" and "bubbles" about d20.

It's not a perfect case of supply and demand; or, if it is, there are a lot of complicating factors anyway. The Real World sadly rarely fits into such conveniently modelled scenarios. It'd be nice if someone with more familiarity than myself stepped in and gave their opinion on what impact the distributors reaction to the product had on the market in general, because I suspect that it may have been the single biggest driver of what we saw, personally.

 

[Scribble]

Except that the GSL is still free and there is still no approval process. There's nothing to stop the glut...

I do not understand the meme that the GSL is about "controlling quality" or "raising the bar" when nothing in it includes any kind of WOTC approval of a product. The STL *also* defined lots and lots of game terms and mandated they could not be redefined; how did this work for assuring a minimum level of quality and compatibility?

The GSL permits exactly as much cheap, unbalanced, crap as the OGL/STL did, and you'll get just as much. Sturgeon's Law.

I'm obviously not Mr Ryan but I think in refference to "better quality" he's not talking about better editing, better rules, or better in a 'I like that idea!" way.

You need to refference back to what he said about better products being those designed to fill the holes left by WoTC.

What (I think) he's saying is that by placing restrictions on what can be done, it creates more of an incentive to look for the holes and fill them, as opposed to just re-inventing the wheel. (Whether or not you agree that it works, or is a good idea, is a different story.)

For example, by saying someone can't redefine what an Elf is, the consumer doesn't have to worry about a mass of products giving difefrent versions of elves burrying the product he's actually looking for- Feats designed to be used with WoTC's version of the elf.

They might still be poorly edited, and using bad math skillz, but at least when it says it's a product about an elf, you know exactly what "elf" means.

Again, whether or not you think this leads to a better product, is up for debate I guess.

 

[Banshee16]

The irony is that, if I remember correctly, companies like Green Ronin are the reason why the GSL is so restrictive in the first place, since they created Mutants & Masterminds and True20 and similar to compete with D&D, not supplement it.

Well, to be fair, the only reason they were able to compete in that manner is because WotC's treatment of the game didn't necessarily meet all people's needs. There was a base of customers who wanted something more loose, and not quite as rules-heavy.

That's not intended as a statement that 3.5 was *bad*.....just that for True20, it served a niche of customers who wanted the game, but more rules lite. And Mutants & Masterminds served those who wanted a D20 based game of superheroes...which WotC hadn't really addressed.

So yes, it was competition, but only because WotC couldn't serve all the different subgroups within their own customer base.

Banshee

 

[Lizard]

For example, by saying someone can't redefine what an Elf is, the consumer doesn't have to worry about a mass of products giving difefrent versions of elves burrying the product he's actually looking for- Feats designed to be used with WoTC's version of the elf.

They might still be poorly edited, and using bad math skillz, but at least when it says it's a product about an elf, you know exactly what "elf" means.

Again, whether or not you think this leads to a better product, is up for debate I guess.

So, instead, you have a new race called "Aelfs" or whatever....

(Also, thus far, WOTC has been close-mouthed and contradictory about what "redefine" and "extend" mean. There's no real explicit elf culture, history, etc, in the PHB. I can't reference the "implied world" in any 3PP; but can I create my own "elf history", as long as the elf mechanics are not changed? Can I create "Silver Elves", "Cave Elves" or "Cloud Elves"? Is that "extension" or "redefinition"? )

And was there ever a problem with 3x supplements claiming to be about "Elves", but, instead, were about short fat hairy-footed farmers? Seems that any product which veered off from the common-law definition of an "Elf" just created a new race to begin with.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Interesting. Horseshit goes through the filters? Thanks to Wulf I learned something very important.

I live to serve.

They had to take it out of the filters because people got tired of having their conversations about their Horseshitsword-wielding weapon masters cluttered up with .