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

So in other words, we have only a secondhand report from someone who, while a pretty smart guy, could have been misinterpreting what he was hearing. So there is, contrary to what you said earlier, nothing from WotC directly saying the poison pill ever existed? I just want to be clear on this.

Back in post #167, you asked for any evidence to a specific claim. Then you asked for a specific link. I've provided both of those and I'm not going to argue further. In short, my independent conclusion, having again read the posts at the the time, is the same as what dmmccoy originally stated.

By the same token, one could ask: What evidence do you have that Peterson was mistaken in what he said? Provide links, please. I'm confident that no one at WOTC ever said he was mistaken at the time, even though his comments were publicly plastered on the front page of ENWorld for days.
 

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If anything, I would think the GSL will encourage producers to BE Fly-By-Night. Get something out fast and dirty and try to sell it before WotC releases something that means you have to burn it. Do Y before WotC changes X.

Nobody is going to want to produce attractive hardbound books with valuable content because if those books don't sell out of the first printing basically immediately, they're a ticking time bomb on the pallet. It's hard to recoup investment on product that isn't moving quickly, but impossible to recoup investment on product you're legally obligated to destroy.

I may be misunderstanding the GSL, but as far as I can see, really the best thing TO produce under the GSL is heaps of unmitigated blah. You can create whole cloth classes and powers that WotC has not, but cannot use their stuff as a starting block, and should they EVER produce anything that is the same, you're required to stop selling the product that contains it.

People are going to be gambling on the GSL, and it isn't going to be a ton of the people with proven track records of quality and longevity, I bet. They'll have a lot to lose.

--fje
 

Besides, are there any examples of, say 3 hardcover books covering the same topic, released within, say a 2 year period? (which is very generous for a book's shelf life that isn't a core rulebook or core setting book).

Monster books.

Hardcover monster books off the top of my head:

MM
FF
MMII
MM 3.5
MMIII
MMIV
MMV

Monsternomicon
Monsternomicon 3.5
Monsternomicon II

Creatures of Rokugan
Warlords of the Accordlands Monsters and Lairs

Monsters Handbook

Creature Collection
Creature Collection II
Creature Collection Revised
Creature Collection III

Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary

Denizens of Darkness
Denizens of Dread

Manual of Monsters
World of Warcraft Monster Guide

Advanced Bestiary
Book of Fiends

Monsters of Norrath
Monsters of Luclin

Encyclopedia of Demons and Devils
Encyclopedia of Demons and Devils II

Book of Templates Deluxe 3.5

Denizens of Avadnu

Liber Bestarius Book of Beasts

Monster Encyclopaedia
Monster Encyclopaedia II Dark Bestiary

Conan Bestiary of the Hyborian Age

So 34 hardcover monster books over the last 8 or so years.

I bet there could be a similar list for campaign settings
 

Imagine the state of our industry if the publishers, distributors, and retailers had made all the profit from all the books that were sold, without having that profit sucked up by all the books that didn't sell! It's that potential that a more restrictive open license might achieve. The GSL might or might not prove effective in that regard--we'll all just have to wait and see!

Sure, it might achieve that, but at what cost? The loss of official support from Green Ronin, Paizo, and

others? I see what you are getting at and it makes a lot of sense. Contrary to what people are saying here, there was a HUGE glut and we have unsold product ourselves. In almost every game store I visit there is a huge bargin bin of d20 material.

What doesn't make sense is why you would create a GSL that alienates your best supporters. Let's face it, all of the restrictions of the GSL are unappealing to larger companies. Green Ronin has said it. Paizo had said it. If I ran a bigger company and my RPG sales put bread on my table, I don't think I would go GSL either. Wizards is going to war and leaving their best soldiers behind. There is no way that this can possibly be construed to make an once of sense.

Getting a product carried through distribution for any d20 company whether it's 3rd Edition or 4th Edition is going to be really tough for any new company. Its probably going to require a consolidator like Impressions or a partnership with an existing company like Paizo. The distributors are at the best position to handle the upcoming glut, and I can imagine what Aldo would say if he was approached with a ton of new d20 publishers.

I'm all for the American Dream and small garage companies (like mine) being able to release d20 products and try to compete in the gaming industry, but if Wizards intended the GSL to help reduce the glut, don't you think they would have tried to alienate smaller garage publishers as opposed to the likes of Paizo and Green Ronin?
 

As we know, however, 4e isn't published under an OGL. So, even were this true (which, as has been pointed out), the one-time $5000 fee is required in order to get the kit, which was supposed to contain copies of the OGL.

Please note again, following the link you provided, you must meet the requirements of "a legitimate business license, a signed NDA, and a one-time $5000 fee" in order to gain "copies of the OGL".

To be pedantic, it doesn't say you can't get the OGL ahead of the kit, it just says the kit includes it.

But, I mean, you've been told repeatedly what the order of events was and clung to your opinion regardless, so what's the point in debating further?


This, of course, turns out to be patently false. I hope no one ponied up $5 grand on the basis of this claim.....either because they saw this claim before ponying up the money, or because this was the "OGL" that was included in the early adopters kit.

Wasn't the early adopter's kit really late, btw?

Seriously, if you'd paid attention at the time you'd know that no one ponied up the $5k, because the product was never ready. There was no early adopters kit. I assume that internal wrangling at WotC in regards to what the GSL would be, eventually led to there being no GSL. IN addition, I think they were refining stuff to the very end and didn't feel the early adopters kit would matter.
 

I'ts been almost a year, of course, but from my recollection, many of those were 3.0 books. So my personal guess is that #1 is a big culprit. Many publishers have said that 3.5 killed the majority of their 3.0 back catalog sales. Considering that 3.0 sales were originally in the many thousands, print runs were very large. After 3.5 killed the demand for those products in consumers' minds, many publishers, distributors, and stores were left with vast inventories of unsold 3.0 products.

From what I recall, the glut ended before 3.5 was announced. The fact is, publishers published too many books, distributors bought too many books, and gamestores ordered too many at a time. Heck, 3.5e was an excellent time for gamestores to "trim the fat" and cut the price of all 3e stuff and not order more, but most just left it on the shelf and complained about it.

IMO, the D20 Boom was an artifical high that basically existed solely due to accounting tricks and using up available cash. Like the GR problem where their (er, Fulfillment/ printer? something, I forget) screwed them over for money. It's like the industry was floating checks for 2 years and then when stuff came due, it all crashed.

When 3.5 was announced, publishers were given a leadtime of around 9 months notice, and provided copies of the game probably 4 months ahead of release, or thereabouts. Certainly not enough time to come up with products from scratch, but delaying some products in order to upgrade would have been more efficient than trying to throw something else on the market.

IN addition, by that point I think everyone had realized the books weren't "evergreen" products. If most of your print run sells in the first month, having a 3 year supply isn't going to help.
 

I'm sorry, but the idea that this "glut" business being a problem with the OGL is total nonsense, regardless of the credentials of those promoting it. And even if there is a grain of truth in the assertion, the GSL simply doesn't solve that problem.

My observation is that there are two primary reasons for the so-called "glut":
1) The 3.0/3.5 transition, which is totally in WotC's corner, so blaming this on publishers is ridiculous.
2) A slew of poor quality products. Look at the years-old products that are still on the shelves of gamestores - most are either 3.0 products, or they're just plain bad products. High quality products move, regardless of whether there are similar products on the shelves or not (and quality or lack thereof isn't guaranteed by the name of the publisher). Does the GSL provide for quality control? Not proactively, no. I suppose it could be used that way reactively if WotC "asked" the licensee to pull the product, but that is hardly efficient quality control.
 

Sure, it might achieve that, but at what cost? The loss of official support from Green Ronin, Paizo, and

others?

Well, I see this not as a cost for Wotc. On the contrary I see it more beneficial for the hobby. Besides D20 was a more flexible universal system that could handle more proliferation and glut than what 4e can.
Wizards is going to war and leaving their best soldiers behind. There is no way that this can possibly be construed to make an once of sense.
I disagree. Their front is to capitalize and profit as much as they can for 4e and I doubt these heavy duty soldiers would be of significant more help than their logistic weight.

I'm all for the American Dream and small garage companies (like mine) being able to release d20 products and try to compete in the gaming industry, but if Wizards intended the GSL to help reduce the glut, don't you think they would have tried to alienate smaller garage publishers as opposed to the likes of Paizo and Green Ronin?

No other way to do this than special brand licenses on certain product lines. Perhaps Wotc sees not such a worthy case right now from what we know.
 
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