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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 4204479" data-attributes="member: 19857">The D&D GSL lets you use the D&D logo.  Since they're putting out two different versions of the license, my understanding was that the D&D GSL lets you use the D&D logo while the d20 GSL will let you use the d20 logo.  In fact, I thought there was a post from someone (Rouse? Linnae?) that indicated this very difference a few weeks ago, but I can't find it now, so I'm willing to believe I was wrong.  I don't see why you'd need two different licenses if that were the case, but the minds of corporate lawyers are often opaque in my experience <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.  I suppose that if you can put a D&D logo onto your game that might be an incentive.  I can definitely see it as an incentive if you're putting out a campaign setting or a set of adventures for D&D, but if you're putting out a new sci-fi game, or a new modern horror game, I'm not sure it's THAT much of an incentive.  (And if the d20 GSL only lets you put a "d20 logo" on your product I'm not sure that counts as an incentive at all - the d20 logo isn't THAT big of a draw these days as far as I can tell.  That may change with the new system, but it's not something that's really a big incentive today.)If I were putting out a new game line, I'd pretty much presume that Wizards was going to revoke the license at the next edition upgrade.  Without some kind of contractual agreement from them, if there's a revocation clause in the mix that's the safest bet to make and the most responsible assumption to make for long term planning.  Especially given this part of the Q&A posted on the front page:Now again, if this isn't the same for the d20 GSL then that puts a new spin on things.  In fact if the only reason there's a revocation clause in the D&D GSL is to prevent people from putting the D&D logo on 4e products after 5e is released down the road then there'd be no reason to build it into the d20 GSL and 3rd party publishers could merrily continue to do what they've been doing with the OGL 3e mechanics.  But if the d20 GSL is similar in spirit to the D&D GSL then I don't see it being adopted nearly as much as the 3e OGL was for new games.  In fact I would think that successful game companies would avoid tying any long-term, non-D&D product plans to that kind of license (though again, it looks to be a great license for folks putting out D&D supplements -- better in some ways than the d20STL/OGL might have been).  And I really do think THAT will impact Wizards more negatively than anyone might think at first blush.(Edited because I didn't see this before<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />No, this isn't what I'm getting at.  I'm talking about the benefit that Wizards received from the d20STL/OGL combination that they're not going to get from the new GSL given the facts that we know about it so far.  I'm not talking about future support or future usage or companies staying under the OGL instead of going with the new GSL, I'm talking about a benefit that Wizards actually GOT over the last 8 years from having the d20STL/OGL in the form that they had it that the new license format does NOT give them.Under the old license a company could spin the mechanics off into their own game.  They could create a Spycraft or a Mutants and Masterminds or a True20 or whatever and maintain their own control over that gameline.  The cancelling of the d20 STL doesn't affect this because by this point these game lines are their own things.  But those games are still using 3e mechanics, which means that Wizards received the benefit of keeping those players in a D&D orbit.  The new license doesn't seem to have a strong incentive for publishers to continue to do that.  Which means that there is more of an incentive to come up with their own mechanics or to keep using modified OGL mechanics.  Which is fine for those publishers but it moves players of those games one step out of that "D&D orbit" which in the long run is bad for Wizards.  Not hugely bad, really, but enough that it creates more of a fractured market that didn't exist before.What I'm saying is that, if the d20 GSL is like the D&D GSL, we're not going to see NEW games come out of it.  We're going to mainly see supplements for Wizards games.  Which may be exactly what Wizards intends but its going to fracture the market in ways that the d20STL/OGL licenses were specifically crafted to avoid.  And it will be in a way that harms Wizards more than the other publishers.  (Not much harm, mind you, but it will probably make the market look more like it did in the 90s than it has for the last 8 years in the long term).</blockquote>

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