GSL news.

[Piratecat]

Important! We have a chance to get some answers, gang. Please head here.

 

[Scribble]

This is what I suspect will happen:

Company ACME has a 3e-type product called ADVENTURERS that is successful. They want to continue to publish expansions to ADVENTURERS, and they also want to do a 4e-type version.

The owners of ACME form a new company, called EMCA. ACME licenses ADVENTURERS to EMCA. EMCA stays with 3e, and publishes expansions to ADVENTURERS.

ACME creates a new product, which is similar to ADVENTURERS but not the same. It takes advantage of the new 4e system to go in a different direction, though at heart it has most of the feel of ADVENTURERS and is written by some of the same people and is marketed as "From the makers of ADVENTURERS". ACME calls this new product EXPLORERS.

From there on out, ACME goes with 4e, and continues to only publish products for 4e, while EMCA handles all 3e products, and continues to only publish products for 3e. The two companies do not call their products the same thing, or make them too similar, but similar enough to offer much of the same feel and the goodwill that comes with having some of the same writers and owners behind both companies.

I do not see why this would not work, given what we know right now. It is a bit of a pain, because you have to use two companies instead of one, and two administrative costs instead of one, and two marketing and promotional routes instead of one, and two settings instead of one, etc.. But ultimately, I think it could work. It might even get some people to buy both the 3e and 4e "versions" of the products since they are not identical and will have some significant differences. It might appeal to people who like the general feel and the quality of the writing but who might have two different gaming groups, or groups that might want to switch off between games depending on the type they are interested in playing at that time, or people who want to pillage new stuff from one game to use in their other game.

Yeah... Ultimately if they have to go the one or the other route... I can see this happening. You'd start seeing stuff like:

X Company Legacy... A new company designed to sell and upkeep all of the 3e stuff, while the main company moves onto 4e.

Of course, this is all assuming there is a market for supporting both, and it's not just more profitable to support 4e.

Shrug.

In the end, I don't care much, as long as cool game stuff keeps getting written.

 

[La Bete]

Your statement has too many unclear pronouns. He, This, That.

Huh?

he - mxplyk (or however it's spelled - modded out of the main GSL threads)
this - this post
that - his /.

Apologies for the confusion. Think before you drink before you post is my lesson learned today. No UnRouseness directed at you. Much UnRouseness directed at mzylplyk.

Regards

 

[BASHMAN]

Hmmm. I wonder if it is too late to register a trademark for my new 4E company, "Red Shogun"

 

[La Bete]

No, I think he means the submission of a rumor-based story to Slashdot, thus solidifying it as "fact" instead of rumor.

Indeed young padawan. Have a cookie.

 

[D'karr]

It must be true. I read it on the Internet.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I suspect that Wizards put the "Use one or the other but not both" clause in there, and made the other changes to the OGL / GSL, because the OGL did not have quite the effect they wanted it to have. Since everyone else as their opinions stated (with plenty of toy analogies), here is my opinion. Except with a comparison to Videogames instead.

Wizards wants to have the same kind of business model as Valve. They want people to create user mods for their game. They want to license out the game engine to other companies so they can also make content for that game. However, Valve does not let someone take Half Life, make an entirely new game, and then sell it in direct competition to their games.

What is the difference between the two bolded sentences? In other words, what's the difference between licensing the Source Engine and making Dark Messiah Might and Magic, and making an entirely new game? They have two income streams: their own product and licensed uses of the engine. WotC has their own product (WotC-branded D&D books) and any income they gain from the licensed uses of their rule set (3rd party D&D books) is incidental, coming from increased enthusiasm for the D&D game as a result of 3rd party support.

I don't think that this sort of analogy works very well.

The "use one or the other rule" is a work around. It is not a very good workaround, but it is probably about the only one they have which would work. They cannot stop any company from continuing to use the 3.5 ruleset as the basis of their products. But they can prevent them from using the 4th edition rule set. And they can take measures to make sure that the kind of 3rd party products they want to see are not subjected to legalized piracy.

I don't suppose that there's any reason that a company couldn't publish Product Line #1 as 3.5e stuff, and Product Line #2 as 4e stuff, as long as the two lines were adequately distinct from one another. But Clark's reading of the agreement specifically prohibits this.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sure they can.

Yeah, they won't be hurting. However, I expect that if anyone does get ground under as a result of this policy, it'll turn into a bit of a bruise on their public image, at least among the online community.

 

[Wolfspider]

Yeah, they won't be hurting. However, I expect that if anyone does get ground under as a result of this policy, it'll turn into a bit of a bruise on their public image, at least among the online community.

I won't argue with that, but as has been pointed out many times before, the online community really doesn't seem to amount to much....

Which makes me wonder once again at the wisdom behind basing so much on the Digitial Initiative....

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I would point to the second part of my post then. Publishing two of the same book is too expensive. Particularly when only half as many people, at best, buy each book.

Well, let's say that Paizo can make a go of it with their Pathfinder line. They have enough support from the 3.5-grognard crowd that they can exist for at least until 5th edition on it.

Now, let's say that Necromancer goes to 4th edition wholesale. They make enough money at it that they can exist until at least 5th edition.

Now, let's assume that both companies deal with many of the same writers, editors, and developers, along with printers, shippers, wholesalers, etc. The economics of the situation would suggest that if the companies were not two different companies, but in fact one company supporting both systems, they would save money in overhead and scale.

Perhaps if they just published a 3e Pathfinder and a 4e Pathfinder they might compete with themselves. But if one company published both the 3e Pathfinder stuff and a line of 4e products distinct from Pathfinder, they'd do at least as well as two companies publishing two lines.