GSL questions for Scott Rouse and Mike Lescault

[Henry]

Tweet needs to get the heck out of there!

...However, the siren-song of a steady Nine-to-Five and a regular paycheck is a pretty intense one.

 

[Seanchai]

Oh, and Seanchi is coming along

No thanks.

Seanchai

 

[Oldtimer]

OK, so now we've endured two weeks of absolute silence from WotC since that interesting quote from Liz Schuh. Only eight weeks left to the release of 4e. Will the silence continue to be as deafening?

 

[HyrumOWC]

OK, so now we've endured two weeks of absolute silence from WotC since that interesting quote from Liz Schuh. Only eight weeks left to the release of 4e. Will the silence continue to be as deafening?

Yes.



Hyrum.

 

[Lizard]

At this point, there's almost no point to a pre-release of the GSL. Given the lack of benefit and the fact several major players have already foregone 4e for at least the GenCon season, I'd guess WOTC has decided the best use of their resources would be on getting 4e out the door, and that a release-day announcement would be the best. In theory, I suppose if they released it tomorrow, a company could have *something* ready by GenCon, but, would it be worth paying 5000?

I'm thinking that there'll be a new 'exclusivity period' going to 1/2010, or possibly to the end of GenCon 2009. (i.e, the flood of cheap PDFs will begin the day after GenCon 2009 ends.)

The longer it goes without an announcement, the better the odds the license will be more and more restrictive. I can't think of any reasons to delay announcing 'good news', but many to delay announcing 'bad'. As for the delay itself...well, it did have the effect of tying up competitor resources while they waited information on whether they could/could not commit to 4e.

 

[mxyzplk]

OK, so now we've endured two weeks of absolute silence from WotC since that interesting quote from Liz Schuh. Only eight weeks left to the release of 4e. Will the silence continue to be as deafening?

Sure; as they clearly plan to cancel it, they want to get 4e out and have everyone who's giving them the benefit of the doubt buy the books first. Probably wait till after Gen Con so they don't have to "personally" deal with aggrieved gamers too.

 

[Alzrius]

Sure; as they clearly plan to cancel it, they want to get 4e out and have everyone who's giving them the benefit of the doubt buy the books first. Probably wait till after Gen Con so they don't have to "personally" deal with aggrieved gamers too.

I don't disagree with this, but I don't see how WotC thinks they'll be able to pull that off. They'll be holding seminars at Gen Con like everyone else, and they're dreaming if they think they won't be bombarded with questions about the GSL et al from fans and other publishers.

 

[HyrumOWC]

I don't disagree with this, but I don't see how WotC thinks they'll be able to pull that off. They'll be holding seminars at Gen Con like everyone else, and they're dreaming if they think they won't be bombarded with questions about the GSL et al from fans and other publishers.

Yeah, but they can say they're still looking into it and will have a decision "soon". If they cancel it before GenCon they have to talk about why in seminar after seminar after seminar.

Hyrum.

 

[DaveMage]

The longer it goes without an announcement, the better the odds the license will be more and more restrictive. I can't think of any reasons to delay announcing 'good news', but many to delay announcing 'bad'. As for the delay itself...well, it did have the effect of tying up competitor resources while they waited information on whether they could/could not commit to 4e.

At least many third party publishers don't use this as their main source of income and therefore aren't personally impacted, right? And those that do have generally moved on to their own systems.

So maybe the delay really doesn't matter.

And since Paizo's taken up the 3.5 mantle, those that want to only make D&D products can do so for 3.5 until WotC gets its GSL act together. It's not like 4E is going to flop, and it won't be going away any time soon, so if a third party publisher has to wait until next year to make a 4E product, is it really that big a deal?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

While the publisher side of the GSL could wait till after Gen Con they have to have something of a license by the June release. What I am thinking here is the consumer side and rights to republish on the web. They are dreaming if they think that people will hold off on web publishing campaigns, characters, house rules, and general chatter. Without some kind of license people will wonder whether what they put on the web will get a cease and desist letter or not. This does not need to be a license that allows for any for profit uses, but at least something that allows their customers to share information over the web. I don't want a repeat of TSR.