Gygax's views on OGL

[BiggusGeekus]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not think there was an RPG of ERB's Barsoom...if wrong...I'll go look for it on Ebay!

Apologies, I was typing rehtorically. To be more clear: once a publisher got a license there was nothing stopping them from publishing any type of RPG with any kind of ruleset. The bottleneck was not the ruleset (which the OGL provides) but the licensing (which has nothing to do with the OGL). Many, many, many games were published that were similar enough to D&D without crossing the line too far. Even TSR published games like Star Frontiers and Marvel Super Heroes that had little to do with the D&D game mechanics.

That's the chain of events. Without my interest in Sean's site and without my interest in that yahoo group (both interests based in my liking of the OGL), my brother would not have known about the OGL and hence would not have learned the game.

Fair enough!

 

[Razuur]

I think that Mr. Gygax is allowed his opinion.

That said, I am glad he wasn't at the helm to prevent D20 from coming to be.

D20/OGL has really made some great products and really strengthened the industry.

I have always felt that this is a second golden age dor RPing. After the first year, publishers really began to get their acts together, and now the coolest stuff is out or coming out.

While I disagree with him, he is allowed his opinion though.

Razuur

 

[Staffan]

The weird thing is that the original name, Dangerous Dimensions, was the one TSR had a problem with. TSR dropped the suit when they changed the name to Dangerous Journies, but GDW still canned it.

Actually, they were sued anyway - not over the name, but over what TSR considered to be a ton of instances where DJ infringed on AD&D. These included things like "The description of the "First aid" K/S Area is an infringement on the AD&D spell "Cure Light Wounds." and other ridiculous things.

 

[Desdichado]

I think that Mr. Gygax is allowed his opinion.
[...]
While I disagree with him, he is allowed his opinion though.

I didn't notice that anyone was arguing that point. A slightly more interesting question is, why do we particularly care what his opinion is? More than any other gamer, I mean? Or, why, knowing his position on the subject, did the interview go out of its way to really beat the dead horse on the issue? Or, what's your opinion, using his as a springboard for discussion?

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

By the by, Joshua, I think you misread my post, earlier on . I in no wise presumed that WotC's stuff was high quality - I presumed that whatever quality you believe they have, the OGL hasn't changed it, or changed the fact that you can choose to restrict your purchases to only their stuff.

I care what Gygax's opinion is for the same reason I care what PirateCat's opinion is, or Eric Noah's opinion. He's well known, and so lots of people hear his opinion, whether they end up agreeing with him or not, and that makes his opinion influential, whether it deserves to be or not.

My opinion is that the OGL has brought nothing but good so far, but if it ends up killing WotC, it is a good which is too costly. WotC is taking a risk, and good on them for it, but future corporations likely will not take a similar risk if it fails.

My opinion of Gygax's opinion is that he wants to be George Lucas, and no matter how crappy his movie turns out, it is HIS. That's a valid viewpoint (and a legally supported one!), just not one that benefits the fans/customers.

 

[Desdichado]

By the by, Joshua, I think you misread my post, earlier on . I in no wise presumed that WotC's stuff was high quality - I presumed that whatever quality you believe they have, the OGL hasn't changed it, or changed the fact that you can choose to restrict your purchases to only their stuff.

Gotcha. That does make more sense. At least to me.

I care what Gygax's opinion is for the same reason I care what PirateCat's opinion is, or Eric Noah's opinion. He's well known, and so lots of people hear his opinion, whether they end up agreeing with him or not, and that makes his opinion influential, whether it deserves to be or not.

Granted, but that only makes it useful as a springboard for discussion. I'd hope that nobody is looking at his opinion on this matter as some kind of Gospel truth. Gygax's influence on the industry is unmistakable, but his business acumen (as the ousted head of TSR and the head of numerous dubiously successful efforst since) is not so clear. Therefore, whether he actually knows what he's talking about in this regard, or is merely yet another guy with an opinion are clearly debatable.

My opinion is that the OGL has brought nothing but good so far, but if it ends up killing WotC, it is a good which is too costly. WotC is taking a risk, and good on them for it, but future corporations likely will not take a similar risk if it fails.

I find it hard to believe that the OGL could potentially "kill" WotC. Especially since WotC's largest profit center has always been CCGs -- the purchase of D&D was merely a passion of Peter Adkinson, not an acquisition that was supposed to make or break the company. If anything's going to "kill" WotC it would be their over-reliance on CCGs to make most of their money, and inability to branch out when that market has shrunk substantially.

My opinion of Gygax's opinion is that he wants to be George Lucas, and no matter how crappy his movie turns out, it is HIS. That's a valid viewpoint (and a legally supported one!), just not one that benefits the fans/customers.

Yep, I agree. It's very clear that the OGL has benefitted the fans. I don't know that Gygax necessarily has that as his judging criteria of the OGL, though. In fact, I'm not sure it's something he's given much thought to in regards to this issue at all. Or if he has, he's laboring under the flase assumption that I misattributed to you; that the publishers of D&D have a better handle on quality control than third party publishers.

 

[pogre]

All hail Gygax! I disagree with him here, but he is still the man.

For those of you not interested in digging through heaps of volatile posts over at RPGnet here was the father of the OGL explanation about why it is a successful model for WOTC:

They tried from 1998, when they acquired the business of TSR, to 2000, when 3.0 was released.

As an example of how screwed up that old business model (that is, the business model used by most publishers in the RPG business even today) was, examine the sales of the Dark*Matter supplement for Alternity.

1,500 units.

The cost of that book to design, illustrate, and produce was about $15, if I remember correctly, with a print run of 5,000 units. At the wholesale discount WotC used at the time, and an SRP of $30, that book generated $12 in revenue. So, WotC was losing $3 every time it sold a copy of Dark*Matter, and that was before I had to write off (3,800 units * 15) in unrecoverable cost of goods.

Other companies fight this problem by spending less on design, illustration, and production values. And it shows. They may make a profit on each book, but the quality of those books is not as good as it could have been, given the resources available in the gaming industry.

That's the supplement business - make something cheaper than you'd like, and sell a few thousand copies. But you have to keep doing it because if you stop, even for one month, the overhead you've built up to support that model will bankrupt your company. (See: GDW, FASA, Pinnacle, Chaosium, ICE, etc.). It is a trap that is easy to fall into, and hard to get out of.

The "freelancer/supplement/low overhead model" is well known to RPG publishers. And WotC had zero interest in using that model. WotC wanted a better model.

I like to think it has a better model. It is making scads more money than all of its "competitors" in the OGL/D20 RPG space, probably combined. That is, it is making more profit which is what matters, from a strictly dollars & cents analysis. That is is also making more revenue as well is also a good sign of health.

Look at what WotC did last year. It would not be unreasonable to guess that sales of the 3 3.5 core books were 100,000 units each. (In fact, I may be misestimating this number by a significant multiple).

At $30, those books make WotC somewhere between $12 and $15, depending on which channel of distribution sells them. Let's assume an average price of $13 for the sake of analysis.

3 books * $13 * 100,000 units is $3,900,000 in revenue.

Those books cost WotC about $4. (I may be overestimating this cost by a significant amount, but that's a reasonable standard industry price for a full color, hardback of that size.)

3 books * $4 * 100,000 units is $1,200,000.

Thus, WotC generated a gross profit of $2,700,000 just on the core 3.5 books.

It would not be unreasonable to guess that the 3.5 profit alone may have equalled the profit generated by the entire rest of the OGL/D20 industry.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The real important number to keep in your head is 1.5 million. That's the number of people (conservatively) who play D&D every single month in the US. That is the real target of the D&D business at WotC. When you hear about OGL/D20 publishers selling a few thousand units of their books, remember that they're only managing to sell a few thousand to a potential audience of one and a half million active players.

WotC knows those players are out there. It also knows that the way to convert those players to purchasers is to figure out how to maximize the total value of each book they offer those players for sale. And it knows that a very, very large part of the value of an RPG book is external to the book itself - the value is in the player network.

Making the player network bigger, stronger, more interconnected, etc. adds value to the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. The more value added, the more likely one of those players-but-not-consumers will switch over and buy the book. The same equation holds for each book WotC releases - the more value added, the more likely the purchase.

The OGL/D20 project adds tremendous value to being a D20 player. That value means that D&D is increasingly worth more and more and more to the players. And those players drive sales of WotC RPG products at levels 10 or 20 times the size of its competition.

A very compelling argument I thought. For me the OGL is the reason I play D&D. Being able to produce material I can share and sell (if I want) is an important part of the hobby for me. It gives us all some ownership in our game and benefits WOTC. Thanks Ryan!

 

[Maggan]

My view

I didn't notice that anyone was arguing that point.

Nah, for me, I was just padding my reply so that no one would think that I was mean to Gygax. Sometimes I'm a bit too careful (and then again, sometimes I'm not).

A slightly more interesting question is, why do we particularly care what his opinion is? More than any other gamer, I mean? Or, why, knowing his position on the subject, did the interview go out of its way to really beat the dead horse on the issue? Or, what's your opinion, using his as a springboard for discussion?

Why do I care about what Gygax says: Because he is an influential person involved in the hobby, and his views influence other people, both hobbyists and publishers. And since I think he is wrong in many ways, I see people being influenced to also be wrong. This is of course only in reference to my own views, and I realise that I am probably as much wrong on a lot of things as Gygax on others.

What is my opinion, had Silven intervied me? Well, since you ask... (questions slightly edited to make sense).

Q1) Are you against open licenses like the OGL in any form or is it one factor of the licensing model that you think is poor?

A1) I think that using OGL is a very worthwhile endeavor. It gives me a possibility to tap into some of the D&D audience, without having to create my own rpg, which I hate. I like to do the support stuff. There are a few things I particularily don't like about the license (the nudity clause, the political clause and the religious clause), but these factors don't matter so much to me that they detract from the main value of the OGL.

Q2) WoTC have on many occasions maintained that they went ahead with the OGL to relieve themselves of the all the burden of creating add-ons to the D&D universe so that they could focus on the core products. Is this not in essence a good idea?

A2) Yes, I believe it is. WotC focuses on the core products, and small companies focus on fulfilling special needs that WotC probably would not touch with a 10 foot pole. For me as a customer, as opposed to me as a writer, this means that I can play D&D, and pick up special books to cater for my changing tastes in settings and atmosphere. So for me as a D&D player, I think it is fabulous! I don't think WotC would have produced Dynasties&Demagogues, or the Scarred Lands, or Swashbuckling Adventures, and I don't even think they should. But by releasing the OGL someone else made these great products, that I like.

Q3) Now a downside to the OGL is, of course, the mass of mediocre products to hit the marketplace immediately following the release of the license. No doubt this contributes in the short term to a dilution of the brand and a weakening of the market quality. However do you not think that in the long term better products will emerge out of necessity and slowly out compete the poor products, thus reestablishing the strength of the brand AND a larger selection of products for the consumer? Are we not seeing this happen today on a small scale?

A3) I think the OGL will have a long term positive impact on the quality of D&D material. Maybe even on non-D&D material, when good and solid d20-designers move to other challenges, which I think is inevitable. Writers learn by working within d20 and the OGL, and when they have skill and confidence they write other stuff. Or just keep on writing even better d20 stuff. There were crap products before the OGL, and there will be crap products after the OGL. I also think that the initial spike of d20 products were good so that a lot of writers could give it a try, see if they had what it took to continue. Many, many didn't, but now we have "new" companies like Necromancer Games, Green Ronin and Mongoose, all which I think very highly of (for different reasons).

Q4) What are your views on WoTC redefining the license after its release to shut out certain types of content and is this is a manifestation of one of the weaknesses in open licenses like the OGL?

A4) I was upset when that happened, not because I was surprised by it, but because it limited the appeal of making d20STL compliant stuff that was really dark horror as I envision it (I worked a bit on Kult, eg, and I don't think Kult would fly under the current d20STL). But then again, the limitations are only there if you work with the d20STL and not if you chose the OGL, so to answer your question, no it is not a weakness in the OGL, since the changes were to the d20STL (as far as I understand it).

Q5) Does the presence of the OGL at all assist WoTC in making steps towards [bringing in new gamers]

A5) I don't know. I think they would do that by getting the brand out to more people, and I think the crpgs are more effective than the OGL in doing that. I also think the D&D collectible miniatures and the upcoming Basic Set might be more efficient in bringing new gamers to the table. But the OGL sure aint stopping anyone from entering the hobby, so I wouldn't worry about it. It's not an OGL issue, it's a business strategy issue (of which OGL is but one part).

Q6) If you would have been present at WoTC when the decision was made to create an open license, how would you have gone about it, assuming that not doing it was not an option.

A6) I would have supported the idea, and trusted Ryan Dancey and the business managers to carry it through. As a writer, there's not much more I could have done.

Q7) Lastly, lets confront the reality of the existence of the OGL. Its here and it looks like its going to stay. We have seen some benefits and downsides to its existence. What can we [the industry] do now with the lessons learned so far to ensure that the OGL grows into something that is a benefit to the D&D and d20 genre over the years to come?

A7) I don't know about the downsides. I just don't see them as much as other people do. But what can we, the industry, do to ensure that the OGL is a benefit for years to come? Well, we could get down and play d20-games with a passion, showing people that this is a fun hobby! We could point out to people that are saying "all d20 is crap" that there are tons of good, innovative and exciting stuff available. We could also try some other games, and let them influence how we write stuff (if it's a good influence), we could ask publishers to clearly mark out the OGL contained in their products so that reuse is easier. But all this is just small stuff. I'm not a visionary who can see the shape of the hobby in front of me, so I just sort of keep doing what seems like a good idea. And for me the d20STL and the OGL seems like good ideas.

That's what I would have answered, had Silven Crossroads asked me.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[DaveMage]

All hail Gygax! I disagree with him here, but he is still the man.

For those of you not interested in digging through heaps of volatile posts over at RPGnet here was the father of the OGL explanation about why it is a successful model for WOTC:

A very compelling argument I thought. For me the OGL is the reason I play D&D. Being able to produce material I can share and sell (if I want) is an important part of the hobby for me. It gives us all some ownership in our game and benefits WOTC. Thanks Ryan!

A fascinating read - thanks for posting that, pogre!

 

[PJ-Mason]

I think the OGL/D20TL does bring in more non-gamers to the fold. I think some of these licenses that are being handed out lately is because those license holders see the potential profit of the large D20 community market. That same potential wouldn't exist (or not at not be as prevelant) if used with a less popular game system or a new game system altogether. So in that respect, i think the OGL/D20 IS bringing in new gamers to the hobby, even if thats is not its primary objective.

Black Company, Redstar D20, Ctuthulu (sp?), Babylon 5, Conan, and all the other license that originate from, or are linked to, other entertainment areas will no doubt bring in a fresh source of non-gamers to the hobby (whether that will be a significant source of new gamers can be debated of course).

Basically, I think the size/resources of the D20 consumers makes licensing such famous trademarks more attractive to those parties. I am waiting for someone to create the Pokemon D20 game. That'll probably stagger the d20 community with new players. God help us all then!

I would ask Gary (or any other non-d20 supporter for that matter) what he/they has done lately to bring new gamers into the hobby? If that answer is nothing (i don't know the answer, hence the question), then how is that charge against the OGL/D20TL valid? Or rather, its a crime that they (and we) all then share guilt in.