D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[Jawsh]

The OGL cost WotC 2 game systems....completely. D&D and d20 Modern. i see the comment that Mutants and Masterminds didn't hurt WotC's sales of D&D, but it did. Does anyone remember WotC's announcement for a d20 Supers game? Killed. Sales that never materialized because there existed a product that used their same system and was a market leader in that genre. d20 Modern...subsumed by the more focused Spycraft.

The OGL didn't cost WotC D&D. For one thing, the 4E system was a moderate success. There were a few factors that made it less of a success than it could have should have been, but the existence of the OGL wasn't one of them.

And also, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Mutants and Masterminds certainly did not hurt WotC's sales of D&D. D&D is one thing. Some theoretical Supers game is a different thing.

WotC, or any company actually, has no moral compulsion to offer up its system for free. This is not a morality play.

It's not? Okay, go ahead and pirate all the books then.

I do want the rules to be free, but my real complaint is that, if WotC thinks (and they don't) that it's just charging its customers for access to rules, then the price is exhorbitant. A DDI subscription would be immorally expensive if all you were getting was rules. My point was that WotC is in fact a moral company, because they do offer more than just the rules with a subscription.

All the good things could have still been done with the GSL had WotC been punctual and a tad less restrictive.

Cool. Agreed. Though if the License is sufficiently open, then it doesn't matter whether WotC is punctual.

 

[enrious]

Cool. Agreed. Though if the License is sufficiently open, then it doesn't matter whether WotC is punctual.

Punctuality of the license was a major factor with companies around the 4e launch, why would it not be with 5e?

I remember Green Ronin, Necromancer, Paizo, et al commenting on the lead time necessary to get their first 4e books out in a timely manner after the launch of 4e and it was many months, not merely days or even weeks. And that's assuming that the final released version of the license was going to be acceptable for them to use.

In other words, even if the license had been acceptable, because it was so slow in being released (even in its first iteration), it meant that as far as some of the major publishers were concerned, the inital 12 months of 4e were wasted.

 

[Jawsh]

Punctuality of the license was a major factor with companies around the 4e launch, why would it not be with 5e?

I remember Green Ronin, Necromancer, Paizo, et al commenting on the lead time necessary to get their first 4e books out in a timely manner after the launch of 4e and it was many months, not merely days or even weeks. And that's assuming that the final released version of the license was going to be acceptable for them to use.

In other words, even if the license had been acceptable, because it was so slow in being released (even in its first iteration), it meant that as far as some of the major publishers were concerned, the inital 12 months of 4e were wasted.

Perhaps I should have said, if the License is sufficiently closed, then punctuality will be a negative for WotC, because it will give those other companies time to develop and implement a counter strategy.

This is why I'm pessimistic now. The only good reason to delay on a new Gaming License is if they've already decided they're going to have a restrictive outlook. They're only hurting themselves, of course, every day they delay.

 

[enrious]

I see, thanks for the clarification.

 

[Mark CMG]

That ship sailed. My read of Paizo says they're not going to be a licensee of anyone ever again. The loss of the Dungeon and Dragon licenses could have sank the company. Alot of good things happened in their favor (not the least of which was a top notch CEO and a whole gang of top notch designers works really, really hard not to lose their jobs) and now they're on their own. I don't think that they'll go back to the way things were before.

If there is money to be made in a 5E OGL situation and that can be added to a 3PP coffer, including Paizo, we'll see it happen. They might continue to do what they do now as well, but Lisa Stevens is too savvy to leave money on the table, IMO, as long as there is no mitigating factor like with the GSL poison pill. I'm not even so sure they would turn down a limited time license to publish Dragon and Dungeon mags again if they were offered the chance. I don't doubt that Erik Mona would love to write official Greyhawk material again if given the chance. No, I don't think Paizo would dislike the additional revenues that a 5E OGL could engender.

 

[Mark CMG]

How?

This is the question I keep asking and no one seems to be able to answer it.

How can you have a d20 OGL, and a DDI at the same time? What's to stop someone from producing a character builder and a Hypertext SRD? We already see this happening.

This seems to have been largely covered by others up-thread but I'll make quick mention of a few things. Much like what happened during the 3.XE era, one of the draws WotC always has in its favor is that it need not release everything to the OGC pool through the SRD. What it holds back, both in terms of mechanics and flavor text, is what you get by being part of their inner circle, if you will, and no one outside of them can produce material or software or tools that will include what they hold in reserve. Where they falter is by not allowing other people's OGC to be added to individuals' customized WotC tools or DDI. Some folks will inevitably want to use ideas from the vast pool of 3PP OGC that WotC makes possible with an OGL. When WotC started down the road toward isolationism last time, they underestimated how many fans would reject their online tools if the fans couldn't customize them with 3PP OGC and that's what makes 3PP tools viable. Some folks will simply live with the loss of what WotC holds back, or with the loss of WotC altogether, if they try to do an open license half-heartedly. I don't doubt that there are folks who point to the GSL debacle as a way to claim that an open license cannot work but that's like pointing at a cow and claiming it proves horseracing is flawed.

By the way, you'll want to stop using the phrase "d20 OGL" as if the two were not separate things. The OGL is the Open Game License and d20 refers to the d20 STL, which is the d20 System Trademark License. I won't go into the details here as they can be easily looked up by those who wish to have a fuller understanding of them. There are some times when using them in conjunction is an appropriate part of a conversation but this isn't really one of them.

This isn't idle speculation, it's historical fact.

"The underlining doesn't emphasize what you think it does." - Inigo Montoya's Cousin Bob.

 

[Ferghis]

How can you have a d20 OGL, and a DDI at the same time? What's to stop someone from producing a character builder and a Hypertext SRD? We already see this happening. This isn't idle speculation, it's historical fact.

You have a very valid point here, Hussar. There's a strain between what WotC can give away for free and what they must sell to make a profit. And nobody can provide the non-speculative answer you ask, because it's almost impossible to prove a mathematical relationship between sales and marketing, and that's basically what giving away free stuff is: marketing. Ad companies spend about half their budgets convincing their clients that making ads provides an excellent return on investment. If it were simple to prove the relationship, it wouldn't be such a huge effort, and they have plenty of research data that we don't have. So, in those two ways, your points are extremely valid.

Having said that, I think releasing the core system, the most basic part of the game, for free would be a great thing. It's such a good idea that that's what they do now: anyone can go to the D&DI compendium and look up the PHB material without a subscription.

Further, freely (and liberally) licensing for the core mechanic alone would allow many to publish for D&D. And I'm not just talking adventures. Optional modular elements, just like the ones that WotC seems to be planning, would be feasible.

Integrating other publishers into the online Adventure Tools (at the moment, mainly the character builder and the monster builder) would only take a bit more work, but would be very feasible under a capped pay-per click/use scheme, in which each time a user makes use of a non-WotC element that's integrated into the tools, the third party publisher gets a small share of that user's subscription for that month. All you really have to do is decide on the format these components have to be in before hand (that's the hard part), and then the rest is gravy. Since this work, at least if the designers have learned anything from 4e, has to also be done at some early stage for potential future WotC components, it wouldn't be much *extra* work to make this format available to third parties.

I'm sure you'll jump at the fact that WotC would actually be giving money away to third parties in this model. However, here they have very concrete proof that users like that third party publisher's content (the user is choosing that content), and they're profiting off of that content as well (in the sense that it makes their online tool richer and more complete).

That's how you make D&DNext both open and profitable. First, you give away the basic part of the game, so that anyone can get a taste of it. Then, you restrict with a paywall most of the material, and do your best to pull third party producers within the paywall. Then everyone who is really interested subscribes, because it's the best way to get everything.

 

[Nebulous]

Thus, we're back to square one. Will they sell enough PHB's because of the OGL to make up for the lost revenue from the OGL?

Yep. And will this create a NEW disparity when the inevitable 6e occurs in 5 years, they repeat the whole 3e fiasco. i honestly don't know what the best solution is.

 

[Hussar]

MarkCMG - yes, you are correct. I am using d20 OGL incorrectly. I was simply differentiating between the OGL and various other open gaming licenses that exist for other games and, additionally, the 4e GSL. I didn't think it would cause too much confusion since the d20 STL has been defunct for a number of years now.

From my point of view, it looks like this:

Step 1. Make 5e OGL
Step 2. _________
Step 3. PROFIT!!

And, other than vague assurances that the OGL will somehow drive sales for WOTC, no one seems to have any real idea on how Step 2 will look. It gets even worse when people try to paint this as a moral issue. This is a business issue plain and simple. No business EVER has a moral obligation to give away it's IP for free. And the fact that the OGL crowd has a tendency to paint the issue in moral terms (not everyone, but, it is an argument I've seen before) does not help their cause in the slightest.

One place I suppose you could look though to see what effect things like the Hypertext SRD had an effect would be on the releases of the Epic Level Handbook and the Unearthed Arcana (3e). Compare sales of those books to other, similar rules splats from around the same time. Now, none of us have these numbers, I realize that, but, I'm sure that that could be a pretty solid point of argument one way or the other. If sales were similar or less for those two books, then it's a pretty big strike against an OGL offering. If sales were higher, then it's perhaps a good idea to give the OGL a second look.

 

[Mark CMG]

And, other than vague assurances that the OGL will somehow drive sales for WOTC, no one seems to have any real idea on how Step 2 will look.

Setting aside the success of 3.XE and multiple essays by Ryan Dancey on the matter. I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree but you seem to be coming at this with misinformation, a lack of understanding of the terminology, and an unwillingness to acknowledge sources of information that exist and are available to anyone who wishes to search for them or simply read what others have posted in this very thread. I won't even go into what I think of your subversion of this discussion based on claims that someone has put forth some moral issue. You have to realize that at some point folks are not going to keep indulging you when you repeat the same questions and make the same claims when they have been competently answered and/or refuted over and over.