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<blockquote data-quote="Ondath" data-source="post: 8663220" data-attributes="member: 7031770"><p>This is true for D&D as it was developed in the USA in the 70s, in a squarely capitalist society for squarely capitalist needs. What I'm saying is that games like chess and Go were <em>not</em> designed with the goal of making money, and they <em>still</em> work as enjoyable games. By your logic, freeware games should never have reached any popularity. But what usually happens is that a freeware game achieves popularity simply due to the fact that <em>it is good</em>, and <strong>then</strong> a company buys it or commodifies it, after which the product usually doesn't get that better. Minecraft is a good example of this, I think, and even D&D fits this bill somewhat. TSR actually lost a lot of money trying to defend its product from 3rd party books because they thought it hurt their IP (i.e., they saw D&D as a commodity), but when WotC released OGL D&D gained even more notoriety because people could engage with the ruleset <em>not as a commodity but as a freely usable game</em>. The OSR movement as a whole, for all its good products, relies on the core tenet that there is a game beyond the commodities that everyone can play thanks to OGL. You couldn't have something like that if everyone saw D&D as a commodity and nothing else.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ondath, post: 8663220, member: 7031770"] This is true for D&D as it was developed in the USA in the 70s, in a squarely capitalist society for squarely capitalist needs. What I'm saying is that games like chess and Go were [I]not[/I] designed with the goal of making money, and they [I]still[/I] work as enjoyable games. By your logic, freeware games should never have reached any popularity. But what usually happens is that a freeware game achieves popularity simply due to the fact that [I]it is good[/I], and [B]then[/B] a company buys it or commodifies it, after which the product usually doesn't get that better. Minecraft is a good example of this, I think, and even D&D fits this bill somewhat. TSR actually lost a lot of money trying to defend its product from 3rd party books because they thought it hurt their IP (i.e., they saw D&D as a commodity), but when WotC released OGL D&D gained even more notoriety because people could engage with the ruleset [I]not as a commodity but as a freely usable game[/I]. The OSR movement as a whole, for all its good products, relies on the core tenet that there is a game beyond the commodities that everyone can play thanks to OGL. You couldn't have something like that if everyone saw D&D as a commodity and nothing else. [/QUOTE]
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