Paizo How will OGL 1.1 affect Pazio, PF1 and P2?
- Thread starter Uni-the-Unicorn!
- Start date
Scribe
Legend
Yeah, I'm heading into my local (not really local but closest!) shop tomorrow to see what PF stuff I can buy.
payn
Legend
darjr
I crit!
I'll go thru my FLGS. Thanks though!
Scribe
Legend
Yeah, its hard enough to keep the local shop open, but if there's nothing or not enough to buy there I'll for sure pick up something direct.
delericho
Legend
I wouldn't place too much hope in Paizo launching a big fight back.
Here's how I see things: WotC's big goal at the moment isn't about money per se (the OGL is small fry) - the main thing they want is to end Open Gaming as a concept. That means getting people to stop using the OGL 1.0 and, ideally, avoiding a challenge in the courts. They know that Paizo are the company best placed to launch that challenge, and also the ones with the most to lose.
Meanwhile for Paizo this is an existential threat - their existing games are too bound to the OGL to carry on as they are, and a court case would be at best highly expensive and very risky.
If I were WotC, therefore, I would offer Paizo a license to continue using anything and everything in the 3e and 5e versions of the SRD, royalty and reporting free, for X years - long enough for them to see out the current editions of Starfinder and Pathfinder. In return, they'd sign away their ability to use the OGL, and the new editions when they come would need to be new enough to avoid the need for an ongoing license.
And that way they both get what they want: Paizo carry on without legal headaches or risks, and WotC nullify their biggest risk. (It also explains their radio silence - negotiations are likely ongoing at how many years they need.)
And if that is the case, I absolutely couldn't fault Paizo for taking the deal. As I said, it's an existential threat, and they have too many people depending on them not to at least consider it strongly.
Here's how I see things: WotC's big goal at the moment isn't about money per se (the OGL is small fry) - the main thing they want is to end Open Gaming as a concept. That means getting people to stop using the OGL 1.0 and, ideally, avoiding a challenge in the courts. They know that Paizo are the company best placed to launch that challenge, and also the ones with the most to lose.
Meanwhile for Paizo this is an existential threat - their existing games are too bound to the OGL to carry on as they are, and a court case would be at best highly expensive and very risky.
If I were WotC, therefore, I would offer Paizo a license to continue using anything and everything in the 3e and 5e versions of the SRD, royalty and reporting free, for X years - long enough for them to see out the current editions of Starfinder and Pathfinder. In return, they'd sign away their ability to use the OGL, and the new editions when they come would need to be new enough to avoid the need for an ongoing license.
And that way they both get what they want: Paizo carry on without legal headaches or risks, and WotC nullify their biggest risk. (It also explains their radio silence - negotiations are likely ongoing at how many years they need.)
And if that is the case, I absolutely couldn't fault Paizo for taking the deal. As I said, it's an existential threat, and they have too many people depending on them not to at least consider it strongly.
QuentinGeorge
Legend
Yep, that’s 100% what WotC will do. Neutralise Paizo, cut off access to DrivethruRPG and they’ve basically won already.
delericho
Legend
We're at the end of the first day in "Independence Day". The leaker is Jeff Goldblum. And the aliens are about to blow up the White House.
Anyone good with Morse Code?
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
Yes, it is easy for us to say that we'll burn bridges with WotC (or, conversely, that we don't care what happens with the OGL), but it is another matter entirely when the survival of your company depends on it.
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I don't see Paizo doing that. Like. At all.
That puts a set shelf life on their products - especially online. They still sell (I assume) the vast majority of their books for Pathfinder 1e online. They probably still get some sales, which they don't depend on - but I imagine it helps, AND it keeps the Pathfinder 1e community on side.
Plus, it leaves a very open question - what happens to Archives of Nethys in that case? Wouldl it be forced to go down since it would be in violation? That would render all of Paizo's current games very difficult to play.
Paizo would only go for an option that basically gets WoTC to politely go away and leave them alone. Not something that will affect them in a few years, ruins their plans for continued Pathfinder and Starfinder support, breaks apart promises they've had from the beginning - and still allows WoTC some way to jerk them around later.
Because why would you even trust them to give you x years at this stage?
delericho
Legend
They may find themselves with a choice:
On the one hand, a very generous license agreement that guarantees them several years of sales, after which they have to move away...
Or they take their chances with a very expensive years-long court case, with no guarantee of winning and, very likely, an injunction that stops them selling anything new immediately.
The thing is that unless WotC make a massive climbdown (which is possible, of course), the OGL can now no longer be considered a safe harbor for development. Unless someone wins a case to prove that it is irrevocable the next editions of Starfinder and Pathfinder will have to move to be OGL-free anyway.
Because the license agreement would be vetted by the lawyers on both sides. Besides, WotC want the OGL to go away - it's in their interests not to violate an agreement that achieves that.
Indeed. For a small company which manages a hit a million dollars on Kickstarter it's a hefty sum. For a company like Paizo, that initial $750K is almost irrelevant -- they'd be paying 25% of millions.
Considering that WoTC is doing this in the first place when everyone else understood the revocation to be impossible and lawyers (who, to be fair, haven't seen the documents) are disagreeing on all sides - and there have been clear cases in the past where corporate lawyers have done what they have bene told, not necessarily the law - I really don't think you'd want to trust WoTC to have a legally tight agreement and that they wont' later try to naughty word it up.
As for your other points, as Morrus said if Paizo try to hammer out an agreement they could run into an issue with the royalty bollocks WoTC wants and could find it impossible to get an agreement anyway. Because they will glady spend any of that potential royalty money on a court case. Especially if there isn't an injection, which seems highly unlikely to be granted since it would make zero bloody sense.
Nilbog
Snotling Herder
Whatever you think of PF2E, the man has fine taste in whisky
I just started a Starfinder campaign and ordered books.
If I were WoTC, determined to destroy Open Gaming, and thinking evil-rational, I would indeed be offering VERY generous (NDA'd) bespoke licence terms to Paizo, Kobold Press, and other major players. It would be worth spending millions of $ now to neutralise them as opponents.
That's what the rational Evil Overlord would do. But it's a funny thing, even IRL, few villains act with that kind of cold rationality. Everything I'm hearing indicates that WoTC leadership is thinking more like Gollum when Bilbo took the Ring. They think Paizo "stole their IP" and they are "out for blood". Apparently this kind of seemingly deranged attitude can actually impress investors, at least until the consequences become clear. They seem much more Putin 2022 than Putin 2012, to use a political analogy.
That's what the rational Evil Overlord would do. But it's a funny thing, even IRL, few villains act with that kind of cold rationality. Everything I'm hearing indicates that WoTC leadership is thinking more like Gollum when Bilbo took the Ring. They think Paizo "stole their IP" and they are "out for blood". Apparently this kind of seemingly deranged attitude can actually impress investors, at least until the consequences become clear. They seem much more Putin 2022 than Putin 2012, to use a political analogy.
Re injunctions, this does not look at all like the kind of case where an injunction would be obtainable here in England. I know in the USA you can do forum shopping for an amenable judge, and I've seen weird interim injunctions granted, but they don't tend to last long at all. I find it hard to believe WotC could get a blanket injunction to stop sales under the OGL pending trial.
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