Paizo How will OGL 1.1 affect Pazio, PF1 and P2?

[Henadic Theologian]

Yeah, my understanding is if the new OGL stands, Paizo will be in violation and can be sued by WotC (or sign the license and pay 25% - which would be terrible financially.)
So I expect this is the end of Pathfinder and all other OGL compatible content unless they come out with a 3E that doesn't use the OGL.

More likely Pathfinder sues WotC for various things wins and OGL 1.1 is scrapped (even more likely is it never gets released).

 

[JThursby]

Yeah, from that is sounds like - for Paizo at least - simply not using the OGL is a possibly viable route out of this.

I imagine most publishers are thinking along similar lines, assuming that it's open as a possibility for them. Even if the 1.1 OGL draft forever remains a draft, Wizards has opened the Pandora's box by introducing the possibility that OGL 1.0a can be ended and they can peruse legal action against you. Previously, a game leaving the OGL would have been a killer headline; "Paizo abandons open gaming for it's 2nd edition!" would have be a PR nightmare. Now, leaving the OGL is simply the prudent thing to do, and nobody would fault anyone for taking refuge from potential litigation.

 

[Retreater]

Wonder if they could just reprint the core book without the OGL? Since they've already been using it, that could show Hasbro's lawyers that PF2 was actually using it.

 

[Retreater]

More likely Pathfinder sues WotC for various things wins and OGL 1.1 is scrapped (even more likely is it never gets released).

I think you underestimate the war chest of Hasbro's legal team. And Paizo is likely their enemy #1 in making OGL 1.1.

 

[FormerLurker]

I don't understand the commentators saying that Paizo's only remaining move is to roll over and die. Do people think they are some mom-and-pop shop with no money whatsoever?

Do you know the best way to make a small fortune in tabletop gaming?
Start with a large fortune.

They're not some mom-and-pop but they're also not a huge corporation with $100 million just collecting dust in the vaults. Employees cost money. Staff salaries alone likely cost Paizo half-a-million monthly. Plus office space. Plus the printing runs for a half-dozen hardcover books: $10 to print, times 200,000 copies is a couple million per book.
They can't just sit around and burn money for six months or a year. Heck, they couldn't even stop selling PF1 books while building to PF2 and needed to sell playtests to recoup development costs.

That they had never once considered the possibility that the OGL may come under attack and have no plan, no response? The vast majority of their product is already legally distinct from D&D now, they can just rip out the OGL and replace it with something else going forward if they really have to.

But they didn't. And the old product still uses it.
They'd have to go through and re-edit all their old PF2 books to make sure they're non-OGL compliant.

In what universe is a single legal battle (assuming one is fought at all) going to be harder to withstand than the entirety of the Pandemic? If the company was so fragile and on a razor's edge of going kaput, Covid would have killed them first. There's also the ability to just run a big sale if they need quick capital. Or they can get a loan. Lots of possibilities out there without just declaring defeat without a fight.

How can you run a big sale if the majority of your content can't be sold?
Loans are an option. But require collateral. And if they lose the legal fight, they'll never be able to repay the loan.
And as you imply, the pandemic would have also hurt them hard. Shrunk their reserves. This could be the one-two punch that takes them down.
It's not like larger gaming companies haven't folded...

 

[Reynard]

The kicker for them is though PF2 is steps away from OGL stuff; starfinder isn't. It may mean they need to accelerate SF2 which may be very inconvenient.

Weird. I think Starfinder is as far away as PF2 (as a user and someone who has done a dab of freelance for it).

 

[Reynard]

More likely Pathfinder sues WotC for various things wins and OGL 1.1 is scrapped (even more likely is it never gets released).

This is pure fantasy.

 

[Morrus]

$10 to print, times 200,000 copies is a couple million per book.

Paizo doesn't pay $10 to print a book. Even ENP doesn't pay anywhere near that, and our economies of scale are literally orders of magnitude lower than Paizo's. When you're printing that many books the cost per unit is tiny. Trust me, I do this for a living.

 

[Alzrius]

I've seen some speculation that PF2E is far enough away from the 3E SRD that it doesn't actually need the OGL, and that they can simply strip the OGL from the book and use some other license to allow their 3PP commubity to produce for it. I don't know how valid that is.

The one thing that concerns me about that is if they do that, and WotC files suit against them on the grounds that PF2 infringes on 3.5 D&D (since that's the SRD that it uses) – which I don't think is likely, but then again I didn't think it was likely that WotC would try to kill the OGL v1.0a entirely – then Paizo might be in an awkward position if WotC asserts that them (Paizo) using the OGL and 3.5 SRD in PF2 is a tacit admission that its game mechanics are based off of D&D. (That quote above says otherwise, but I wonder how convincing a judge would find that.)

 

[JThursby]

then Paizo might be in an awkward position if WotC asserts that them (Paizo) using the OGL and 3.5 SRD in PF2 is a tacit admission that its game mechanics are based off of D&D.

They would need to proffer a specific, compelling instance of a breach of the OGL 1.0a terms. They can't just say that using the Open Game License is in and of itself an admission of intent to breach copyright, that would be cartoonish and absurd.