Is WotC still the industry LEADER?

[Sigurd]

"Industry" "Leadership" What about Game Publishing?

WOTC largely created a distinct gaming industry with licenses that tied other publishers to their system and gave WOTC influence over other businesses. The OGL and D20 licenses changed independent game publishers to co-dependent licensees.

You may not like it, but there is no denying that whatever makes D&D a necessary component of other people's publishing plans originated with WOTC.

Stan's blog is on target but I think his choice of labels is unfortunate. 'Leader' need not be an ethical term. Abuse is leadership if everyone still follows. It might be enforced leadership but not all leadership is moral or by popularity.

As a consumer, I'm eager for some more chaos and reduced Industry control. If industry leaders co-opt other publishers and alienate their customers, I'd rather support change.

 

[xechnao]

Yes, they are still leading. WotC is not doing the same as it used to do, but that's because they also learned and found the old model not working good enough anymore. Paizo is still following their OGL, and they also copy their d20 License and their GSL examples.

By this logic TSR is still leading because they massively commercialized RPGs. But I think people when they are saying "leading" here they mean it in a different context.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You seem to be confusing the words "leading" and "led." Different tenses. WotC "led" the RPG industry in the area of open licensing. WotC is no longer "leading" the RPG industry in the area of open licensing.

Since the thread is titled "Is WotC Still the Industry Leader?" (emphasis mine), the focus is on the "leading" form of the verb. If the question were, "Was WotC an Industry Leader?" then the "led" form of the verb would be appropriate (and I doubt anyone would be disagreeing with you).

I don't think I am confusing the two. I am well aware of the differences.

But WotC still has the GSL. Yes, it is different from Paizos license or the d20 License (and certainly not the OGL 2.0), but: That others do not make it exactly like WotC isn't telling us that WotC stopped leading these people. It just means the people are smart enough to know how they can use the examples set by WotC, considering their own business realities.

 

[Wicht]

But such things are actually why WotC felt the need to leave the OGL behind - they figured out that they could earn more if they made competition with their core products (Which is Core Rulebooks, not Adventures, as it is for Paizo) harder, while still promoting additional supplemental material that relies on the Core Rules.

Exactly. WotC is trying to make it harder to compete with them. Rather than viewing the field as a joint venture with like minded partners, they are in competition with the other companies. That is the point right there.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

But WotC still has the GSL. Yes, it is different from Paizos license or the d20 License (and certainly not the OGL 2.0), but: That others do not make it exactly like WotC isn't telling us that WotC stopped leading these people.

Actually, that's exactly what it's telling us.

Paizo didn't create their license for Pathfinder because they were led to do so by WotC. They created it with terms specifically and deliberately different from the GSL. (The Pathfinder license is much more analogous to the STL than to the GSL, of course. But where the GSL and Pathfinder license overlap, the Pathfinder license is almost invariably different and more favorable to the licensee.)

The Pathfinder license is a renunciation of WotC's current licensing philosophy, and Pathfinder itself is an affirmation of the licensing philosophy of the OGL.

Again, WotC used to lead. That's not the same as "WotC is a leader."

 

[Sigurd]

Again, WotC used to lead. That's not the same as "WotC is a leader."

Fair distinction.

 

[Wicht]

You know something that I think is cool, and maybe this should be forked to a different thread but its relevant to the mindset of competitor verses companion. Paizo regularly points its consumers to other companies encouraging them to explore their works. On several occassions, the flagship of the Paizo brand, the AP, has actively called out Chaosium and their work on Call of Cthulhu as something that Paizo readers should investigate and support. Cthulhu isn't even d20 and I'm fairly sure they're not OGL.

Every issue of Pathfinder utilizes creatures from Necromancer and Green Ronin books and identifies those books by name and page number. Though the stats are fully spelled out so the customer does not have to buy another book, the encouragement to support another company is there all the same.

I think its very cool and very much in the cooperative spirit that the OGL was intended.

WotC started this and almost supported it (MMII IIRC) but they have most certainly moved away from cooperation to competition. Which is sad.

 

[roguerouge]

There doesn't have to be one. Just because WotC stops leading, doesn't mean that another company has to take up the reins.

IMO, if WotC isn't the industry leader any more than there isn't one.

So, the gaming industry is a proto-anarchist collective?

Are there kender? Every anarchist collective should include kender.

 

[Azgulor]

Hi!

I agree with this completely. Most definitions I have seen are too subjective and are a "moving target".

In business a market leader is he with the largest market share. Its an objective measure. You either have the most market share or you don't. AT this point in time, that's WOTC hands down. Until that changes that only way NOT to make them the market leader is to change the definition.

Primarchone

Corporate analysts would disagree with you.

For example, the Gartner Group benchmarks various technology companies and assigns them a rank in one of 4 quadrants. Everyone wants to be in the "Magic Quandrant" that shows equal strengths in vision along with products & ability to execute. While being a market share leader earns you points in product & ability-to-execute, it doesn't necessarily earn you any points on vision, i.e. one's ability to anticipate customer desires and see where the industry is headed.

To extend this example to WotC, while they are clearly the market leader, there is mounting evidence that they are not leading the industry. They are all about WotC, which should be their primary focus. One can certainly make the case that they once had a much greater interest in making the hobby as a whole healthier. That's a change that has nothing to do with market share.

 

[ProfessorPain]

How about the following alternative reading: Piracy is bad for the Hobby as a whole. Most RPG companies have thin profit margins and cannot afford to lose even 5% of sales. Hence going against pirates is in the interest of the industry. According to jasonbostwick (contested) Paizo managed to reduce piracy by increasing their security and freezing out known pirates. However, Paizo cannot afford to do anything more against the pirates, all they manage to do is plug a hole.

Wizards can do more, they can actually send a message to pirates by going after some of them. Of course this will not end piracy, but it may make some people think twice before uploading material of any RPG company, as they now know they they may get into trouble for this. This will reduce the supply of pirated material.
Remember that the most commonly used security measurement (Watermarking) only works with the implicit threat that you get into trouble if your mark is found on pirated material. Again, for this threat to work, someone has to be willing to actually sue for damages.

So you could argue that wizards is acting exactly like a leader should, doing what the smaller players in the market place cannot do.

Yes, but these tactics almost always anger fans and customers. Remember when Metallica made a big stink about napster? Know lars is hated even by people that continue to purchase metallica albums. With gaming, I am sure a certain percentage of people will pirate from PDFs. But there are always those kinds of people out there, and even without PDFs they can download them off of websites. Personally this reminds a lot of the 90s when TSR was going after fans. And it smelled like desperationg back then. I don't think Wizards is desperate. 4E seems to be doing pretty well. If they weren't selling many copies, I could understand the move. But you must admit, it unleashed a fury of gamer wrath all over the web. A few companies even announced their intent to continue with PDF sales; clearly trying to earn better will with their customers than wizards. My guess is there will always be pirates in one form or another. This move however, is akin to punishing the whole class because someone stole the teacher's chalk. Its insulting to those of us who purchase PDFs and use them legitimately.

But I believe this is a move that comes from Hasbro and not Wizards.