Licensing, OGL and Getting D&D Compatible Publishers Involved

[dmccoy1693]

Hmmh, I'm missing the part where you explain the possible advantage to Hasbro/WotC...

Advantages to Wizards:
1) greater exposure. Which is better: A) 1 company with a huge budget doing all the advertising and product creation or B) 1 company with a huge budget doing all the major advertising and product creation while 100 other companies produce products for your game that you do not have the time, energy, interest or resources to produce and spreading the word about your game (even if indirectly) using social media, word of mouth and kickstarter? All those little companies are small individually but essentially work to promote your game in a huge way in aggregate.

2) Larger pool of designers that are highly experienced with your game to choose from. Take Mike Mearls for example. When Wizards hired him, he was a top notch designer and thoroughly experienced with 3.5. Had there never been an OGL, Mearls probably would have written for someone on some other game system (we'll never know for sure, but ...). Maybe it would have been Wizards, maybe not. But the one thing that is certain is that they would not have had as large of a pool of designers to pick from. The larger pool means the top producers are generally higher quality.

3) Higher sales ... indirectly. Here's the science of the OGL: You play a game, you get bored and move onto something else. But if you have a large pool of options for that game, you are more likely to stick with it that game. Its the basic "replayability" argument of many video games and board games. So if a DM gets tired of playing basic fantasy and wants to fantasy with guns. If there is no option for guns in a Wizards book, the group will probably goto an entirely different game. But if a D&D Compatible Publisher makes a supplement on guns, then the group can stick with D&D. But the mage doesn't use a gun, he is still using spells. So he buys the latest mage expansion for new spells. And that is a sale Wizards would not have had had the group switched to a different game. While Wizards had not sold as much to that one group had they produced a gun book themselves, they had higher sales with the mage supplement then a book on guns will.

EDIT: The reason Wizards' did not (in this hypothetical scenario) produce a gun book themselves is basic business: opportunity cost. By taking one opportunity, you are turning down another. This means that if Wizards has the resources to produce 5 splat books/year, they can do martial classes, roguish classes, spellcasters, elves/halflings, dragonborn/tiefling books. Or they could do guns, space hamsters, androids, incarnum and an Ancient Canadian setting book. Which of those opportunities gets them more money. The first. This means they get higher sales because they could ignore those opportunities despite that 1% of gamers begging for guns in their ancient canadian themed setting. Without a sizable Compatible market, that 1% of gamers will go elsewhere. Do that often enough and you lose your market share. So either you A) produce to a 1% niche at the expense of the 99% that are not interested in that product or B) you slowly lose customers. Or you could go C) encourage a vibrant Compatible market that can cover those kind of niche markets that you never will that ultimately keep people in the game.

You should notice A and B are both lose-lose while C is a win-win.

 

[Morrus]

The evidence is what it is: Pathfinder outsells Dungeons and Dragons

It'd be pretty embarrassing if they didn't outsell a game not currently being produced.

I'm all for the OGL (obviously - I publish with it) but I think it benefits me a lot more than it benefits WotC.

 

[Alzrius]

That's both a pro and a con of an approvals process. d20 glut was a real problem, and its something that Savage Worlds has avoided for the most part.

Actually, the so-called "glut" (which has been inflated in the retelling) wasn't really a problem at all. The major problem happened when WotC changed from 3.0 to 3.5, which then caused the market for 3.0 materials, which was quite prevalent in late 2003, to collapse.

In other words, it was the needless revision cannibalizing the third-party market that was the real problem (and that's even without how it made new editions become the forefront on everyone's mind for the next ten years...or more; it won't be long after 5E is out that people start speculating about 6E).

I'm all for the OGL (obviously - I publish with it) but I think it benefits me a lot more than it benefits WotC.

In the short-term, it does. Over the long-term, however, it benefits WotC more. It's like any other investment; you have to pay into it first and wait for a while before you start receiving the dividends.

 

[Wicht]

It'd be pretty embarrassing if they didn't outsell a game not currently being produced.

I call strawman.

Pathfinder was outselling 4e before 5e was announced.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wizards isn't dumb. They have seen that migration of publishers migrate to Pathfinder or their own systems. They have seen all the good designers of the past few years either work directly for Paizo or are working on a compatible basis for Paizo. They know that Mearls came out of the OGL market and Wizards has not make a single high profile developer hire since they the start of 4e while Paizo has hired Sean K Reynolds, Stephen Radney-Macfarland in that time frame.

They know their influence is shrinking while Paizo's is growing. If they want to change it, a quality license and using the OGL are a serious part of that solution.

Other than independent game companies avoiding the GSL, and that Mearls came out of the OGL market almost every part of the above would appear to be wrong.

Paizo have hired Stephen Radney-Macfarland, who's far more known for his RPGA work than his design work - and SKR who I don't think has learned anything about design since he rated Weapon Focus as twice as powerful as Natural Spell. They are picking up WotC's former third rate talent there.

Wizards, on the other hand in just the past few years have first hired then parted ways with Monte Cook. They've had Robin Laws freelancing for them. They've got both Tarnowski (whatever I think of the RPG Pundit) and Zak S (who wrote the brilliant Vornheim, and has done fascinating things with open sourcing hexcrawls) on retainer.

But more to the point, the names you mention for Paizo are ex WotC employees. The good new game designers in the past few years are independents from either the Forge/Storygames or OSR schools. I'd buy games by Rob Donahughe, Vincent Baker, Jason Morningstar, and Luke Crane on spec. Paizo aren't even looking vaguely in that direction so far as I can tell. They aren't looking in the direction of the OSR either (which WotC demonstrably are - and Wizards are at least aware of the Forge and its successor in Story Games).

I'd say that the primary thing they could do to regain their market share is to produce and sell a roleplaying game; something they're not currently doing. Anything else is tangential to that.

This. Between Heroes of the Elemental Chaos (Feb 2012), and Murder in Baldur's Gate (about a month ago) I think the only thing Wizards have produced that wasn't a reprint was the Dungeon Survival Guide (half advertising - May 2012) and Menzobaranzan which was systemless and if I've read between the lines of the State of the Mongoose only sold a few hundred copies. That's about eighteen montsh without producing a serious book.

 

[Wicht]

In the short-term, it does. Over the long-term, however, it benefits WotC more. It's like any other investment; you have to pay into it first and wait for a while before you start receiving the dividends.

Exactly. If WotC had better used the OGL we would not now be talking about 5e. (imo)

 

[Zireael]

I heartily support using the OGL except for setting-specific stuff. Just look at Pathfinder.

 

[Wicht]

Other than independent game companies avoiding the GSL, and that Mearls came out of the OGL market almost every part of the above would appear to be wrong.

Paizo have hired Stephen Radney-Macfarland, who's far more known for his RPGA work than his design work - and SKR who I don't think has learned anything about design since he rated Weapon Focus as twice as powerful as Natural Spell. They are picking up WotC's former third rate talent there.

Wizards, on the other hand in just the past few years have first hired then parted ways with Monte Cook. They've had Robin Laws freelancing for them. They've got both Tarnowski (whatever I think of the RPG Pundit) and Zak S (who wrote the brilliant Vornheim, and has done fascinating things with open sourcing hexcrawls) on retainer.

But more to the point, the names you mention for Paizo are ex WotC employees. The good new game designers in the past few years are independents from either the Forge/Storygames or OSR schools. I'd buy games by Rob Donahughe, Vincent Baker, Jason Morningstar, and Luke Crane on spec. Paizo aren't even looking vaguely in that direction so far as I can tell. They aren't looking in the direction of the OSR either (which WotC demonstrably are - and Wizards are at least aware of the Forge and its successor in Story Games).

I think taste in Game Designers is just that: a matter of taste.

To argue that Paizo is "third rate talent" is I think reflective of a great deal of bias. But even if true, what a testament to the power of the OGL that third rate hacks can outperform the best of the best.

 

[dmccoy1693]

... post deleted. I was ninjaed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think taste in Game Designers is just that: a matter of taste.

To argue that Paizo is "third rate talent" is I think reflective of a great deal of bias. And if true, what a testament to the power of the OGL that third rate hacks can outperform the best of the best.

I didn't say Paizo was third rate and didn't intend to imply it. Notably Eric Mona and Lisa Stephens may just be the two best people in the RPG industry at what they do. What I said was that they were picking up third rate talent from WotC. Notably SKR who was cited in the post I was replying to.