My hope in this era of increased alternative marketing and funding approaches is that more works of art will make it to those customers who find them most appealing. There should be numerous small, agile, creative publishers who can make a living, improve and experiment over time, and keep the genres thriving. Consolidation of these many-varied ("niche") markets and smaller publishers into a handful of mega-vendor communities and products with centralized control would be--by definition--stifling, and unlikely in any event with modern social and economic capabilities intact and changing/improving over time. The "creative forces" must have a rich, varied, and spacious environment in which to thrive.
(With nods to communications, software and operating system market realities) Any massively influential RPG publisher could consider spinning off a rules group to work on an "open standard" (platform) to address and design a rich, flexible, consistent framework which allowed for all manner of profitable adaptations. As with many tech standards, market forces would reward vendors that standardized upon vetted, quality specifications--in this case, for how to simulate abstract, imaginative experience using math, probability, or other approaches. It would not preclude doing something different, but would rather increase interoperability for those who did not want to reinvent the wheel or even tweak the smallest mechanic--but instead paint a picture, or offer a new or variant mechanic whose relation to the known whole was better understood for its wider audience and greater familiarity.
Our very interesting experience here on this forum at a Web site on the Internet is based upon numerous underlying previously-set standards which allowed interoperability and also competition while consistently improving the underlying standard cores over time. There are numerous physical servers and components, operating systems, bulletin board applications, ISP's, etc...all sharing the same core Internet and World Wide Web to produce over millions of unique social and content experiences--and despite the shared standards (nevertheless implemented as various independent infrastructures and coded behaviors), who can doubt that the big players still have the largest portals and subscriber bases even though there exists "equal" potential to publish sites on the net? [Because, of course, they leverage talent, assets, SEO, advertising, branding, loyalty, etc. to differentiate themselves and grab market share.]
Think how much more could be achieved in RPG's by building upon "open"/"standard" descriptions and rules. Those who wanted to go far afield would not be prevented. And yet, those who wanted to contribute and profit from working in a well-known system would be able to without fees--including participating in committees to shape those core game platforms. The massive publishers would gain all of the proven advantages for standardization, and would still enjoy tremendous (but not zero-sum) competitive advantages when marketing and selling content for the open standards, but would have a more consistent and increasing market overall by establishing familiar and common expectations for the platform on which new content should be delivered. They will analogously produce the blockbusters delivered over the net, while indies will have their audiences too. If they instead used proprietary delivery systems, or video formats, such lack of standardization would undermine profitability and perhaps even viability, as more tech-standard/compatible vendors grabbed market share.
I say: be a leader in providing open standards for rules, and excel (profit-wise) separately by providing settings, software, physical products, media, etc. that are built upon such community-supported collaborative efforts. This will repair what was "fractured" without preventing ongoing (decentralized) innovation and diversity because it will reduce the inherent confusion in the description--the language if you will--of how to enjoy structured (rules-based) role-play, and thereby draw greater numbers of discriminating consumers into the market: enough for the existing greats and many more of the minor publishers to thrive and grow.
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Update: A thought occurred to me that one useful approach to a D&D open standards initiative would be to have the initial and/or other working groups retroactively adding the 1E, 2E, 3.xE, and 4E established rules and text/descriptions. Then existing and new systems (incl. “retro clones”) could indicate clearly with which standard–and also any exceptions/omissions–their works complied.
Additionally, branching systems could offer formal/standardized annotations indicating differences.
One clear advantage to such a codex would be the ability for gamers (consumers) [for fun] and also publishers [for profit] to offer compliant versions of their content both up AND down the version hierarchy/tree. This would optimally occur as each discrete/cohesive “system” was announced and published as complete.
This is, of course, meant to imply a more welcome (layperson legal perception), widespread (inclusive of many interested parties) and easier capability to translate new and existing works, beyond what already has happened, and does happen.
