Licensing, OGL and Getting D&D Compatible Publishers Involved

[darjr]

I love the idea of WotC doing the OGL!

But the only reason they should do it is because their customers want them to.

Maybe its only potential customers, many of those so passionate about the game it's important to them.

I firmly believe that's why Paizo keeps with the OGL. Their customers want it and that makes it good business. Simple as that.

Everything else may be true and good besides, but other than the above I don't think it really matters. I think without the OGL 5e will suffer in sales.

 

[Warbringer]

so lets try this again... we don't have real data. We have a self regulated third party that only measures a small percentage of the market and extrapolates... and even then we have WotC #1 for X months and #2 for Y where Y is way more months that Wotc put on no new products, and WotC was trying out a new business model (DDI).

I hate to have this argument again, but the numbers are so far from conclusive it isn't even funny. Someone had the quarters maped out along with products put out in each quarter and said it totally proving Piazo only once really beat WotC, then someone else posted something proving that the reason for 5e is because Piazo was outselling wotc... yes same numbers proved exact opposite results.

Of course we don't have real data, everybody is a privately held company, but the distributors survey is hardly a small percentage of the market as it's WoTC's primary selling method.

With Paizo sales number, an indication of growth, the profit elements from selling through distribution and some assumptions on mix, we actually can get a decent picture. But, I'm not here to convince you, so we will just have different opnions.

 

[Warbringer]

I firmly believe that's why Paizo keeps with the OGL.

Without designing a game from the ground up, do they really have a choice? (I do like that they publish most of their new content to the PRD, and they don't have to do that)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm not here to convince you, so we will just have different opnions.

there is no one that can convince anyone in this way. I once thought I new for sure, but all the arguments have shown me is there is too many ways to interp the evadance. All you can possible do is prove the way you read it...

for now I just don't belive any of us can say for sure...

in the mean time I still would not want another OGL that would atleast in theory help lead the way to another pathfinder... in my perfect world Hasbro lawyers would be able to just undo the OGL so no one could use it and we could go back to every company makes it's own games

 

[billd91]

I think that's likely true (anecdotal evidence certainly supports it) and I also agree that the OGL is partly responsible for Paizo's success - though I think they'd have been successful whether Pathfinder was based on 3.x or not because they're a well-run company - but I think dislike of 4E was the biggest driving factor in splitting the fan base. OGL usage falls far behind that in contributing factors.

I largely agree. But I would also add that the OGL enabled a publisher to continue to support and enhance the older rules, helping the fan community for those rules to thrive rather than whither over time as groups of other abandoned rule sets eventually do. That is a difference between any fan base splits for previous edition changes - if you wanted to play a currently-supported version of D&D, you had only one place you could go and WotC could probably expect eventual assimilation of most previous-edition players - with the OGL, that's no longer true. I don't think the OGL caused the fan base split, but I think it probably enhanced the effect.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Personally, I think one big reason WotC might want to avoid an OGL is that they don't know where the brand or the company is going to be in five years.

The OGL served 3rd edition well, but the constant changeover in employees at WotC led to a shifting of design and business goals that helped contribute to a break when 4th edition was so different from what had come before.

Paizo has consistency on their side right now and can use the OGL to their advantage. They've got their audience, their design goals haven't changed that much over the years, and they don't see a lot of turnover in their staff. When they do a new edition of Pathfinder, it's probably going to be done by the same folks who did the previous edition rather than a whole new team.

From WotC's perspective, using the OGL for 5th edition might wind up biting them again if they release a 6th edition that splits the fanbase again. Regardless of the problems that 4th edition faced, one thing that seems pretty certain is that if the OGL hadn't existed, there would have been no Pathfinder to take a large portion of the fanbase away.

 

[an_idol_mind]

That said, I think the OGL is a good thing overall and that there are reasons for WotC to consider using it or something like it. And if 5th edition is as similar to 3rd edition as the playtest material suggests, there isn't a lot of reason for them not to make use of it - especially if they want to stick with their stated goal of making material that can be used in other versions of D&D.

 

[darjr]

Without designing a game from the ground up, do they really have a choice? (I do like that they publish most of their new content to the PRD, and they don't have to do that)

They've released new rules that didn't have to be OGL and OGL'ed them. Yes, for new things they do have some choice. And they chose the OGL because I think they are choosing to give their customers what they want.

 

[Wicht]

I think that's likely true (anecdotal evidence certainly supports it) and I also agree that the OGL is partly responsible for Paizo's success - though I think they'd have been successful whether Pathfinder was based on 3.x or not because they're a well-run company - but I think dislike of 4E was the biggest driving factor in splitting the fan base. OGL usage falls far behind that in contributing factors.

I think that I agree with most of that mostly.

But at the least, it is safe to say (in my mind anyway) that the OGL is a net plus for Paizo rather than a net loss.

I certainly think that using the OGL is not going to be the biggest factor in the success of 5e. But I do not think it would hurt them in anyway and I suspect it would, if they did it right, be a net plus for them as well.

 

[Wicht]

in the mean time I still would not want another OGL that would atleast in theory help lead the way to another pathfinder... in my perfect world Hasbro lawyers would be able to just undo the OGL so no one could use it and we could go back to every company makes it's own games

You make it sound like a world with Pathfinder, and Mutants and Masterminds, and Spycraft, et.al. is a bad thing overall. You're perfect world would do away with a lot of things I like and strikes me as being rather lacking therefore. For me, the OGL has made the world, at least the gaming portion of it, a better place overall, with more opportunity, a greater gaming base, and a richness of variety.

The world is a better place when innovation occurs, but most innovation is built off of the ideas and work of others. Ideally, things like the OGL speeds up the innovation in gaming, rather than hinder it. When every company has to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, you are making a lot of unnecessary work and hindering the development of ideas.