D&D 5E Maybe D&D Should Branch?

[Scribble]

WOTC has all the numbers you have and yet they decided the OGL was not to their liking. I believe the reason is that it went too far. If the OGL didn't allow for other game systems and only allowed modules and campaign settings they'd have kept it. WOTC realized they needed new ip which is why they went the route they took

I'm not really sure that's it...

That's kind of the point of Open Source, which is what the OGL was based on. The idea being the users end up deciding which is "best" based on features, and not because it's just the only thing available.

For my part, I bought the core 3e books, and a couple other WoTC books, but most of my D&D money through the years was spent on 3pp books and products.

So, as I've said before, I think the OGL was great for consumers, and some companies, but maybe not so much for WoTC. (At least not directly.)

One could argue that it increased awareness of D&D, and therefore indirectly increased the player-base and potential customers... But who really knows?

 

[Mark CMG]

I believe that almost all PF players, did purchased 4e core books at launch.

I find that unbelievable.

I do not believe that most of the PF players have never played 4e.

That's not the question.

All the PF players that I know, all played 3e/3.5e, they gamed with myself for years. They tried 4e, but just never really liked the game, or after a while drifted back to a more 3.5e play-style, found in PF.

I know a fair number of PF players that at least tried 4E but very few that bothered to purchase the books to do so.

 

[timASW]

Quite the contrary, the OGL was very successful, the failure was WotC's for jumping off the bandwagon it got rolling and going it alone.

For 8 years it made WotC & D&D the industry leaders, everyone watched their every move and jumped to produce complementary products that would sell along side it.

In economics, there's a concept of a 'complementary good.' If other companies are making jam, you can sell peanut butter. If everyone stops making jam, your peanut butter sales fall.

The problem though is this wasnt Jam and peanut butter. It was Smuckers jam and Wallmart Jam. Same product, Same use, customers only buy one or the other with their dollars. Not complimentary products, competing ones.

Your gonna have to dig up some solid sales studies to prove the OGL helped in order to support added competition for the exact same product being somehow good for those products.

Its a very simple fact of economics that competition is good for the customer, not the producer.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Its a very simple fact of economics that competition is good for the customer, not the producer.

And now, WotC is competing against the OGL (and Paizo et al.), whereas before they had no competition on that level. Monopolies are good for the business, not the consumer, and, compared to the current environment, 3e was a monopoly.

Now, if they could have actually killed the OGL and D&D instead of just moving away from it, things might be different.

 

[timASW]

while simultaneously bemoaning that PF has earned millions of dollars that WotC should have earned and while also claiming that the OGL didn't have anything to do with PF's success. .

I didnt say anything of the sort. The OGL was the cause of pathfinders success. However, whats good for pathfinder was NOT neccesarily good for WoTC.

They are separate, competing companies after-all. They dont share a corporate bank account.

You also would need to ignore the success of many other OGL lines from other companies like M&M from GR. Or you would at least have to claim that the OGL had nothing to do with their success. For your theory to be correct, you have to dismiss example after example of successful OGL products/lines, starting with 3.XE, as having nothing to do with the OGL. I find that to be a theory that struggles against the evidence.

Not at all. Your talking about what was good for the hobby, players, 3rd party publishers and game store owners.

However since gaming isnt a communist collective where they all share profits with WoTC none of that is neccesarily good for WoTC as a business.

Thats why you dont see Apple handing out their technology to competitors left and right hoping that people will buy their stuff anyway because they really love that cool apple logo on it.

 

[timASW]

And now, WotC is competing against the OGL (and Paizo et al.), whereas before they had no competition on that level. Monopolies are good for the business, not the consumer, and, compared to the current environment, 3e was a monopoly.

Now, if they could have actually killed the OGL and D&D instead of just moving away from it, things might be different.

They were ALWAYS competing against the OGL. From day one to today.

 

[timASW]

Sat in on? None. Seen transcripts online of the conference calls made by Hasbro about that very subject (and which have been posted here on ENWorld over the years?) Several.

That's what happens when you've been a member of ENWorld for more than 10 years. You learn stuff.

So transcripts of conference calls where it was discussed prove its rarely brought up...... how do they do that exactly? Do clouds disprove rain? Do shadows disprove light?

 

[underfoot007ct]

So basically, you think that they all put genuine effort into playing 4e, genuinely dislike it from experience, and moved on to PF because they genuinely preferred it? I can think of a few ENWorlders who would really take issue with that (mostly the diehard 4e-ers, as this statement seems to cast it in a rather poor light).

I don't think it's 100% true, though. Even with an edition change, I seriously doubt that the entire player base of the hobby bought new core books that year. Many of them were probably happy with what they were doing and saw no reason to change, others were in long-term campaigns and couldn't change to an incompatible system, others didn't have the money, others read the books and decided no, etc. I do think there was a large portion had the experience you described, and that Paizo caters to disgruntled ex-WotC fans (and employees), but I also think that a large group of people never had that experience.

Well, I cannot attest to 100% of anything, I can related what the player that I know did. I certainly do not know the entire PF fan base, but if they are willing to travel to Connecticut, I'll try.

Yes they made an effort to play 4e, Maybe the PF fans I know are just better quality of people.

Most of the ex-WOTC guys are not disgruntled, I have meet several. They all have played 4e, many hoped to play 5e at the D&D Experience, in Fort Wayne, but could not do so for legal reasons.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yes they made an effort to play 4e, Maybe the PF fans I know are just better quality of people.

I wouldn't posit having tried 4e as indicative of someone's "quality".

My sense of things is that the raw initial sales were large, probably as big as they could have been under the circumstances but that relative to the gaming population they weren't anywhere close to saturation.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I find that unbelievable.

That's not the question.

I know a fair number of PF players that at least tried 4E but very few that bothered to purchase the books to do so.

Things I find unbelievable:

Why people think that they know which editions are bad?

Why people think their preferred edition is the correct one?

How people know so much about a game that they never owned?

Which game out sells others when NO such info is published?

Why people bash everything they don't like?

Why playtest D&D Next if you HATE WOTC so much?

Why so much hate against you fellow D&D fans?


...This is NOT directed at you, just a few things I find unbelievable.