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

[Mark CMG]

(snip)

The point is you keep arguing against yourself in that you claim the OGL is responsible for PF to make millions, money you claim WotC would have made in its absence, while simultaneously arguing that the OGL had nothing to do with the millions WotC made while utilizing it. It just doesn't track as a solid argument.

 

[billd91]

Heres the evidence.

Pathfinder pre-OGL. 0 dollars from WoTC's bottom line.
Pathfinder Post-OGL. MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from WoTC's bottom line.

That's a poor use of evidence considering Pathfinder didn't exist, nor was conceived of, pre-OGL. You might as well ask about the effects of Piper Cub aircraft on the Spartican rebellions.

But consider Paizo's effect on WotC's bottom line before 4e and the GSL. I'd be willing to bet they were of help. And Pathfinder may not have existed if WotC hadn't retreated from the OGL.

WotC's OGL problem is it required commitment. And with Dancey and most of the d20 developers leaving, WotC was no longer committed. By the time 4e was under development, they were not only not committed, they were actively retreating.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And Pathfinder may not have existed if WotC hadn't retreated from the OGL.

I see this a lot, but I don't think it's true. At least, I don't think it's that simple. It's hard to imagine 4e in its current form being any more successful than it has been, regardless of its competition or licensing status. OTOH, if WotC hadn't been trying to distance themselves from the OGL and 3e, it's likely we would have seen a revision of the existing system (a "fourth edition" of D&D, if you will), in which case there might not have been a need for PF.

The way some people talk abut WOTC why would they ever do business with them.

A fair question. My take:
If WotC started putting out quality products again, would I buy them? Maybe. Maybe not. My interest in 5e is twofold: one, I might need new players someday, and I want a healthy and diverse community of rp-ers to choose from. The other is that I'm an advocate for the hobby and would like to see its public image improved and its profile raised. On these points, what WotC is doing matters to me even if I never buy anything from them again.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Let's make a Poll about it on enworld. It wouldn't actually answer the question, but at least we could then argue over whether or not the poll was created properly.

Poll is Done, (sigh) argue away .

http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfi...our-interest-d-d-4th-edition.html#post6015321

 

[underfoot007ct]

WOTC has all the numbers you have and yet they decided the OGL was not to their liking. ..............

WOTC at that time (perhaps HASBRO?) was incredibly obnoxious. I feel they were also that way in their design philosophy too.

So what exactly did WOTC do that was 'incredibly obnoxious' ?

How do you have a 'obnoxious design philosophy' ?

Yeah I do. At least a version of it. Paizo is a great company. Not just anyone could have pulled this off. They are actually nice.

So how is Paizo so nice? what did they do you you?

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

When the OGL was introduced, 3pps didn't rush to create rivals to D&D - d20 FRPGs - they rushed to create adventures and supplements /for/ D&D. When that worked, they also started creating some of their own d20 games, in other genres. And, in the RPG space, having multiple games that use the same 'core system' is a plus for /all/ those games, because it means players need learn only a single system to play a variety of games.

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

And there's very little barrier to entry in the RPG market, so WotC has always faced a lot of competition. The OGL actually tended to reduce competition by turning competitors making rival products into partners making complementary ones (or, at least, splitting their efforts between the two).

Another reminder. D&D makes millions of dollars. Millions. They are not going to shelve it.

In the hands of any other RPG publisher, that would be just /so/ true. But, WotC is a unit of Hasbro, which is a huge company and expects it's products to make more than a few paltry millions - a unit with a much more successful line of products in it's CCGs.

Hasbro may very well shelve D&D at some point. It has probably been cutting the investment it makes in D&D for a while (ie cutting designers) - thus the falling quality, slower releases, and re-trenching of design philosophies to make what design work is being done easier.

Really, though, it doesn't matter. "D&D" as a trademark may be shelved, but the d20 open-source versions of the game can continue indefinitely - as long as there's some RPG fanatic with some free time and an internet connection to create content for it.

In my opinion WOTC is pretty fat. For example they are in a very nice expensive office building. How much of that gets charged against D&D's overhead?

That's up to Hasbro. Large companies can account for overhead in a variety of ways. Some of them let a unit generate some (sometimes false) savings by using less office space, others don't.

 

[Emerikol]

I think wizards made more money during the era of OGL. But competitors began to rise and they were able to compete in the same market space. So WOTC had big OGL regrets and made sure 4e was not open. It was a deliberate choice. The rise of competing games is what did it NOT the creation of modules and campaign settings.

I believe the owners of Paizo created Pathfinder because they are gamers too and strongly rejected 4e. They were done wrong over the GSL etc.. and that added fuel to the fire no doubt. But they were also unhappy with the game and that was clear too. They wanted WOTC to produce 3.75.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think wizards made more money during the era of OGL. But competitors began to rise and they were able to compete in the same market space. So WOTC had big OGL regrets and made sure 4e was not open. It was a deliberate choice.

I don't doubt that it was a deliberate choice, but we can only guess at the reasons.

In 2006 or 7, when the decision to try to put the OGL genie back in the bottle must have been made, who was out-competing WotC? Who was even on the radar? It's sometimes said that business decisions are driven by two forces: fear and greed. If I had to guess, I'd say the decision to trash the OGL with a new ed of D&D was based on greed (let's capture the revenue these 3pps are getting and take back full control of the line) rather than the fear (OMG, we have competitors!) you're guessing at, above. But, they're both guesses, maybe, someday, some insider will share their reasoning. :shrug:

Whatever WotC's (or Hasbro's - it could have been a decision made further up the line) reason for trying to kill the OGL, it backfired dramatically.

 

[Iosue]

From what I understand, and adding my own speculation, I think things went down like this:
1999 - Hasbro buys WotC. Due in part to a clause in the acquisition deal that allowed a post-acquisition price adjustment based on non-Magic CGGs, Wizards' product lines report to Hasbro individually, rather than just one big company.

2000 - WotC releases OGL and 3.0 SRD. Rising tide lifts all boats. Atari buys Hasbro Interactive, including the digital rights to most, if not all, Hasbro properties.

2001 - Adkinson leaves WotC.

2002 - Market saturation starts deflating the bubble, encouraging WotC to release 3.5 two years early. Vince Calouri resigns as head of WotC (for unrelated reasons). Replaced by Chuck Heubner.

2003 - 3.5 comes out. It's OGL, but changes in the rules screw many 3pps. Bubble not helped. Around this time Heubner feuds with Hasbro's Boys Toys division head, Brian Goldner, over who gets to make CGGs at Hasbro. Heubner more or less wins.

2004 - Heubner leaves and is replaced by Loren Greenwood. Greenwood had been against Goldner in the CGG fight.
2005 - Hasbro introduces new internal policy: Core Brands and Non-Core Brands. Core Brands make over $50 million a year, with potential to get to $100 million. Non-Core Brands don't. Because Core Brands are moneymakers, they get more funding, more support from the company. Non-Core Brands don't. Because each product line reports individually to Hasbro, D&D doesn't get any kind of boost from Magic. WotC makes a deal with Atari to buy back many of the digital rights on their IP, but Atari retains D&D for a planned 10 more years.

2006 - Brian Goldner becomes COO of Hasbro. At this point, D&D is making $25, maybe 30 million. Not enough to get Core Brand status (unlike Magic, which easily clears the bar). 3.5 has been out for 3 years. It's generating revenue, but not growth for WotC D&D. Magic is a huge money maker and safe, but with Greenwood-Goldner relations suspect, D&D can't afford to rest on its laurels. We can speculate that simply another revision and release of the core three books would not get them in the sweet spot, as the D&D team instead made an ambitious pitch to Hasbro. D&D was a decent money-maker worldwide -- certainly there were millions and millions of fans. Meanwhile, WoW and other MMORPGs were making huge bank, with folks paying good money for monthly subscriptions so that they could essentially play computerized D&D. Because Atari had the rights, Wizards couldn't simply tap into that market with a MMO, so they came up with a different plan -- DDI. An suite of online tools that while it didn't recreate the MMORPG experience, it could connect D&D to the internet in a way no RPG had been, and they would reap great profits. Plus they would look to MMORPGs, CCGs, and Eurogames for inspiration; these were and are three highly popular kinds of games. Hasbro gave the go-ahead.

2007 - 4e announced. Both game and digital tools are in construction. DDI is not coming along so well. Of course, with a new edition announced and in construction, there's precious little new and bestselling material, so sales aren't great. They make the decision to not go with the old OGL, and the new one they make is restrictive. I think of a number of reasons to go this way, even if they didn't think it was a mistake to release 3.x that way. One reason is that they couldn't know if they could catch lightning in a bottle again, or if they could, would it just be another bubble? And would it even take them to the promised land of $50 million? Quality also seemed to take a dive by 2006. They wanted to make this edition really integrated with DDI; would that be possible with 3pps? Would 3pps bleed off some of that needed revenue?

2008 - Greenwood fired in January, replaced by Greg Leeds (current CEO of WotC). 3pps start backing away from 4e's OGL. 4e books released in June. Melissa Batten, DDI developer, killed in August.

2009 - PDFs are pulled. Rob Heinsoo let go. Pathfinder released. Character Builder goes on-line.

2010 - Essentials developed and released. Rules Compendium released. Andy Collins let go.

2011 - Bill Slavicsek let go. At this point the leaders behind the 4e project are almost all gone. Goldner is still CEO of Hasbro, Leeds of WotC, the Core Brand strategy is still in place, and while DDI is at least a modest success, the online monster builder and VT are released, both in Beta. MB goes full-fledged, but VT stalls. DDI has fallen far short of what was planned. 4e may be a perfectly decent money-maker, but even liberal estimates make it far short of its original goal of at least $50 million. Also, Rich Baker is let go. But the people responsible for that pitch are gone. But, Design work begins on the next edition. Hasbro regains D&D video game rights. The board games are selling well.

2012 - 5e announced.

I've said this before, but 3.x made enough money that they thought they had a shot at $50 million, and 4e made enough money that the far from being mothballed because they couldn't reach $50 million, the new edition was approved and announced with a full media blitz. I find it hard to worry about D&D as a brand as this particular stage. They've got the board games, the video game rights, novels, and now the actual game itself. I don't know if the line as a whole can reach $50 million, but I suspect it will make more than enough to keep it off the "mothball" list.

 

[Mark CMG]

When WotC made changes to the d20 System Trademark License, the so-called morals clause, it gave them a mechanism to revoke anyone's use of the d20 System Trademark License (though not the OGL) based on WotC's unilateral decision. They only did this once to my knowledge. But they also were no longer updating the SRD/OGC frequently, and soon not at all, which is what I believe was the turning point when most began viewing the OGL less so a way to support D&D and more as the underpinnings of a business model that one might use on their own. If WotC had not turned from the OGL but rather had continued to fan the flames of what the OGL could mean in conjunction with supporting D&D, I suspect things would be quite different these days. But that ship has sailed.

Using the OGL with 5E would likely require a new System Trademark License, to distinguish it from the old d20 STL, and they could protect themselves (their new IP) quite readily by only releasing 5E SRD Open Game Content under a revised OGL 2.0. OGC released under a new license couldn't be used with the OGL 1.0 and thus any new rules placed in the OGL 2.0 would need to be followed to use that new OGC. Older OGC released under the OGL 1.0 would still be usable with an OGL 2.0, if the OGL 2.0 is modeled on the OGL 1.0, which would be a big olive branch that recognizes the mistakes of the GSL debacle.

They have hopefully learned from those mistakes which placed poison pills within the license itself and allowed WotC to basically dictate when a business reliant on a new license had to end their work with the license. That was a non-starter for quite a few companies and the market split would likely continue if they tried to introduce that sort of licensing language again. The OGL 1.0 let third party publishers be autonomous and didn't treat everyone like WotC had a major voting share in the way they conducted business. There are reasons folks flocked to it and why it was so successful for WotC as a rallying cry in the industry.

Unfortunately, the other problem they have is that by not everyone would trust WotC not to simply change their minds again. WotC now has a history of making unpredictable business decisions, not having 3PP interests at heart, and the routine turnover within WotC appears to be built directly into their business model. These are all major hurdles for them to address going forward if they have any interest reintegrating with the RPG publishing community as they once were and recapturing the major market share they had during the 3.XE/OGL Era. Most people seem to believe that WotC would like to recapture the market share but wish to maintain a more isolationist business model. I'm not sure the two are symbiotic goals in the current industry environment.