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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5486249" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that 2, 3 and 4 are completely unreaslistic.The GSL is already very generous by the standards of commercial IP sharing. It is not as generous as releasing the d20 SRD under the OGL, but - from WotC's point of view - that must be regarded as somewhat of a debacle, given that OGL+SRD is the very vehicle whereby Paizo are now taking on WotC at it's own game of producing the world's best selling tabletop fantasy RPG.(I know there is a school of thought which says that many of those who are playing Pathfinder would have just stuck with 3E, or given up altogether, in the face of 4e. I tend to incline to the other school of thought, that the endurance in the marketplace of a widely known and widely supported competitor is a burden on the growth of 4e. And it's the OGL+SRD that make Pathfinder possible.)3 would involve WotC entering into a licensing agreement with its largest commercial rival. Not unheard of, I guess, but in all the circumstances, and given the history, and given WotC's apparent intention to focus even more on online release of material under the banners of Dungeon and Dragon, extremely improbable. This would be for WotC to completely abandon its current approach, and to concede to Paizo.4 is unrealistic both from a brand point of view - WotC (rightly or wrongly) seem very concerned about diluting the 4e D&D brand - and also from the point of view of commercial reality. As it is, WotC seems to have a shortage of writer-hours (hence the noted current dearth of new material).I assume that WotC also regards the PDFs as unviable from a commercial point of view - else it would release them - and I assume that brand diluation is their main concern. Whether or not that concern is misplaced, I doubt that reading this thread would radically change their minds! I think that those who want the PDFs back would be better advised explaining how the PDFs being available would support and grow 4e and DDI. Whereas most people who want the PDFs back tend to talk about how these will help them play Pathfinder, or some retro-clone, or otherwise keep going with a non-4e edition, and how prior-4e editions are highly interconvertible, whereas 4e is a radical break from the past. This may all be true, but it just seems to be a list of reasons that, from WotC's point of view, are reasons not to want to make the PDFs available!It's a while since I've seen a thread from a Pathfinder-player or retro-clone player talk about how they're using The Plane Above in their game, or the Underdark, or adapting the 4e mixed elementals into d20 form. I think this might be what Mearls has in mind when he's saying it's all D&D - maybe he's saying that 4e is D&D too, and that those who don't play 4e might still be interested in the game elements that it has to offer. If I wanted to persuade WotC that it was worth their while to engage with the players of earlier versions by releasing the PDFs, this is at least the sort of impression that I'd be trying to create.</blockquote>

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