D&D 4E Monte Cook on licensing (and 4E in general?)

[Starman]

I don't think AEG or FFG are in the RPG business anymore.

FFG is still putting out books for their Midnight setting.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Fiasco? How can it be a failure if it's not even out yet?

I'd call it a fiasco. In my opinion 4E would be considered a fiasco if the release date for it was missed by a couple of months and they then couldn't tell people when they expected to release it.

Olaf the Stout

EDIT: And let me be clear that I'm not saying what has happened with the GSL will happen with 4E. In fact I'm 99% certain that 4E will be released exactly when WotC say it will be released.

 

[HeinorNY]

I'd call it a fiasco. In my opinion 4E would be considered a fiasco if the release date for it was missed by a couple of months and they then couldn't tell people when they expected to release it.

What was the release date for the GSL?

 

[hong]

What was the release date for the GSL?

The release date for the GSL for early adopters was January, IIRC.

 

[AZRogue]

I just think all this GSL talking and how it is important to 4E's success is incredibly over-exaggerated. Plain and simple.

Personally, I don't think it will impact the edition's success, one way or the other. It DOES impact my feelings towards the company. I know you don't feel the same way, which is fine by me, but I really liked the OGL, the idea behind it, and was excited when WotC announced that they were going forward with a GSL. They then ... didn't. At least not yet. That colors my opinion of the company. It doesn't, in this case, impact my excitement for the game we've seen previewed.

So, in my opinion it is a big slip up, and one for which, by their own admission, they are a bit embarrassed about. I don't think it will have any significant impact on their over all sales, but I can't help but hold the company itself in lower esteem for not doing what they said they would do roughly when they said they would do it.

I just wanted to get that out there because I don't want people to think that I'm claiming doom and gloom for WotC over the whole thing, or that I'm a 4E hater just because I find one thing they did distasteful.

 

[HeinorNY]

I know you don't feel the same way, which is fine by me, but I really liked the OGL,

Me too, but I thought it wouldn't last. It always looked, at least to me, that it was more beneficial to 3pp than to WOTC.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Do you really think M&M, True20 or Pathfindering can really compete with D&D, or even have any influence at all on 4E's success? Exalted has more chances than those.
If half the D&D players out there knows what Paizo is, that's already a big achievement.

I just think all this GSL talking and how it is important to 4E's success is incredibly over-exaggerated. Plain and simple.

You could be right that third party dev's are rather small in the grand scheme of things.

But imagine this. You pay 5000$ for a service or product that you expect to receive. Its vital to a your business' future. You never receive this service. Is this right? you payed 5000$ for something you never got. to small companies thats alot of money.

I think wizards or Hasbro has made a colossal mistake and its fracturing the current market.

They have also put themselves in a position to be sued, at least from my uneducated perspective.

The sad thing is that the gsl will be delayed for everyone else as well unless the few companies that paid the 5000$ don't actually receive it first.

 

[HeinorNY]

You could be right that third party dev's are rather small in the grand scheme of things.

But imagine this. You pay 5000$ for a service or product that you expect to receive. Its vital to a your business' future. You never receive this service. Is this right? you payed 5000$ for something you never got. to small companies thats alot of money.

I think wizards or Hasbro has made a colossal mistake and its fracturing the current market.

They have also put themselves in a position to be sued, at least from my uneducated perspective.

The sad thing is that the gsl will be delayed for everyone else as well unless the few companies that paid the 5000$ don't actually receive it first.

Hold on there. IIRC:

Phase One publishers who sign a NDA will have the opportunity to read the OGL before they pay the $5000 early licensing fee.

Did that information change?

 

[Incenjucar]

I'm not going to believe anything any 3rd party says until the head start for the $5K people is officially over.

Until then, not only have they not seen the rules, but they also have to put up $5K to do anything with them.

When they have the fewest roadblocks to making 4E products, THEN their statements mean something.

 

[AZRogue]

No one has paid the $5000 fee. Things never progressed that far. Unless it all went down this past week, which I find unlikely.