New GSL Announcement

[pawsplay]

Man, and when I was just getting ready to sing songs about love and peace, too. It's as if WotC were deliberately trying to stir up hostility.

 

[Orcus]

The part that makes me sad about this is that ultimately it's the customers who lose, along with the companies.

Prior to this announcement, I was lukewarm towards 4E. However, with the news that Necromancer Games was going to release a 3.5 PDF adaptation to their 4E Advanced Player's Guide, I counted myself likely to purchase a copy of the APG so I could use that 3.5 version with it (assuming said PDF would require a copy of the book to be useful).

If that can't happen now, however, then I won't be purchasing the APG because Necromancer won't be allowed to have a 3.5 version out there. Necromancer has lost a sale, and I've lost out on a product I wanted. How, exactly, is this a win for WotC then?

I'm not sure where you got that. There never was and never has been a plan to do a 3E version of the APG. Why would we need 3E versions of druids, bards, monks, barbarians and illusionists and gnomes and half-orcs? The game already has them

Our plan for 3E pdf supplements was for books that were planned as 3E books (like Tegel and Slumbering Tsar, etc) that got pushed back and now will be 4E books. The fans who were finishing 3E campaigns didnt like that so I said, "hey, they were written to be 3E, so when we put the 4E versions out, I will do a free download of the stats for you guys."

Clark

 

[Jack99]

I find this insulting.

I find this insulting.

It wasn't meant as an insult.

Apparently you've never created a PDF and tried to sell it.

You are quite correct.

Just because the majority of us don't have millions of dollars to invest in a game doesn't mean that we don't care for our products and the people kind enough to purchase them.

You seem to think that we're all just a pack of dogs fighting over table scraps. We work hard on these products, invest alot of time and energy into creating new systems, new rules and new content for people such as yourself (ok maybe not YOU) to enjoy.

I am pretty sure I never said that you didn't care nor that you didn't work hard. Without some hard data on how much is sold, I can't really speculate on the table scraps part, but...

We're every bit as vital to the gaming industry as WOTC is.

We will have to differ on that one. I am pretty sure that WoTC going belly-up would have a significantly bigger impact on the gaming industry, than if your company did so.

How is that bad for the industry?

Well, as a consumer, I ask myself. What do I want? Do I want 4e published by WoTC and supported by a few companies that focus solely on making 4e, or do I want a gazillion companies whose primary focus is something else, and then they make some 4e on the side, because that is where the money is? Do I want the 3PP writers to focus on one system and thus hopefully being better at writing crunch and adventures for it, or do I want them to write for one system one day, another the next, etc.

Thats how it looks to me as an outsider to the industry, please, don't take it for more than that.

 

[Guillaume]

On my part, two things.

First, thanks to Linae and Scott and all the others for what, for all intents and purposes, seem to have been an epic inside battle to maintain some form of openess with 4E. That battle seem to have been won as we are getting the GSL. I also thank them for taking the time to read this and other threads and respond, within their admited limited capacity without the actual text of the GSL. It is always appreciated to be able to read something straight out of WotC.

However, the fact that the actual text is still in the ether brings us to my second point: Welcome the glorious day where this much touted, much announced, much discussed licence finaly makes an appearance. I am sincerely hoping and whishing for that day to come, so we can finally sit down and read/analyse/discuss it based on solid facts instead of off hand comments, unclear answers to questions or even idle speculation.

So I raise a glass to the corporate warriors who fought for us and hope that, while the battle was one, the war can still be also. In French, we have a saying: "Là où il y a de la vie, il y a de l'espoir." (Where there is life, there is hope.) I'm hanging onto that now.

 

[mxyzplk]

Well, if you want to "make a difference", probably the best way to get Scott/Linae to listen and have something fruitful to take to the internal WotC meetings is to say "It's really important that the GSL allows X, Y and Z for the following reasons.

Implying that the people you want to influence are manipulative, scheming jerks may not be the most productive way to go about it.

If you're not actually implying that, then I withdraw my comment. But at the moment it looks like you are.

Eh, I already tried that. http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4135665

And really, I think my checklist above only "implies" that they might be underpants gnomes. Don't you go stirring up mod troubles, now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes

 

[Urizen]

It wasn't meant as an insult.


You are quite correct.


I am pretty sure I never said that you didn't care nor that you didn't work hard. Without some hard data on how much is sold, I can't really speculate on the table scraps part, but...


We will have to differ on that one. I am pretty sure that WoTC going belly-up would have a significantly bigger impact on the gaming industry, than if your company did so.



Well, as a consumer, I ask myself. What do I want? Do I want 4e published by WoTC and supported by a few companies that focus solely on making 4e, or do I want a gazillion companies whose primary focus is something else, and then they make some 4e on the side, because that is where the money is? Do I want the 3PP writers to focus on one system and thus hopefully being better at writing crunch and adventures for it, or do I want them to write for one system one day, another the next, etc.

Thats how it looks to me as an outsider to the industry, please, don't take it for more than that.

Fair enough. My response was a bit personal due to my concerns about this issue and was not intended to be offensive to you. If I have done so. I apologize.

 

[Orcus]

Purposeful lack of response? Careful speaking to motivations of posters. Also, this IS the weekend people. They're not on the clock right now, if they post here it's b/c they want to.
Entirely possible they also need to wait till Monday for more clarity to bounce a few things off people first. Who knows.

SS, if you think they arent watching and reading THIS thread as much as we are, think again.

 

[Jack99]

Fair enough. My response was a bit personal due to my concerns about this issue and was not intended to be offensive to you. If I have done so. I apologize.

No worries. I can only imagine the frustration that some of the 3PP must feel.

Cheers

 

[JohnRTroy]

To be honest, the OGL reminds me of a situation in the book "In Search of Stupidity", which covered a lot of the tech industry. It shows a lot of fascinating subjects, including how Borland, Ashton-Tate, IBM (twice), etc, made really dumb mistakes that hurt their businesses, sometimes permanently. The author brings up good points like the myths of Microsoft having shoddy products, for instance. (Microsoft gets some criticism in the book, but the key fact is they got so big because they had really good products and the other guys made several mistakes).

The situation is reminds me of, is the IBM PC example. I'm using the IBM PC example because I feel it fits the OGL/GSL situation best, and it's probably why they are changing the OGL.

The long story short--IBM created the PC. What ended up happening is it had a profound effect on the industry. The problem was IBM didn't defend their property as much. Because the IBM PC was easily cloned, it became a commodity. The "silicon beast" (as the book mentions) gobbled up everything else. It then turned on IBM and thus ate up its line.

IBM tried to stop this by creating the PS/2, with enough patents and legal protections. However, the clones became too powerful and prevented them from re-obtaining dominance. It then ate their mainframe business as well. (Macintosh learned from this--Steve Jobs said "NO" and reversed course when they were gonna allow Mac clones).

What I see similar is that Wizards released their D&D rules under an OGL, but not seeing the damage it could do. They probably didn't expect such blantant "freeware" versions of their games such as the online SRD, the repurposing of Unearthed Arcana, etc. Despite people claims of "It's Viral" being consider a benefit, no profitable company wants to commoditize their product unless the price of the product is smaller than any supplementary service they can do, or they are in a bitter "price war". It's simple economics.

They also saw their brand weakening. So, one possible reason for the GSL replacing the OGL for 4e, is that they are trying to release a new version of D&D before their brand gets weaker. I see the GSL as a way of strengthening their brand.

Now let's keep in mind something--was the PC revolution good? Yes, for the industry, but not for it's creator. So, I see this as WoTC trying to prevent themselves from weakening their D&D brand. I see nothing wrong with this. While the OGL was good I think it was a little too good and suspected it wouldn't last forever. I can see this, just like Orcus can prefer the OGL personally but be accepting of the GSL being better from WoTCs standpoint.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

SS, if you think they arent watching and reading THIS thread as much as we are, think again.

HEY!

Where did the "Who's Logged In" section of the site go?