NEWS: OGL and SRD dates/info announced

[ashockney]

He's in the UK.

I'm assuming that there is a US business partner, and you could license in their home state. PCat indicated he was on the call, for example. Alternately, you could pick a favorable state to complete the licensing (ie, one in which an ENworlder happens to work in the Dept of Finance), and have them "expedite" your request.

 

[Delta]

Interesting about the January 1, 2009 thing. It's going to be a long year for the smaller 3rd party publishers...

I agree, that's the biggest thing that jumped out at me. In fact, the first thing I said was "how can that be enforced?". But I guess it has to be baked into the new "OGL" along with all the other restrictions on this go-round.

I agree with Morrus that what we have is not really another OGL, it's a different license with a similar name. Now I wonder if the concept of "Open Gaming Content" will even be used at all in this version.

 

[Angellis_ater]

Well, I kinda suspected something like this would happen, but not that Wizards would cut out the "mid-size to minor" publishers like Dreamscarred Press (us) for a year (6 months from release). Because 5000 dollars is ALOT of money to invest. :-(

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Isn't $5,000 a LOT of money for third party publishers?

I would think so - as another poster noted it's not much from WoTC's standpoint. The only reason they'd be doing it is to limit the "small-fry" and try to encourage the best possible 3rd party products right out the door.

Paying it does give a 3rd party company a benefit - they get the chance to stake a claim on the 4E gold rush right off the bat. Whether that claim pays out is another question entirely.

I'd guess Paizo, Necromancer (since they're working together these days would they have to pay twice?), Mongoose, and White Wolf are the likeliest candidates to pony up. I'll be interested in hearing who does.

 

[Thanee]

Half a year, actually. Both for access and for release dates.

Access to the rules at June instead of January.
Release at January'09 instead of August.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Sitara]

Honestly speaking, $5000 is not really a lot of money. i mean seriously, any company that has more than 1 employee on its payroll should be able to afford that!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'd guess Paizo, Necromancer (since they're working together these days would they have to pay twice?), Mongoose, and White Wolf are the likeliest candidates to pony up. I'll be interested in hearing who does.

Goodman Games for sure. Dungeon Crawl Classics is a killer brand.

 

[ashockney]

I was part of the conference call. My writeup is in the news item here.

PCat - thanks for the exellent and timely synopsis. This is a big hurdle for the 4e release!

Let me go on record now by saying, I would be happy to shell out $100+ to help support a third party publisher in acquiring the license. The only thing I would ask for in return would be access to the info released (so that I could begin developing and writing early), and the willingness to at least share a passing "glance" at anything I developed. To be clear: NO EXPECTATION OF BEING REQUIRED TO PUBLISH ANY OF MY STUFF.

Hit me out of thread if you are interested in putting together such an amalgam of rogue 3rd parties, in an effort to get to it early. (ie, 50 freelancers/developers x $100 = $5000) I would love the opportunity to get to it early, to prepare my Origins/Gen Con modules to be run in 4E, and to put myself into the pool of folks who have an affiliation with someone that I "could" get published with in 2008.

 

[Bacris]

...

Wow.

Guess I'm glad we already started looking into other non-D&D rulesets. Sorry to our customers who want our rules for 4E... not much we can do.

Sorry, I'm just very disappointed in WotC's decision in this. It very much strikes me as a "the rich get richer" thing, since big publisher's are far from immune from producing crap products.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

Well, I kinda suspected something like this would happen, but not that Wizards would cut out the "mid-size to minor" publishers like Dreamscarred Press (us) for a year (6 months from release). Because 5000 dollars is ALOT of money to invest. :-(

Likely, we will have to become an imprint of one of the big boys to survive. I'm okay with that; it's much better than not existing for 5 months. =]

BD