OGC Wiki (merged)

[JBowtie]

While I would be interested in seeing an OGC Wiki, I have yet to see such enterprises succeed. There is a lot of resistance to such efforts from the industry (perhaps justly so), which curtails such efforts.

Well, here's an idea that might make it easier for industry people to stomach. We *could* start the wiki as an invitation-only experiment. We seed the content with SRD material and freely (as in beer) available content - publishers who are already providing work for free are unlikely to complain about us making OGC available in a new format.

Then - and this is the key part - we get someone willing to put out some content that they are charging for. Mearls has indicated he'd do this, Phil might experiment with something that isn't selling well or something custom written, maybe someone else might risk it. They publicise it on ENWorld and look at the impact (if any) it has on sales.

This should be more palatable since it gives people a chance to see if their fears are realized - will it cause a massive hit in sales? Will it boost sales, as some might think? Will it have any affect on the piracy rates? Will the wiki in fact see any usage after the initial look-see from curious ENWorlders?

Of course, only opening the floodgates will determine the real impact; but at least the fear of the unknown will be dealt with and people will be able to prepare rational responses based on hard data.

Even if the wiki fails, it will have done the community a service by determining a few things we don't currently have answers for and are currently speculating about. This is one of the reasons I want to go ahead with this as soon as I can; with Mearls' support I think we could get some useful, hard data that we could cite in some of the permathreads.

 

[Rasyr]

Well, I dropped the D20 logo on my last release and my next one won't carry it, either.

Phil, I actually wasn't referring to you in my comment, but those who routinely obfuscate thier OGC/PI declarations.

 

[JBowtie]

I doubt it could have any impact beyond what the original release had -- releasing that SRD KILLED sales of that product. There's a very good reason I haven't done anything like that since then.

So if it does have an impact, it'd have to be positive, right?

It does sound like we'd be unable to distinguish a negative impact from zero impact; numbers are probably too low to discern a trend in that specific instance.

Sounds like we'll need a sacrificial victim - someone who isn't afraid to kill off a product in the name of science. Mearls? You promised!

Seriously, one thing we could determine is if a wiki can revive interests in "already dead" product. Discontinued (and out-of-print) lines might be good candidates for choosing OGC content - publishers can see if demand for this stuff increases as a result.

 

[philreed]

It does sound like we'd be unable to distinguish a negative impact from zero impact; numbers are probably too low to discern a trend in that specific instance.

Considering it went from selling 20 copies a month to 2 a month I'd say I can measure that. It's roughly a loss of $80 each month for me. Granted that over time sales slow so today it's probably a loss of $30-$40 each month but that's $30 or $40 I could use.

Now do that 100 times. 200 times. 300 times. If we assume an average loss of $5 per month per product we're suddenly looking at $1,500 I would lose each month. Well, that approach leads me to a new job.

 

[JBowtie]

Considering it went from selling 20 copies a month to 2 a month I'd say I can measure that. It's roughly a loss of $80 each month for me. Granted that over time sales slow so today it's probably a loss of $30-$40 each month but that's $30 or $40 I could use.

Sorry, I meant the impact of putting the SRD on the wiki. Obviously you can extropolate from your prior experiences. If you're going from 2 copies down to 1 (or conversely up to 3), it's not really possible to explicitly determine if it's being influenced by the wiki.

Now do that 100 times. 200 times. 300 times. If we assume an average loss of $5 per month per product we're suddenly looking at $1,500 I would lose each month. Well, that approach leads me to a new job.

Or a different business model - not that those are easy to come up with. If you're still seeing sales from your oldest products, then maybe the long tail is alive in the industry.

Well, what would be constructive? Instead of a time-based embargo, we could have a different wiki policy.

Only add material to the wiki when:
- it is freely available (free PDFs, SRDs, etc)
- the publisher explicitly releases it
- the material goes out of print
- the author explicitly releases it
- we ransom it from the publisher

It's harder to moderate, but a clear policy. It may not perfectly meet the needs of the gaming community but it would perhaps engage publishers in a less adversarial way. If a few trailblazers can find a business model that embraces openness, maybe the rest will follow.

There's plenty of discontinued lines we could start mining content from, and if Mearls follows through with what sparked all this it would certainly be better than everyone jsut working off the SRD, right?

 

[Rasyr]

Seriously, one thing we could determine is if a wiki can revive interests in "already dead" product. Discontinued (and out-of-print) lines might be good candidates for choosing OGC content - publishers can see if demand for this stuff increases as a result.

Yeah, but Phil's products are not discontinued or out of print. Putting them in the wiki could just end up killing all his future sales on those products.

 

[Yair]

Well, what would be constructive? Instead of a time-based embargo, we could have a different wiki policy.

Only add material to the wiki when:
- it is freely available (free PDFs, SRDs, etc)
- the publisher explicitly releases it
- the material goes out of print
- the author explicitly releases it
- we ransom it from the publisher

It's harder to moderate, but a clear policy. It may not perfectly meet the needs of the gaming community but it would perhaps engage publishers in a less adversarial way. If a few trailblazers can find a business model that embraces openness, maybe the rest will follow.

There's plenty of discontinued lines we could start mining content from, and if Mearls follows through with what sparked all this it would certainly be better than everyone jsut working off the SRD, right?

The problematic part is "goes out of print". Nothing goes out of print in the pdf world, and everything can be converted to pdf.

While such a wiki will be palatable to the publishers, it will not serve the public as well as a more comprehensive wiki. Specifically, it won't serve my want to untangle crippled OGC. It will include only a very small subset of OGC, as most publishers/authors will not want to participate.
The whole point of a wiki is that anyone can waltz in, change or add something, and these small changes add up to something big. The need to subscribe alone will greatly reduce the inclination to participate in the wiki. Coupled to such a restrictive regime, where you can hardly post anything unless it's your own creation, this will in my opinion lead to a significant reduction in public participation and hence in the chances for a succeful and useful resource.
As I understood it, the point of the wiki is to share (and hence reduce) the effort of OGC extraction and present a comprehensive source of OGC. Restricting the permitted texts to publisher-approved ones will not serve either of these purposes.

How about this as more policy point suggestions:
-Clearly designated products that are available for purchase for 10$ or less are exempt; they are effectively already available to the public. This does include material available for free download from the publisher's site, but not material that is intended for (free) dissemination to the public (such as SRDs).
- To be on the safe side, only material explicitly designated as OGC can be extracted as such. Material should not be assumed to be Using prior OGC and hence being OGC by being its derivative. Note, however, that mechanics (not the text, just the mechanics it gives rise to) cannot be copyrighted and hence are in the free domain.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Yeah, but Phil's products are not discontinued or out of print. Putting them in the wiki could just end up killing all his future sales on those products.

Phil recently put a very interesting thread about his sales in the publisher forum. I recommend you take a look at it. His top sellers TODAY include stuff he released years ago.

It would not be a stretch to say that the PDF business thrives on backlist.

It would not be a stretch to say that the d20 Wiki project will KILL PDF publishers.

I have sold, perhaps, dozens of my Gamemastering PDF at $1.95, which is by no means a backbreaking price. On the occasion where I gave it way for free, it was downloaded hundreds of times.

Folks, this is not rocket science. When a free version exists, folks prefer free.

This is not nearly as big of an issue as it is for print publishers, because print brings something additional to the content equation.

But this will kill PDF publishers like Phil.

In March or so, I released a lot of Grim Tales content in PDF format. Grim Tales had been out in print for over a year at that time. Guess what? Folks are buying that 'backlist' content.

And while by no means can my income from RPGnow be considered a reliable source of income, it is for Phil Reed.

The mechanics are not the game.

No, but mechanics are my product. It's what I do. I am good at it. Good enough that folks will pay me to do it for them, because they know I will do it right.

When you've actually published something, Alan, besides just maybe kinda sorta thinking about someday publishing something, I anticipate a change in your perspective.

 

[XCorvis]

I like JBowtie's suggested wiki policy. There are plenty of free documents with open game content. Most of the FaNCC's works are dominated by open content, and many are no longer actively maintained. Out-of-print works (that also don't have a PDF version that is being currently sold) should also be fair game.

Nobody wants to screw the authors and publishers - it's just more useful for players and amateur game designers to have easy access to this stuff. Just keep in mind, by using existing open game content you've already released your OGC, and someone is perfectly within their rights to post it publicly, for free. Better to have it done by folks who respect your position as publishers and authors than by people who don't.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Nobody wants to screw the authors and publishers - it's just more useful for players and amateur game designers to have easy access to this stuff. Just keep in mind, by using existing open game content you've already released your OGC, and someone is perfectly within their rights to post it publicly, for free. Better to have it done by folks who respect your position as publishers and authors than by people who don't.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

But as we have made clear when this has come up before, that doesn't mean you should expect publishers to be jumping in eagerly with both feet to help.

It means you should be aware that what you are proposing means forcing Phil Reed and others like him out of the business of publishing entirely.

It means you should expect to see a lot less new open content from professionals.

It means you should expect to see more confusing Open Content declarations, and fewer generous and clear Open Content declarations.

At the end of the day, if the cost-benefits calculus works out for you, more power to you.