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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 2777683" data-attributes="member: 5724">The  people arguing that releasing the SRD should have ruined the market for the core books seem to be those who want more FREE OGC from 3rd party publishers, not the people who've made money off the relase of the SRD. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The reasons why that argument doesn't hold water are many and varied, and I expect you probably know them as well as I do.Do you think WotC would have released the SRD if they only produced PDFs?I don't. Much of the OGC being released right now is coming from non-traditional sources (PDF). These sources of OGC are only targeted at the computer-savvy elements of the market, the very group that would be the highest adopters and users of a FREE OGC repository. And these PDF sources are the ones that would be the first taken and made FREE because they already come in an easy-to-replicate package (PDF). There's no need to scan, OCR... etc..These are more reasons why I think using the SRD as a model for the consequences of releasing OGC from 3rd party publishers isn't a good one. To me it really is an apples and wrenches comparison.Releasing some core mechanics is different than releasing core mechanics. My response was to releasing core mechanics "en toto." Partial releases would serve the same purpose that anyone seeks when they release FREE OGC: being nice to the peoples and trying to make more sales by giving examples of what is there to be purchased.This amount of "being nice" vrs. "promoting product" via the relsease of FREE OGC varies a lot between publisher and is massively dependent upon having a product that is large enough in size to parcel out. If you have a small product, take my Seeds for example (4.5 pages generally), If I give away a single page of FREE OGC for that product I've done 25% of my work for no money.That would be like releasing 56 pages of a 224 page product for FREE. I don't think anyone would expect that and I think people would understand why such an expectation wouldn't hold water.What you mean to say is "then I think FREEING (of cost)  the very *core*," if I'm parsing your sentance correctly. I think that because since the mechanic is already  OGC, it is already free (to distribute) according to the OGL. To me there's a difference between the two and that something needs not be FREE (of cost)  to evolve. Because basically every bit of re-used/evolved piece of OGC so far has already come from a non-FREE source.It looks like you believe that FREE OGC would evolve faster than *for cost* OGC. And that's a compelling arguement as there are several things that back up that idea nicely. However, at least given the current example of the market we have right now, the vast majority of OGC has been created by people who want it to be *for cost* and not FREE. This makes me wonder, "although making things FREE would mean more people would have the opportunity to see and build upon something, are those more people going to *actually* produce more or better material than is currently being produced today?"I don't know. I don't know if there would be enough people to "pick up the slack" if the current OGC producers decide to produce less OGC because their OGC is being turned into FREE when they want it to be *for cost*. Having seen many more fan communities fail than succeed, however, I think that taking out a fiscal incentive to create OGC would result in a massive decrease in the amount produced.Just look at the net-books. They've been around for oh, 5-10 years now for most of them? How many pages of material has been created for FREE compared with how much material has been created in the past 5 years *for cost*In fact, I wonder, how much new OGC has been created FREE (of cost) already, by all the publishers who've relased FREE web supplements, teasers, chapters, etc...  Does this amount also exceed the amount produced by the "fan community" in a straight 5 year comparison? In other words, is the *for cost* OGC actually creating a bigger pool of FREE (of cost) OGC than would occur if everything was FREE (of cost).I think it is.joe b.</blockquote>

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