Open Letter to WotC from Chris Dias

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Sure, that makes sense.
But I don't think it is the only reason.

Look at Goodman, their #1 thing is adventures. And unless I misunderstand, they still will be. But even they seem to be having a much harder time. So the issue is not limited to DDI compatible elements.

Definitely not the only reason.

Goodman, IMO, suffers from niche products. They are best known for their Dungeon Crawl Classics line (and now RPG). I like dungeon crawls and the products I've seen from them are enjoyable, but their reputation pigeon-holes them in to a single style of adventure. Paizo, on the other hand, has a line of individual adventures of various types and Adventure Paths. They have a reputation for good style, good writing, and great variety. There are adventures paths for swashbuckling, dungeon crawling, sandboxing, etc.

It's good to have focus and build a reputation for being the best in your focus, but when interests in the market wax and wane you have to ride the rollercoaster.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

It isn't complex to see how Paizo picking up those people has nothing to do with the above.
It isn't complex to see how neither Paizo's continued existence nor disappearance tomorrow would have anything to do with any of the above.

Now, if we dare get a wee bit complex: OF COURSE, there is some back and forth and some finite change. But that is just down in the small fractions. The big picture market positions are not changing based on that.

I understand you now. "Nothing" in your former comment isn't meant as an absolute. Your real opinion lies in the latter comment. I can agree that at the level of market conditions that you have a point and may be correct.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I've just had to lay about with some infractions and thread-bans because people couldn't comport themselves like mature adults. We expect you to treat other posters with respect at all times - including when they disagree with you or annoy you.

Next person in this thread who can't keep their tempers and manners in check can expect a vacation from the boards. Don't expect any further warnings.

 

[BryonD]

I understand you now. "Nothing" in your former comment isn't meant as an absolute. Your real opinion lies in the latter comment. I can agree that at the level of market conditions that you have a point and may be correct.

Certainly.

 

[BryonD]

What major players?

I think the major players left was a much longer list the day before the Gencon announcement of 4E than it was on the day 4E was released. And that makes sense.

Certainly things got a serious shake up when 3.5 happened. And it was never really the same after that. But I'd add to the list Necromancer and Fiery Dragon, and Fantasy Flight was one foot out the door, but not yet gone when the announcement came along.


And just to spin off of that. I do think that 3E was largely "done" and it was time to move on. I've said this before, but when 4E was announced the main immediate reaction (sight unseen) was the typical "those money-grubbers want me to buy yet another edition". I was in the minority going "hell yeah, bring it on." It was only later that I switched opinions. (not much later)

But the point is, 3E was a very seriously plowed field. 3PPs WERE moving on because it was time. That doesn't mean that a new OPEN game that also recaptured to spirit of 3E couldn't have started the whole process over again. Not that I'm saying that would be easy to do. But it *could* have happened. But once WotC went a different direction both in terms of Open Gaming and in terms of game design philopsophy, the entire environment for 3PPS was turned over.

3E was done. 4E COULD still have been a new beginning.

 

[Hussar]

The way I see it, this entire conversation is predicated on the idea that Paizo is now a major competitor with WOTC. That may well be true. I have zero idea. Based on store sales, there's probably some truth. But, I think people vastly underestimate how much DDI makes for WOTC.

It's entirely possible for WOTC to have a smaller market in terms of numbers of people buying their books yet still be making the same or more money than they were before. That constant revenue stream has got to play a huge role in any decision making process.

I don't think they could have done an OGL 4e and then slapped everything behind the paywall. Things like the Hypertext SRD show how long an OGL 4e would have remained viable as a pay online resource.

 

[BryonD]

But, I think people vastly underestimate how much DDI makes for WOTC.

It's entirely possible for WOTC to have a smaller market in terms of numbers of people buying their books yet still be making the same or more money than they were before. That constant revenue stream has got to play a huge role in any decision making process.

I absolutely agree that (A) they are making a lot of money through this route and (B) the constant (predictable) revenue stream is a huge value.

But I think that misses some very important points.

First, I don't for a second accept the idea that WotC is content with a smaller fan base. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that they are making more net profit than ever before (and who knows, maybe they are) all that really means is they could be making vastly MORE if they had not lost fan base. And, with something like DDI the cost to service 5 fans isn't really any more than the cost to service 1, so more fans would largely go directly to the profit line.

But, also the split market takes away from the overall value of the D&D brand.

Lastly, this is a landmark event in the history of D&D. That itself is important.

WotC and Paizo are absolutely in competition. Where exactly the lines are isn't absolutely clear, but we have a generally idea. And how hugely excellent an idea the DDI is has zero bearing on the significance of market share. If anything, the profit leverage of the DDI magnifies the lost potential profits.

 

[BryonD]

I don't think they could have done an OGL 4e and then slapped everything behind the paywall. Things like the Hypertext SRD show how long an OGL 4e would have remained viable as a pay online resource.

People will tell you that the mechanical end of this could be released "open" just as easily for 4E now as for anything else. It is the copyright parts that can be protected. So really, it shoudln't make much difference.

 

[Imaro]

The way I see it, this entire conversation is predicated on the idea that Paizo is now a major competitor with WOTC. That may well be true. I have zero idea. Based on store sales, there's probably some truth. But, I think people vastly underestimate how much DDI makes for WOTC.

It's entirely possible for WOTC to have a smaller market in terms of numbers of people buying their books yet still be making the same or more money than they were before. That constant revenue stream has got to play a huge role in any decision making process.

I don't think they could have done an OGL 4e and then slapped everything behind the paywall. Things like the Hypertext SRD show how long an OGL 4e would have remained viable as a pay online resource.

But in the end isn't all of this just as true concerning Paizo and their multiple subscription lines? I mean let's not forget both companies have subscription revenue and we don't know how much either model generates.

 

[pemerton]

The way I see it, this entire conversation is predicated on the idea that Paizo is now a major competitor with WOTC.

This now seems to be the received wisdom on these boards. I don't have any evidence independent of what I read here, so am just going with the flow.

I do think that 3E was largely "done" and it was time to move on.

My feeling is that the apparent success of PF suggests this may not be so - unless you are counting PF as a "moving on" from 3E - which may be so, but I don't think it's moved very far.

What the success of PF/Paizo appears to show is that - contra to what Ryan Dancey said back in the day - there is a viable RPG business model which puts adventures, rather than character build and encounter/world design supplements, at its centre.

I don't know whether or not WotC anticipated this, but suspect that they did not, and thus did not anticipate that Paizo could use its experience at adventure design in combination with its subscription list to keep 3E alive in the way that it has done.

What remains, for me, a great puzzle is WotC's inability to produce strong adventures. I don't want to say it's a crippling weakness, but it certainly seems to be hurting them.

Paizo was not the first publisher to repackage the core rules and publish them. At least two other publishers did that from 2000-2008 and there were probably others that I'm unaware of. And there were others who tried to publish various flavors of "D&D... but slightly improved!". None of them were successful. None of them significantly impacted WotC's market. None of them enjoyed the success which Pathfinder has enjoyed.

I feel fairly confident in saying that no such project would succeed in yanking away substantial portions of WotC's marketshare, as long as WotC remained at the top of the pyramid. It was only by vacating that position that WotC made Pathfinder possible.

I think what is distinctive about Paizo is precisely it's ability to use adventures (and subscription to them) to leverage a system, rather than vice versa.

The best sense I can make of WotC's decisions and subsequent situation is that (i) they were concerned about a growing challenge from OGL publishing of their rules system, (ii) they did not consider it a viable option to continue to dominate d20/OGL+SRD gaming by publishing adventures and campaign supplements, and therefore (iii) decided to change to a system that would not be so easily replicable via the OGL+SRD, and that would not itself be released under the OGL, and also (iv) appeared to believe that there was a strong market - whether among existing or potential players - for a markedly non-simulationist although in other respects fairly mainstream fantasy RPG.

They have achieved (iii). It seems that (iv) turned out to be false, although my own view is that WotC has not done itself any favours by consistetnly failing to present guidelines, GM advice and adventures that make the most of 4e's strengths. Whether or not they had any inkling that (ii) might be true for them but false for Paizo, it turns out that it was radically false for Paizo.

People will tell you that the mechanical end of this could be released "open" just as easily for 4E now as for anything else. It is the copyright parts that can be protected. So really, it shoudln't make much difference.

As I've posted recently on a couple of other threads, I don't think it's quite that straightforward. First, it's hard to produce RPG material that doesn't combine some fiction with the rules text - and if the game is to be a D&D claim then WotC may well have a copyright claim over the fiction. Second, in order to present the rules text in such a way that its status and utility as a clone is evident, it will be necessary to replicate to some extent at least the structure, headings, etc of WotC's rulebooks - at which point, again, there may be reproduction of not only of rules but of other elements of WotC's works in respect of which it enjoys copyright. (I feel that this only gets trickier when the publisher of the clone want simultaneously to say "Hey, I'm selling D&D over here" without actually making wrongful use of WotC's trademarks.)

Now while I am an academic lawyer who teaches some private law, I am not an IP lawyer, and so the above is presented in a fairly general and tentative fashion. Frylock is a poster on these boards who is a practising IP lawyer, and he has expressed the view that a 3pp character builder is doable. On the other hand, Clark Peterson of Necromancer games - also an experienced commercial lawyer - has expressed the view that OSRIC is "infringing and unethical", and I assume that his reasoning is similar to what I have sketched in the previous paragraph. (I understand that Kenzer has expressed similar views about OSRIC, although I've not actually read these.) OSRIC is of course not the only way to clone, and so what Frylock and Clark have to say isn't necessarily at odds. The point I'm making is that succeeding at the task is probably non-trivial from a legal point of view.