4e is dead. Because. The 4e GSL was too restrictive, and WotC often sues those who create products to support and continue 4e. Especially electronic products are littered with cease-and-desists from lawyers.
4e never welcomed indy publishers - despite valiant efforts of some to try make 4e work.
4e is dead. Any company that invested in it wasted their time and money.
Few companies would make the same mistake again. If they invest in 5e, they need to know it is a legally safe place to build a business.
The concerns of Jester Canuck and others, refers to the concerns of people who create content for 5e.
You blame this for 4E's demise?
I guarantee you the business people at WotC don't. They blame the OGL that allowed
Pathfinder to exist for the demise of D&D as the top TTRPG. How do you go about proving them wrong? You can't allow an OGL that opens the door for someone else to take your game system and do it better than you did it. That absolutely, positively cannot happen. That's business 101: control your product.
Maybe it hasn't been stated, but I guarantee you the business people at WotC want D&D to take market share from
Pathfinder and wipe them out if they can. Not sure Mearls and company have been given that goal. I guarantee the business people at WotC have that goal in mind. Business is competitive. You don't open the door for the competition to take anything you make. WotC won't allow it to happen again. I'm pretty sure of that.
I don't understand why some don't acknowledge how much Paizo damaged WotC. They hammered WotC. Probably took half their profit pie or more. Paizo establishing
Pathfinder as a dominant RPG in the industry was an unforeseen hammer blow to WotC. I don't know why you need some kind of positive admission from the company to know this. If you study business at all, it's very clear that Paizo Publishing won the battle against WotC for the TTRPG market. Paizo taking market share with the brand name game Hasbro purchased pissed off Hasbro brass so badly that I can't even imagine how much crap came down on WotC. The meetings during that time period must have been nightmarish. The brand name Hasbro purchased probably lost half its value due to Paizo taking market share.
You can look at this one of two ways:
1. Paizo won because they did give their game away for the most part and made money off adventures and other supplements. They were heavily supported by 3rd party publishers. They managed their finances well. They put out great content. They communicated effectively and openly with the customer base. They won in practically every facet of managing an TTRPG company. Even the fact they were smaller and run by business people that love the hobby made them attractive to a lot of gamers.
2. Paizo shouldn't have existed in the first place. The door for them to take TTRPG market share should have never been opened. Paizo took D&D, a game developed by WotC money, put their own spin on it, and took half of D&D's established market. That can never happen again.
If you're WotC and you are seeing only scenario 2, what would be your goal?
1. First, take back market share with a better game. Get back as many of your customers that left for Paizo as possible.
2. Once you get back market share, keep the door closed. Never allow a license that lets a competitor take your game and the market you built and establish their own game on that architecture allowing them to take your market.
That is the mentality I believe controls the WotC business end. I expect them to go after Paizo as much as possible, take as many of their customers as they can, and keep the door closed as far as licensing goes. They will maintain a high level of control over their content and game. They won't open the door for anyone to take their game ever again. So if there is an OGL or something similar, it will be very restricting. I expect it to be more the usual licensing agreements than the OGL Paizo is still using.
