D&D 5E (2014) Prediction: No OGL until at least May if not later

[trancejeremy]

I don't think Hasbro really cares one way or other. They'll get around whenever they get around to doing about it.

It's really not like past editions where it was the companies main (in the TSR days ) or secondary (WOTC days) focus.

 

[Staffan]

I wasn't saying so much that third-party products are a threat to WOTC's revenue. I was saying that WOTC wants to protect the third party companies it has contracted out merchandise to. It might even be written into contracts that WOTC won't release an OGL until after these products (like the official adventure paths) have sufficient time to sell.

Who wants to be a Sasquatch Studios, work really hard on an adventure path, and then have WOTC release an OGL just as your adventure path goes out to bookstores. You'd loose a certain percentage of business if they released the OGL at that moment.

I'm not privy to the contracts between Wizards and Sasquatch (or Kobold for that matter), but note that the adventure books are being released by Wizards. It's not a case of Sasquatch being licensed to make books for D&D and publish them on their own, it's a case of Wizards hiring Sasquatch to write stuff which Wizards will then publish. This kind of freelance stuff has been going on in the game publishing world forever, except the publisher usually hires individual freelancers instead of companies. But I'd be surprised if Sasquatch has any direct stake in the sales of Princes of the Apocalypse - they delivered their manuscript to Wizards, and Wizards delivered money to Sasquatch. It is of course possible that there are some sort of royalties involved, but my understanding is that that kind of thing is exceedingly rare in the gaming world. Of course they have an indirect stake in that good sales makes it more likely that they'll be hired again, but no direct stake.

The situation is different with Gale Force 9, which as I understand it does publish licensed products under their own name.

 

[Henry]

Exactly. I'm not privy to anything sensitive, but Im pretty sure Kobold Press and Sasquatch have already been paid for their work. The only ones standing to lose anything from the Dragon Queen or Elemental stuff is Wizards.

 

[machineelf]

I have no idea how their contracts are drawn up, either. I do know, though, that when an author and a book publisher make a contract, they typically draw it up so that if the author earns out their advance due to sufficient sales, any sales above that amount they get royalties on.

So for example, if the publisher offers a contract for 50,000 copies sold of a book that costs $10, and the author gets 10 percent of the cover price, then they will give them the advance of $50,000 (usually in segments). And if the book sells 70,000 copies they will have met their advance AND will get 10 percent (or sometimes more, depending on the contract) of the extra 20,000 copies sold. So their payment is still hinged on copies sold, even if there is a minimum they make -- because they still keep their $50,000 advance even if only 30,000 copies are sold.

And if they do not earn out their advance in the first place, but they get another book contract in the future, they usually have to still earn out their first advance from sales of the second book if its sales tops its advance. Of course, if you regularly do not earn out your advance, it's less likely the book publisher will give you another contract and advance, or it will be for less.

I would be a little surprised if Kobold and Sasquatch didn't have their advance and future potential earnings tied to sales figures in some way similar to that. But again, I also don't know the specifics of the contract.

It would really not be to your advantage, if you are a singlular author or if you are a small production studio, to accept a contract for one fixed amount regardless of how well the book is sold. You'd usually have a clause that allows you to make more if the book is wildly successful beyond its expectations and projections.

 

[Morrus]

I have no idea how their contracts are drawn up. I do know, though, that when an author and a book publisher make a contract, they typically draw it up so that if the author earns out their advance due to sufficient sales, any sales above that amount they get royalties on.

So for example, if the publisher offers a contract for 50,000 copies sold of a book that costs $10, and the author gets 10 percent of the cover price, then they will give them the advance of $50,000 (usually in segments). And if the book sells 70,000 copies they will have met their advance AND will get 10 percent (or sometimes more, depending on the contract) of the extra 20,000 copies sold. So their payment is still hinged on copies sold, even if there is a minimum they make -- because they still keep their $50,000 advance even if only 30,000 copies are sold.

And if they do not earn out their advance in the first place, but they get another book contract in the future, they usually have to still earn out their first advance from sales of the second book if its sales tops its advance. Of course, if you regularly do not earn out your advance, it's less likely the book publisher will give you another contract and advance, or it will be for less.

I would be a little surprised if Kobold and Sasquatch didn't have their advance and future potential earnings tied to sales figures in some way similar to that. But again, I also don't know the specifics of the contract.

It would really not be to your advantage, if you are a singlular author or if you are a small production studio, to accept a contract for one fixed amount regardless of how well the book is sold. You'd usually have a clause that allows you to make more if the book is wildly successful beyond it's expectations and projections.

Different market. It's not a traditional author-publisher relationship. More like a contracted design studio. WotC has used freelancers for years. I'd be shocked to hear it was royalty-based.

 

[machineelf]

Different market. It's not a traditional author-publisher relationship. More like a contracted design studio. WotC has used freelancers for years. I'd be shocked to hear it was royalty-based.

Ah OK. Very interesting. Well I learn things every day.

 

[BoldItalic]

It wouldn't surprise me if the OGL was limited to the Basic game material, with the material in the physical books (the Advanced game) being off-limits. People would be free to publish adventure modules that were playable with the basic game (and therefore also with the advanced game) but not to embed anything that is copyrighted and not to pass stuff off as official or use the brand name or logo without a licence.

 

[JEB]

It wouldn't surprise me if the OGL was limited to the Basic game material, with the material in the physical books (the Advanced game) being off-limits. People would be free to publish adventure modules that were playable with the basic game (and therefore also with the advanced game) but not to embed anything that is copyrighted and not to pass stuff off as official or use the brand name or logo without a licence.

This seems highly likely.

Also, remember that Wizards C&D'd the fellow who had a complete searchable full-text 5E spell database. It would be surprising for them to turn around months later and allow those same spells to be available as open content.

 

[aramis erak]

I fully expect we'll see the license nearly immediately, but it will refer to an SRD which won't be immediately released. Select developers will likely get the SRD sooner, in exchange for an agreement not to release a competing core product...

 

[Nikosandros]

Different market. It's not a traditional author-publisher relationship. More like a contracted design studio. WotC has used freelancers for years. I'd be shocked to hear it was royalty-based.

I know that Steve Jackson Games normally pays GURPS freelancers with royalties (or at least they used to), but otherwise it's highly unusual in the RPG world.