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Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events
- Thread starter xechnao
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I suspect if they had done it this way, then you would have had a lot fewer third party publishers and a lot less excitement about 3rd edition in the industry. You probably wouldn't have had Green Ronin and Freeport, Monte Cook's Malhavoc Press, Necromancer Games, Goodman Games, etc. And the game would have been the poorer for it.
I think you underestimate the benefits the creation of the OGL ecosystem had. Unfortunately WoTC failed to properly take full advantage of the ecosystem. The only material of theirs that I remember including any third party OGL material was their 3E Unearthed Arcana book.
Paizo on the other hand heavily utilizes non-Paizo OGL material. You commonly see OGL things from Necromancer Games and Green Ronin for example in their adventures. Also, all of their rules are released back as OGL for others to use. WoTC didn't always update their SRD with their many splat book rules.
I would say that your first point that people would have upgraded to 3E even if it were not OGL is probably correct. 3E is a good system and I am pretty sure our group would have upgraded regardless.
However, the real question is, would all of these same people stuck with 3E if there was not that 3rd party ecosystem out there or would they have moved on to completely different game systems after a while with much less chance of coming back to WoTC because they were now playing GURPS, BRP or whatever as their primary game system.
I know that I purchased a lot of WoTC and a lot 3rd party 3.x/D20/OGL material over the years and I don't think I was alone in this.
I also know that the idea of the D&D game being released as open source (via the OGL) was a truly exciting thing for me and it earned a lot of goodwill from me. I work with Open Source software a lot through work and was involved in pushing some of our own software into an open source license so it strongly resonated with me. I kept buying Wizards gaming material even though much of it was mediocre (especially the many splat books) - mostly because of the general feeling of goodwill. That goodwill abruptly vanished with 4E when they tried the poison pill via the early drafts of the GSL.
If the OGL had a built in poison pill, it certainly wouldn't have created nearly as much goodwill nor built a particularly vibrant community. I'm thankful it did not and grateful to WoTC for having the courage to do what they did with 3.x and the OGL. They put the interests of the game first.
Wicht
Hero
Monster Manual 2 as well if I remember correctly (had a total of 2 monsters and a messed up section 15 I believe).
I also would have bought into 3e without the OGL but the OGL certainly made me a great deal more enthusiastic for the game. The OGL was what convinced me that D&D was in good hands and that the heads of the WotC RPG division (at that time) understood the gaming community.
Why should WotC care about Green Ronin or Monte Cook after he stopped working for WotC? "The game" is not a holy grail. I find the notion of "We are all friends here" amusing. Where is the support of Green Ronin for 4E? It is a business decision that needs to be made. "We are all one big community, group hug" has nothing to do with it.
DnD worked fine without the OGL for a very long time. TSR failed because they did not produce products that people wanted to buy. But 3rd edition was a product that, after all these years of drought, people really really, I mean really, wanted to buy.
I think you overestimate the benefits of the OGL for WotC. The market was flooded with, let's put it mildly, suboptimal material which gave customers and retailers a hard time, because nobody would buy the stuff (problem for retailers) and you did not know which stuff was good enough to be bought (customer's problem). You can still find the most outrageous nonsense at the game convention here in Essen for less than a buck. And still nobody will buy it.
Now, why would they do that? Because they could not find enough 3rd party support for 3rd edition? I do not think this is realistic. 3rd edition was what WotC made it. As I have said before, the magazines were going strong, the campaign books were successful. Plenty of reasons to keep playing 3rd edition. As far as I can see, many of them are still playing it now BECAUSE of the good products that Paizo puts out.
So did I. And it was good for the 3rd party publishers that we bought their stuff. But that does not mean that it was good for WotC. Again, would the situation have been soooo much different if they had worked with 3rd party publishers on a long term, but cancelable basis? I have many serious doubts. WotC either creates products strong enough to stand on their own. Or they fail trying. To hope for 3rd party support does not seem to be a reliable business strategy. And to give away their creation for free without ever being able to get it back is a very risky business decision.
We all like things for free, sure. But I will not buy a mediocre product if I cannot use or like the content. And I do not think that there are a lot of people who buy the stuff just because it has WotC on the front cover. If people had that kind of money to throw around we would not see the abundance of threads complaining about the price of DDI and what WotC should do to reduce the price or increase the quality of it's content.
Plus - but I have to do more research on that subject, because I am not a programmer or in the computer industry - I am very skeptical if you can really compare Open Source Software to a RPG OGL. I have to do more research on that to make up my mind.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
The razor boar and scorpionfolk, which were themselves OGC reprints of the iron tusker and sandmasker, respectively, from Sword & Sorcery Studios' Creature Collection (which had pre-empted the Monster Manual onto the market).
It mentioned the origins of these creatures in a sidebar, which also talked about how it was "time for Wizards of the Coast to take its first step" into Open Gaming. Apparently, it was also the last step (save for Unearthed Arcana, some SRD expansions, and one or two Dragon articles).
And indeed, they didn't get the Section 15 of their own license correct, either.
Very few of the big companies from 3E are supporting 4E because (a) the license for 4E is bad and (b) a number of these folks didn't like the direction where 4E went, but I'd say (a) was the main reason. The fact that 3rd party publishers have no way to add material to the DDI is another issue, but wasn't one of the initial reasons for potential 3rd party publishers staying away from 4E. But that is beside the point. These people did effectively raise the value of the 3E brand and the OGL allowed that to happen.
I believe that as gamers, the game should be the holy grail. It's about the game, not about the business entities that market the game to us. Unless you're a shareholder of Hasbro, why are you so concerned about WoTC so much so that you put that concern ahead of your interest in the game? That I don't understand.
If the companies producing the game(s) we love seems to put the interests of the game first, then fantastic! We should be excited and happy. That's why what WoTC did with the OGL SRD was so great! And it's also why what Necromancer Games did with the Tome of Horrors, Green Ronin with the Advanced Bestiary, and Paizo with Pathfinder is so great. The OGL helps build communities which is good for gamers, and I would argue, good for all the companies involved, WoTC included. Wizard's problems only came about because of what they did in the transition to 4E.
And some of us really were interested in Freeport. And Ptolus. And the Scarred Lands. We played in those settings but still purchased the crunch books from WoTC because we were playing the same game.
Sure, there was sub-par 3rd party material, but there was also sub-par WoTC material. If you look at previous versions of D&D under TSR's stewardship, you can find a fair bit of sub-par material there as well. It's probably inevitable whether you allow 3rd party participation or not. The smart consumer learned to pick and choose. And the smart retailers learned the same.
I remember one retailer in my town (the only FLGS at the time - now out of business) who went and ordered in more than a dozen of one WoTC book aimed at DMs (one of the fiendish codex books) even though there were only a handful of DMs that bought at his store - but many players. If he was paying attention he would have ordered in fewer of the DM books, but more player oriented books. Also, if your line of complete guide to salamanders is not selling, then you probably should not bring in so many of that line in the future or relegate it to special orders only. The dealers need to pay attention to what they are bringing in. The same is true in lots of retail stores. You need to watch trends and understand your customers.
What really caught the dealers was the change from 3E to 3.5. As soon as 3.5 was unexpectedly released any product that was 3E dropped dramatically in value. I'd say that was a much worse problem for the dealers than any glut of sub-par 3rd party material.
At the time of 3E it was stated that the TSR campaign settings were not successful and that they were partly what put TSR under. So the 3E focus was on core rules and not the release of lots of settings. What did they have in 3E? Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Gone was Planescape, Darksun, Birthright, Mystara, etc etc. They licensed off Ravenloft and Dragonlance, but the rest of the them sat idle other than brief appearances in Dragon magazine.
Do you have evidence that 3rd party publishers actually _hurt_ Wizards of the Coast profits in the 3.x era? Post-3E it is a different story, but there are lots of factors there as Steel Wolf laid out a while back. And WoTC could have taken better advantage of the OGL like Paizo does today. They chose not to. They could have handled the transition to 4E much better. Heck, if they had released 4E under the OGL then we may have had a very different situation than we do now.
Do I think WoTC would have gotten some 3rd party publishers on-board with a restrictive 3E license? Possibly. You had people like Kenzer who were willing to negotiate a D&D license. But the pool of 3rd party support would have been much smaller and I'm not sure that WoTC would have been able to step up and fill the void to keep everyone engaged and playing the game. Those that drifted off to third party OGL settings may have instead drifted off to completely different game systems and been lost to WoTC completely.
Yea, well I did throw that kind of money around on WoTC books, minis, tiles, maps, etc. I don't anymore, but I did. I have even more TSR material - many thousands of dollars of stuff. Some is quite good, some less so. And I suspect there are more people out there like me who have been with this game for 30+ years, have good paying jobs and are willing to spend money on their hobby, sometimes a bit foolishly. These days I direct most of my money at Paizo and the various 3rd party Pathfinder publishers and you know what, the quality of things has gone up dramatically from the old 3E days. Hopefully that continues.
It's definitely an analogous copyleft license. You can find quite a bit on open source licenses online in Wikipedia and other places.
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There is a difference between what I think helps my game as a gamer and the strategical business decision somebody has to make as a manager of a company. I think I made myself very clear that as a gamer I use, loot and scavenge every bit of material I bought and think I could use to improve my game.
I do want WotC to succeed as a company because I like the new version of the game very much. Maybe you feel the same way about Pathfinder. And although this seems to be completely off the topic of this thread, we are discussing the effect of the OGL on WotC's ablitity to be successful with 4E. And I still argue that the OGL took a huge chunk out of that success.
Of course it hurt them! But only more so because these other companies had the OGL to turn to. They could, effectively, live without the creator of the main rules. And if that is not bad for WotC, then I do not know what is.
Again: Would you not have bought WotC products if Freeport, Ptolus and the Scarred Lands had been 1. nonexistant or 2. published under a more limited version of the OGL, a GSL let's say?
I never claimed that and I think this is the wrong question to ask. Again, the question is whether gamers would not have bought WotC's 3rd edition material if less 3rd party publishers had been around.
And I am saying that judging from the fact that before 3rd edition DnD was strong for a very very long time without an OGL, WotC's 3rd edition would have been very strong also without a OGL. The reason being that people were ready for a new edition and really liked the new version of DnD. That was the reason why they bought so many PHBs, not because they said: "Oh, without Ptolus/Freeport, I do not want to play 3rd edition".
What Steel Wind said was that they should not have given Paizo the rights to publish the magazines. And he is right about that. With the OGL, they gave their IP away for free. With the magazines, they also transferred the brand identity to Paizo. But, mind you, without the OGL, Paizo would have never been able to use the rule-system like they are doing now. WotC could have taken back the magazines and left Paizo in the dirt. WotC would still have to keep up the quality of their products. But there would not have been a second fullfledged supported version of DnD that effectively competes with the new version of DnD which is 4E.
And again, to make this very clear: as a DM, I like the fact that I have Paizo's products to choose from that I can loot for material. But it is not my job to make money in the RPG business. It is WotC's job to do that. And they should not have created the OGL in my opinion. It hurt them really badly.
Have you ever wondered why WotC did not publish the old campaigns in hardcover format? Maybe they thought that they would not sell because of the sheer amount of campaign worlds out there. Maybe that caused a glut in the market. At least I felt that there were too many campaigns to choose from.
WotC wants to make a pirate campaign. Oh, wait, because of the OGL, Green Ronin already has one. What about a mega-city full of adventure? Oh, Mr. Cook came up with that after he left.
As a gamer, I do not care if I buy Ptolus from Cook or WotC. But as WotC, I probably want the gamers to buy Ptolus from me only perhaps? I would argue that the OGL created missed opportunities for WotC, because it gave the competition the chance to fully implement interesting game worlds using the 3rd edition rules.
At some point, I found I had enough minis to last a lifetime. I am lending them out to other groups actually. And with a wife, kids, job and other hobbies, I do not even have the time to paint them. So then I start paying others to paint them for me. And when all the mins are painted I will stop spending money on them altogether. Again, the glut.
The only thing I still buy is terrain. I just love Worldworksgames products too much. The usablity an ingenuity of their products makes me weep. I am actually crying right now just thinking about it
Wicht
Hero
REspectfully, you are looking at it all wrong. In fairness, your point of view is probably the one some in WotC have (just a guess), but its wrongheaded and counterproductive. With the OGL synergy is the key to success. So Green Ronin has a successful pirate city? Riff off of it and make a book about ship to ship combat. Come up with an Adventure Path in which the PCs are marooned with cannibal pirates on an island. Develop a book of sea monsters. Enter into an agreement with Green Ronin and create a new set of adventures set in that city.
So Monte Cook has a successful book in Arcana Evolved. Pick a race from the book and, with Monte's permission, expand on that race and create more material for that race. So Tome of Horrors is wildly popular? Use some of their monsters in your published adventures.
By building off of the very things that are popular, you can expand your audience and sell more books.
BryonD
Hero
I actually doubt that.
Right now choosing to play 4E or Pathfinder or straight 3X or any other RPG are all valid options.
If someone prefers 4E to Pathfinder then they would spend their money on 4E. The OGL won't do anything about that. (Yes, there may be some exceptions of people who prefer 4E but their group plays PF. But if D&D is the 800 lb gorilla, that should hurt PF much more than 4E, so lets just call it a wash and move on.)
Very, very few people are so rabidly loyal to the concept of Open Gaming that they will choose their system on that basis. They are not non-existent, but they are pretty negligible to the market.
I guess you could argue that there are people who only play PF as their game of choice and only support one game AND 4E is their no prize second place. But again, how many people do you really think that is?
If WotC makes a game that the market overwhelming wants, the OGL won't be the slightest speed bump.
You may argue that some people would have defaulted to following 4E had PF not jumped up as an "anti-4E" of sorts. Again, I doubt that would have been THAT many people. But assume it was significant. The popularity of 4E is waning already amongst people who DIDN'T jump ship for PF. I think is is safe to say that those who were ambivalent enough to jump at the get go would have already left faster than those who stuck around.
GURPS is a competitor to 4E. Warhammer is a competitor to 4E. D20 games are a competitor to 4E. People play the game they want to play.
Is there an effect? Maybe some.
Is it a "huge chunk"? No, not close.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
[MENTION=75791]TheFindus[/MENTION]
I at least skim a significant portion of the threads here at ENWorld, and fully read a good many of the most trafficed ones, and I don't recall any threads complaining about the price of DDI. Quality? Yes...Price? No. I haven't seen it mentioned (not even once) in any of the threads about why people have unsubscribed, or what it would take to get people to subscribe/resubscribe. I've seen people stating that in this economy they can't afford an indulgence like DDI, but that isn't the same as complaining that the price is too high or asking WotC to reduce it.
Perhaps you could enlighten me with some links to these threads and the applicable posts...?
I at least skim a significant portion of the threads here at ENWorld, and fully read a good many of the most trafficed ones, and I don't recall any threads complaining about the price of DDI. Quality? Yes...Price? No. I haven't seen it mentioned (not even once) in any of the threads about why people have unsubscribed, or what it would take to get people to subscribe/resubscribe. I've seen people stating that in this economy they can't afford an indulgence like DDI, but that isn't the same as complaining that the price is too high or asking WotC to reduce it.
Perhaps you could enlighten me with some links to these threads and the applicable posts...?
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