Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events

[Dark Mistress]

I understand your point.
But the question I am asking is whether the OGL was absolutely neccessary to let 3rd party publishers offer material that would not have been created. To give you an example: I played the Freeport adventures. Now it may be that there was some sort of piratey stuff in some of the DnD magazines, but I don't know. At the time, I thought the Freeport adventures fit into my campaign, so I used the material.
Why was the OGL neccessary for these adventures? Would it not have been possible for Green Ronin to publish these adventures under some other legal agreement with WotC that gave them the right to publish this, but gave WotC the right - after a couple of years - to not let them use the material again. You know, use it for a timespan that makes your business possible but does not take away the rights of WotC to cancel the usage of the 3rd edition rules. Say, use the rules with a yearly liscense fee. And then use all of the published rules (which, if I recall correctly, did not offer the full rules). I am getting the impression that you think that legally the OGL was the only way to achieve a deep involvement of 3rd party publishers. Well, we know that it is not. There is (to stick with the software thing) software you can use when you pay a liscence fee.
That would have kept the rights to the rules solely with WotC.

All of what you are saying would have been possible with a different legal solution, but WotC would not have given away their IP.

If other companies had still made the stuff with out a OGL then sure it wouldn't have mattered. But me personally I don't think most companies would have jumped on the D20 train with out the OGL. Even if we say only half did, thats still only half the 3pp stuff. So still I think it would have effected how long many people including me would have stuck with 3.x DnD. I am not saying I am right but i do believe that's true. But I also think had the OGL been restrictive we would have seen the same number of companies jumping on as there is with the GSL. To me that's all the proof you need to show most companies wouldn't have done it.

Of course we will now never know and all we can all do is guess. I just know with out a lot of 3pp stuff I would have stopped playing DnD and moved on to other stuff. I speculate that with a less open or time restricted OGL you would have had the same turn out as what the GSL has. Which to me is not nearly enough to keep it going.

 

[TheFindus]

If other companies had still made the stuff with out a OGL then sure it wouldn't have mattered. But me personally I don't think most companies would have jumped on the D20 train with out the OGL. Even if we say only half did, thats still only half the 3pp stuff. So still I think it would have effected how long many people including me would have stuck with 3.x DnD. I am not saying I am right but i do believe that's true. But I also think had the OGL been restrictive we would have seen the same number of companies jumping on as there is with the GSL. To me that's all the proof you need to show most companies wouldn't have done it.

Of course we will now never know and all we can all do is guess. I just know with out a lot of 3pp stuff I would have stopped playing DnD and moved on to other stuff. I speculate that with a less open or time restricted OGL you would have had the same turn out as what the GSL has. Which to me is not nearly enough to keep it going.

I do not think this is true. One of the sections in the GSL that makes it awfully painful for publishers to use it is section 10. WotC has to right to terminate the liscense and end all publications of 4E content by 3rd party publishers with just a notice. It is very hard to plan a business based on that.
So, while they went way too far with the OGL, WotC was too strict with the GSL when it comes to the planning period of a new edition. That takes up 2 years at least and you could form a liscense around that fact. For example, you pay a liscense fee to be able to use the IP for 2 years. Just like a antivirus-software, just with a 2 year timespan. And two years is planable, if you ask me.

But to say that the only versions of enabling 3rd party publishers to effectively produce material were the OGL on the one hand or the GSL on the other is flawed in my opinion.
You can regulate a lot of stuff with contracts that are good for all parties involved. WotC just did not and that was a major mistake.

And this is not a matter of speculation. We can clearly see what the effect of the OGL is for WotC: They gave their IP away!
And it is easy to see the reason behind the success of the 3rd edition: WotC created a great ruleset. People loved the rules! They like them still! They just do not call it 3.x anymore. It is called Pathfinder. All thanks to the OGL.

 

[Dark Mistress]

TheFindus - I get your point, I am not saying your wrong. But I do disagree with you. I think for most companies to have jumped on the D20 train and not knowing if 3pp would be well received they would have needed a nice safety net to know if things did work well and they changed to produce a lot of it, that it wouldn't be pulled out from under them.

I might be wrong and 2 years might have been enough, but I think because it couldn't be taken away is exactly the reason most jumped on. They knew it was a safe long term business plan. I also still think WotC could have used the OGL to their advantage personally. If they had embraced it and used it more themselves. Since the OGL lets anyone use any ones stuff. Find the best 3pp stuff and use it for the next edition of DnD. I think if they would have evolved slower and used the OGL to help them do it. Things would be very different right now. *shrug* but I fully admit I could be wrong, thats just my view. I don't think it was the OGL that hurt WotC but how they decided to use the OGL that end the end hurt them.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Without the OGL would not have purchased anywhere near as much material from WotC - having a smorgasbord of material available multiplied what I purchased, and not just from the 3PP. Having more material to run a pirate campaign meant getting more of it - without Green Ronin and Mongoose I would not have purchased Stormwrack.

When WotC acquired the rights AD&D had stagnated, opening the license made it a thriving community again - and freed WotC from spending the gobs of money that TSR had wasted suing everybody and their cousins to the third remove. By having a license that allowed the use of the system without endangering their IP they freed up a large chunk of change.

Do you remember who ended up shelling out on all those lovely cases that TSR opened? It wasn't the defendants, it was TSR - buying the rights then burying them.

With the GSL we are seeing the return of the lawyers and their suits, as they sue folks for things that would have been allowed under the OGL.

And notice, Kenzer & Co has shown that hey! You can do 4e compatible material without signing the license, just stay away from their IP - you can't copyright or trademark a system, only the words as written and the dress thereof.

The OGL was a fair license, affecting both parties. The GSL protects only one party, so why would 3PP gather in support of a license that can be ended on the whim of the first party?

You may want to read up on what the founders of the OGL have to say about their decisions - they made those decisions in large part in order to make money!

The Auld Grump

 

[TheFindus]

The OGL was a fair license, affecting both parties. The GSL protects only one party, so why would 3PP gather in support of a license that can be ended on the whim of the first party?

You may want to read up on what the founders of the OGL have to say about their decisions - they made those decisions in large part in order to make money!

Of course the OGL was a fair liscense and it is completely WotC fault for underestimating the effect it would have in a situation when they want to publish a new edition and have to compete with the old edition and the 3rd party companies that grew into competitors.
And of course they thought it would make money, otherwise, why bother.

But my point is that they could have gone another legal route. Back in 1999/2000, nobody expected the OGL. With all the legal issues that TSR had to go through, they could have gone with a different approach. One - I am repeating myself here - which would have made it much much easier for other companies to use their stuff for a plannable period but to give WotC the freedom to keep the IP. And that, in 1999/2000, would have been revolutionary also.
There are many legal ways to open up the usability of your product for others without giving up on the IP.

Did they think about a new edition in 1999/2000? I would say probably only in a very fuzzy way, since the new edition had just come out.

They choose the OGL, but this was by far not the only way to handle this legally. From a legal point of view, it is not: either OGL or GSL. Back in 1999/2000, something in between would have been possible, leaning more to the side of the easyness (is that an english word?) of the OGL, but without giving away the IP.

This decision haunts them to this day and is the reason for the GSL. That, and giving away the brand itself to Paizo with the magazines. Those are the major mistakes, in my opinion, that WotC made in the past.

In the present, of course, we also see A LOT of mistakes. It is painful to watch. But the effect of these mistakes multiply because they have created their own competition with a second actual, running version of DnD.

 

[BryonD]

I still think you greatly overrate that.

It isn't like they went from no competition to having competition.

They went from having N to having N+1 competitors.

If they made a new game tomorrow and the bulk of the fanbase wanted to play it, that game would be a huge hit. It would not matter if that game was OGL or not and it would not matter if other OGL games continued or not. (That said, this cool new game would do EVEN better if it WAS OGL, just as 3E did)

People are going to play the game they want to play. It doesn't get much more simple than that.

Now MAYBE you could claim that 4E is second best and by denying people the option of playing their true game of preference they would be forced to settle for whatever WotC offered. But is that the spin you want?

 

[Wicht]

Did they think about a new edition in 1999/2000?

Yes. They did think about a new edition. They also created the OGL so that when they were not there, they could be assured that Dungeons and Dragons continued in a form they liked. They are also, today, funnily enough, the competition, so to speak. So for them it was a smart business decision.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It isn't like they went from no competition to having competition.

They went from having N to having N+1 competitors.

And at least one of those competitors was essentially using their own past strengths against them...industry judo. It's hard to top your past successes.

 

[shadzar]

Yes. They did think about a new edition. They also created the OGL so that when they were not there, they could be assured that Dungeons and Dragons continued in a form they liked. They are also, today, funnily enough, the competition, so to speak. So for them it was a smart business decision.

Gary was already working on a 2nd edition prior to being ousted, and a 3rd edition was already being worked on in like 1995....

 

[BryonD]

And at least one of those competitors was essentially using their own past strengths against them...industry judo. It's hard to top your past successes.

But it was only a strength because people wanted to play that game more.

We are seeing OGL versions of other editions floating around as well. There is no market shifting groundswell of action happening there.

There is no meaningful chunk of fanbase that thinks 4E is the better game for their taste, but still play the old edition because that is what they've been doing for years.....