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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zil" data-source="post: 5446718" data-attributes="member: 20004">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.</blockquote>

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