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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zil" data-source="post: 5446967" data-attributes="member: 20004">I'm not talking just about just my own personal game.  I'm talking about the greater gaming community, and in particular the D&D umbrella which includes all previous versions of the game and close relatives/offshoots.  I'm talking more about the hobby than my personal game.  Yes, I do understand that business decisions don't always align perfectly with my personal wishes and desires.  And business decisions don't always align perfectly with what is best for the hobby.  However, sometimes they can align well.  And I think the OGL did align well for WoTC.  It no longer does, but that is because they tried to escape from the OGL with 4E and they've discovered it wasn't so easy.  They could have better used the OGL ecosystem in 3E days and they could have released 4E via the OGL.  And I say that it didn't have to take such a huge chunk out of 4Es potential sales.  If they had initially released 4E via the OGL then there would have been less incentive for Paizo to have gone their own way.  Perhaps they may still have, but they were on the fence for a while and if WoTC had gone with the OGL for 4E they wouldn't have necessarily have driven Paizo into being a direct competitor.  I'm actually pleased with how things turned out because I get to continue to have support for the version of the game I prefer, but the 4E crowd still has their own version and support through WoTC.  Everyone wins and gets to play the game they enjoy.  WoTC might not earn as much money as they were hoping, but I doubt they are losing money from 4E.  What they may be losing is their position as market leader, but all that means is that they need to better position their game so that it appeals to more people.  Whether that is by improving on the game or otherwise better positioning the game to appeal to more people, it's something they need to work out.  And when they do, hopefully you'll be happier with the version of the game you enjoy.I never said I wouldn't have.  However, I don't really care for the Forgotten Realms as a campaign setting so until Eberron came around I might seriously have been tempted elsewhere to another game that had a more interesting setting.   If I had, then I wouldn't have been buying that many WoTC crunch books since I wasn't using the 3E d20 system anymore.  You are missing the point I was trying to make.  The issue is that people might get bored of the limited options available from WoTC so having these other OGL 3.x options available from third party publishers helps these folk keep playing the same game which means WoTC has the potential to keep selling stuff to them even though they are playing someone elses campaign setting (or using someone elses book of magic items or monsters or whatever).  The alternative in a non-OGL version of 3E is that people are more likely to drift away to a completely different game system that is not d20/3.x based and then those people are far less likely to buy WoTC products.Wizard's completely botched the release of 4E.  That is what hurt them. Even still, I think they are still making money - just not as much as they would have liked.  The only sad thing is that they are at risk of seeing D&D fall from being the #1 fantasy RPG game.   If 4E had from the get-go been released as OGL I think we would have a completely different ball-game now.  It was the 4E release decisions more than anything that have lead to the relative decline of D&D 4E.  You just said earlier that the TSR campaign worlds were doing well when justifying a non-OGL based release of 3E.  I don't follow where you are going with this sub-thread.  There were and are a limited number of employees at WoTC working on D&D products.  They can only do so much.  WoTC clearly decided to focus on putting out crunch via the various splat books because that was where they saw the money, i.e. books for players rather than campaign worlds or lots of adventures.    All that said, there is some third party support of 4E.  Open Design/Kobold Quarterly manages to support both versions of the game (in addition to other non D&D game systems such as their BRP based patronage project and possible Dragon Age in their Midgard patronage project.)    I think having 4E patronage products and having 4E articles appearing in Kobold Quarterly is good for 4E.  There would be a lot more of that type of support for 4E if it had been released as OGL.  Finally, I think that competition can be healthy for the game.  Designers writing for the various versions of D&D can be inspired by each other and strive to better their own version be it with superior adventures, more fluid mechanics, or whatever.</blockquote>

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