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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6637863" data-attributes="member: 22424">I'm not. But neither should the name-recognition and Paizo's hard-won reputation be discounted. They started from an extremely advantageous position, but they worked hard to retain those people who took out those first Pathfinder subscriptions.So you're looking at a company that doesn't have the Pathfinder name and doesn't have the reputation. All they have are the rules - and those same rules are all available for free already.In this scenario Hasbro would also make sure to either employ the key staff or have them agree non-compete agreements. That's standard practice in buy-outs of this sort. So, would you be willing to resend a subscription to a no-name company missing those key members of staff?And consider also that virtually nobody else in the RPG industry even does subscription products. So, would you be willing to resend a subscription to a no-name company missing the key staff, and who don't have a track record of delivering subscriptions? Would 10k other subscribers?Actually, I think there's a real chance there would be half a dozen, and they'd split the market sufficiently that they'd all fail. The AE-level success I predict is actually the best-case scenario where there is just one successor company.I agree. I honestly don't believe WotC consider the OGL or Paizo to be a problem anyway, and I therefore don't expect them to try to kill the one, or to buy out the other. But if they did consider them a threat, then I'd expect to see an attempted buy-out long before them trying legal dodges around "consideration" or moving the copyrights to Mexico, or similar.Nope, certainly not. If WotC bought out Paizo, they would make damn sure that they got all the Pathfinder trademarks and the subscriber database. And they'd also be sure to either employ the key staff themselves or have them sign non-compete agreements.That would be the whole purpose of the exercise, after all.(The situation would be entirely different if Paizo went bust, of course, where those trademarks and the database would represent assets that someone could potentially buy up. But that doesn't apply in a buy-out by Hasbro - the latter would be buying the company specifically to get those assets, and so to prevent anyone else doing so.)Nobody else tried because Paizo were in the clearly dominant position, such that there was no point in trying. If Pathfinder disappeared tomorrow, it's not impossible that half a dozen companies might try to fill the gap. But that leads to a position even worse than if just one does it, because they're they squabbling over the fraction of the market that would be there. Instead of one AE-sized success you'd have half a dozen failed versions.</blockquote>

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