D&D 5E Some thoughts on WotC's release schedule and the OGL

[delericho]

Gee, that sounds... exactly like what's happening now.

It does, doesn't it?

But there's a problem with that line of thinking: Wizards have just spent two years, and a very significant sum of money, on developing a new edition. If the strategy was to essentially mothball it, why make that huge investment immediately before doing so?

 

[Dausuul]

It does, doesn't it?

But there's a problem with that line of thinking: Wizards have just spent two years, and a very significant sum of money, on developing a new edition. If the strategy was to essentially mothball it, why make that huge investment immediately before doing so?

Yeah, that's the one thing that makes me wonder. Still, I suspect the biggest part of that investment was the beta testing--which could be argued as a long-term investment, gathering customer feedback that will be useful when Hasbro takes the brand off the shelf in future.

 

[Matt James]

I wouldn't be surprised to see third-party publishers carry the load of officially-sanctioned 5e content and releases.

 

[graypariah]

The thing about D&D is that it depends heavily on a living community of players. Whether or not Hasbro understands this, the guys at Wizards surely do: If you just shut the whole brand down, your chances of ever reviving it again are next to nil. The community will die out. (Pathfinder might prevent that, but what happens if there's another downturn and Paizo goes bust? Unlike Wizards, Paizo doesn't have a cardboard crack empire to fall back on.)

I am not so sure about the community dying out. Oh I think it will die back, but there will be people playing it for decades after they stop supporting it. There are still people who play Basic and AD&D after all. But that doesn't mean that it will be good for the hobby. Beyond getting new players interested, what I dread worse is that the hobby will die back to the way it was in the 90s when even mentioning that you played D&D was enough to get you labeled as a creepy basement dweller. I think it is up to DMs to prevent that from happening by actively trying to bring more people to the hobby.

 

[jayoungr]

IMO, what we are seeing is Dungeons and Dragons: The Mothball Edition. Hasbro brought down the axe; the budget has been cut to the bone and the tabletop game will receive minimal investment from here on out.

But then, why do 5E at all? If they wanted minimal investment and "mothballs," they could just have sat on 4E for a while longer and spared themselves the expense of playtesting and printing a new edition. No one was really expecting a new edition so soon as it was.

 

[jayoungr]

But there's a problem with that line of thinking: Wizards have just spent two years, and a very significant sum of money, on developing a new edition. If the strategy was to essentially mothball it, why make that huge investment immediately before doing so?

But then, why do 5E at all? If they wanted minimal investment and "mothballs," they could just have sat on 4E for a while longer and spared themselves the expense of playtesting and printing a new edition. No one was really expecting a new edition so soon as it was.

Oops, just realized delericho made the same point earlier in the thread. That'll teach me to skim.

I do wonder how long it will take WotC to figure out what they want to do about licensing third-party publishers, though. I was really expecting that we'd hear something about that in January--IIRC they dropped hints last year that we'd be hearing something after the new year. Anyone have an idea what's taking them so long?

 

[Jester David]

Just thinking about the GSL today.

The GSL took effect in October 2008, three months after the 4e Core books were released. And it was released months before that.
If you start the clock at the release of the PHB, it's been five months since the start of 5e. And from the DMG it's been two months. We're getting to the point where the delay for the release of the OGL will be longer than the time it took the GSL to take effect. And that's not counting if the licence has a delay before the start date.

Adding insult to injury is the looming beast that is GenCon. With 5e out and strong, a lot of 3PP will likely try and make a push for GenCon product. But it takes 4-6 months to get a book out. Fifth Edition Foes is "finished" in terms of PDF but the hard copies won't be released until April. And $5 says there'll be a delay and many people won't see a book until May. Which means if a company wants a book out for GenCon it needs to be completely done by April. That's two months from now. Two months is not a lot of time to get art done and writing in.

At this point, 3rd Parties need to either gamble that there'll be a licenced released and order art and text - hoping they'll be able to edit to accommodate the licence before printing - or give up on GenCon sales. And if the licence comes out and we see a repeat of 2008 with a delay in the start date, a lot of small companies might be out some money, stuck with books they can't sell.
Or opt to play it safe and go with Pathfinder...

 

[Mark CMG]

We're getting to the point where the delay for the release of the OGL will be (. . .)

There is no delay in the release of the OGL as it already exists. Any person or company can release a product under the OGL (including releasing a free SRD full of OGC online) at any point since the OGL was released years ago utilizing any OGC that is also released under the OGL.

 

[Jester David]

There is no delay in the release of the OGL as it already exists. Any person or company can release a product under the OGL (including releasing a free SRD full of OGC online) at any point since the OGL was released years ago utilizing any OGC that is also released under the OGL.

The new OGL.

 

[Mark CMG]

The new OGL.

That's the same sort of obfuscating language that got WotC in trouble with the GSL roll out.