Still one make-or-break issue for me...

[eamon]

And this is the disconnect between what keeps being posted on EnWorld and what is likely to happen - our beliefs don't matter. What matters is what the WOTC decision makers think. And we have ample evidence that they don't believe the OGL was good for their business.

This is a fallacy. We certainly can consider things from WotC's position, but no less so can WotC consider it from their customer's. Just because they're a business doesn't mean that customers need to accept anything as perfectly reasonable since they're only trying to make money.

Indeed, Balesir is spot on:

If 4e had been OGL, I think two things would have improved, from WotC's perspective:

1) Some customers who abandoned them because of principled stands over their "closing down" of the license would have stayed with D&D. Customer revulsion at a business practice is both a real and a very rational market mechanism.

Indeed. Buying something is a negotiation - and in the common case with a large, cohesive, fairly powerful seller (aka a company) vs. many individuals with less interest in the details, the larger player has a significant advantage. If clients accept a business practice beneficial to the provider, why shouldn't the provider go ahead with it? As is easily seen in many poorly structured markets this can lead to inefficiencies due to monopolistic practices.

On the other hand, knowing that the provider is doing it for rational business reasons does not mean you as a client have to or even should accept it. You can reject the offer knowing that you're not the only one likely to do so and that it doesn't affect you much to make this one decision, and that if enough people do so the company will (rationally) change course or another one will fill the gap.

Don't sell yourself short. An open license can be a kind of assurance that WotC won't screw you later on, nor will they abuse their position to make it hard for you to switch if they do let you down. It's primarily a foundation for trust, and only secondarily necessary for 3PP content.

 

[mxyzplk]

I completely agree that this dog won't hunt unless it's open.

Modern product ecosystems are about user generated content and sharing - individual users, small companies, etc. Openness and ecosystem is one of the largest reasons there was backlash against 4e and why Pathfinder is doing as great as it is. Go to RPGNow.com - 5531 3.x/OGL products, 1650 Pathfinder products, 401 4e products. That's a problem - "but we (wotc) aren't getting that money so we hate 3pp products" is a bizarrely wrong-headed way of looking at it and one most modern companies would not hold.

I think Hasbro is too used to major licenses where there's a lot of money to throw around. They know their Hulk toys will sell better the more Hulk crap in general is out there, theirs or not. But Hulk is a large enough property people are lining up to pay money to put him on drink cups. Something like D&D, you need the same ecosystem to sell your stuff but the prevailing supply/demand makes the correct licensing cost $0.

In the end WotC has lost its 900 pound gorilla status in the industry. You can afford to be closed if you're the virtual monopoly. They're not, so if they stay closed they get marginalized further.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't really understand buyers that buy for reasons that aren't really consumer's choice. Those kind of people who say "i wont buy X because this company supports the republicans/democrats" or "I won't see X film because Y actor supports Z issue". If the product fits my needs, I'll buy it, if it does not, I won't. "Single vote issues" are for elections, this is just a buy. You pay for a product, you get it. End of story.

But I guess some other people might have different views.

Boycotts work quite well to make a company change its behavior. Most corporations are very image-sensitive.

Wizards had the data in 2000 when they decided to go with the OGL, and they had the data in 2008 when they decided to go with the GSL. Presumably, they misinterpreted the data in at least one of those two occasions.

This is an excellent point. Corporations don't always make the right or the smart decision; in fact, if you've ever watched a typical company's decision-making from the inside, it's a wonder they ever make smart decisions. It's become pretty clear that whatever WotC was trying to accomplish with 4E, it didn't work, so appealing to the wisdom and foresight of the folks who planned 4E is not a convincing argument.

Lately I've started to think that, whether it was good or bad, the decision to release the original OGL was irreversible. The d20 is cast. Wizards tried to walk back that decision with 4E, and Pathfinder was the result. They can maybe finesse it a bit, pull some of the core back into the "product identity" category, but the only way for Wizards to win back Pathfinder fans is to get the third-party publishers back on board, and that won't happen without a license that's at least comparable to what the 3PPs already have. Either they go reasonably open, or D&DN fails. And if they go open, the next edition will face the same choice.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I came into this thread looking for some stupid: "not using Thac0 is a gamebreaker for me" type of argument. Instead I actually get something that makes sense. I don't quiet agree with it, but at least it makes sense.

I will probably jump on the 5e bandwagon just because it looks really good and I was already looking at running things like the original dnd modules. Getting a more streamlined system which works in much the same way sounds really great.