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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jsaving" data-source="post: 5931543" data-attributes="member: 16726">I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment.  WotC's great insight with 3e was that their revenue is driven primarily by sales of the core books, not penny-ante stuff like modules, and that a vibrant and vigorous third-party marketplace would bring people into the game and thereby drive up core book sales.  In essence, the third-party guys would unintentionally yet unmistakably funnel money to WotC -- an amazing insight that they promptly lost with 4e.The other thing the OGL was intended to do, according to Ryan Dancey, was act as a "quality control" disciplining mechanism for any future edition.  Because the OGL would enable 3e to remain strong after 4e's release, WotC would be under substantial market pressure to not release a sub-par 4e.  And knowing this, consumers would feel comfortable buying the initial 4e print run sight unseen, secure in the knowledge that 4e surely would be better.  And the truth of this argument can be seen in first-year 4e book sales, which were -- according to both WotC and numerous third-party reports -- off the charts.I like 4e and think many of its advances should be incorporated in 5e, but as people had time to digest the core books they had so readily purchased, they came to the conclusion that it wasn't good enough compared to 3e to merit playing.  While this did decrease WotC's profit in the near term, it shows that the 3e OGL was a *success*, not a failure, because it enabled RPG consumers to speak in a way they had been largely unable to speak before.  With a strong 4th edition OGL, third-party developers could potentially have bridged this gap, but WotC made the deliberate decision to cut third-party guys off at the knees in 4e with predictable results.  This made 4e worse than it would otherwise be and, ironically, held 4e core-book sales figures below where they could have been in a 3e-like OGL environment, reducing WotC's profit below where it could otherwise have been.    Over the long term, if 5e proves to be the "unifying force" that WotC hopes it will be, and if a 3e-like OGL accompanies its release, then WotC may well see the same kind of sales success it saw in the early 2000s -- the pinnacle towards which it is currently striving.  The 3e ruleset wasn't perfect by any means, but WotC really shot itself in the foot by not having an OGL in 4e, even though Pathfinder's recent growth may make it appear otherwise, at least on the surface.</blockquote>

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