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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jasperak" data-source="post: 8891045" data-attributes="member: 2487">I don't think I would ever trust Gary's thoughts on business. I don't think he had much effect on the market after he displayed his expert business judgement while running TSR, so by 2006 and this quote, I think it might all be sour grapes.Now truth be told, Gary (et all) ran the fad pretty damn well. They brought us a great cartoon and introduced us into the public awareness. But WOTC has almost brought D&D fully into the mainsteam. Early in its stewardship, WOTC brought us two crappy movies, but now decades later we have another movie, a TV series looks to be on the horizon, and awesome placements in popular culture (Stranger Things, Big Bang, numerous celebrities admitting they play). Don't forget about the video games. All of this only happens because of WOTC's market dominance and management of the D&D brand, which arguably only occurs because of the great games they made that were embraced by their fans and them allowing the industry to play in their sandbox--one big sandbox--that supported the fans.If Ryan is correct in his assessment of the late 90's and early 00's, none of this would have happened because the industry was contracting because basically there were too many chefs in the kitchen--there were too many games and not enough players to go around. The biggest game on the block was failing and quite frankly everyone else was falling with them. The market was splintered so that no one could reach critical mass. No one could take D&D's place. Everyone was losing. And then came the OGL.The OGL arguably gave the fans a chance to contribute to the game. It stopped the gatekeeping. No more C&Ds. It brought alot of those who were previously competiters or potential competitors under one tent. Did it hurt the company? I think WOTC's success and RPG market share for 3e and 5e have demonstrated that opening the game to others' contributions helped rather than hindered WOTC in their market dominance.I don't think there can be any argument about WOTC's market share when they supported Open Gaming and when they hadn't. Maybe this time when they close their market it will be different, but if history repeats, TSR in the 90's and WOTC during 4e kinda make me think that today, WOTC is not going to get the result their overlords desire.No. Gary was so wrong on this. I believe the OGL got us where we are today. Greed and ignorance will send us back to the RPG Dark Ages.</blockquote>

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