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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ComradeGnull" data-source="post: 5989676" data-attributes="member: 6685694">Yeah, I would love to see an OGL for 5e, but I hold out zero hope that it will happen.Here's how I see Hasbro suits as describing the effect of the OGL:1) Cannibalized sales.  Before, if people had X dollars to spend on an RPG, we had to hope they would want to buy D&D.  Now, even if they have X dollars dedicated towards D&D, they can pick from WotC supplements or other supplements by other publishers.2) Duplication.  Say WotC wants to make a Viking-theme setting.  Now say that Horned Helmet Press has already published one, and it has already gotten popular.  Now WotC is selling into a headwind- everyone who wanted a Viking book probably already bought it from someone else.3) Permanent loss of control of the property.  See also: Paizo, Pathfinder, OGL.  Companies love planned obsolescence and upgrade cycles.  The last OGL basically blow that out of the water forever.  WotC can stop publishing an edition (which they did), but it no longer means that new buyers have to buy the new edition.4) Lowering the barrier to entry for other games.  Before, to try a new game (say, Deadlands) you had to learn a new set of rules and mechanics.  Now shared mechanics mean that indy publishers can piggyback on WotC's rule development and balance work and then plug in their own settings and flavor.5) Free advertising.  Before OGL, a third-party game from a new publisher was just some hobbyist flogging their stuff out the back of a hatchback at a convention.  OGL products, on the other hand, became part of the 'sales halo' of D&D.  Retailers could take a chance on products from 3rd party publishers because they knew that the rules connected with the d20 system, and thus had an established customer base.  Saying you were d20 compatible guaranteed a minimum level of rule coherency and balance- it was like having a free 'seal of quality' for your fresh-off-the-turnip-truck RPG concept.6) Smaller slices of a shrinking market.  The first OGL was released 7 years before World of Warcraft.  There were no smart phones, no iPads, no Kindles, no Netflix, no motion control consoles, no BitTorrent sites...  Digital distribution was a novelty for any form of entertainment- you couldn't yet legally buy books, movies, music, or TV over the internet.  Tabletop RPGs face a lot more potential competition for attention than they ever did before.  MMO's have grown to be a much bigger segment of the market than they ever where when Everquest was the cutting edge.  In the current market (and crappy economy), there are fewer dollars than before dedicated towards tabletop RPGs, and digital publishing and indy games means there are more competitors than before.  Hasbro has to see every dollar spent on a product not published by WotC as a lost sale, not as 'building the market', because the odds are that the market as a whole is not going to grow substantially any time soon.  I see 4e as an attempt to stimulate that growth, and however you feel about the game, the fact that we are already seeing another version and that it is going in quite a different direction so far seems to indicate that the attempt didn't work.</blockquote>

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