WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

[Parmandur]

still doesn’t mean that I have to like it / not look / ask for improvements

They were idiotic with their OGL shenanigans, from my perspective they are short-sighted here

Short sighted by inviting third parties to share their platform...?

 

[FrogReaver]

none, but if a small one can afford to do it, I do not see why a large one cannot. I understand that they can be more greed driven and short-sighted than idealistic or long-term focused, but that does not mean that I have to excuse that, let alone justify / defend it

Could be that their products sell better when they do that. Still greed driven. Could also be a bit short-sighted. Imagine if Paizo had become the 800lb gorilla and replaced WOTC - that would have been directly because of the OGL. The dynamics just aren't the same for the little guys as the big guys.

 

[mamba]

Short sighted by inviting third parties to share their platform...?

no, by not opening it farther / this slowly, by not providing an API, basically the things I mentioned. Keeping DDB closed was not one of them…

 

[mamba]

Could be that their products sell better when they do that. Still greed driven. Could also be a bit short-sighted. Imagine if Paizo had become the 800lb gorilla and replaced WOTC - that would have been directly because of the OGL. The dynamics just aren't the same for the little guys as the big guys.

No, it would have been because they abandoned the OGL and its ecosystem, with all the benefits it provides WotC, and released a version of the game many people rejected.

If you are the center of the universe, then working on shrinking that universe does not benefit you.

The OGL / CC keeps WotC the central fulcrum, Paizo could have created something pretty close to PF without the OGL as well. The OGL benefits WotC at least as much as it benefited Paizo. Thanks to the OGL, WotC can pretend it has ownership of a lot of things it probably would find out it doesn’t, if this ever had to be decided in court. Thanks to the OGL, there is no need to settle this in court however

 

[Hussar]

They don’t put out 5e PDFs. Every other RPG company does. Morrus put just about all of A5e into the CC – way way more than the 5.1 SRD. Kobold Press puts out almost everything they publish in the OGL. Lots of companies are doing more than WOTC.

But, because they are using the OGL, how much choice do they actually have in putting things into the OGL? Other than proper nouns, how much of, say, Kobold's monster books could actually avoid being OGL, simply by virtue of publishing under the OGL?

This has been the perennial issue hasn't it? That 3pp publish under the OGL, making it freely available to all, while WOtC has never (or rarely) published under the OGL because they don't have to. This is hardly a new issue. Claiming some sort of virtue for publishing under the OGL when the publishers must publish under the OGL if they want to take advantage of the SRD doesn't seem like too much of a virtue to me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They won’t, for example, put A5E or Tales of the Valiant on there. It’s not just ugly stuff they’ll avoid.

Would you put your competitor on your platform that just copied your rules but better/worse?

 

[Hussar]

Eould you put yoir competitor on your platform that just copied your rules but better/worse?

Maybe I'm a bit thick here, but, why would anyone expect WotC to put competing games onto their platform? That's... I just don't understand.

Can someone explain this to me like I'm five years old because I'm just not seeing something here.

 

[FrogReaver]

No, it would have been because they abandoned the OGL and its ecosystem, with all the benefits it provides WotC, and released a version of the game many people rejected.

If you are the center of the universe, then working on shrinking that universe does not benefit you.

The OGL / CC keeps WotC the central fulcrum, Paizo could have created something pretty close to PF without the OGL as well. The OGL benefits WotC at least as much as it benefited Paizo. Thanks to the OGL, WotC can pretend it has ownership of a lot of things it probably would find out it doesn’t, if this ever had to be decided in court. Thanks to the OGL, there is no need to settle this in court however

I don’t get it. None of this seems to address the points in my post.

 

[mamba]

But, because they are using the OGL, how much choice do they actually have in putting things into the OGL? Other than proper nouns, how much of, say, Kobold's monster books could actually avoid being OGL, simply by virtue of publishing under the OGL?

they can choose to release none of it under the OGL, like some other publishers do

 

[mamba]

Maybe I'm a bit thick here, but, why would anyone expect WotC to put competing games onto their platform? That's... I just don't understand.

ever heard of Steam? That started out as a platform for Valve’s games…