Three Tiered License

[Lonely Tylenol]

Aren't there already companies existing like this in the d20 Market?

S&S seems like it has a whole slew of smaller print companies under its wing.

Those companies aren't there because the d20 STL has a clause that forces them to be there.

Anyway, point is moot.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Utterly and completely wrong.

Wizards owns the d20 license. They can have it as open or as closed as they wish. They can dispense the rights to the license through whatever mechanic they desire. The hamburger analogy fails utterly because no one owns a trademark on "hamburger restaurant." There is no "like" parallel to be drawn here at all - don't even try.

I already wrote about the point at which the analogy fails. And it stands as far as I needed it to go.

Also, I'll disregard your advice concerning trying. I don't appreciate being told to shut up.

The issue this is meant to address is not a simple one - and definitely one that cannot be summed up into an analogy involving fast food restaurants. I fear no solution will be universally equitable or palatable to all parties concerned. I also feel this proposal is probably the one that best serves the consumers since quality should be improved by this process, WotC since the mark will be improved, and the large publishers for obvious reasons. Small publishers lose - well sometimes in life there will be losers - this is unavoidable. The choice is either prove your merit and build your brand using just the OGL, or cede the hubris and submit the draft of the product as a freelancer.

Didn't read the rest of the thread before posting, did you? Apparently WotC thinks that this "best proposal" is not a great idea either.

 

[trancejeremy]

I'm almost afraid to ask....

I would think it's pretty much obvious.

And I think a lot of people in this thread have mistaken size (and company success) with quality products. The company I'm thinking of manages to profit off of its mistakes, by selling its customers new rulebooks with (most) of the errors corrected.

Thankfully WOTC has not followed through on this plan.

 

[trancejeremy]

Is it unprincipled to learn from mistakes? It was a mistake to release the d20 logo free and clear just like it was a mistake for Atari to not place any kind of lock out chip on the 2600. At least WotC can claim naivette for the first go round - not so with the second. They have an obligation to maintain the quality of the brand - to fail to do so would be unprincipled.

And yet Nintendo, despite having a lockup chip, has no quality standards for the DS or Wii software, and both are huge successes. There are almost neverending piles of shovelware released for both systems from 3rd parties (especially the DS), and yet sales keep going up and up, and Nintendo is either the 1st or 2nd richest company in Japan now.

The trouble WOTC suffered from with d20 was not a glut of products from 3rd parties, but not expanding the user base enough (which is what Nintendo is doing).

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Hey, if you publish, you might not be able to use the rules system and trademarks that we own."

"If we don't approve of them."

I don't think anyone is really arguing that they wouldn't have been within their rights. I *do* think people disdain the idea of anything like a censoring board or "only landowners get the vote" or things that are similar, even in a different context.

There is no legally guaranteed right to use the d20 license, they certainly don't owe it to us, but for them to say "You know...we disapprove of Controversial Book X and refuse to support it!" is, though well within their rights, very backward thinking.

And taking them to task for backward thinking would have been entirely fair.

But it turns out they're cleverer than that. Thanks for the quick response, Scott!

 

[Ranger REG]

And yet Nintendo, despite having a lockup chip, has no quality standards for the DS or Wii software, and both are huge successes. There are almost neverending piles of shovelware released for both systems from 3rd parties (especially the DS), and yet sales keep going up and up, and Nintendo is either the 1st or 2nd richest company in Japan now.

The trouble WOTC suffered from with d20 was not a glut of products from 3rd parties, but not expanding the user base enough (which is what Nintendo is doing).

Yeah, boo on quality standard clause.

I want my Book of Erotic Fantasy RPG (now slapped with a d20 label) sit right next to my PHB.

P.S. Yes, I'm serious. I didn't want WotC to take the Walt Disney route.

 

[BSF]

3) However, that being said...



Let me get this straight... Wizards of the Coast is allowing other companies--competitors, small as they may be, in a niche market--use WotC's proprietary material. Without cost. It's a move that, until 2000, was absolutely unheard of in the industry in any meaningful way. It may be a move that benefited WotC, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly generous one, since most of the current companies wouldn't exist at all without it.

In effect, WotC said "Here, everyone! Play with my toys."

And now, suddenly, it's "Big Brother" or "unprincipled" for WotC to say, "Well, we only want some other companies to play with our toys"?

No. Uh-uh. I call bull excrement. There's nothing Big Brotherly, nothing unprincipled, nothing immoral about it. WotC is still being far more open, and far more generous, with other companies than anyone has any right to expect. To suggest otherwise is, IMO, an indefensible position.

I hope WotC's new license is broad enough to make the most number of people happy. But at the end of the day, if they want to dial it back, there's nothing wrong--in any sense of the word--with them doing so.

Actually, the openness of the system is a significant factor in what brought me back to D&D. In some ways, it was a commitment that WotC wouldn't harass enthusiastic fans that could, and would, create some pretty phenomenal material.

Yes, I know that wasn't exactly the intent of the licensing. But as a customer, it has been a significant draw of the game for me. More restrictive licensing is a potential warning flag for me.

Is it "wrong"? Well, not really. Unprincipled or immoral? Those are value judgements and depend largely on your perspective. However, some would argue, quite passionately, that rescinding licensing goes against the open-source movement, blah, blah, blah, etc.

From a consumer perspective, there are potential benefits as well as potential drawbacks. One potential benefit would be improved quality of products. Adding value to the D20 brand and all that. However a drawback is that there is the potential for censorship, back room deals, etc.

The strength of a liberal open license is some transparency to the system. If nobody can censor you, then anything that is released is "unimpeded" and "organic". Of course, the product could be total garbage to the majority of gamers as well. Allowing a group to have some sort of approval process makes the entire system less transparent. With less transparency comes the suspicion that certain types of products are being censored and idea sharing is somehow being controlled. However, that control might be quality control and there might be fewer products that make it to the shelves that will leave customers feeling dissatisfied.

One outgrowth of the open licensing has been more investment of more fans into the game and the game system. I love the fact that I have so many products that I use in my games on a regular basis that WotC might not have ever thought of, much less published. I use more third party products than I do WotC products. I have products from Fantasy Flight Games, Malhavoc, Necromancer Games, Green Ronin, Ronin Arts, Lions Den, Atlas Games, Bad Axe games (still using Mythin Archetypes every week in my campaign Wulf! That makes 3 campaigns so far.) My list of third party publishers is long so I won't list them all. I am just mentioning the ones that are in my line of sight as I write this. More importantly, I appreciate the fact that all of these publishers are active fans of the game! I feel invested in the success of the game, and I love sharing ideas with all of these people. While WotC designed and published the game, they didn't create the community. All of us created the community and the OGL & D20STL were factors in that process.

Changes to the licensing threaten the community to some small degree. For all of us that feel invested in that community, that might mean we feel a little threatened. While WotC, and other publishers, might be more concerned about the business impact of the licensing, the rest of us are unencumbered by such thoughts.

All of which really means we might need to adjust our thinking a little. We are invested in the game, and the community. I think we want to see everyone involved be successful. WotC isn't "wrong" to adjust the licensing to improve their business. They are well within their rights to do so. We just don't want the changes to negatively impact the community of our hobby.

 

[GSHamster]

And yet Nintendo, despite having a lockup chip, has no quality standards for the DS or Wii software, and both are huge successes. There are almost neverending piles of shovelware released for both systems from 3rd parties (especially the DS), and yet sales keep going up and up, and Nintendo is either the 1st or 2nd richest company in Japan now.

The trouble WOTC suffered from with d20 was not a glut of products from 3rd parties, but not expanding the user base enough (which is what Nintendo is doing).

Actually there are pretty rigorous quality standards for the DS and Wii, especially when it comes to handling internet play.

It's just that the standards are not content-related, but rather technical (I.e. must not crash badly, must startup and shutdown properly, must exhibit proper behaviour when the lid is closed, etc.)

You have to submit your game to Nintendo for testing before it can be published, and it has to pass their tests.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Since this thread is a discussion about a rumour that has been squashed (both in this thread, and in the sticky thread at the top of this forum) I'm going to close this particular thread, so that we don't get people reading the first two posts and zapping off a reply to the thread.

If anyone wants to continue discussions about other aspects of open licensing, etc, please feel free to start a new thread (or resurrect an existing one, since I think there has already been one or more roughly on that topic in this forum)

Thanks