Why doesn't WotC license older editions?

[jaerdaph]

While I understand why WotC might not want to create competition for it's current edition by licensing out the previous editions, I thought I'd note that WotC does still sell it's previous editions, at least in PDF format:

EN World PDF Store - Wizards of the Coast - - RPG PDF downloads

 

[CardinalXimenes]

2) Answer 1: Yes. They sold product to customers who, in good faith, presumed that WotC would continue to support those products, at least minimally.

I have a hard time imagining that any 1E or 2E purchaser could, in good faith, presume that a company that didn't even own the license at the time would provide official support for the next 20-30 years.

In the case of 3.x, I'd also find it peculiar for a customer to think that official edition support would be ongoing, when it was not the case with any prior edition.

 

[Umbran]

2) Answer 1: Yes. They sold product to customers who, in good faith, presumed that WotC would continue to support those products, at least minimally.

If they were presuming that, they were being unreasonable. WotC (and TSR, for that matter) never made any promise that they'd support their games in perpetuity.

 

[malraux]

While I understand why WotC might not want to create competition for it's current edition by licensing out the previous editions, I thought I'd note that WotC does still sell it's previous editions, at least in PDF format:

EN World PDF Store - Wizards of the Coast - - RPG PDF downloads

I am surprised that 3e products are still priced at full price, while even 4e products are at some sort of discount.

 

[darjr]

Yes, but it doesn't appear to be a license for D&D, only an agreement that allows for the simultaneous production of OGL content and GSL content. I don't see that Dragon Roots is using the D&D brand anywhere.

You'll have to take that up with DR and WotC. The GSL is a license to the brand. If DR is GSL, they have that license to the brand. If they choose not to use the brand, well, like I said, you'll have to ask them.

I do get that it specifically isn't a license to older editions of the game.

 

[Greg K]

So all we have to do to get licenses for older editions is to blackmail WOTC (or maybe even Hasbro)? How are we gonna do it?

Are we gonna get Mike Mearls drunk and take compromising pictures?
Hack into the WOTC computer systems and hold it for ransom?
Dig up a deep dark secret of a Hasbro executive?
Threaten to flag their Youtube videos?

I think I found the idea for a short Leverage inspired d20M or True20 game.

 

[Xyxox]

They have on at least one occastion - AD&D was licensed by Kenzer Co. for Hackmaster.

Only as part of an out of court settlement over the re-publishing of somebody else's intellectual property.



I still have my Dragon Magazine CD-Rom set.

 

[jaerdaph]

I am surprised that 3e products are still priced at full price, while even 4e products are at some sort of discount.

And I'm now surprised to see that the 3e and 3.5e PHB, MM and DMG PDFs are apparently MIA...

 

[tomBitonti]

If they were presuming that, they were being unreasonable. WotC (and TSR, for that matter) never made any promise that they'd support their games in perpetuity.

They don't have to ... I'm presuming it. That's the standard that I as a consumer require of WotC for me to consider them to be acting in good faith.

But, I'm not suggesting that they provide the same degree of support. Simply allowing sales of support material might be sufficient. I tend to require providing some way for the publication of supporting material.

I will note that a lot of the 3.5E web content is still available, so there is some support.

Now, forbidding others from providing support, through the 4E GSL, that to me is major bad faith.

If I may make an analogy: When you buy a car, a part of the value that you might be looking for is a healthy supply of parts and the ability to get service through a network of dealers.

If your manufacturer goes out of business, then you will expect that to be disrupted.

When new models are produced, you expect the available support and parts to be lessened, but not to disappear.

But, what if when a new model were produced, the manufacturer required the dealers to wholly cease to provide spare parts for the older model? And, the manufacturer required that any third party parts sellers to cease sales of any earlier parts, before being included in the new parts supply chain?

 

[Korgoth]

On the thread topic as a whole, I think it's not necessary. The OGL has already allowed hobbyists to take up the banner of previous editions of D&D and produce new content. I just purchased an honest-to-goodness OD&D (1974) adventure... a compatible product, anyway... from Brave Halfling. Granted, it seemed like they must have been selling it at about cost, but that's fine. It's a hobby.

However, on this one point:

It's bad for WotC if new players have multiple D&Ds to choose from. It means that WotC is then forced to support multiple D&Ds in order to support the new gamers, and the cost of supporting multiple games is prohibitive if they're both aimed at the same general audience: The fantasy-focused RPGer.

I strongly disagree. At the peak of D&D's popularity you 2-3 separate versions of D&D available (Classic and AD&D 1e, and at times the OD&D OCE box).

I'm not against WOTC. But they seem to be going the Games Workshop route: you don't play role playing games, you play D&D (just like GW games aren't "wargames", they're "the Games Workshop hobby"). And when a new edition comes out, the old stuff is cast away and forgotten (though WOTC does sell old PDFs, which is excellent of them). Each edition, the game changes significantly and you have to rebuy a lot of stuff, including all new books. The magazine is not a hobby magazine but a house organ. And the whole thing becomes more narrow and self-referential... a universe of private IP rather than something expansive.

If you look through old stuff from SR / Dragon, you'll see that it was not always thus. There was stuff for other companies' games, stuff for multiple editions of the D&D game, stuff for other TSR products, all kinds of crazy stuff. You even had articles like the famous "Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery" for combining D&D with your WWII miniatures (which of course you have... at least you surely have Germans!).

It seems like the prevailing idea at WOTC is that D&D (4E here) is a very specific type of game. It does one thing and that is what you do with it. Everyone will play it basically the same way. D&D is a thing unto itself and has no external concerns.

And I suppose that leads to some people thinking that you shouldn't even really question it (4E), because there's no non-immanent standpoint from which to do so. You either accept it or you don't. Don't like something about the game? Then it isn't for you, etc.

And the inevitable business model repeats itself: churn out a billion products in the hopes that your hardcores buy basically every one, then reboot a few years later and start anew. I think that snake always ends up swallowing its own tail.