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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5531842" data-attributes="member: 82106">1) We don't know how much it would hurt them. They know how much or little OGL content in 3.x hurt them, so they're the ones with the information to make a decision. I would however point out that PF is certainly OGL collateral damage caused to WotC. Losing control of a rather valuable product (effectively) is not good business.2) Not everyone is THAT enamored with 3PPs. Beyond that 3PPs can already produce settings and adventures and accessories of all kinds under the GSL without a problem. I've played D&D for 35 years and probably 97% of my purchases have been from TSR/WotC for rules stuff. 3) Well, what is a 'new system'? That's really semantics. Under GSL I can create all kinds of new mechanics as long as I don't redefine existing ones. DEM has a whole setting that is virtually a stand-alone game aside from the obligatory references to PHB content for core rules. Seems like under GSL they basically have what your talking about.4) I play a fair amount of RPGs and know a fair number of players of all stripes from hardcore to totally casual. 99% of them don't know what GSL or OGL are and don't care. It may or may not be important for 'developer mind share', but to the bulk of the community at large this whole issue that is argued so vociferously by the 1% of gamers that are on these forums is irrelevant. They just want to sit down, have some chips and slay monsters.5) They are never going to open up CB and MB for reasons that are largely technical and financial. Certainly not in any future that is likely within the lifecycle of 4e. So this is basically irrelevant.6) Why? It is fine to put these hypotheticals out there, but lets think about this. RC is a $15 book. What's the best they can achieve with that, a $15 book in every gamer's hands. That's nice, but I think they aim for a bit more than that... They want to be able to sell you 10 books. I mean think about, PHB1 is in the hands of practically all 4e players already. On top of that many have other books. Why cede that space to 3rd parties? Honestly, it isn't like I'm at all hostile to the basic "open source commons" kind of concept where everyone is better off if they all share. The question is can that exist in the RPG industry? Is it really better for the industry if everyone is a big happy family and will they all sell more stuff? I'm not really convinced it is.In the IT field there is a vast amount of 'stuff' that people need to do that is the same over and over and over again. Nobody is interested in novelty at the level of the inner guts of software and IT systems. Also each system has increased value when they can interoperate with more other systems. This all encourages sharing. Most of what differentiates one product from another is at the surface layer or is one specific module of technology that has to still fit in with a lot of other vanilla stuff. A commons approach makes a huge amount of sense in this environment.In the RPG game publishing industry the situation is totally different. Customers are looking for novel gaming experiences, or they're looking to continue their existing gaming experiences. If the former then building new stuff on top of existing stuff is mostly just reducing novelty. In the later case why would you want to have your product be open? If you can be the sole supplier of a particular gaming experience that people want to have, that's the way to make money. Games really are not that super hard to develop or write. Not compared to software. Systems can be created in short order, tested, reworked, etc. You can easily steal ideas from other people etc. All of it is going to be boiled down into your particular unique game before it goes out there anyway. Sure, having a d20 system is somewhat handy, but the truth is most games are better off with more genre-specific core systems anyway.Look at the slew of games that were ported to d20. Very few of them had really successful d20 variants. Most were worse games for being ported. The majority of them have either written new core systems or gone back to their original core rules since. The games that people really talk about now? Very few of them are d20 based. The truth is there just isn't that much reason for a talented game design team to base an RPG on d20 unless that type of system is exactly what the game really needs. There's not that much advantage to having systems able to cross material either. You just rarely see someone saying "wow, being able to drop a starship into my wire-fu themed campaign is great!" It could be handy now and then, but the vast majority of the time players are fine with sticking to a genre and reuse of out-of-genre material isn't that strong a draw. For that subset of gamers who DO feel it is a big advantage, there's always GURPS...I guess I'm just not overall terribly convinced that OGL was a great idea and that 4e needs to be covered by it. Ironically one of the main strengths 4e has over PF is that Paizo is involuntarily wedded to OGL forever no matter what. WotC could drop their stuff into any license they want tomorrow. I don't think they're going to give up that advantage anytime soon, even if it could generate a little extra profit.</blockquote>

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