Voadam
Legend
Because the OGL provides good things for WotC, 3rd party publishers, and D&D players.
If it goes away it hurts all three.
Why We Should Work With WotC
- Thread starter FormerLurker
- Start date
If it goes away it hurts all three.
Imaro
Legend
So what benefits would you say WotC is gaining from it... and why would they choose to loose said benefits by revoking it?
Let me turn it around - why did Wizards decide to put out a 5e SRD under the OGL when they didn't have to?
Answer that question and you'll understand the benefit to Wizards that the OGL has been since it was introduced. Because we've been through this dance before where they decided to cut off the OGL for an edition and it was bad enough they had to put the next edition back under it to try to recover from the self inflicted wound.
Voadam
Legend
Other companies and people working to make support products for D&D instead of for other games, more people playing the game, and adding to the D&D zeitgeist.
They want more control over the market and the brand and the products. Apparently they want to say being able to stop any product so they can stop hateful content and conduct is more important to them right now than any costs they are incurring.
mamba
Hero
because while I am perfectly happy with WotC shooting themselves in the foot, I do not think they should be able to shoot everyone else in the foot as well
mamba
Hero
now I do like that animalI don't know, he seems pretty cool.
The announcement of a thing is not the thing itself. The intention has not been made reality.
Not yet, it hasn't. Like, today, WotC cannot walk into a court and sue anyone for using an unauthorized license, because that license hasn't yet been de-authorized.
Indeed, I expect a bunch of 3pp have seen an uptick in sales for the moment, while WotC has likely lost revenue over this. So, those 3pp would have a hard argument that they have taken harm yet.
Risk management is a cost of doing business. Short term, the need to do risk management isn't usually considered direct harm.
In business, harm is usually calculated well after the fact. If, a year from now, Paizo is selling their new ORC-licensed game like gangbusters, raking in the dough, they'd have a hard time making a harm narrative stick.
Imaro
Legend
I believe the owner at the time wanted the game to be in a state where it could be perpetually published, regardless of who owned it... so what was the advantage for WotC?
Also I think it's a gross simplification to claim a particular edition failed because it wasn't OGL when there were so many other factors that contributed to that... just saying.
What's more they're a giant who is using a normal pistol in this scenario.
They have plenty more hit points to absorb that shot than the other folks they're shooting.
Imaro
Legend
Did they need this... even at their worst they have always been the 800ib gorilla in the room.
After the NuTSR kerfuffle as we;ll as the reputation the OSR has... I can empathize with their thoughts, especially when it comes to impacting their brand. You can't claim it adds to the zeitgeist without acknowledging it can also do damage.
The owner at the time was ... Wizards of the Coast. So, you know, the same company that owns it now. D&D hasn't changed hands since they put out the 5e SRD unless I've missed a memo.
No you misread my question to you. It wasn't "do you know why 4e failed to catch on," which has as you say many different answers.
It was specifically "why did Wizards decide to put 5e under the OGL when they didn't have to?"
They clearly thought they benefited from that move. So what was the benefit that they gained?
Here's a hint - it's about "trust".
Vaalingrade
Legend
How many times can someone attempt something and fail to succeed before we start to believe they want to do that thing and respond accordingly?
Four so far, apparently.
We're officially more forgiving than baseball.
Four so far, apparently.
We're officially more forgiving than baseball.
mamba
Hero
Many more sales, because people get attracted to the varied output the 3pps make available to the D&D players.
Reduced competition because the 3pp work towards increasing D&D instead of competing with it (core books at least).
There is some competition like PF, but a lot is creating content for D&D
What is this, economics 101 about the benefits of people working together instead of competing with each other? We figured that one out when we started forming tribes instead of family units…
Imaro
Legend
101, huh... and yet for some reason they feel it's in their best interests not to... I would guess it has to be more nuanced than the above...
The obvious one is that an RPG thrives on having a lot of support, but making those support products is less profitable than selling core books. The OGL arrangement allows 3PPs (with less overhead, and less demands for excessive profit than Wizards has) to make these support products, while still having those products drive PHB sales.
Even the stuff that's more distant from D&D keeps players in D&D's "orbit". A group interested in trying on a science-fiction RPG might be more likely to try out the 5e-based Esper Genesis or the 3e-based Starfinder rather than e.g. the Trinity Continuum or Star Wars with its funky dice, and that means they're more likely to return to D&D afterward. Ryan Dancey even opined that Pathfinder was helpful to Wizards overall, because it acted as a reservoir for dissatisfied D&D players during the days of 4e, leaving them primed to return when 5e was released instead of wandering off to other games or leaving the hobby entirely.
Voadam
Legend
No, the announcement is its own things with its own consequences.
The intention has been partially made reality just by the announcement.
Yes it partially has.
It is now no longer perceived as a safe harbor that the industry can rely upon without legal threat from WotC.
WotC cannot walk into a court and sue yet, but the threat of it comming started as soon as they made the announcement.
No. As everyone likes to crow, you can't control or license the general IDEA. Only the particular expression can be so protected. So, if Sal invented a very specific form of pizza, never seen before, and the dispute were over that specific pizza, then it would be more analogous.
I used the restaurant space analogy because it makes clear what Sal actually controls, without that ambiguity.
Advertisement.
That's literally -why- the OGL was created in the first place. To get 3rd Party Publishers to make D&D-Adjacent content that would drive more sales of the PHB/DMG/MM and other WotC-created content from people who bought the 3rd party book and needed the core rulebooks to use it.
So that people who played with Green Ronin's offerings would enjoy the game that much more, and buy further D&D Merch from the Wizards Online Storefront.
To make D&D an even more dominant force in the TTRPG industry when games like World of Darkness and Shadowrun were really getting started.
Vampire: the Masquerade was getting big enough by the early aughts to release a tie-in branded videogame in 2004. Shadowrun's Third Edition launched in '98 and 4e in 2005.
Heck, other tabletop games that weren't RPGs, strictly speaking, like Warhammer and Warmachine were starting forays into TTRPG territory and the OGL allowed them to make d20-based games which increased D&D's overall system marketshare to keep another "3d6" or "d10 pool" system from rising up and displacing the d20 standard.
And this cultural hegemony that D&D has enjoyed for decades is all built upon the OGL. Even their biggest "Rival", Paizo, keeps people using d20+modifiers rather than creating a new dynamic in the field that moves people away from what is now referred to as "RPG Dice" on storefronts like Amazon.
But the new execs weren't there. Didn't understand the calculus. They just see something keeping them from siphoning off more money and control in the short-term. So they're getting rid of it for short term quarterly gains, unaware of the long term financial benefits of what they're gutting.
And in the process pushed the analogy far enough that it doesn't work in the other direction.
I dunno. Maybe we should use the Sal's Pizzeria analogy to instead do what I wrote about just above this inline quote. Using Sal's name and product as an advertising boon that also directs traffic back to Sal's place. "Buy my special Pizza Cutters and Pizza Plates and Pizza Reheater for use with Sal's Pizza!"
"Not anymore unless you sign over the rights to those things so I can make and sell 'em without giving you royalties!"
"Time to stop using Sal's Pizza as a selling point for my product. Maybe I'll sign on with Luigi's Pizza Plan that allows a buncha pizza places to band together and offer their name for a product..."
"Let's not be too hasty, now! How about I make it okay to use my pizzeria in your advertisements without the royalties and stealing your business, but reserve the right to shut you down at a moment's notice if you put pineapple on your pizza?"
"Nah... think I'm gonna work with Luigi, Sal."
mamba
Hero
well, you are wrong, they just did not take economics 101
Here is the thing, we form societies precisely because it benefits us all, some more, some less, but ultimately we all benefit.
WotC thinks they are the strongest guy with the biggest club, so they can smack everyone over the head and take their stuff and fear no consequences.
Well, the little guys banding together is one of those consequences, and then they take you out and live happily ever after, or at least until someone else tries to pull this off again.
If WotC joins / remains in the community, they are a valued member because they are the big guy with the big stick, so they end up being important, get the bigger hut, and maybe become chieftain. Benefit to everyone… If they turn against the community however, see above
This really is something we solved before the stone age, we just need to keep reinforcing it somehow, because someone always thinks they are strong enough to pull this off
Last edited:
Similar Threads
