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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 8911376" data-attributes="member: 6680772">Well, yes and no. The thing with open source/open licenses is that they assume duplication. That's kind of the whole point, and why commercial enterprises generally don't release their products like Wizards did. If you're a commercial company dealing with open source, what you're selling are the ancillaries that add value to your distribution. Wizards (Dancey) assumed that no one would compete with them by duplicating the rules because no one would be able to compete with their trade dress and brand recognition. Which is true insofar as that goes, but that is reliant on D&D staying in the open market. If Wizards is no longer selling and supporting a particular iteration of the rules, then 3rd party duplicates of that iteration suddenly increase in value. (OTOH, Dancey was right in as much as Wizards could switch over to a completely new and even controversial system, and still maintain its top dog status.)I think this is a key point to understanding why Wizards is so concerned about VTTs. Because trade dress and brand recognition don't mean as much in that realm. If Group A has their D&D books, and Group B has their D&D-clone books, their home game experience is essentially the same, and the question is what motivates them to buy which is answered by who has the better distribution, marketing, and branding. Which is probably going to be D&D. But if we're talking VTTs, then while the rules remain the same, the experience becomes wildly different, and Wizards inherent advantages are not so salient.</blockquote>

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