WOTC undecided over OGL/GSL. Why you should care

[Oldtimer]

Why should WOTC give their rules for free to other companies, so they can profit with these rules, unless it somehow benefits WOTC business?
If open gaming does no good for WOTC business, why should they support it?

And, if the moon is made out of cheese, why shouldn't we eat it?

The thing is, it does benefit their business. The scary thing is that Hasbro suits might not see that.

 

[HeinorNY]

The thing is, it does benefit their business. The scary thing is that Hasbro suits might not see that.

I'm not disputing that. I only believe they will simply do what is best for their business. It's a business issue, not a philosophical one. There is no reason to boycott a company that made a decision for its best interests, right?

Anyway, I don't know how M&M or Spycraft benefits WOTC business, but oh well...

 

[JohnRTroy]

The thing is, it does benefit their business. The scary thing is that Hasbro suits might not see that.

Only the company itself (WoTC and Hasbro) can determine if it "benefits their business". They have the profit and loss statements, the market research, etc. It's possible they could make a mistake, and misinterpret the market. We can decide if it sucks from our perspective (the consumer). But you can't make a blanket statement saying it "benefits their business" because you don't have all the internal data needed to make that decision.

Anyway, I don't know how M&M or Spycraft benefits WOTC business, but oh well...

And that the thing I don't get about the OGL praisers. If Wizards didn't have an OGL, whose to say that M&M and Spycraft wouldn't have been created as new games rather than a variation of the OGL. How "innovative" is it to tweak 25% of an existing ruleset rather than coming up with a game from scratch that is not tied down.

I think the OGL actually hurt us because instead of having a heterogenous market with a wider variety we just have a lot of semi-, demi-, quasi-, and psuedo- versions of D&D 3e. Maybe if the license is more restrictive, people will focus on building good games from the ground up and actually create something really innovative.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

That is a fairly big assumption.

QFT.

"Vetting our final policy" means that they're getting the authorization from the people in charge for their final policy. Everything in a big company has to be authorized, especially decisions like this that can have significant impacts on their IP and marketing. I see nothing in their statement suggesting that the higher ups are considering dropping the whole thing entirely. More likely, they've just been quibbling over the legal details for the past few months, now have a final policy drafted, and are just awaiting the go-ahead to make it official.

 

[Kzach]

I have to say, as much as I am liking what I've seen of 4e, if they decided to dump open gaming altogether, it would definitely impact my decision whether to pick up the system or not.

Dumping it would not only adversely affect the industry and all those involved in it, but it would impact the hobby in a negative way. I honestly believe it was the OGL that has been singularly responsible for the major re-uptake and influx of D&D gaming in the last eight years.

Not to mention the fact that most of the best supplements have been from third parties.

 

[xechnao]

Only the company itself (WoTC and Hasbro) can determine if it "benefits their business". They have the profit and loss statements, the market research, etc. It's possible they could make a mistake, and misinterpret the market. We can decide if it sucks from our perspective (the consumer). But you can't make a blanket statement saying it "benefits their business" because you don't have all the internal data needed to make that decision.

Both of you have a point. His point is that not all company business decisions aim to the good of the company -and I am talking about when this is intentional.

 

[xechnao]

I think the OGL actually hurt us because instead of having a heterogenous market with a wider variety we just have a lot of semi-, demi-, quasi-, and psuedo- versions of D&D 3e. Maybe if the license is more restrictive, people will focus on building good games from the ground up and actually create something really innovative.

Yep.

 

[ZappoHisbane]

Just look at how badly things have gone with Paizo. WoTC have basically set themselves up with a nice competitor. Everyone says "it doesn't matter". Well at my local store, 3.5E is still selling like hot cakes and the owner says all his customers are moving over to Paizo.

That statement right there sounds like a good case AGAINST setting up any kind of Open Gaming. Why make the same mistake twice?

 

[SlyFlourish]

What is the law?

One of the things I always considered was that OGL was a simple way of licensing something that people may have already been able to do.

There are only two laws that protect this sort of stuff: copyright and trademark law.

As long as you don't directly reprint material from a book, you can talk all about it, right?

Why couldn't someone make a compatible product without ever even talking about the original?

Considering that the core of d20 is used in 4e, couldn't you just base your material off of the original d20 but using more 4e-style stuff?

As long as I don't reprint material falling under standard copyright law, can't I write something close?

I don't think you can copyright "roll 1d20, add a modifier, match it against a difficulty check".

Maybe I'm wrong. Can someone explain the laws of this to me?

 

[Reaper Steve]

Maybe the announcement of the Pathfinder RPG has caused WotC to have visions of the past. TSR fragmented its own player base through the release of too many competing versions/settings of D&D. The OGL has caused the same with 3.5. Learning lessons from the past, I can see the desire to prevent a similar recurrence with 4E.

Really, it doesn't make much sense at all to let competitors (which is what 3rd party publishers are) have free access to the heart and soul of your product line.

I do agree that the OGL provided from some good game innovations. But plenty of other industries seem to foster strong innovation and competition without just leeching off the dominant provider.