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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 8874296" data-attributes="member: 2525">Literally none of these issues matter much in the grand scheme of the sales for D&D (with one exception I mention at the bottom). The extreme overwhelming majority of people who buy D&D stuff don't even know about the OGL, and will never see other games. This is almost entirely a "10% of hardcore older gamers who discuss this stuff online."As an example of what the mass market sees I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday. Their RPG section was almost entirely D&D. The remaining portion was random books intended to play with D&D without being explicitly for D&D, accessories for D&D like dice and stuffies and cards and such, and artbooks. You know how many Pathfinder books were there? One. And I don't mean multiple copies of one, I mean there was literally only one PF book. And it was from 1e, not 2e. There used to be a lot more PF books three years ago, but they're just not carrying them anymore. You know how many other RPG books were there? Zero. Zero books from games other than D&D and that 1 PF 1e book.And it's not like it somehow sold out during Christmas - the entire section was well stocked and full, and it was all D&D. The most stocked thing was the D&D starter set boxes. Same as I've seen every week there for years now.If you look at Target and Walmart and other big box stores, you are likely to similarly see no other RPGs there than D&D. If you look on streaming platforms,  it's the same. The extreme overwhelming majority of views are for people playing D&D or talking about D&D. There is really only one caveat to all of this - Critical Role. If WOTC cannot work out a side license with Critical Role to exempt them from the standard royalties (and I think that's what they will do) then I can see this issue having a meaningful impact on WOTC. But other than that I think this is an issue which is largely not impactful to the extreme overwhelming majority of the marketplace. They probably could entirely shut down 3p licensing other than Critical Role at this point and it probably wouldn't have much impact on their sales, though I think PR wise that wouldn't be a good decision. They're just too huge now - WAY exponentially bigger than 3e/3.5e was. In fact, hugely bigger than the launch years of 5e, which were themselves already bigger than any other D&D sales on record. Brand recognition for D&D is an entity unto itself now.</blockquote>

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