Your Bet on Licensing

[Garnfellow]

The situation has, over the last eight months, gone from a speedbump, to a head-scratcher, to an annoyance, to a serious holdup, and now, to a colossal goat@%#[.

I find it impossible to believe that Wizards would have purposefully engineered this situation -- I'm sure this is all just a perfect storm of several stupid and unfortunate things. But on the other hand, I don't think one could have intentionally screwed this up as badly as has been done so far.

At this point, it really would have been better for all involved had Wizards said last GenCon "We are still uncertain about the OGL and 4th edition, and don't expect to have an answer until after the launch," or even "4e will be closed, period."

Leaving everything up in the air for so long is just crap.

 

[Orcus]

The situation has, over the last eight months, gone from a speedbump, to a head-scratcher, to an annoyance, to a serious holdup, and now, to a colossal goat@%#[.

I find it impossible to believe that Wizards would have purposefully engineered this situation -- I'm sure this is all just a perfect storm of several stupid and unfortunate things. But on the other hand, I don't think one could have intentionally screwed this up as badly as has been done so far.

At this point, it really would have been better for all involved had Wizards said last GenCon "We are still uncertain about the OGL and 4th edition, and don't expect to have an answer until after the launch," or even "4e will be closed, period."

Leaving everything up in the air for so long is just crap.

I basically agree. I dont think anyone could call this mess the result of an intentional plan or purposeful engineering.

And while it is less than ideal--heck in part they created a competitor in Paizo that they didnt need to--I still think the voices of openness and support for third party products will carry the day. It just makes too much sense. But then again, the way things have been handled dont make any sense. Like I said, I took Silly Optimist as a prestige class...

Clark

 

[Ranger REG]

Maybe because they ran into a major roadblock ... in the form of parent company Hasbro.

If it wasn't on purpose, then at the risk of being flamed, is it incompetence?

 

[Garnfellow]

Maybe because they ran into a major roadblock ... in the form of parent company Hasbro.

If it wasn't on purpose, then at the risk of being flamed, is it incompetence?

I suspect there are probably at least two factors at work:

Key Decision Makers at WotC Didn't Fully Understand the OGL. Maybe you could call this incompetence, but that seems a little harsh. In the afterglow of the GenCon announcement, most people overlooked that the WotC reps seemed to occasionally confuse basic terms like SRD, OGL, and the d20 STL. These are rookie mistakes, but in the feel-good vibe of the moment, not many people called attention to these gaffes.

In retrospect, I have to wonder if these confusions were symptomatic of a more general misunderstanding. Perhaps some "Key Decision Makers" mistakenly thought it would be very easy to just tweak the OGL a little and Ta-Da!: a much more closed version. When the lawyers were finally let loose on this task (probably in the early fall of 2007), they reported what we've basically figured out ourselves: it would be very hard to build in additional restrictions to the OGL. Hence the abrupt shift to the "GSL," a new license altogether.

There is a Struggle within WotC Regarding Open Gaming. We've always known that the OGL and the theories behind open gaming have been somewhat controversial within WotC. And we also know that most (all?) of the "old guard" OGL advocates have left WotC. Presumably these departures were followed by a shift of the corporate vision away from open gaming. The SRD, for instance, hasn't been updated since, what? 2004 -- four years ago.

But at the same time, there has also been an infusion of talented former freelancers who cut their eyeteeth writing OGL and d20 material for third parties. And I would expect these folks would see value in the OGL and would speak up for it.

So there's plenty of reason to think that there is enough diversity of opinion within WotC that the fate of the OGL/GSL has been subject to a pretty rigorous internal debate.

If you take these two factors into account, and add in the fact that WotC is probably very busy getting 4e out the door, and if you assume typical corporate inertia, then it's not so hard to imagine how the OGL question might have been pushed and pulled and deferred over and over again.

(Which doesn't mean this situation is right or even excusable. Just that it's understandable. There's no need to conclude "WizBro is teh Stupid" or "Wi$ards are being evil!")

 

[Delta]

Great post, GF.

... most people overlooked that the WotC reps seemed to occasionally confuse basic terms like SRD, OGL, and the d20 STL. These are rookie mistakes, but in the feel-good vibe of the moment, not many people called attention to these gaffes.

Very true about the reps routinely confusing basic terms. Even outside of particular feel-good moments, I think that most hobbyists want to be having fun and not debating legal details with WOTC spokespeople (who we also know are not the ones making the decisions, just voicing them to the community).

 

[DaveMage]

It's like being on the phone with tech support and listening to hold music...

"Your call is important to us."

 

[xechnao]

There is a Struggle within WotC Regarding Open Gaming. We've always known that the OGL and the theories behind open gaming have been somewhat controversial within WotC. And we also know that most (all?) of the "old guard" OGL advocates have left WotC. Presumably these departures were followed by a shift of the corporate vision away from open gaming. The SRD, for instance, hasn't been updated since, what? 2004 -- four years ago.

But at the same time, there has also been an infusion of talented former freelancers who cut their eyeteeth writing OGL and d20 material for third parties. And I would expect these folks would see value in the OGL and would speak up for it.

So there's plenty of reason to think that there is enough diversity of opinion within WotC that the fate of the OGL/GSL has been subject to a pretty rigorous internal debate.

If you take these two factors into account, and add in the fact that WotC is probably very busy getting 4e out the door, and if you assume typical corporate inertia, then it's not so hard to imagine how the OGL question might have been pushed and pulled and deferred over and over again.

(Which doesn't mean this situation is right or even excusable. Just that it's understandable. There's no need to conclude "WizBro is teh Stupid" or "Wi$ards are being evil!")

Is this how large companies work? Isn't there a council to make decisions on timetables for the reason to avoid this sort of time-consuming internal debates?

 

[Delta]

Is this how large companies work? Isn't there a council to make decisions on timetables for the reason to avoid this sort of time-consuming internal debates?

Yes, that's absolutely how large companies work. (Speaking from experience in multiple computer game companies.)

In theory, a number of people should be signing off on planning decisions. Sometimes these people might be backstabbing and sabotoging each other's decisions in order to get ahead.

More important for the current case is that WOTC has a new president. Whenever a new chief executive comes in, all prior decisions are off the table. He can step in and reverse everything if he so chooses, and will frequently want to do so to demonstrate who's in charge.

I've seen it happen more than once from the inside. The larger the company, the more likely this is to happen.

 

[xechnao]

I am confused. Are you arguing that large companies lose time or cut time on decisions?

More important for the current case is that WOTC has a new president. Whenever a new chief executive comes in, all prior decisions are off the table. He can step in and reverse everything if he so chooses, and will frequently want to do so to demonstrate who's in charge.

Even more important that they have been losing time and they were flip-floping before they got this new president. So I guess whatever has been happening it is not because of what you are talking about here.

 

[Garnfellow]

Is this how large companies work? Isn't there a council to make decisions on timetables for the reason to avoid this sort of time-consuming internal debates?

Yeah, this is how large companies work. Those large companies also revise their timetables every day of the week.

Particularly with something like third party support, which to Wizards is neither a critical function nor a core service -- meaning it is probably very low on everyone's priority list. If anyone within Wizards is championing third party support, they're probably doing it largely on their own initiative. It's really easy to see something like this get stuck in corporate horse latitudes.