> Joe Mucchiello > > > > Nearly every d20 work you see these days is derivative of at least > > one of those unreleased files, and so for WotC to back out on it now > > would cause an outrage in the industry that would make the TSR > > online-policy flap of the 1980's look like a picnic. Can you > > say "Public Relations Nightmare?" > > Can you say "Huh?" If I were walk in to dozens of gaming stores and > say, "Man, Wizards of the Coast really turned around that TSR > online-policy debacle." I would be shocked if 5% of the people who > heard me had any idea what the old TSR online-policy was.
It was a big deal at the time. It cost them sales, it opened cracks for other games to get into people's minds and onto their gaming tables. Just because folks don't remember it doesn't mean it isn't an invalid comparison. > Likewise, if Wizards were to suddenly terminate its d20 license and > halt the release of the SRD. Those same people in the stores would be > saying, "Hey, have you noticed how few books come out by those other > companies for D&D." And someone would reply, "Yeah, Wizards cracked > down on them." "Bummer." That isn't quite what I meant. Where you have a business model, you have investment. Where you have investment, you have a desire to protect that investment - thru legal action if necessary. IF they were to turn off the entire d20 project by cancelling release of the material under the gentleman's agreement, then it would create quite a financial incentive for all those companies based on it to try to convince WotC that doing so is not in their best interest. Actions could range anywhere from the start-up of a rival system to a suit brought by (and funded by) a coalition of companies. I'm not saying that WOULD happen, just that it COULD happen. Such a risk must be factored into the cost/benefit analysis of cancelling the project. > I think you over-estimate how much people really understand the d20 > licensing issues. Yeah, on these lists and on the savvy web-boards > there would be outrage. But people on those boards are hardcore gamers. > They aren't going to stop playing D&D. Casual players don't go to those > websites. I am the only one who even knows places like rpg.net and > enworld.org even exist among my circle of players. Half of them don't > even know about wizards.com. You could be right. But I wasn't talking about the general gaming public. I mentioned the industry specificly. The d20 experiment has done a couple of things for the gaming public that might not be in WotC's interest to end. First, it brought a whole bunch of new blood to the industry by giving small companies a chance. Some will not go back to what they were doing before, and will instead produce competing products that further fractionalize the industry. Second, it has given consumers a taste of products from other companies, which gives those companies a leg-up in capitalizing on their brand value. Normally such things don't matter when companies are competing against each other, but if Ryan was correct about the Network of Externalities effect then it would certainly have a negative impact on the industry as a whole. This too must be factored in to cancelling the experiment. Finally, don't read too much into what I'm blathering about. It was all in response to "is it safe to use the unreleased OGC", and in reply I essentialy said "it's safe enough for the rest of us". -Brad _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
