--- Brad Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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.
At the risk of sounding obnoxious, I've been using the internet since 1986 and as an old-timer, TSR's online policy did not have any impact on people I knew who played D&D. I'd be curious if there were a direct correlation between that policy and sales. I almost guarentee any sales dips that happened during that time were the result of forces external to the internet. Pre-1994 the internet had an infinitessimal impact on non-computer businesses. > 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. But, by holding the d20 license they can make the hoops you have to jump through smaller and smaller until you just cannot do it any more. The d20 license could suddenly require 100% OGC. That's a subtle change that would make a lot of companies have to rethink their strategy and no one on this list could really complain about it. More vicious, they could charge for the d20 license. Yeah, other licenses would pop up, but that would become fractured in a hurry. Has anyone print published anything with any other open logos yet? > You could be right. But I wasn't talking about the general gaming > public. I mentioned the industry specificly. I was reacting to "Public Relations Nightmare." My point was the public (not the industry) wouldn't even blink at any move to end the d20 license. > 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". Oh, I know. I just couldn't let the PR Nightmare go. No, people on lists like this would be outraged. There'd be "told ya so's" in the rpg.net/pyramid/d20weekly discussion groups. But normal gamers wouldn't really notice. Joe __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
