Breaking format just a little, Episode 02 of The Digital Front brings you the OGL/d20 Panel held by Wizards of the Coast at Gen Con.
This panel was held Friday, August 17, at 6:00 pm, immediately after the closing of the Exhibit Hall, meaning a lot of publishers were either not present or arrived late. The panel, hosted by Scott Rouse and Bill Slavicek, was meant to discuss the issue of the OGL and d20 Licenses under the newly-announced 4th Edition D&D, though it was more of a townhall meeting as WotC admitted they did not have a clear idea yet and wanted to hear opinions.
The audio file is long, almost an hour and a half, but given the small amount of publishers that made it, we thought it a good idea to distribute the recording as widely as possible. Special thanks go to Zachry Ashmore of The Groovecast podcast for recording the panel as a favor to Daniel.
Please feel free to discuss this episode on our forums or call our voicemail line at 206-350-4441.
The Digital Front Episode 02 - OGL/d20 Panel at Gen Con [98:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
September 21st, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Thanks for this show, it was very interesting. I found it intriguing that some of the folks who have been most rewarded by the very open market WotC created with third edition are the first ones to try to advocate various things that close markets, like setting up gatekeepers, or adding a charge to get the mark of saleability. I think wizards while perhaps well intentioned isn’t examining this issue well. They obviously feel the previous set up helped them financially or they wouldn’t be sticking with the open license. Trying to add controls for quality is just not understanding what drives a free market. In a free market, the market decides. Cost of entry is low, so the consumer has to consider their purchases. The stores that survived the order everything phase after 2000 are not going to repeat their mistake, I think that all these ideas are to fix something that isn’t broken.
Now if they wanted to have some kind of “these are good products” without oversight, they should create a Gleemax mark and use it in a similar way the Origins awards are placed on products, but let the users choose the products.
I think what would be an interesting discussion is why did the mark become devalued, is it because there was a glut of material, or is it because their trademark requires a more restrictive license, thereby reducing the creative things that can be done with it?
Also Daniel could you email me by taking “theory from the closet” squishing all the words together and appending an at gmail dot com? I want to talk to you about doing a future show with me.
-Clyde
September 25th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Clyde, thanks a lot for your comments; they are really good and bring up some great points. If you don’t mind, I’m going to move them into the forums for a more thorough discussion. You can find the post and the rest of the conversation here:
http://thedigitalfront.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=32#32