Effects of the GSL on the industry

One of the interesting clauses of the GSL (Game System License) is that you can't sell the same product under the OGL and the GSL at the same time. But looking at it a little deeper, apparently you can't even sell products under the same product line trademark.

I bring this up because Goodman Games is, if I read the announcement right, planning to stop selling the existing "Dungeon Crawl Classics" modules so they presumably can use that trademark on a 4E/GSL-compatible line of modules.

And that's messed up. I think they're all available in print products, but consider if they were only available in PDF, like many OGL products are. To simply continue your line of products under the same trademark, you have to quit selling the OGL products. And the typical purchase agreement on PDFs says you cannot transfer the rights to the PDF to a third party. So suddenly, all of these PDFs go "out of print" and there is no legal way to obtain a copy.

The idea that PDF never has to go out of print is named as one of its greatest strengths... it costs almost nothing to keep it in a publisher's catalog. But then along comes Wizards saying, "Oh, no... if you want to keep that well-recognized trademark name, you're going to have to ditch all your old product.

While folks switching from 3E to 4E might not care, I'm the type of person who buys adventures just to mine them for ideas, maps and art. It doesn't bother me that I don't even play the game in question, let alone the right edition. It bothers me that, in this digital age of digital products, a whole slew of products are being "forced" out of availability by the 800-pound gorilla. Just because they can.

Wizards wants 3E to go quietly into the night. But will it? I'm afraid it's going to create a split, with Paizo's Pathfinder RPG and other invested 3E publishers keeping 3E alive, as Wizards and other publishers go off in this other direction.

But I think Wizards is going to win... they have the big budget, the pretty games, the weight of being the "official" game. And I think they may have a game that's more fun to play than 3E. Paizo's attempt to keep 3E alive may backfire on them.

Maybe Goodman's got it right... don't take a risk on keeping 3E alive, stick with Wizards, because 4E isn't going to be a failure.

Still sucks that so much material is going to "disappear" just because Wizards wants it to.