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But the truth is most of the money is going to be made from the DM anyways (80/20 rule) - 80% of the material bought by 20% of the users - and the DM is almost always in that 20%. With that being the case, if they have a large number of DMs (and it seems they do) it is quite likely that they'll continue to do well.I don't believe this to be the case at all. Perhaps for casual players, but many DMs don't buy adventures, and those are for DMs only.. or did you forget WHY Wizards stopped making adventures for a long while? Wizards tried to do Forgotten Realms adventures, guess what happened, no one bought them.
How many 3.5 hardcovers came out that didn't have Monster Manual or Expedition in the title that were geared for DMs?
One.
Magic Item Compendium, and I know plenty of players that bought that.
There is another reason that no one bought adventures from WotC, most of them sucked. Paizo made better adventures, at a consistant rate, for a lower price than WOTC, even when Wizards tried to get back into making adventures.
Healer beat me to the punch.
Dungeon magazine was geared almost totally towards DMs. And I hear that didn't do too bad.
Rumor has it a lot of old Dungeon fans are now Pathfinder fans.
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There is another reason that no one bought adventures from WotC, most of them sucked. Paizo made better adventures, at a consistant rate, for a lower price than WOTC, even when Wizards tried to get back into making adventures.
Umm no.
It'd be easy to blame it on Paizo, but they didn't take over the magazines until the end of 2002. City of the Spider-Queen, their first and last big adventure, sold so poorly it was the final nail in the coffin for WOTC adventures before or just as Paizo was taking over (it's also the only true Realms adventure they made that had nothing to do with Spell Plague and 4e.)
2002 marked the end of WOTC for 3 or 4 years, can't blame Paizo for this.
Probably also would have helped if instead of making a massive adventure for 10th level characters that was tied into a novel series that wasn't going to be over for quite a while yet, they had made a few lower level, cheaper adventures that let PCs do more "D&Dish" things in tried and true areas like Cormyr and the Dalelands, or even Waterdeep and Silverymoon.
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True enough, but it still sold terrible.
Simple fact is, they're DM products and they didn't sell in a time where people were buying anything and everything related to D&D and D20. WOTC was the only company that couldn't make money off the rush.
Anyway, the point is, roleplaying games aren't a DM's market. We're in the age where people spend more on their hobbies. This is a result of the video game and ccg culture that most of us have grown up in. Perhaps back in the AD&D days players didn't buy everything, or buy books just because they were cool, but today, gamers spend more on their hobbies.
I still don't agree.
Mega-adventures sold poorly because we had passed into an age where DMs either made adventures themselves, got them cheaper from Dungeon, or downloaded them offline for free (I remember when I started playing in highschool, I went online and had no trouble finding 5 or 6 .pdf candidates for my 4th level party's next adventure).
Not because DMs didn't buy products.
I was a really cheap DM, I never even bought a Player's Handbook because I could just use the SRD, and I still bought just a little bit more than the rest of my group put together.
Players grab books that grab their attention (one player bought Book of Vile Darkness just because he thought the 18+ only sticker was funny, while another had a nasty habbit of buying any book that had a sweet equipment list), but it is most often DMs who really build 'gaming libraries'.
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Mega-adventures sold poorly because we had passed into an age where DMs either made adventures themselves, got them cheaper from Dragon, or downloaded them offline for free (I remember when I started playing in highschool, I went online and had no trouble finding 5 or 6 .pdf candidates for my 4th level party's next adventure).
What Mega adventures? 2000 and 2001 there were tones of D20 product coming out and people were buying them like crazy. There were no mega adventures, they were 20-25 page adventures, black & white, cheap as can be, softcover nothings. And WOTC couldn't get people to buy them.
There were no downloads yet, legal or illegal (unless it was AD&D.) Third party or first party.
My friend, we're talking about D&D 3.0, not 3.5. Wizards stopped publishing adventures before they stopped publishing 3.0 books.
The time you're thinking of (clearly based on your PDF comments) is 3.5, the standard was set before you remember.
Anyway, the point is, roleplaying games aren't a DM's market. We're in the age where people spend more on their hobbies. This is a result of the video game and ccg culture that most of us have grown up in. Perhaps back in the AD&D days players didn't buy everything, or buy books just because they were cool, but today, gamers spend more on their hobbies.
One of the reasons that people spend more on their hobbies now is that the average gamer is now an adult, with a full time job and a real paycheck. If you're worried about recruiting the new generation, which ANY company that wants to survive has to worry about, then you need to consider how things work for a group of 16 year olds with part-time jobs. In that group, the DM is either the biggest customer, or they take up collections, since the group can't afford 5 copies of each book.
My friend, we're talking about D&D 3.0, not 3.5. Wizards stopped publishing adventures before they stopped publishing 3.0 books.
The time you're thinking of (clearly based on your PDF comments) is 3.5, the standard was set before you remember.
I was actually talking about around 2001-2002 (you mentioned that date in an earlier post; I happen to remember that as my sophmore year and when I really got into D&D).
I'm not sure what was for sale then (my meagar fundage was still going mostly towards Gamecube games at that point), but I do know that there were a ton of free adventures to be found online, organized by level in a couple handy databases. A lot of them were still text docs at that point but many were PDFs as well.
I dont consider MIC a DM product.
In 1e/2e, the Encyclopedia Magica series was DEFINITELY a DM-only product as only DMs could determine what magic items a PC could have.
Pos 2E?
Nope, MIC is firmly an all player product.
The PCs use it when generating characters and when using creation feats (if they've taken them). DMs use it when planning every encounter and whenever the PCs return to town to re-equip.
That's my take at least. The balance of power over item availability varies a lot from group to group.
By RAW, PCs can buy any magic item they can afford.
No, not really. D&D doesn't have a built-in djinnni vendor who pops up whenever the PCs want to buy something. At the very least, they have to find someone locally who's selling what they want, or else set out for the Big City.
This is very open to interpretation, mind, but all the DMG says is that all the items in the DMG (i.e, not every item ever concieved) up to a certian GP limit are usually available somewhere within any city, with that GP limit correlating to the city's size.
Now, I'm one of those DMs who decides in advance what is available in any given magic shop, sometimes exceeding the limit by city-size based on what magics are regionally most common, and occassionally having the shopkeeper haggle or even just dislike the PCs and ask them to leave. This is extreme, but it's something the DMG gives me full license to do.
On the other end of the spectrem you have the groups who just walk into a city and come out with whatever it was the players were looking for, as long as it falls within the city's price range. This strikes me as bizzar from a worldbuilding perspective (why must every sufficiently sized city have a +5 keen flaming thundering guissarme kicking around in plane sight?), but again, well within the bounds of the RAW.
This is what I ment when I said that the balance of control varies from group to group.
I'm actually going to look at 4E Realms because of the changes. I thought FR was a mess previously. Just goes to show, no matter what gaming companies do they're going to irritate a certain number of people :)
It was a mess because of two things: the Realms-Shattering Event of the Week approach, and the NPCs are Powerful, Cool, and Central vibe. Both were driven by the novel business (see the Horde trilogy).
Now, what are they doing? The Biggest Realms-Shattering Event Ever (but which Elminster and Drizzt both survive), and a product schedule that's going have more novels than game products.
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Marketing didn't miss deadlines, marketing didn't flip flop on the whole GSL/ OGL issue for over 18 months, marketing didn't put silly one size fits all pricing on the DDi, nor did marketing put together a bunch of tools for the DDi that are as appealing as a goblin roomate. The extended 'preview' of DDI and the death of Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine cannot be laid at the feat of the marketing department. Eliminating 2 core races and multiple core classes was not a call by marketing either.
Fair point. My issue was that it seemed underfunded and really dependent on a viral element that it could not control. When it did deploy people to build buzz, they were far from convincing.
To get back to the original topic, the question as to whether the PRPG can survive after the OGL goes AWOL. I guess this will remain to be seen. I'm not too comforted by the fact that the game will continue on in a "Living City" type of campaign, as these have always had a tendency to die out in the past. So hopefully that doesn't happen.
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Probably also would have helped if instead of making a massive adventure for 10th level characters that was tied into a novel series that wasn't going to be over for quite a while yet, they had made a few lower level, cheaper adventures that let PCs do more "D&Dish" things in tried and true areas like Cormyr and the Dalelands, or even Waterdeep and Silverymoon.
Very true! And to think the opportunities they missed with choosing odd and exotic regions for most accessories (except the Silver Marches). Most DMs I know run campaigns in Cormyr, the Dalelands or the Western Heartlands -- none of which got a region book even if the fans asked Rich Baker many times why WoTC ignored the demands of its customers.
Speaking from a personal experience, even my Alpha playtest campaign is set in Cormyr and I would have loved to have more "updated" 3E info on the Forest Kingdom.
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To get back to the original topic, the question as to whether the PRPG can survive after the OGL goes AWOL. I guess this will remain to be seen. I'm not too comforted by the fact that the game will continue on in a "Living City" type of campaign, as these have always had a tendency to die out in the past. So hopefully that doesn't happen.
I believe the survival of the Pathfinder Society is going to depend on 3 factors:
1) Grass Roots efforts by the base. If we can build a network of players to make the characters portable. (Like Living Greyhawk)
2) Great Adventures make it so engaging that the buzz at cons (especially local cons)is the great new PFS mod
3) Create reasons for people to go to cons (Premieres, Specials, ect.)This will allow people to recruit new players
If the Pathfinder Society survives than the PRPG is sure to.
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Very true! And to think the opportunities they missed with choosing odd and exotic regions for most accessories (except the Silver Marches). Most DMs I know run campaigns in Cormyr, the Dalelands or the Western Heartlands -- none of which got a region book even if the fans asked Rich Baker many times why WoTC ignored the demands of its customers.
I'd say the North is more popular then Heartlands.. but that's just me. :)
I think after the mistakes of in the Silver Marches supplement WOTC decided they'd do areas they could take less heat for making mistakes with.
As I see it, pathfinder is an alternate d20 game, like Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes or others, but not a remake of 3.5e.
It's probably recieving a lot more attention than the mentioned ones, but to me it doesn't seem significantly different, so I also don't think it will ever be as popular as "Still playing 3.5e".
As I see it, pathfinder is an alternate d20 game, like Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes or others, but not a remake of 3.5e.
It's probably recieving a lot more attention than the mentioned ones, but to me it doesn't seem significantly different, so I also don't think it will ever be as popular as "Still playing 3.5e".
I agree, although I think it might end up being more popular than Arcana Evolved.
Ideally the Pathfinder RPG should be similar enough to still sell adventure paths to the "still playing 3.5e" crowd, though.
Sure, Pathfinder adventures are something completely different. I just have to restat the NPCs and it's a perfect 3.5e adventure.
And I'll surely will get the Pathfinder Beta and make use of great parts of it, but it won't replace my PHB when I already like my PHB.
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As for the SRD Monster Conversion, It is being worked on over at the Pathfinder RPG Yahoo group:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/pathfinder_rpg_group
Check it out. We are 66 strong and growing.
Make that 78-strong. I just joined and the group continues to grow.
Anyway, do you guys think there is any contingency plan at Paizo to make a switch of Pathfinder to D&D 4th Edition when the gaming tides change? I mean, once Pathfinder RPG's proverbial "honeymoon" is over and play and sales take their precipitous drop (and they've made their money off of you and me), will Paizo move Pathfinder to 4th Edition and bring its work under the Necromancer moniker back?
Don (Greyson)
I believe the survival of the Pathfinder Society is going to depend on 3 factors:1) Grass Roots efforts by the base. If we can build a network of players to make the characters portable. (Like Living Greyhawk)
2) Great Adventures make it so engaging that the buzz at cons (especially local cons)is the great new PFS mod
3) Create reasons for people to go to cons (Premieres, Specials, ect.)This will allow people to recruit new players
If the Pathfinder Society survives than the PRPG is sure to.
1) This will remain to be seen, as the current fan base will be a lot smaller now that 4E is out, and its inevitable that some people will switch.
2) I don't think the adventures will be a factor, as you can use essentially any version of D&D to play them. 3.5 and PRPG obviously will work, but so will 4E, and probably even 1E or 2E, but don't quote me on that. The adventures are awesome, but I don't think they will make people play the PRPG necessarily.
3) I've never been to a "con" or "fest", and I never plan on attending one, as the cost is not justifiable to me (living in Canada and such).
So the risk is there, and its a big gamble by Paizo. But even if it doesn't pan out, they can still fall back on their Pathfinder adventures, chronicles, and Gamemastery products.
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I always thought that the reason they couldn't sell the adventures from wotc was the asking price. I mean I was completely willing to buy an adventure for 10$, but wotc wanted 20$ for an adventure, and all you got was an adventure you could blow through in an afternoon or two and a fold out map woopideedoo. with paizo I don't just get an adventure, I get information on a setting an ever growing bestiary, and more.
By RAW, PCs can buy any magic item they can afford.
No, not really. D&D doesn't have a built-in djinnni vendor who pops up whenever the PCs want to buy something. At the very least, they have to find someone locally who's selling what they want, or else set out for the Big City.
This is very open to interpretation, mind, but all the DMG says is that all the items in the DMG (i.e, not every item ever concieved) up to a certian GP limit are usually available somewhere within any city, with that GP limit correlating to the city's size.
So the availability depends more on your location than on your level. In fact, when we talk about buying stuff, it depends solely on your location. If you do a campaign in, say, Absolom, Stuff like Tome of Whatever The +5 Inherent Int Thing Is Called, is basically available from day one.
(why must every sufficiently sized city have a +5 keen flaming thundering guissarme kicking around in plane sight?)
My take is that general, standard stuff is usually available if it falls into the price range. That means Stuff like all the most popular weapons with bonuses from +1 to +5, and some popular variants (keen scimitars are a sure seller).
Special stuff is only available with great luck or by bespoke craftsmen.
Personally, I disagree with the idea that sellings things to the DMs are a good avenue....there's always more players than DMs.
That's true. But the DMs tend to be the more dedicated buyers. A DM is a lot less likely to be a casual roleplayer. And there's stuff like adventures, of course: Things only the DM is supposed to buy in the first place.
I don't know whether the 80/20 rule applies here, or whether on average, the DM "outbuys" all his players, but I do think that DMs on average spend a lot more than players on average.
I can't give you any good numbers to back it up, but from what I've seen, it's like that: The more dedicated roleplayers will very often end up behind the screen. If you've got more than one serious buyer of RPG related material, there are probably more than one DM in that roleplaying group.
The people who don't want to invest too much time into the game, especially away from the table and game nights, are usually the same who don't want to invest too much money.
Anyway, do you guys think there is any contingency plan at Paizo to make a switch of Pathfinder to D&D 4th Edition when the gaming tides change? I mean, once Pathfinder RPG's proverbial "honeymoon" is over and play and sales take their precipitous drop (and they've made their money off of you and me), will Paizo move Pathfinder to 4th Edition and bring its work under the Necromancer moniker back?
Don (Greyson)
I doubt it. I doubt that the game will not meet their expectations (in fact, I'd sooner believe that it will exceed them) to begin with.
If we vote with our dollars (or other, more valuable currencies) we can make Pathfinder a success. Table-top gamers have always been a niche crowd, considered by many to be geeky. I LIKE being geeky. However, now I can have a side order of subversive, anti- big business coolness with my platter of D&D geekiness.
I will have fond memories of WotC, but they burned me too often. I was mad at having to upgrade to 3.5, but at least it was an improvement. But taking Dragon Magazine away and this 4ed fiasco is something I cannot forgive.
I'm voting for change. Paizo is a great company that deserves to survive.
Ditto 'homes.
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I think PfRPG is going to be far more survivable than many think.
While 4E is the Hot New Thing at the moment, it has still has to pass the test of time. Additionally, WOTC has never answered a fundamental question about 4E: "What makes 4E so much better that I should switch?"
Additionally, the GSL, as it is written now, is so overwhelming weighted to WOTC and against 3PPs that anyone signing the GSL is excercising such poor business judgement that they probably won't last for long anyway.
I personally believe that if the 3PP community comes together and supports the PfRPG they will all prosper. At the least then, PfRPG will be a viable alternate system.
Regardless of the choices the 3PP community makes, Paizo produces such high quality material that there will always be a market for their products (as long as they maintain the quality). Other game companies made good games, but often failed to support them with quality products. That is the key to succeeding.
What Dancey was talking about, market fragmentation will occur.
Personally, I'm one of the few it seems that agrees with WOTC. I'm not exactly sure how things like True20 and Conan were GOOD for WOTC. As a publicly traded company, there are actually federal crimes for devaluing the stock of a company and allowing companies to produce material derived from their own work yet not receiving compensation IS devaluing their stock.
The OGL has already been published and it's irrevocable, so there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. Similarly, I'm sure that Hasbro wouldn't mind owning exclusive rights to parcheesi. They don't, but that doesn't stop them from selling copies of "Sorry!" and "Trouble" anyways.
I dont consider MIC a DM product.
In 1e/2e, the Encyclopedia Magica series was DEFINITELY a DM-only product as only DMs could determine what magic items a PC could have.
Pos 2E?
Nope, MIC is firmly an all player product.
I'm sorry, but that's not true at all.
As the DM of my group, I use that book far more often then my players do. They each have one character to worry about. I have a rotating cast, and utilize the NPC item equip rules in that book on a consistant basis.
-Steve
Which STILL doesn't answer the question.
How was the OGL good for WOTC when it produced things like True20 and Conan?
I don't think it particularly helped or hurt; I think the (somewhat) hurtful part for Wotc was rewriting 3.5 completely rather than issuing 3.75 (or whatever). But I could be wrong.
Was someone claiming that True20 and Conan were beneficial for WotC?
Call me cold-hearted, but their PR-department needs to be fired. I'm sure 4e could have been promoted without antagonising lots of people. I'm sure that cost them more than a few customers.I don't want to side track this whole conversation... personally the problems didn't stem from marketing. Marketing did a decent job. Marketing is the guys who put together "Rawr, I'm a monster". Love it or hate it it's a very effective little movie/ advert.
Marketing didn't miss deadlines, marketing didn't flip flop on the whole GSL/ OGL issue for over 18 months, marketing didn't put silly one size fits all pricing on the DDi, nor did marketing put together a bunch of tools for the DDi that are as appealing as a goblin roomate. The extended 'preview' of DDI and the death of Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine cannot be laid at the feat of the marketing department. Eliminating 2 core races and multiple core classes was not a call by marketing either.
In general, there were a lot of screw ups... but contrast to the rest of the mess, marketing did awesome.
-- Dennis
Actually, I consider the entire marketing campaign for 4e a failure. Never before has a company gone out of its way to alienat its core customer base like WOTC has. The whole "rawr I'm a monster' thing was not a great bit of marketing, it was an insulting bit of marketing. It alienated their core customer group in a vain attemptt o grab the customers of another company. What WOTC did was emulate Coca-Cola back in the 80s, when they decided that they needed to replace their formula and gave us New Coke. Like Coke with New Coke, WOTC has decided tot ell all of us we were not having fun in our games and that 3e was horrible and that th solution is 4e.
All I know is my group and myself are thanking Paizo for not doing this and for keeping the fun alive by giving us Pathfinder rather than 4e
Which STILL doesn't answer the question.
How was the OGL good for WOTC when it produced things like True20 and Conan?
I can easily understand how it worked out for WOTC with companies producing adventures and even campaign settings. But actual entirely new games which didn't move their product as it seemed to be the default in the latter days of 3.5?
I don't think the OGL concept included people writing stand alone products like Trued20 and Conan. As you stated, the WotC plan and the OGL concept was based on 3PP's producing adventures and campaign settings. You were still supposed to buy the WotC PHB, etc.
I believe people are trying to stretch the software model too far. The theory is that these new systems, if they proved themselves superior, would replace the core WotC system. But that could not have been the WotC plan or else WotC planned on themselves being replaced from the very beginning.
The PHB was intended to be necessary for you to play. So once the unexpected happened (i.e. Alternative PHB) WotC had a choice; update the core system to beat these new systems or abandon the field.
WotC choose to abandon the field. They choose to take the best brand in the RPG business and couple it with a very good system and beat all competition. I think they underestimated the strength of the OGL. I think in their analysis they did not understand that once they abandoned the OGL, the OGL would get stronger.
Or maybe their plan is that the current market does not matter. They really want the market of the future which is a bunch of Jr HS kids with laptops. Some of us don't matter except to temporarily bolster sales.
Thats why I say Paizo et al actually want 4E to be even MORE successful than 3e.
I agree that PfRPG's long term viability not only depends on satisfying the current 3.5 market but tapping off the 4.0 market as well.
Chief Technical Officer
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How was the OGL good for WOTC when it produced things like True20 and Conan?
Well, I can lay out an alternate future where it *could* have been good for WotC, but they chose not to go that way.
One of Ryan Dancey's hopes for the OGL was that third parties would improve upon SRD mechanics and create new content that would then be incorporated by other SRD publishers, including Wizards. So if, instead of rewriting 4E from the ground up, WotC had chosen to derive their new edition from OGL materials, they could have taken some of the best OGL content from those games to make their game better.
I don't believe this to be the case at all. Perhaps for casual players, but many DMs don't buy adventures, and those are for DMs only.. or did you forget WHY Wizards stopped making adventures for a long while? Wizards tried to do Forgotten Realms adventures, guess what happened, no one bought them.
If you mean the mega-adventures which came out for Cormyr, the Moonsea and Anauroch, I think that they were the wrong material. I wanted splatbooks like Silver Marches, Unapprocheable East or Shining South for those regions, I was not interested in only getting adventures.
I can create those on my own just as well, but information books about the setting would have been much more useful to me.
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One of Ryan Dancey's hopes for the OGL was that third parties would improve upon SRD mechanics and create new content that would then be incorporated by other SRD publishers, including Wizards. So if, instead of rewriting 4E from the ground up, WotC had chosen to derive their new edition from OGL materials, they could have taken some of the best OGL content from those games to make their game better.
Didn't they borrowed some spells from third parties when they released the 3.5 PHB?
Anyway, I don't think Ryan Dancey's hopes and desires for the OGL were ever hand in hand with what WOTC, Hasbro, or the bean counters wanted. Since the OGL was birthed a number of things have also changed.
1) WOTC realized they make A LOT of money on their miniatures.
2) WOTC realized they can't make better supplements then third parties.
3) WOTC realized the price of supplements can only go up.
4) WOTC realized that no matter how bad the software (Magic Online) as long as it works, people will keep paying to use it.
Magic the Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia might have been short lived but it proved to WOTC they could digitize the table top experience of Magic without making it a computer roleplaying (CRPG) and it'd be a success.
Magic Online proved to WOTC that no matter how many times they mess up the software, as long as they keep releasing new stuff for it, people will keep buying into it (virtual packs.)
Miniatures having a firm hold in the Core books and an online non-CRPG version of D&D IMHO were inevitable.
How they completely tossed out the 3e rules though is kind of a surprise, but can be traced back to 2 and 3 on my list above. By trashing the system, they get to destroy the competition (third parties) and cut the cost of the books (by reducing the page count.) Thus, we pay more for less.
It's a shame because there are a lot of good alternate rules out there to "fix" 3e and Wizards could have used them to make a 3.5 Revised or whatever you want to call it.
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or did you forget WHY Wizards stopped making adventures for a long while? Wizards tried to do Forgotten Realms adventures, guess what happened, no one bought them.If you mean the mega-adventures which came out for Cormyr, the Moonsea and Anauroch, I think that they were the wrong material. I wanted splatbooks like Silver Marches, Unapprocheable East or Shining South for those regions, I was not interested in only getting adventures.
I can create those on my own just as well, but information books about the setting would have been much more useful to me.
No I'm talking about the adventures no one bought in D&D 3.0 and City of the Spider Queen. Those were the adventures that caused them to stop making adventures by the end of 2002. They didn't start printing adventures against until the very end of the 3.5 life cycle.
No I'm talking about the adventures no one bought in D&D 3.0 and City of the Spider Queen. Those were the adventures that caused them to stop making adventures by the end of 2002. They didn't start printing adventures against until the very end of the 3.5 life cycle.
Ah, okay then. Never got those adventures as well, but then again I was just a player back then, got started DM'ing around 2004.
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The way the OGL helped WOTC is simple.
You have to remember that at the time of the release of 3.0, D&D was nearly a dead a horse. TSR had been bought out. 2nd Edition was widely considered a flop and like me, many people abandoned the D&D line entirely for other game systems. Games like GURPS, Vampire, Shadowrun, Palladium and others dominated the market. Almost no one talked about D&D.
Then 3.0 was released and with it the OGL. 3.0 was a huge hit because there was so little expectation that it would be even remotely decent. In addition the OGL allowed third party publishers to enter the market and enhance the brand of D&D.
Before long game store shelves were covered with D&D books. Many bad and some extremely good. When the market settled down the quality companies remained and enhanced the D&D line in ways that WOTC could not do.
By 3.5, D&D dominated the gamining industry. Many newer players have never heard of or even played GURPS or Palladium or another genre of roleplaying at all.
In the last years of 3.5, new leadership had been incorporated and they now viewed the very tool that had resurected D&D from the grave to King of RPGs once more as the threat to their dominance. This led to the creation of 4E and the GSL with its restrictive draconian design.
WOTC did not dominate the market alone. In fact if you look at the ENnie Awards it has been 3PP that have won the Awards, even Paizo has more ENnies than WOTC.
So, the fact that we are even here discusing D&D is proof that the OGL benefitted WOTC.
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We'll have to agree to disagree.
When a shelf is covered in OGL, d20 and D&D labels, regardless of quality, it promotes the D&D line. It gets face time.
And as far as the Realms go as to being the best quality... a fraction of D&D players actually use premade settings like the Realms. I have never bought a Realms product and never will. Products like the Realms line really had nothing to do with success of D&D.
WOTC produced some good materials but the majority of the best stuff was by 3PP (in my opinion based upon my book shelves and those of everyone I know- and based upon ENnie Awards).
The 3PP were not the sole reason for D&D's return from the grave, but they contributed far more than you seem to think.
And during the 2nd Ed period, D&D had a small market share, not a majority. Shelves were stocked with other game systems and D&D hardly had a presence. During the 2nd Ed period I was hard pressed to find D&D gamers at all. I could find Twilight 2000 gamers easier than D&D gamers. The brand was sure to be bought as TSR closed. But at that time D&D was all but dead and a minor player.