Recent content by Owen K.C. Stephens

Nope, no one involved in SGG or RGG had anything to with naming EGG. It doesn't help the confusion, however, that Sig worked for SGG, and was employee #1 for EGG, and both Stan! and I were major parts of SGG and founded RGG, and we both worked freelance for EGG back in 2022. Sig is still there...

Thanks, Darryl.

Those are all great moves. And they tempt me to look at writing for some new game systems.

Attack of the Clones has made 302 mil, worldwide, since 2002. That's 500 mil in 2023 dollar. Rise of Skywalker has made 515 mil worldwide since 2019. When you have making half-billion dollar movies, yes, you are happy anytime the last one you made didn't gross less (adjusted for inflation, even)...

Ryan did anticipate that, actually. He just stated it could never hurt WotC sales because WotC would have to do 5 specific, obviously detrimental things WotC would never, ever do, all at once, for anyone to be able to create a game using the OGL that could bite into their customer base. WotC...

First, a Cease and Desist. Then, a lawsuit Hasbro can afford, and you likely cannot. ("You" being any 3pp publisher of course, myself very much included.)

That claim was a big part of why the OGL was originally created. The belief, espoused by Ryan Dancey in particular, that "network externalities" drove the popularity of D&D. It was discussed a lot on the "Gentleman's Agreement" pre-3.0 OGL discussion email group in 1999, which I was part of. The...

Well, there are people who left WotC last year. But it kinda doesn't matter. It's a massive corporation. I am sure lots of voices are saying it's a bad idea. But if those people aren't in charge, they can't stop it.

I have other sources, who aren't going public, unrelated to Mark and Stephen. There are clear signs they are getting their info from a different source and that it corroborates (and predates) rather than duplicates what Mark and Stephen have. To be honest, it freaks me out. I still find this...

If this leak is an accurate representation of any of WotC's language regarding OGL 1.1 (either language within the license itself, or language that is similar to a FAQ for OGL 1.1), it represents a serious industry-changing bit of news. How bad the news is depends on lots of details the leak...

Absolutely no-one is going to be sued. Paizo has no interest in starting a war with Hasbro, Hasbro has no interest in making this more visible than it already is, and Paramount isn;t going to do anything unless forced to by Paizo... which isn't happening. Most likely, everyone will shrug and...

There are a of of factors about who is doing how well. For example, anyone in the US has concerns paying for health insurance and heath care that are far from universal, and that can make the difference between "pretty happy with how things are going" and "three sicks days in a row and we'll get...

I can! The "classic" three-tiered tabletop game distribution model works like this. A game company makes a product. They sell it to distributors at a discount. This may be as much as a 65% discount. The distributor then sells it to retailers, and a lesser discount (perhaps 45% off). The...

I certainly did not mean to imply this trend is universal. I completely accept your experience.

I gave my US-focused thoughts on that at my blog last month. https://owenkcstephens.com/2020/06/26/the-game-industryin-these-uncertain-times/