Explain to me again how eliminating Pathfinder, Mutants & Masterminds, the Marvel Superhero RPG, and others is good for the hobby?
It isn't. At the current point in time it would be good for WotC, but it would be a disaster for everyone else.
And, incidentally, the OGL was even a good thing
for WotC right up until the point where they stopped using it. 3.5e had been (and at the time of cancellation, was still) phenomenally successful, and the OGL and third-party support was no small part of that.
Unfortunately, WotC mistook all the sales of third-party products as sales that they had 'lost' and that they thought rightfully belonged to them, so they decided on a non-OGL 4e. At which point the OGL stopped being of benefit to them, and turned into the worst weapon that could be used against them.
(Even so, that wouldn't have been a major problem if they had only left the magazine licenses with Paizo. Not renewing those licenses led directly to the creation of Pathfinder, and turned D&D's biggest cheerleaders into their #1 competitor. And it's very unlikely that any other company that Paizo would have been able to fill the 'Pathfinder' niche as effectively.)
If Disney were/will buy Hasbro, it'll probably do what it's done for the other major acquisitions of Marvel, Pixar, and now Lucasfilm. Make it a subsidiary, who reports up the chain, eliminate some job duplication, put some money behind it to help things progress in development, but mostly leave the business decisions to the head(s) of the subsidiary.
As long as they are making money, all is good.
Yep, this is exactly right. By far the most likely outcome (for D&D) of any merger will be "no change" - the Disney execs are no more likely to even notice the RPG than the Hasbro execs do currently.
With both companies, there is a pretty small chance that it will be noticed. At which point, what happens depends on whether it happens to be the 'right' person who notices it and the prevailing conditions in the company at the time. If the 'right' person notices and conditions are good, this could result in any number of good things. If the 'wrong' person notices, or the company feels the need to "concentrate on our core business", then the result is cancellation.
But that's true whether D&D is owned by Hasbro or by Disney.
Well I loved Mutants and Masterminds, I belive they are doing better work by becomeing less like D20... However for the last few years piazo fans (and even one employee) have tried to claim there D&D retroclone is the true D&D. I have gotten very sick of hearing the edtion wariing that now has become system waring.
WHEN I sit to play a game I have a large group of games to choose from, rifts, shadow run, deadlands, WoD, Rifts, Star wars D6, plus a few others... or D&D... I liked alot of what piazo did in 3.5, and think they have some of (if not the) best adventures. However I am sick of being called out on pathfinder being true d&d, and 4e is dune.
So you want to see an end to the fun of (at least) tens of thousands of people, plus an end to the employment of all the staff at Paizo (not to mention the resulting job losses in FLGS, distributors, and elsewhere in the chain), because of the actions of a handful of obnoxious internet posters? Isn't that a slight over-reaction?
Now in my mind Pathfinder is the leading retroclone, the most successful retro clone, and it has the best support of any retroclone, but when I hate the spite and bile thrown at 4e (it is even a little at nexr) and WoTC.
Pathfinder isn't a clone, retro- or otherwise. Indeed, there's now much more in the game that is
not derived from the 3.5e roots than that which
was taken from those roots. Your description of it as a 'retroclone' is no more accurate than a description of Pathfinder as "the true D&D". Given that both are inflamatory statements attacking one side in the "system wars", can you not see a certain irony in your position?
