And so can your neighbors!So how would you make a Will save on Wii D&D? Knit your brows together really hard?
That would only work if you stuck your Wii wand to your forehead, though.
Better for the Kinect - might even be able to tell by your outline what prop-weapon you're using, or if you're wearing a wizard's hat. And then, soon enough, your larping in your living room....
Here's me taking off my mod's hat and hypothesizing out of whole cloth.
5E annoucement was planned and ready to go as an Apple-style "And one more thing..." button to the Sat product seminar. 5E is going to be a minis-based skirmish game, sold in non-random packs, with optional rules for leveling up your minis through repeated play. It will go one sale at GenCon 2012. Someone decides at the last moment that whatever they're doing doesn't need a year's leadup, and they want to save the big annoucement for D&D Experience in Feb 2012, where they can manage the whole marketing rollout of the new edition and do a better job of manging customer reaction over six months rather than a year. (As well as keeping sales up for the handful of 4E products it has just announced.)
With the right codes, you will be able to unlock the full potential of your 10-foot pole!![]()
I think the answer to this question is: You can never, ever take anything that any representative of a for-profit company says as truthful. Especially in a down market.
That said, the position is not much different from saying the following: Any truthful answer you receive is very dependent on all of the context surrounding the situation resulting in the answer remaining true/static.
If someone said something three years ago, and it's about business, it's probably not true now.
TANGENT:
I find these assertions pretty well divorced from reality. At best, the cynicism dial is turned to 11. Slamming the totality of the private sector is absurd. Business plans change, executive management changes, markets change. Just because something changes doesn't mean that the original statement wasn't truthful when it was made.
Your second paragraph is a bit more reasonable, but even it is a back-handed assertion - or at best laced with cynicism.
The kind of absurdity you stated above would be comparable to me assuming that you'd have to be making that claim while safely sequestered in the halls of academia or government.... (And many would claim that if that were true, the whole "divorced from reality" thing becomes an understandable event.)
End-of-tangent.
Back to the topic at hand:While I'm no fan of 4e nor of WotC's current business model, I don't think they're outright lying to their customers. The rumor seems baseless. Even if it were true, IF WotC is experiencing tough economic circumstances and D&D isn't performing as hoped/expected, they'd be stupid (and I'd say irresponsible) not to modify their business plan, even if that meant it invalidated statements made in prior years. After all, those faceless corporate lemmings are employees that have lives, families, & bills to pay. Presumably, as gamers and as decent human beings, we'd like to see them gainfully employed....
....even if they're working for one of those lying, stealing, cheating, #$#%#%#$#%@#%#% corporations.![]()