Olrox17
Hero
It's an analogy, yes, I just don't think it's a good analogy. Nobody cares if a computer has to do a little or a lot more work behind the scenes to ensure backwards compatibility. It doesn't matter, we don't even notice it.It's an analogy: humans replace machines in applying math, or code, for tabletop applications.
We all care (or should care) if real humans at the table are saddled with some degree of extra work, just because the higher ups at a corp decided that "backwards compatibility" sounded like a good promotional term, and a professional game designing team couldn't figure out a way to solve the workload issue on their end.
(I'm not saying it's impossible for them to figure something out, I already presented 4e Essentials as an example of backwards compatibility done correctly. I just don't think they will. They'll do a 3.5 thing)