Why does it matter if a single studio out of the four or five they have has or has not released a game? And, would you say that Random House is in the Book Industry? Because they didn't write "All the Colors of the Dark" but they did PUBLISH it, so they are a book publishing company. WotC publishes video games, and has for years. It is a distinction whose only purpose seems to be putting scare quotes around future potential actions from WoTC.
Let's try this another way: by your logic, Shell isn't an oil company. See, they own the Mally Beauty makeup company as a subsidiary, which makes cosmetics. So according to you, someone could say that Shell is actually a cosmetics company, and they'd be right. No matter that that's just one division of theirs, or that they produce more oil products than makeup. So be sure to correct anyone who refers to Shell as part of Big Oil from now on.
I mean, you have literally expressed concerns over WoTC "getting into" video games and "becoming" a video game company, and the only reason to argue with us that it isn't already a company is that if it is, then there is no need for your concerns.
You've gotten this backwards. The fact of the matter is that the only reason for you to argue with me is that if WotC isn't already a video game company, then there's no reason to be concerned over the direction D&D is going in. After all, by your logic, there's no difference between Critical Role and
Champions of Krynn, so what does it matter if D&D is primarily engaged with via a VTT that limits options (which you also admitted would be what happened).
What do you mean kidding? Hasbro is the publisher that owns DnD, yes, that makes them an RPG company, because they produce RPG's. Again, from a practical standpoint, not a legal one, what is the difference?
You tell me; you're one of the people who seems to think that it's very important that we recognize that WotC as a video game company, and that it has been for years, and that doing so will make all concerns about what they do to D&D non-issues. Apparently because it's fine if the game plays like
Champions of Krynn.
And, I don't know why you want to say that they have a "disastrous" record when they worked closely with Larian Studios to make Baldur's Gate 3, which was an insanely massive hit. Planescape: Torment, also a video game, also a massive success.
You must have a
very different definition of "closely" than most people. Likewise, I'm not sure why you think that licensing out their brand makes them a video game company.
... Yes, and if you make a train it needs to roll over rails. That's not granting you anything, that is stating a fact.
No, it's a complete concession of my central point, which is that digitizing the game limits it. I suppose you could argue that's not at all bad for the game in terms of what makes TTRPGs different from other kinds of games, i.e. that anything can be attempted, but that's a separate discussion.
A DnD video game is inherently more limited than a DnD pen-and-paper game. We've known this for three decades.
We've only known it since 1994? Here I thought we knew it for decades before that.
It would be a bad thing that a video game is a video game? Why? Do we also state that it is a bad thing that comics use images AND text? Kind of inherent in the medium.
Misstating the premise doesn't make the point invalid. If D&D's primary method of interface becomes digital, a limited format as you yourself admitted, then it's not unreasonable to assume that the TTRPG would be designed with digitization in mind, enshrining those limitations on the limitless form of imaginative play. But I guess if you're happy with
Champions of Krynn, you wouldn't care about that.
If you are saying that DnD is going to get digitized to the extent that a game of Critical Role can happen if run by a computer... then you are talking about True Artificial General Intelligence.
No, that's not in the least what I'm saying. Exactly the opposite; D&D will never get that expansive in what its digital incarnation offers, and so will become necessarily more limited, as you noted. And once that becomes the default mode of engagement, the imaginative play aspect loses out.
You are talking the Matrix and everything like it.
You're the one who introduced "True Artificial Intelligence" and "The Matrix" into the conversation, so you're going to have to own that one.
WoTC dipping their toes into video games is not going to create that.
No kidding. What it will create is probably going to look like a knock-off of World of Warcraft crossed with a knock-off of Minecraft, and treat that as the standard.
So... what is it you are worried about?
See above.
WoTC making video games has happened, even if you insist that a DnD video game made by a studio owned by WoTC doesn't count for reasons, DnD video games have been created. So... what's the next step here? DnD Video Game --> The Matrix --> Profit?
WotC has yet to make any video games, which is why no one has been able to so much as name one that they've actually produced. They've published games made by other people, acquired studios other people built, and lent their brand to other studios designing games. But making them themselves? Yet to happen. So the next step is that they design their VTT, give it video game-esque interactions, along with video game industry-style pricing, and then encourage everyone to engage with the game that way, writing the books so that they lend themselves to that style of limited play.
You said that I said that WotC was creating "True Artificial Intelligence" and "The Matrix." Maybe don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
Why do you think that WoTC making a video game would lobotomize all DMs and Players?
So now you don't think that a format which you admitted was limited is limited?
Making and selling video games is peripheral to being a video game company? What is central to it then?
So you think that publishing a video game that someone else made makes them a video game company? I suppose you also think that a book publisher that makes their own webpage is a web design company?
None of the rest of this replies to me.
And yet you're replying to it anyway, albeit in the aggregate, which is rather odd.
I get you supposedly need to break every post into a sentence by sentence line to respond to every sentence individually,
"Need" is a mischaracterization, which I suspect you know. I get that you don't care for it when points are addressed individually, but that's the best way to carry on a discussion when multiple aspects of something are under examination.
but if you are going to do that AND respond to three people at once, at least be polite enough to provide obvious breaks in who you are talking to.
So the fact that each quotation says who it's from isn't polite enough for you? Precisely what "netiquette" guide are you subscribing to that says that? Because it's far more polite not to spam a thread with multiple reply posts when you can aggregate them into one.
