No. They are an oil company AND a make-up company. Companies can be more than one thing. For another example, McDonald's the fast food company... is also a real estate company and a massively successful one. Companies can be in more than one industry.
So you're saying that those labels are equal in how apt they are? That it's
just as correct to say that Shell is a cosmetics company as it is an oil company? That McDonald's can be called a real estate company just as much as a fast food company? And you think that this is actually something which abets communication and understanding? Because that's a pretty hard claim to make.
All of that is false. They have made video games.
This is false. They have yet to make a single video game.
Which is neither here nor there, since a VTT isn't a video game. Or do you think that people who use Roll20 are playing a video game?
NONE OF THAT has changed their core product. Which is Magic the Gathering, the physical card game.
Which is why it's more apt to not refer to WotC as being a video game company, since that's not their "core product," regardless of how much money is allocated to what department.
They also haven't changed Dungeons and Dragons.
Um, what? They haven't changed it, at all, ever, in any capacity? You
do know that 5.5 or whatever it's going to be called is about to come out, right?
And if they are a video game company, and they haven't changed DnD even though DnD can be made into a video game anyways (with the limits that come with that) then... why should we suspect a change?
Because they
have changed it, as I noted above? Because we've seen them try and change related things, like the OGL, in an effort to boost their VTT business (remember the "no animated spell effects" clause of the OGL v1.2?). Because we've seen them use video game style pre-order pricing and promos ("free gold dragon virtual mini!"). Because they think the brand is "under-monetized" and want to create a "recurring spending environment." But please go on about how they're not going to change things.
The game DOESN'T play like the old Champions of Krynn video game, that's the point.
That's not the point you were making before. You directly compared D&D to
Champions of Krynn, holding them up side by side. I mean, I can understand changing your tune now, since that was a very poor point of comparison, but you said what you said.
They did it. They made DnD video games, they have done it for decades....
No, they didn't.
Champions of Krynn was made by SSI, not TSR. WotC has yet to create a D&D video game; they just license or publish games made by other people.
and the TTRPG has not been soul-sucked into playing like a robot is running the game.
Wait, so now you're saying that because a DOS-based game couldn't be turned into a micro-transaction filled recurring spending environment, that means that D&D will
never be made into one, even though WotC has flat-out said that's what they want it to be? That's an...interesting, take on things. Inaccurate, but interesting.
Because robots aren't running the game.
The game would be better off it were being run by robots. It's being run by corporate suits who want to prop up next quarter's profits. "Under-monetized," and all that.
And making something from edible materials makes it consumable.
I mean, anything that you can chew up and swallow is "consumable," so that's not really a salient distinction..
But just because someone has made a cake in the shape of lego bricks doesn't mean you should let your kids eat the original lego pieces. If you make a DnD video game, it is a video game, not a tabletop game.
Which is, once again, my central point. Having WotC become a video game company, and making D&D in that vein, means that it stops being a tabletop game.
But just because you have made a DnD video game doesn't mean that the tabletop game fades away into mist or becomes inaccessible. They can make two different products, companies do that all the time.
That's
possible, but when they're proceeding under the auspices of profit maximization with regards to their brand being "under-monetized," then it becomes hard to see how they could justify putting out a product (like the tabletop RPG) that isn't designed to abet the push for maximum monetization. It's nice to think that WotC would just let the tabletop part of the game be its own thing, separate from their VTT/DDB aspect of the business, but that doesn't strike me as a remotely realistic expectation of them. When the people in charge mandate profits first, and everything else second, there's no reasonable expectation that anything else will be left as-is.
What do you mean "designed with digitization in mind"
See above.
the game can already be digitized.
No, it can't. You cannot create a digital environment where "anything can be attempted," unless you've created a working holodeck.
It didn't.
Not even once.
The game is already designed that way, because it inspired video games which built their code to emulate the rules of DnD.
No, the game is not designed that way. The game is designed to allow for, as noted previously, anything to be attempted. There is no digital game that can do this, regardless of how "inspired" it might be. Show me a D&D game where your character can potentially kill any NPC (even
Ultima makes Lord British unkillable, notwithstanding poison bread or falling bricks), or flood a troublesome dungeon, or lets you introduce multiple new races of your own design without needing to do any computer programming. No such thing exists.
What, do you think if WoTC has too many successful video games they will put in rules that prevent people from making up scenarios?
The constraints of the format will necessarily do that, regardless of whether wants to or not. Again, show me the video game that allows for the same level of creative freedom as tabletop play. You can't do it.
On the contrary, you're unable to refute any of my points even while saying they already have been, which means that the one not making sense is necessarily you.
because your fear has come to pass, but the limitations DIDN'T.
Wrong on both counts. See above; you don't have an example of a video game that's as limitless as tabletop play, so your assertion doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
So, you are worried WoTC will abandon DnD to solely make video games.
They'll go where the money is. Or do you think that they're in the service of the hobby's good and not profit maximization?
Something they have never done
Everything was "never done" until it was done.
despite making multiple DnD video games (even by licensing only) for decades.
Ah yes, the old "
Champions of Krynn wasn't a recurrent spending environment, so there's no evidence that WotC will make their VTT one, even though they said they would" argument. This is how we know you're the one not making sense.
That's all this is? It won't happen.
It's already happening. Or have you not gotten your free virtual gold dragon mini yet? Because you won't get it otherwise, and then good luck using a gold dragon in the VTT (unless you pay for it separately, once it goes on sale in their digital storefront).
There is no reason for it to happen.
"Under-monetized." 'nuff said.
Just like there is no reason for WoTC to move to only making board games, since they've made Lords of Waterdeep and Castle Ravenloft.
Are board games a "recurrent spending environment"? Because if not, then this point doesn't hold water.
So, their next step into making DnD a video game, isn't to work with people who made DnD video games, but to fool us all by designing a VTT, get everyone hooked on their VTT, THEN ruin DnD by making it a Video Game RPG instead of a Tabletop RPG...
Strictly speaking the VTT isn't even a video game, though at this point you seem pretty married to using that shorthand, so I guess it's fine if you call it that (even if it's not accurate). But no one's being "fooled" since they're very open about what they're trying to do. Did you not hear the stuff about "under-monetized" and a "recurrent spending environment"? Or were you too caught up playing
Champions of Krynn instead?
No, I said that was the only way they could digitize DnD further than it has already been digitized, which somehow doesn't count to you because it was a company owned by WoTC or a company working with WoTC, not WoTC itself which digitized the game.
So now you're denying that you used the terms "True Artificial Intelligence" and "The Matrix" and tried to characterize that as what I was saying? Because we can all see your post history, you know. And if you think WotC can't digitize D&D further than they already have, well, you clearly haven't been paying attention. Gold dragon mini, and all that.
You keep putting words in my mouth
"True Artificial Intelligence." "The Matrix." Own the behaviors you ascribe to others.
And yet I've successfully rebutted every one of your points.
and because you aren't listening to me you keep getting confused.
The irony is that you're the one who's confused, even though I keep explaining things to you.
DnD as a video game exists.
No, it doesn't. There are games with that brand logo attached to them, but playing those is not playing D&D.
It didn't.
DnD was digitized and made into a Video Game.
It wasn't.
Champions of Krynn is not D&D in digital form.
DnD as a Tabletop game is different than DnD as a Video Game.
Which will become less true if WotC keeps going forward with their plan to make the tabletop game into an adjunct/on-ramp for the VTT.
But both exist, right now,
They really don't. No one plays
Champions of Krynn alone in their room and thinks that they've just played D&D (and if they do, they're wrong).
so there is no logical reason that making DnD video games would affect the Tabletop games.
There's every logical reason that making D&D into a digital experience ("video game" in your lingo) would affect the tabletop game, because the priorities of the company that makes both favor the digital recurrent spending environment that they can monetize over the tabletop game that they can't monetize nearly as much.
You keep thinking the past predicts the future, even when WotC has flat-out told us that the future they want to create is the exact opposite of what you're saying they'll do.
WoTC has made DnD as a Video Game,
No, they didn't. Repeating this falsehood won't make it true.
their name was on that product.
Slapping the brand name onto a product doesn't mean that playing D&D means playing that product. Again, no one says that they're a D&D player because they beat
Champions of Krynn.
See above.
They still make DnD as a Tabletop game.
I'll note again that
Champions of Krynn was not a recurrent spending environment. You keep comparing apples to oranges, but they're not the same.
No, not in the least.
for the purposes of "but if they start designing web pages then they will make ALL BOOKS work like webpages!>!>!"
Making up a fictitious scenario doesn't really abet your point.
They did design a web page, they are a web page designing company.
Right, so any company that designs their own webpage is a webpage design company by your logic. Just don't expect that logic to catch on with anyone else.
That does not mean that they will now take their books and make them all look like their webpage.
Did they make a statement about turning their books into recurrent spending environments because they've been under-monetized? You keep forgetting that WotC already told us that they want to do what I'm saying they'll do; that's why I'm saying it.
The etiqutte of making your posts legible and easy to follow.
Then you should have no complaints, because a single post with everything in it is easier to follow than multiple posts in rapid succession.
Anyone who wasn't following the conversation you were having line by line with me skipped to the end of your post,
I'll point out here that you don't speak for other people's reading habits; maybe limit things to your own point of view, since short of a declarative statement that's all you can really speak to anyway.
hey didn't stop to read each quote to see if you were respondinging to someone else, because it all looks the exact same at a quick glance.
See above. All text looks the same "at a quick glance." That's why you have to actually stop and, you know, read it.
