Azlan said:
Allegations? They were more like speculations.
Actually, I think the word you were looking for was "insinuations", that is to say a "artfully indirect, often derogatory suggestion", as Webster would say.
Some folks are always willing to imagine WotC as a great arbiter of some horrible master plan to rule the world and rob poor, innocent gamers of their meager funds (you know, the meager funds they absolutely
must spend on a
game, rather than on food or shelter). As often as not, whenever WotC does something questionable, it's almost universally discovered later to be attributed to just plain stupidity or shortsightedness. Remember how many problems occured with first four or five M:tG expansions? I do. I remember the A & B distribution problems of Legends, for example. A plot? No, just stupidity.
Azlan said:
Anyway, I'm not expecting or even asking anyone here to trust me. But, then, I don't have millions of dollars riding on whether or not you put your trust in my words or my product.
See, this isn't 'speculation', this is 'insinuation'. This is basically implying that WotC is lying. Unless you're trying to say that WotC has more on the line, and less reason to lie...but I'll
speculate that you're not saying that.
The D&D minis are inexpensive, durable and useful, regardless of whether you use the skirmish game or not. The idea that the average DM is going to alter his adventures due to a lack of an exact mini is ludicrous. Do you honestly believe that the DM will never use a monster smaller than a halfling or bigger than 'large', simply because he's lacking the proper mini? Do you mean to tell me that you think he'll only ever use minotaurs or umber hulks, instead of a Yuan-ti abomination, because he doesn't have an exact mini? That sounds like nonsense and hyperbole, to me.
Azlan said:
So, when I first saw the mass-produced line of plastic miniatures that WotC is producing to coincide with the release of 3.5 D&D, I thought, "Nice. An inexpensive line of miniatures that most everyone can afford to get." But that was before I became aware of the randomness and the "collectability" of the packaging, i.e. the ol' MtG marketing gimmick that has enabled the investors of WotC to become *obscenely* rich.
Actually, I'd say the fact that M:tG is a really good game had a lot more to do with making them comfortably wealthy than it's format. If it were just the format, then the dozens of imitators that followed wouldn't have faltered. But the fact of the matter is that most of them were either followers, copycats or just plain bad games. Did the collecatbility make it a runaway success? It sure did. What I missed is the part where you explained why it was a bad thing. Or, for that matter, why a dozen-odd folks at WotC getting to be millionaires (which, btw, is not 'obscenely' rich, by any measure) was reprehensible. Sports cards have been making money for a long time on the same concept...the only difference is that here, you got a cool game to play. When I stopped playing magic and collecting it, it was due a personal choice, not because I thought they'd corrupted the perceived purity of the game.
The D&D minis are even available in non-random packs, if you so desire. Since they're not going to be as dependent on a game, the collector's market won't be nearly as competitive. Some folks will want to, in the Pokemon parlance, "get 'em all." Others, like me, will just enjoy having and using them for their D&D game, and possibly use them for skirmishing. But some of us
LIKE the idea of not knowing what's in the booster. There's a certain thrill in opening it and getting the Minotaur or Tiefling Captain, when you weren't certain what you'd get.
Wotc is guilty of lots of things worth griping about...but mindless, heartless greed isn't one of them, IME. Wanting to run a company profitably...that's another story entirely. Some of us would consider keeping D&D in operation a virtue, not a vice. YMMV.
