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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8981973" data-attributes="member: 18">Sure, they do that, but the major thing you achieve when you send a product to influencers who aren't under NDA or embargo is publicity. The actual playtesting done by them when not under NDA or embargo tends to be utterly superficial and even actively unhelpful at times, given the fact that influencers are driven by clicks/subscriptions so thrive on hype and extreme reactions (positive or negative), including drumming up worries about minor issues.I say this with some certainty because this isn't some theoretical or novel thing, this is a tactic routinely used in the videogame industry, and has been for several years.If you're serious about using influencers because you think they have expertise, you put them under NDA/embargo. This has also been done, but only works for certain games/genres. If WotC does that, that'd be less unserious, but if they're just letting influencers use the product as playtesters, there's no question the main purpose is publicity-seeking for the currently rather under-publicised 3D VTT. Again, this isn't theoretical. With videogames, this has been done many times, to the point where newer games have often paid influencers to play them during a beta phase (this tends to be transparent nowadays though wasn't always - but the audience accepts it, generally). D&D would obviously not need to pay people, given its market position (just as Call of Duty typically doesn't need to).I will say there can be an element of User Acceptance Testing, which is perhaps what you're getting at, in using influencers, but again we've seen from real world examples that just because influencers accept (or hate) something, doesn't mean the larger group of actual users will feel the same way.TLDR: The main purpose of using non-NDA'd influencers is publicity, not actual testing.</blockquote>

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