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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 5306820" data-attributes="member: 4720">This is where we have such a disconnect.  Everything is binary with you.  Either we're helping the store OR we're paying WotC.  There is no allowance in your philosophy for the fact that both are occurring.Sure.  But without the big name product association, all the advertising WotC is doing for the program, the store locator, and so on, which all should be increasing foot traffic to the individual stores, you'd have far fewer people.Would you rather take $6 from 2 people or $1.50 from 10 people?  The fact you're also passing more money onto WotC doesn't detract from the fact that your profit increased by 25%.  And you did what you are good at, running the game locally, while WotC did what they were good at, mass advertising and an organized web presence.And all this says nothing about the simple fact of getting people used to opening their wallets in a given location.  I think people forget how powerful that can be.Now THAT would be insanely altruistic, far more so than anything I've suggested WotC is doing.  Free money to potentially spend on someone else's product?I think they're doing a good thing (helping FLGS's) because it also is good for them in terms of growing the hobby at a grassroots, local level.  They can't put a DM in a box, but if they can get new players plugged into those little communities, it's about the same thing.  But of course they're going to prefer to use that position to leverage their own product primarily.This isn't a black hats/white hats situation.  It's WotC doing something that looks smart for them, but does have (I think) a positive downstream effect on local gaming communities.By the by, I've heard exactly the opposite about stores providing product.  i.e. that stores are getting one free demo copy for running these.  Does anyone have actual inside info on this?  Perhaps it's tied to that tiered store system wherein higher tiers get more perks?But either way this plays out, you're still employing informal fallacy.  No one said WotC is being purely altruistic.  But by playground rules, I think they're slightly in the positive.  They're leaving the situation better than they found it.  Might not be enough better for your tastes, but it's still better.</blockquote>

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