WotC How much does Hasbro / WotC impact your feelings towards D&D?

[TiQuinn]

I'm talking about you trying to dismiss the chokepoint as a concept because it is not more well-known, it's a fallacious argument - a form of reversed appeal at populum

No, I’m asking you to give a better explanation besides rhetorical tricks. But I’m rapidly losing interest at all.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

With that said, and with a brief understanding of the these and understanding the issues (and the examples used in the book) .... Hasbro, and WoTC ... is not a monopsony. Not close. So not sure why this has come up?

Because it's not about the facts of reality. Its about finding a reason for doomsaying over D&Dbeyond.

In my opinion, it's actually hard to find a future timeline that ends with the criteria postulated in the book. It requires so many weird changes to the hobby, like random companies just leaving the hobby.

But maybe that's just me being too simple to understand.

Source: Chokepoint Capitalism - Wikipedia

 

[Not a Decepticon]

No, I’m asking you to give a better explanation besides rhetorical tricks. But I’m rapidly losing interest at all.

I don't think it's a rhetorical trick to point out your argument was based on a fallacy, just the common thing to do. I didn't even mention that you tried to spin around a straightforward answer I gave you - the term that's only been coined by a single book published in 2022 will not be very widespread in 2024 because such things take time, especially when we're talking about serious conversation, not memes and jokes - into me trying to dodge the question. So that's a fallacy and a manipulative trick one after the other.

 

[Mistwell]

No, they don't. Please don't try to reduce my position to some made-up scenarios and armchair psychology

I didn't make anything up. You said you didn't like that WOTC was doing something which resulted in pressure on you to join a thing you think isn't good. So if it's not your friends pressuring you, who is it pressuring you? Them just making a product people like isn't, in itself, pressure on you unless your group reacts by liking it also. Or are you just all verklempt over other nameless hypothetical poor souls out there who will be pressured, but not you?

 

[Mistwell]

You are confusing chokepoint with a monopoly right now, Besides, look at Netflix, which is a chokepoint because not one of its competitors has enough reach to really matter and/or struggles financially like a stone giant on clay feet

You keep saying this. It's false. Disney+, Hulu, and Warner Bros. Discovery have all turned their streaming platforms into profit centers, some more recently than others. Amazon may or may not have, but their financials make it very unclear.

 

[teitan]

Outside of the OGL fiasco? I am a big fan of the folks that work on D&D, heck I love Hasbro for Marvel Legends and Transformers. The people who work on these three properties obviously love what they do for a living. Especially the WOTC team as they DO largely work independently of Hasbro. Hasbro I am even a fan of in itself. I also get that they are a publicly traded company that has to answer to shareholders. I am not a fan of that.

I hated how they tanked the Golden Archive action figures with very poor choices in their releases being tied to the animated series, which were prone to breakage, and the movie with the mainline products being monsters like a repaint of the Doric Owlbear so soon out of the gate. Xanathar looking like something from a Critters movie, and Driz'zt. It could have been a great line if they peppered everything and didn't make the animated figures so fragile. And already Super7 is doing new versions of the figures I just bought but a little bigger. :-|

NECA slew Hasbro in this department. Warduke alone is a masterpiece of an action figure, Grimsword made Grimsword cool and a monster from a slasher movie, Strongheart is actually amazing, Zarak looks like he will stick you and call you a chud for wasting his time. Elkhorn is cool but not like the other four.

But D&D, the game? still in far better hands than it was when TSR was still around. Crawford & Perkins are great torchbearers.

 

[teitan]

You keep saying this. It's false. Disney+, Hulu, and Warner Bros. Discovery have all turned their streaming platforms into profit centers, some more recently than others. Amazon may or may not have, but their financials make it very unclear.

All of those platforms report heavy financial losses every year and scaled back and canceled most of their projects to get to profitability outside of Amazon which is supported by their Prime members subscriptions which has been around for longer and their inhouse cloud services which host a couple of those streaming platforms as is.

 

[Mistwell]

All of those platforms report heavy financial losses every year

No really, all three are now profitable. I am not speculating. All three are in fact profitable now. Disney reported a $47 million quarterly profit from its Hulu and Disney+ services (and a break down of I believe the second quarter just came out, with both services in the black even more), while WBD earned $103 million profit from its Max service per year. Amazon is more difficult to tell as they cannot precisely measure which portion of subscribers are there primarily for free shipping, for streaming, or the combination. But many financial reports believe they are now profitable since moving to advertisements.

 

[trappedslider]

What the company does does not bother me. It might if they are currently supporting some terrorist group trying to do me harm. Could I stretch something and see it like BMW who made cars for the Germans back in WW2, and cross them off my list forever-

I suggest you not look into IBM's history

That's not what the poll is asking.

I know that, since this is a site where feelings run hot, people feel strongly about the company. And that's fine! But this is asking how those feelings impact how people feel about D&D- which isn't the company.

In addition, I am guessing that if this was a survey of the greater D&D playing population (and not Enworld), you'd be a lot more disappointed.

I mean to be brutally honest about this you tell some someone not online who just buys the books or whatever from WotC/Hasbro tthis will be their response which incidentally is also mine:

Goodness. I still won't buy VW because of the whole "1940s Germany" thing.
Also, won't eat Chik-fil-A. And wish I could boycott my local grocery store (Kroger) because of their trying to create a monopoly to inflate prices.
So I think we've discovered that I'm very sensitive to such things.

I suggest you also not look into IBM's history or NASA's

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I didn't make anything up. You said you didn't like that WOTC was doing something which resulted in pressure on you to join a thing you think isn't good. So if it's not your friends pressuring you, who is it pressuring you? Them just making a product people like isn't, in itself, pressure on you unless your group reacts by liking it also. Or are you just all verklempt over other nameless hypothetical poor souls out there who will be pressured, but not you?

You are really trying to make a general problem a personal issue, so you can dismiss it.