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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MostlyHarmless42" data-source="post: 8876240" data-attributes="member: 6845520">Most of the lingering hatred stems from how they handled the digital products from 4th Edition, which were largely broken, proprietary, and downright horrific to use, despite charging a subscription fee. And because Wizards didn't want competition they refuses to allow any others to get licenses to create better alternative digital tools (legally). Objectively it was a disastrous failure and was one of the contributing factors to 4th Ed floundering while other competitors were far less restrictive with their digital side of things to great effect.To make it clear, THAT is where the basis of concern stems: Wizards has already proven in the past that they are willing to tank an entire edition if it means maintaining a delusional sense "control" over their product or if they think it'll make them even $1 more profit.Again, when you combine this a variety of other factors (the CEO talking at length about how they view the brand as "under monetized"), and a very legitimate concern that those 3rd party people do in fact have employees, many of whom whose livelihoods will be ruined if they are no longer able to support their staff from inability to make products or paying exorbitant Liscensing fees it is healthy to be concerned about the future of the industry.Not to mention, for those of us who've been gaming for a long time, we've seen this song and dance before with video games. First people were outraged over horse armor while some people made comments like yours asking if it was really so bad? Now we've got microtransactions, loot boxes, live-service games, and psychological manipulation/techniques being used to systematically exploit vulnerable people. And people just largely accept it as "normal" for the industry now. They know full well what they are doing, and to pretend otherwise is foolish and shortsighted. Additionally, let's say they succeed in this scheme? Whose to say the rest of the rpg industry (paizo, chaoism, etc.) won't be next?That is until Wizards requires all third party VTTs to have a liscensing agreement or be unable to publish material for their new game of any kind, and then either just "forgets" or "refuses" to allow any of their direct competitors to have said licenses, or otherwise forces them to pay so large a cut they can no longer feasibly compete with their VTT. Pretty much what Amazon or Apple do with their respective markets already. And quite a number of people take issue there as well.Remind me what they said in that press release again? That VTTs were NOT covered by the OGL and the new OGL update will clarify this? Hmm. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f914.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":unsure:" title="Unsure    :unsure:"  data-smilie="24"data-shortname=":unsure:" /></blockquote>

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