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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9166597" data-attributes="member: 8461">To continue with this digression, no one is suggesting that companies don't want to make money; the issue that you've brought up is with regard to how they go about doing that, and people's reactions to (what they perceive to be) those practices. As I said before, no one (that I'm aware of) has a problem with a work ethic of "do the best you can, each and every time, as often as possible, and the money will follow." But the same can't be said for a work ethic of "maximize profit," especially since that's often understood (rightly or wrongly) to imply a reduced concern with the manner in which that's accomplished.In the case of the former, a "different approach" is going to look like a different way to try and do their best. In the case of the latter, a different approach can look like other things (to put it mildly).Leaving aside that no one has brought up price gouging (which typically has a slightly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging" target="_blank">different meaning</a> from how you're using it here; the word I think you're looking for is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiteering" target="_blank">profiteering</a>) that I recall (and certainly I didn't), the definition of what's dubious and what's not will understandably vary from individual to individual, and will only be muddied by the fact that we don't have all of the inside information with regards to the decisions that companies make. But neither do we have no information at all, and it's not unreasonable to draw conclusions and form opinions based on the best knowledge that we have at a given point in time (keeping in mind that information is still incomplete).There's long been a sense, albeit a very generalized one, that larger companies tend to chase profits first and foremost, while smaller companies are committed to doing their best and letting that be their market strategy. With regard to WotC, scandals both recent (e.g. the OGL fiasco) and old (e.g. <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/disappointed-in-4e.244150/post-4532193" target="_blank">holding back</a> popular monsters in 4E) have convinced a lot of people that this paradigm accurately describes them, at least in terms of larger companies. To that end, there's a sense that they aren't/can't/shouldn't be placed on the same level as (smaller) companies which that ideal paints in a more sympathetic light.</blockquote>

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