I honestly don't know any of the specifics, or at least the ones relevant to what happened with the magazines. I don't know which WotC staffers are talking to Morrus. Even if I wanted to wade into any of the threads, there really isn't much I can say, both from a practical end (I simply don't know much about this particular issue; I'm not working on it and haven't made it a point to stick my nose into it) to a realistic one (NDAs and what not).
I think that, ironically enough considering the digital initiative, the reaction stems from our distant relationship with the fans. Compared to Magic, D&D staff has little direct dialog or contact with fans. The MTG site has lots of weekly articles from R&D about the game, and discussion of where it is and where it's going is common there. The Magic guys also get to go to pro tours every year. For D&D R&D, there's GenCon and D&D XP, and it's really hit or miss on whether you get to go to those. There's much more of a dialogue on the Magic side of things, and it shows.
I sometimes wonder if it is simply the nature of the games. People play Magic to win tournaments. I don't think they have as much a nostalgia tie to older cards and rules. A player might have a tie to a larger aspect of the game ("I like blue, and if it's weak in the next set I'm unhappy"), but in the end he justs wants to win games and tournaments. D&D players might be a lot more likely to have deep emotional ties to whatever products first got them into the game, because the game lacks that practical angle.
To be blunt, I think there's a sort of script here that has to be worked out before anything constructive can happen.
1. People overreact in a way that is only possible in a culture that so thoroughly disconnects people from hunger, violence, and real survival issues. I mean, when someone posts that losing Dragon is like being raped, I guess I choose to be happy that we're all well fed and safe enough to see that as an issue on the rape level, and that rape (for most people) has become more of a vague concept or plot point in a TV show than a reality. The alternative is to pretty much give up on western civilization, because consumer impulses have taken on a sickening life of their own.
2. People who used to work at WotC trot out their pet theories as to why anything happens here. ("You see, WotC would slip $100 bills into every copy of the PH only if D&D sales were falling.")
3. A few smartasses poke the people in group 1 because, hey, this is still the Internet.
4. A lot of sane people, the staggering majority of fans, either stop reading or make a few cogent comments and then duck out. These people are probably mad or sad that the magazines are gone, but a dialog with them is pretty much impossible with the "rape" victims hanging around, waiting to shriek about the cruel injustices of a hard world.
WotC isn't so dumb as to think that no one would care that Dragon and Dungeon were going away. If anything, the opposite is true. Everyone pretty much expected Scott Rouse et al to be burned in effigy.
Like I said above, I think the big issue for me is that it makes clear the gap between D&D R&D and gamers. It's a bridgeable gap, as Magic shows us, and it's something that should be changed. Interestingly enough, I think that what happened Thursday might end up being a big step toward solving that.
