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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9555243" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Well, let's deconstruct the article.The opening paragraph is pretty boilerplate - the author immediately falls back on a cliched metaphor in comparing D&D to Kleenex because both are ubiquitous. It concludes with a vague claim that D&D is "on the threshold of something new, but still not fully realized." Okay, thanks. That tells me nothing. So the initial tone is a kind of vague clairvoyancy: "I can see the future," so trust my opinions here.Curiously, he then goes from describing WotC's two recent, flagship publications as "excellent," to claiming that "you can’t help but smell the enshittification of the beloved role-playing game" on the horizon. So it's on "the threshold of something new," heralded by two "excellent" books...and thus you can smell "enshittification"? Huh. So...not exactly a super rigorous argument being developed. Also,"enshittification" is Internet speak for "I want to criticize something but don't have reasons that I can clearly express, so I'm going to appeal to Cory Doctorow's meme word." The paragraph finishes with some strong evidence, "There just aren’t as many books coming out this year as I was expecting." Because WotC has altered its typical four D&D publications per year to...four publications per year. There is a point that Project Sigil seems stalled, again based on little evidence, and set against WotC pushing Maps instead. So basically the WotC half of the article is trendy thesis vaguely supported by impressionistic evidence, often self-contradictory, masked as informed opinion.I have to start work, so I'm not going to unpack the back half of the article right now, except to point out that, once again, we have a bit of actual reporting on the Mothership Backerkit...or at least some quantifiable numbers, but really it's more opinion supported by vague assertions, all leading up to the author offering some boilerplate advice to Indie publishers: "Ask yourselves: Who is your audience, and what is your audience looking for? Where are they looking for it, and how can you best give them more of it? And what does success look like?"Wow. I bet they never thought of that!I suspect the author was given the assignment, or had the idea, of doing an article on Mothership, and then was looking to sexy it up by stirring the pot a bit. Poke the bear, drop a catchphrase, get some clicks. And this is reporting in the Internet Age: impressionist assertions based on a few anecdotes, wrapped in cliches and written to basically troll readers, rather than inform them. To create a controversy rather than add insight. To get clicks. To get people talking on sites such as this one.It seems to have worked, so I guess...mission accomplished."Enshittification" indeed.</blockquote>

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