Now that RPGs are a large market, having a dominant monopoly can be a problem. But when the RPG market was a niche hobby, having a centralized dominant presence was a benefit to to fandom. When players are fewer and farther between, a player base fractured over a number of small games makes it that much harder to find a table.
It's only in the past decade (less, really) that the RPG market has grown enough for this to be an issue. I don't have the numbers available easily, but I'm pretty sure the time between TSR falling apart in the 90s and WotC publishing 3e was the lowest point of the RPG market since D&D's inception. During that time we had a large number of third part games fighting for market space. But without D&D to unite the fandom, it really was the darkest time in RPG history.
So, sure, I'll agree that what WotC is doing with D&D now is a problem for the industry. But over the decades that I've been playing, I can't honestly claim that D&D's overwhelming dominance has been a universally bad thing. For a long time, it was the glue that that held the hobby together.
It's only in the past decade (less, really) that the RPG market has grown enough for this to be an issue. I don't have the numbers available easily, but I'm pretty sure the time between TSR falling apart in the 90s and WotC publishing 3e was the lowest point of the RPG market since D&D's inception. During that time we had a large number of third part games fighting for market space. But without D&D to unite the fandom, it really was the darkest time in RPG history.
So, sure, I'll agree that what WotC is doing with D&D now is a problem for the industry. But over the decades that I've been playing, I can't honestly claim that D&D's overwhelming dominance has been a universally bad thing. For a long time, it was the glue that that held the hobby together.