I have been noticing a trend with WotC that I find somewhat bothersome.
It's as if the company is being run by young teenagers.
Some examples:
1) A friend of mine created a submission to WotC and was denied. A few years later, WotC released a series of books with the major artifact from his submission with not only the same ability, but with the exact same name (and the name is the title of the book).
This is a single legal matter that does not have anything to do with treating people young, or acting young. Any company that deals in intellectual property runs into this sort of thing. It just comes with the territory. Your friend can seek legal advice. It's also possible it's purely coincidence. It happens.
2) The podcasts on WotC web sites are full of foul mouth expletives that I as a business owner would never have associated with my company. And half of the players on the podcasts appear to not know the rules at all.
If it's the podcasts I think you are referring to (you mention players), then it is with a group of people entirely new to D&D in general, and it involves players outside the WOTC company entirely who work for a cartoon company. The whole point of those podcasts was to show demoing of the rules to people new to the rules, so it is no wonder they do not know the rules. As for cussing, they do warn about it, and they are from a cartoon company and not WOTC. That said, they are popular.
3) Any post that is anti-WotC and even slightly controversial on the WotC forums is locked down, often within a matter of hours. Free speech is practically denied if anything negative is said about WotC.
In my experience, this is false. In fact, I would say there is more moderation here, than there. Not that the moderation here is bad (it's not - it's good). Just that I do not find free speech more denied at the WOTC boards or dissent quashed in the way you describe.
4) WotC seems to be threatening a lot of web sites with lawsuits if anyone creates anything useful as a 4E tool. I have a few web sites in my favorites list that no longer exist or have their useful tools available.
They have threatened very few lawsuits, and those they have threatened were against people who pretty blatantly stole their intellectual property. This is not something a 12 year old would do, but something an adult would do. Indeed, the people they are threatening are the ones behaving like 12 year olds in my opinion. Adults pay for licensing, they don't steal content and then whine when they get called on it (not referring to you, but the companies threatened with suits).
It just seems to me that a bunch of young punks are running the show at WotC. Maybe I'm just an old grognard, but I am seeing quite a few things that make me go: hmmmm.
I can understand not liking some of their decisions, but I do not find the reasons you presented compelling.
