While I don't doubt that personal identity is a factor, it fails to be the most parsimonious solution, in my opinion, and therefore its utility in explaining the phenomena widely is suspect. It rests on the unproven and unprovable assumption that edition warriors invest their personal identity in the game to such an extent that changes to the game threaten their identity.
A simpler solution, and one that surely applies to many edition warriors, is what's been stated earlier: 1) concern that with an edition change, it will be materially more difficult to find a group of like-minded gamers with whom to play his game of choice, and 2) concern that support for the game will disappear. These are real, as well as proximate and immediate concerns, whereas self-identity as a gamer of a certain edition is, by its nature, a speculative claim.
This was absolutely the most immediate element for me with the switch. When 4e was released, I knew I would be moving to start graduate school in a matter of months, separating me from my long-time 3.x gaming group.
I also knew, due to the location where I would be in school, that if there was going to be any kind of D&D gaming scene in my new town, that it would likely be focused on the newest edition, because it was "new," and it was the only "official" D&D (at the time, pre-Pathfinder) that was going to be supported.
And guess what.....I was right. The only D&D groups of I've had invites to play in were 4th ed campaigns. I actually have ended up compromising by playing a Star Wars Saga Edition game, but I'll take a good fantasy roleplaying campaign over Star Wars any day.
Of course, Hobo's assertion doesn't fully describe WHY I preferred D&D 3.x over 4e to begin with. For me, it wasn't
primarily about identity, as many have defined (although there was a definite element of "fandom," I'll admit). For me, it was the fact that the style of roleplaying I preferred, and that the long-time group I had played with inculcated, did not seem to be as inherently integral to the design goals of the 4th edition product.
And of course, since my way of roleplaying is the only right way, everyone should bow before my demands, right?
However, as I pointed out in a previous thread, I personally could have handled the 4th Edition transition much better if I felt that Wizards of the Coast wasn't being so disingenuous about its production, its design goals, and the product's ultimate place in their long-term business strategy. Thus, my stake in the edition war is really no longer the rules themselves. Shoot, go knock yourselves out playing any edition you want. I've got Pathfinder, and I will do my darndest to get people to play it if a group ever asked for my input, but if I had a group I trusted that wanted to play 4e, I probably would.
However,
To me, the stake now is in the
ethics and
business practices of the companies I wish to support in the future, because those practices ultimately affect my options for playing. My personal stake in the matter is that if we as fans show "blind loyalty" to a product--any product--that's foisted upon us as "the next great thing," and we as the willing masses simply buy it because it has the right logo printed on the cover, that ultimately the quality of gaming--universally, across the board--suffers. Because at that point, design decisions ARE NOT MADE WITH THE INTENT TO IMPROVE THE GAMING EXPERIENCE, they are made to capitalize on the highest return on investment. If we're really really lucky, a smart company will try to do both--but if one side gets sacrificed in the face of expediency, guess which one it's going to be?
Like it or not, D&D is the Microsoft of the RPG world. It sets the trends. And my worst fear is that 4th Edition is the first step into the "Microsoftization" of D&D--where expediency and quarterly profits are more important than really producing something GOOD. And if the "Microsoft" principle of D&D holds true, we are likely to get one good version of "Windows" (aka D&D) about every three releases.
In the past, I don't think this was the case. I think most of us felt that every edition of D&D had a level of transparency. Yes, there were disagreements about which edition handled rules better, but I don't think most of us, even in the days of early 3.0, felt that the edition change was an attempt to simply get us to "buy stuff." There were clear elements of design improvement that were pointed to as evolutionary.
But with 4th Edition, it felt to me that Wizards of the Coast, as evidenced by many of their corporate decisions around the same time as the 4e release, had fallen prey to the "corporate imperative" rather than the "customer imperative"--radical rules revision largely breaking backwards compatibility, the bungled marketing campaign ("Your badwrongfun must stop!"), yanking old PDFs from online vendors, the horrendous original GSL license, the largely unfulfilled promise of the DDI initiative. All of it had a distinctly "Windows Vista" feel to it--a corporation releasing a functional but half-baked product that many people didn't particularly feel needed to be released, but was foisted upon us anyway, because it was "better" than what we already had.
Ultimately, my "stake," or investment in D&D is to maintain a broad, vibrant community of gamers, but to also ensure that opportunities to play the RPG of my choice continue at the highest rate possible. And as a result, I have a vital, protective interest in the Market Leader of my chosen hobby producing a product that meets that need.
