WotC WotC partners with Start Playing to connect players and DMs and form tables.

[Vaalingrade]

This is textbook gatekeeping and toxic fandom, IMO. Play the game the way I feel it should be played, or you are engaging in "shenanigans" and ruining the game!

Or we could be honest about others' positions based on not wanting the big corp putting their nose into an independent company that's offering a valuable service that absolutely will end up worse for this and not try to appropriate real terms to create a boogyman.

 

[Burnside]

My group also runs at least one free game per month (basically because we don't want to be completely closed to players who legitimately can't afford it) and I can tell you that those games definitely skew younger (college age through 20s) which makes sense.

Players that come for the free games often end up becoming clients, but again that's more the ones with disposable income.

 

[Reynard]

Why would WotC participate if there was no benefit to them? Like any business partnership, this benefits both parties. It's visibility and marketing for both companies and hopefully some directly increased revenue for StartPlaying with more folks checking out the service.

Because Start Playing paid them money?

 

[Reynard]

Or we could be honest about others' positions based on not wanting the big corp putting their nose into an independent company that's offering a valuable service that absolutely will end up worse for this and not try to appropriate real terms to create a boogyman.

Is there any evidence WotC is doing anything nefarious here?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Or we could be honest about others' positions based on not wanting the big corp putting their nose into an independent company that's offering a valuable service that absolutely will end up worse for this and not try to appropriate real terms to create a boogyman.

Bull, they did a cross promotion, this won’t hurt them

 

[Vaalingrade]

Is there any evidence WotC is doing anything nefarious here?

Setting an alarm for three months from now.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Is there any evidence WotC is doing anything nefarious here?

None other than paranoia.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Setting an alarm for three months from now.

Why would you put a timer it just makes you look bad if your wrong.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Not every person is fortunate enough to play in a game run by an Enworlder. Why, we're so talented at DMing, people line up from around the block to play in our games!

For those unlucky people, there's Startplaying.games

 

[eyeheartawk]

Or reasonable trepidation. The only reliable indicator of future behavior is past behavior.

How's WotC doing by that metric?