The Business: Roll For Combat Explains Why It's Current Edition Forever

Wednesday last week, Roll For Combat came back to explain why Current Edition Is Forever Edition.

"When WOTC bought Beyond, that's when they became a software company."

That's profound. WOTC's business is Beyond, not D&D; because of Technical Debt, WOTC is stuck with D&D5 indefinitely because it is now cost-prohibitative, especially for a company run by Mammon Mobsters, for WOTC to make the changes that formerly happened with edition changes.

"But WOW-"

Has had severe problems with every major mechnical redesign, such that they nearly tanked themselves thrice (Cataclysm, Warlords of Draenor, Shadowlands), and gets seriously shit upon every time they fuck with how the game plays. Finally they got the damned memo, started doing smaller and more iterative changes, and while there's still plenty of grumbling grumbling doesn't lead to mass cancelations and abandonment. Grumblers stay subscribed, so they keep paying, and that's what Blizzard wants.

WOTC wants the same thing. They already have it in Magic, and they are going to do the same with Official D&D going forward- and they are going to privilege digital over print enough to maximize social pressure from the Network to get holdouts to conform and rely on Beyond instead of print products.

As there is already a critical mass of Beyond users, that plan will work and is already working; Organized Play will be the hammer to that anvil, and all the holdouts will fold over the next year or so into an insignificant number. Those folks will either quit entirely or go into Also-Ran containment (e.g. Pathfinder) as the Colony Drop hits and Conventional Play abandons the real for the digital.

Listen to the podcast, folks. The hobby you know is going away, is bifurcating, and you will be forced to choose: go to Vidya, go underground, or go away.