Thread by @TheIceQueer

I don't like to use this account to talk outrage, so I've been mostly quiet about the #dnd5e situation the past few days; I've been way too pissed to say anything productive.

I've finally settled enough, so, here's my🧵: why this is a disaster for everyone, WotC included.

It's not ambiguous why this is happening: WotC shareholders demand growth, and D&D's growth has slowed. How could it not? They captured a colossal market share over the past 5 years, and the pandemic only amplified that, with people playing online.

However, we saw this with Netflix, too. They captured basically their maximum market share during the pandemic, so in practice, they had nowhere to go but down, and everything started burning as a result.

Anti-consumer policy became the only way to keep that growth going.

Much like with Netflix, this is going to bite them in the ass. Even moreso, I think.

WotC is showing they don't really care about the 1% of their market share who loves the game; they're much more concerned with the 99% who will buy a book or two every year.

Which is fine business sense if all you know is business. But RPGs fly a little different. That 1% of passionate players runs their conventions, sets up their gamestore leagues, provides free homebrew, and most crucially, DMs games! You can't really have D&D without them!

These are the players who care about the 3pp space, and they're the players WotC is alienating. D&D already suffers from not being able to acquire new players due to a lack of DMs. This is only going to make matters worse.

Without that small percentage of people who devote 10+ hours of their week to D&D, the hobby is at risk. And those numbers will recover; fresh faces will evolve into passionate players over the years. But it will be slower and harder, because there aren't people to onboard them.

When all the most passionate players have given up and moved on to other games, and those games suddenly have an influx of people who are happy to DM, run cons, and set up leagues, WotC will be making money, and losing market share rapidly.

And in the meantime, the lack of 3pp content will cost WotC the customizability that has propped up their game for years. When people can't build whatever they want in 5e, players will start actually looking outside D&D for other genres.

It's just a clusterfuck of suits who don't really understand what they're doing, scrambling for short-term gains to placate their shareholders at the expense of long-term community building, in an industry that is DEPENDENT on its communities to function.