There was a study a few years ago that showed the % of the population that identifies as a lesbian is growing more slowly than other lgbtq groups and the terfs started calling that the "lesbian genocide". Absurdity of their own replies etc
It should be suspicious that not one single firm within the market is organized the same way the market is. If markets and the price motive are the best way to decide how to allocate resources, why don't any of the agents actually making the decisions within the capitalist economy use markets within themselves to make those decisions? Sears famously tried this and the company immediately cannibalized itself.
The last time WotC did something greedy and pissed off their players, I saw groups go one of two ways.
The first group I was in was heavily invested in D&D Beyond and they came to every session up-in-arms about what WotC was doing. They couldn't believe it! But they also couldn't give up D&D or be bothered to learn a new game. The group ended up dissolving for unrelated reasons, but the last time I checked the guy who was the most mad is still paying his DND beyond subscription.
The other group I was in at the time was not at all invested in D&D Beyond. One of them texts the group asking if we wanted to play Lancer or Wanderhome next. I asked if switching games was because of the recent scandal and she told me she hadn't even heard of it.
ELI5 What happens then?
Tldr some people quit and play other games. Most people get mad but stay. Musk probably tanks the company anyways doing what he does best
Isn't DnD something you build from scratch in paper?
Kind of. Wizards of the Coast sells the rules to the game and sells pre-written adventures for groups to play. Many groups use the pre-written ones, many groups make their own adventures from scratch. In the past when WotC has pissed enough people off, plenty of people kept playing D&D but simply stopped buying new books. Plenty more people switched away from D&D to other (frankly better) games.
The thing that complicates this now is the prevalence of digital tools over pen and paper. I haven't played D&D with a group that used paper sheets in years. The problem is that WotC is very strict about not allowing anyone else to build tools that compete with their subscription-based digital character sheet. If you want to use a digital sheet, you have to use D&D Beyond.
And D&D Beyond is expensive. The last time I looked into it, you had to buy digital copies of the new books you wanted to use at the same price as the hardcovers. And then if you wanted to share them with your table (and you definitely do) you needed to pay a monthly subscription. This results in a lot of groups with a major sunk cost of the hundreds of dollars tied up in online content. Leaving that ecosystem would be "wasting" the money they put into it.
Yeah I'm sure glad we don't have incomprehensible repetitive in jokes. I'm gonna post a picture of a bean now.
Jokes aside, this is one of the few places on the Internet where you don't have to be a power user to feel like part of a community