I think the thing that about the Dungeons & Dragons situation, which anyone with half an eye already knew, is that it doesn't matter how abusive Wizards are.
The foremost reaction from fans is a fearful and puzzled "but there's no immediately comparable industry monopoly I can jump ship to!" and it doesn't matter how, or how often or how long, you say that the monopoly is in fact the problem, that it's why they're even thinking about it,
they're incapable of imagining doing TTRPGs as anything other than a Megacorp Total Brand Experience. Buy the product buy the merch for the product buy the Authentic™ Fandom Experience™ of being an identical brand consumer in a crowd of identical brand consumers join the herd buy the dice buy the Funko Pops all of them ALL of them never look at the open door while we treat you with naked contempt all that's out there is Everything Else and that's not a Brand you never want anything that's not a Brand this Brand our Brand you're part of it by giving us your money give us your money again. now.
You cannot fight Wizards Hasbro because out here we have art and better games and actual human feeling; any more than cinema can fight the MCU.
I keep saying that the TTRPG industry deserves to burn entirely to the ground precisely because it's an impervious monolith of lung-shredding asbestos that isn't going to
it doesn't matter how, or how often or how long, you say that the monopoly is in fact the problem
Fundamentally I see this about so many many many things.
Hell, the fascinating thing about the ongoing social media apocalypse is it's happening there too!
Twitter is literally publicly immolating itself by the minute, and somehow I still see people, people who have spent nearly a decade talking daily about what a hellsite it is, resist even considering anything else, or attacking alternatives ... because they are not The Brand, and we must have The Brand.
I have had a post brewing up in my brain for a few days now about how capitalism has completely hijacked our ability to trust other people, and this is but one part of it.
Consistently, I see small creators subjected to a level of scrutiny that somehow never enters their mind when it comes to The Brands. Multi-billion dollar corporations with documented histories of child abuse or slavery or literal fucking genocide get a shrug, while three queers in a shed making a game about ducks get months long harassment campaigns because they had the audacity to ask for 5 bucks.
Don't seem right to me.
