What made it compelling to me was that it was really the opposite of a pay to play subscription service,
To start: sorry for any typos. I have a toddler in my lap watching YT videos as I write this. It does not help with the proofreading.
I think you hit the nail on the head right there. I suspect that "toolkit" games are likely a thing of the past, at least for large/corporate developers. Or, if they do continue, creating modules will somehow come with microtrans. I have a friend who, among other things, has a background in organic chemistry and microbiology. This is an analogy she was applying to larger corporations in a different industry, but really you can apply it to corporations across the board. That is, and I hope I don't mess it up, the larger a cell gets, the more resources it needs to consume to stay alive. Eventually, a cell can get too big and it reaches some kind of critical mass where it can't practically sustain itself and it usually just collapses and/or produces low quality garbage for the surrounding system.
WotC can possibly retain some independence as a child company under Hasbro. However, Hasbro spent $325 mil to get them, and they need that money back and then some. They seem to be pretty hands on, too, unlike how Microsoft is being with all the IPs and developers they are swallowing up. A game where you can buy three books for maybe $120 and play "new games" indefinitely isn't going to keep the lights on. A video game toolkit like NWN, with a much higher production cost, that you can buy for $40 and play "new games" indefinitely is
definitely not going to keep the lights on. With the former, this is why they created the DM Guild and started exploring VTT options. Plenty of opportunity to take an additional cut there. I honestly think that, once Hasbro finds their way and gets their shit together, D&D is going to go the way of Fallout. There will still be a product with the D&D label, but it won't even resemble the original spirit of the game. It's just like, you still have
Elder Scrolls Fallout games being developed, but if you want the "real" Fallout, you're going to play the originals or the Wasteland series from inXile (who cleverly stepped in to fill the void).
And it's not just them. Look at what happened last year with Paradox (now owned by MS) and HBS. The big corporation is holding tight to the IP, while the indie company that actually knows how to develop the titles (Shadowrun and Battletech) walks away with nothing. I really hope they (HBS) pull an Obsidian and just create their own thing like Obsidian did with PoE. That's really the way to go, I think. Let the big guys keep their fancy labels which will proceed to have lowest-common-denominator content, and let the little guys have the freedom to create something new and original.
This is my prediction. Hasbro/WotC is going to create a product, and that product will have D&D stickers all over it. However, it won't even resemble the original spirit of D&D. It'll just be another corporate cash grab. This will leave a void where "real" D&D used to be, and someone will create something that fills that void. It won't have the D&D label on it, but we'll all know what it really is. I think that, technically, this has already happened to an extent with OSR. But, there's a zillion flavors of OSR, so you're not likely to have one game to rule them all (which is probably a good thing). I even have my own side project where I'm trying to retrofit the few good design elements of WotC's early editions of D&D to TSR's system in a way where you can just run the old TSR modules with a more updated system and it "just works". Of course, this is just my take on on the genre and others have a different perspective, but that's the beauty of it. There's plenty of room for all of us in the wake of Hasbro/WoTC's transition, and unfortunately for them, they don't stand to make much/any money off of any of us.
I'm with you Black Elk. I'll tell you about the best $10 I ever spent on this hobby. Terraria. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I easily have 6,000 hours in that game. For $10. On one hand, I kinda feel bad for Re-Logic because they've done an amazing job but only made 16 cents/hour (and dropping the more I play the game) off of me. On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for a developer that can create a solid entry that "just works" without having to continue to shovel money at it to keep it running. It's a hobby, not a mortgage.
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