Okay so its been a while. I’m back.
There’s been a kerfuffle in the gaming community over a recent article by Mike Mearls, the Group Manager for the D&D Research and Development Team over at Wizards of the Coast. In the article, Mearls essentially issues a plea for all of us who have played the various iterations of D&D to just get along; in essence, it’s an appeal for an end to the infamous “edition wars.”
I must say, the change in tone on the part of WOTC smacks of desperation. It’s no secret that sales of 4th edition materials are floundering, often being equaled or even surpassed by other industry leaders, such as Paizo. Now that WOTC finds themselves in such an unenviable position, folks like Mearls are encouraging us not to bash other/earlier editions of the game.
I can’t help but wonder, did Mearls see how 4e was originally marketed? It was heralded by WOTC themselves as being the best version of D&D. Their initial marketing strategy even employed videos showing how primitive, clunky, and unplayable previous editions were. Yet now we’re supposed to play nice and not say the very things WOTC themselves said back when 4e was being released? Is anybody buying this?
