WOTC has been on a downward trend since the Hasbro acquisition.

hungryhobbit 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They might have been declining since then, but more recently I'd point to when they introduced Dr. Who, Transformers, My Little Pony, and a whole bunch of other crap into a game about wizards fighting in a fantasy world.

In the short term all the franchises have proved incredibly popular (just like in Fortnight), but in the long run I think it means the death of the game (just like where Fortnight is headed).

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haunter 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That was 27 years ago. They were only founded 9 years before that.

The game(s) are more popular than ever, especially D&D

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nonethewiser 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

D&D is famously not more popular than ever and is one of the reasons why so many OSR's have exploded in popularity over the past 5-10 years.

	▲	1attice 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is both true that there has been an OSR revival, and that D&D is more popular than ever -- just with a much broader and culturally normative audience. Also: Yes, Hasbro did some shit, but they also had to relent and CC their SRD. This all happened years ago. I say this as a committed Pathfinder player who hasn't seen a good reason to return to D&D (PF2e is good enough). D&D is doing numbers and no one cares that us nerds moved on because of weak tea from the previous decade. It's their house now, and it's fine.

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hellcow 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

D&D had a massive player revolt a while back in response to WOTC (at the requirement of Hasbro) trying to take ownership over everything players create in the D&D universe, breaking their long-standing promise to all of those creators and players.

Several of the top D&D people who were advocating for players resigned around this time.

WOTC/Hasbro since relented under this pressure, but the bridge was already burned. My group hasn't played a D&D campaign since. We switched to Pathfinder 2e and found that it was a better system altogether.

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ddtaylor 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Short form brain rot and fentanyl are more popular than ever.

Popularity is not a reliable metric.

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bena 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That was 1999. Invasion came out that year. Innistrad, Mirrodin, Ravnica, and other settings all came out after Hasbro's acquisition.

Every year seems to be the best-selling year so far. Magic: the Gathering is Hasbro's primary revenue source.

And look, I don't like the sheer amount of product they're pumping out every year now. But I realize I'm clearly in the minority opinion based on sales.