What is this Game Supposed to be About: the 4e Version

The Chatty DM has posted his review of D&D's 4th edition Players Handbook. Among other insights, he makes this observation:

I’m actually impressed that so many things can be done with this Core game. When you buy a Core set of other exception based design games, you don’t get as much stuff… (but then again, with an average 80$ entry price, it’s to be expected).

In fact, I will go against the current opinion on the subject and say that D&D 4e was probably not designed to get the Video game/MMORPG crowd to adopt Tabletop RPGs. I actually believe that Wizards of the Coast are trying to eat market shares of the very large and lucrative collectible/non-collectible card/miniatures gamer pool.

Now that's a very interesting thought. Positioning 4e as a bridge between collectible card games, collectible minis games, and RPGs gives WotC a lot of flexibility for the future of the franchise. The overlap of interests among the three sorts of hobbies is far stronger than between pen-and-paper RPGs and computer RPGs of all sorts, even MMORPGs. I'm not certain that there was anything like a conscious decision on anyone's part to do this, but that doesn't mean WotC won't leap if they find the game opening unexpected opportunities. And this is exactly the sort of strategic-level thinking one should expect from a company in WotC's dominating position.