Imagine if WotC gave this to Larian, whose basic opinion seems to be that many of them think that playing 5e D&D is not fun, full in the knowledge that they would completely butcher their implementation of the ruleset, because they knew the studio's history of functionally an entirely different but similar genre of game (and subsequent fan base), along with the hype legacy of Baldur's Gate would be guaranteed to bring in both large crowds of existing D&D fans, and a large audience of people from other styles who stand the chance of becoming interested in D&D as a result - and they knew that in doing this, the largest, loudest volume of player outcry would be those familiar with D&D telling all of the others that the game would be so much better and more engaging and more fun if they'd only tried to create a more faithful interpretation of the 5e ruleset... Because then at least a significant portion of that untapped legion who don't already play D&D and buy their books, would be more likely to be tempted to do so, in response to being presented with a shoddy example that was kinda fun but also meh, and being told that the actual game system is much better, by so many people.
Just a morning before-I've had-tea thought...
Yep, that's something along the lines of the way WotC seem to have been operating in the last decade.
Like any other company, they want to find ways to drive product sales, and crowd-sourcing their marketing is certainly part of it. They seem more inclusive and less hardcore in their views than some of their players!
