The wanking will only get worse. I don't see how having more D&D will make D&D less of a standard entry point, however.

They may or may not. After all, they successfully killed 3.0, but their attempt to kill 3.5 failed miserably. We might be looking at three editions simultaneously, and with each shrunk enough the bar to entry for smaller companies will be significantly lowered - though still completely ridiculous.

And who exactly is going to support 4E or essentials? I'm unaware of any 3rd party support for it. Certainly nothing on the scale that 3.5 enjoyed.

The bar for entry into the roleplaying market is incredibly low. Just ask all those self-publishers.

Even if no one's supporting it, there will still be the "tail" support among fans that don't want to switch. That's typical of any edition update in any game. Some people hold onto the old stuff while other people go for the new. Then by the time the next edition comes around, usually enough people have let go of the prior edition that you don't get a three-way fight.

Using D&D as a case-in-point, you got 2 vs 3 then 3 vs 3.5 then 3.5 vs 4. But you never saw a significant brawl over 2 vs 4. Too many people had moved on. Sure, people wanked about it, but it's not like you can go to the average convention and find tons of people playing it.

The difference this time around is that in addition to the 4e hold-outs resisting a new edition, you have 3.5 still in active support because of the OGL. And some numbers suggest there are more people playing 3.5 (or Pathfinder) than 4e.

Possible, but I still don't see a 3 way fight developing. Sure, 4E fans get pissed, but as you pointed out, you don't see 2 vs 4 very much. I'm not sure that 3 vs 5 would be much different unless Paizo did something truly bone headed.

It's like what Ryan said: Wizards cannot simply kill 3. There is going to be support for 3 for as long as any of us are gaming. It's a well constructed fantasy roleplaying system, anyone can use it, and with Paizo as an active and very competent anchor company there is going to be a community and a support platform for a very long time.

What Wizards has to do is make something better than 3. That something is not 4, and pretty much everyone has admitted it by now. 4 was a bold leap away from the gradual approaches of 1 to 2 and 2 to 3, but it leaped into mechanics that sacrificed internal consistency (what the hell are "encounter powers" and "daily powers" and why do they work that way?) in order to create a game based on MMO-style fight encounters. That's nice for whatever that is but it's not how most of us do tabletop fantasy roleplaying.

I don't foresee a lingering group of holders-on to 4 for two main reasons: Wizards is going to be able to kill it like they can't kill 3, and 4 never really developed the total, pervasive, industry-and-hobby-wide presence that 3 did. 3 never died and 4 never totally cornered the market because of it. I think there will always be shreds of independent content for 4 floating around in basements and on the internet, but I bet within a few years of 5 coming out, 4 will be as uncommon and quirky and off-brand as 1 and 2 are now. And 3 will still be here, incarnate in Pathfinder and its many appendages, possibly as big or bigger than any RPG Wizards publishes.

(Full disclosure, of course, I am an independent developer on the 3 platform and have some degree of personal and financial stake in my successive-D&Ds-will-come-and-go-but-3-won't-die-for-a-very-long-time outlook.)

It's a game. It's got gamey parts. That's how they wanted their combat to work. There's never been "internal consistency" in any of it, there's no "why": it's just a game with rules. A good game will have rules that accomplish the designers' intent.

I'm not sure what most people do with tabletop fantasy RPGs, but D&D (since 2e*) has mainly been about killing things and taking their stuff. D&D doesn't have rules for making a story. It has rules for fighting and some basic social interaction, and the story is what happens as a result.

* Some would argue that earlier editions were mainly dungeon crawls that rewarded acquiring treasure and, to some extent, avoiding combat through clever play to get treasure. I never played anything earlier than 2e, so I won't comment on it.