Is the world leaving without me?

It came to my attention today, thanks as usual to Crwth, that WotC is pulling the rights for third parties to sell pdfs. The WotC party line is that it's a move to curb piracy. The conspiracy theorists see it as an evil plot to force 4E on the non-adapters.

Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. Mainly because I can't quite believe that they'd cut off even a small trickle of income. Not in this current economic climate when any income is good income.

Mostly I find it hard to believe that my fellow "hangers on" would spend their money on 4E products simply because we can't buy 3.5 (or older version) pdfs. The way I see it, if I can't get 3.5 material I'll be happy with what I have and keep my money, thanks.

So, ideally WotC's little game of "I'm-taking-my-ball-and-going-home" will backfire.

Yet, realistically I have little doubt that without 3.5 pdfs to buy more than a few gamers will shrug and buy a 4E book or two. A few of them might even like it enough to stick with it. A few others will continue to shrug and just buy the game that's currently supported.

The rest might buy 4E soley because of some odd fear of "falling behind". Like there's some sort of natural selection taking place among gamers, where the early adapters thrive and multiply with their roles and powers.

Meanwhile the players like me cling to our anachronistic multi-classing and Vancian spellcasting systems.

In ten years time when my son is playing (5th edition?) will I be unable to relate to his Spellscorched Paragon Striker? Will DnD themed web-comics cease to make sense to me?

Will I find myself extinct from the gamer gene pool?