Wow. I guess all the other RPG companies better close their doors and go home. D&D is apparently the one and only for far too much of the potential market.
They certainly shouldn't consider creating even more new RPG's.
Then again, these attitudes conveyed about games other than D&D have proven my point.
Too many D&D gamers don't spread their wings enough to make more new RPG's all that viable. Too much of the potential market is stuck on D&D. Competition for the gamers who do "spread their wings" is simply too fierce.
So even more "new RPG's" are doomed to failure. WOTC, White Wolf, etc... already have a lock on too much of the potential market.
Stay home new guys. Failure is too likely with how tight the competition for gamer dollars already is.
WOW! Drama Queen much? I think the only person missing the point is you. If you did your research you would find that gamers as a whole are just a bump in the road of toys&games. We are a niche market and the only way to increase play in ANY system is to market to non-gamers. The problem you fail to grasp is that Paizo, Goodman, etc. are NOT getting put on store shelves, because they cannot generate the buzz that puts them there.
For example, my wife and I went to the local hobby store to check out the titles that are up for voting for the ENnies in order to make an informed decision, of the numerous nominees STAR WARS SAGA edition, Changelling: The Lost, and Scion: Gods were the ONLY books available. There are over 100 products on that nomination list and my local store had three. Why, supply and demand.
The demand for these products are greater therefore they are supplied, the demand for 'something else' isn't there, the only way that happens is through marketing and without that, there will never be a need for other titles. You want a change in the way things are done, I respect that, however, you are but an idealistic dreamer in a sea of business reality. One can always hope and even try to make a difference, but the fact is written in basic business text books, you have to make the public want it before you can sell it, only 1% (rounded up mind you) of all successful products started out as a product not a problem to overcome where the product was the solution.
For a more realistic view, think about this - D&D is the most widely recognized PnP RPG, it currently has somewhere between 4 and 7 million players in the US. The population of New York City is roughly 8.5 million people. Adding in gamers that use other systems, I still doubt we equal the population of NYC, and that is a single city (although one of the largest) in a country that isn't the most populous in the world. We are but a small fraction of the people in the world and you are proposing slicing us into further and further slices of pie. Even if all other companies combined to rival D&D, you are still taking from the same pool, not increasing your base. If for no other reason than that, WotC is doing a GREAT JOB! I don't know of anyone that isn't a hard core gamer that has ever even heard of d20/OGL,pathfinder,GURPS,etc. but you can bet your bottom dollar, for good or for ill, a whole bunch of non-gamers at least know of Dungeons & Dragons. You want change, talk to those people first, the rest of us can wait.