I sure find this line very interesting:
"As far as the publishing side, Pazio’s Pathfinder line appears to have taken a huge chunk of market share away from D&D, with many stores reporting it supplanting 4th edition as their number one seller."
Can't say I am surprised, and certainly believe it to be true. Since it as announced that Paizo was essentially even with WOTC last quarter.
I wondered at the time if Paizo would take the lead, and at this time I believe they will. Customer relations really help, and only Paizo acknowledges that.
WOTC likes to operate as if we have to go where they take us. They are failing to realize a lot of us know we don't have to follow.
I say this as someone who vastly prefers 4E to 3.x/PF: WOTC seems to think that they're the only game in town, as it were... as if they have a captive audience and marketing ventures are all the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel (which actually may be true, inasmuch as I'm not sure that shooting fish in a barrel is actually possible... if you want to kill the fish you're much better off just dumping the water out). But this isn't so... eventually even the industry standard can drive off so many customers that they're not the standard anymore.
If D&D goes down in flames and leaves a crater, I actually think we're in a reasonable time for that to happen. Savage Worlds recently released a Fantasy Companion that's quite good and they've got some serious fantasy product rolling (the Hellfrost stuff is nice and there's a lot of it). Pathfinder is going strong, against my expectations (but then I hate 3.x so maybe I just doubted that anyone would still play it willingly!) and Paizo seems to be doing everything right as a company (and bully for them!). The OSR seems to have retained its vitality and actually may be poised to pick up some steam in the way of some (semi-)novel upcoming releases, such as the Lovecraft supplement for Labyrinth Lord (bolstered by the Advanced Edition Companion) and a boxed set version of Carcosa.
There are things out there that can catch some of the vacated market share. Some of it will just go away, but I think most of that which was game store commerce will simply migrate to other things in the LGS (like boardgames) if it does not go into other RPG product lines.
So if D&D tanks it's not good news but I don't think it's the end of the world. The dice will roll on.