I didn't say that. I would bet that they have someone looking over every DMs Guild product for good ideas that the 3rd party site can't realize on its own. Number of copies sold wouldn't be that metric, though. A lot of good ideas can be lost in other bad ideas that kill a product. They will be looking at what is done and making the decision themselves. The success or failure of the 3rd party product would be nearly worthless to look at.
No, its because they have an extreme amount of money to pump into production and advertising. You seriously cannot compare an indie 3PP budget with HASBRO in those terms. Like come ON.
I mean, a big part of that marketing budget is market research to determine what people actually want. WotC spends tremendous time and energy on that.
My man, if I, as a literal indie publisher, could somehow randomly gain $100,000 for literally just market research and advertising, let alone the millions WotC commands, I would be far more successful. You can't tell me you don't see how ridiculous you're being. Me and literally every other 3PP publisher, even those that get million dollar Kickstarters, cannot compete with WotC in any way when it comes to advertising.
...? No? Who said that? I said they have the resources to get accurate market information, and so have better evidence on their hands as to what will sell than their gut feelings or a conspiracy to hurt 4E fan's feelings or something.
Weren't campaign settings crossed off the list initially... now we have how many official setting books?? Strangely enough it was also an area where 3PP have been able to and still do flourish...
But that's the thing: they wouldn't necessarily are "oodles of cash" I'd they released whatever, whenever. And spending $7 to make $10 instead of $3 to make $8 isn"leaving .only on the table": spending more and having a lower profit is losing money, even if revenue goes up somewhat.
You're doing that thing again where you take "criticism of the status quo" and treat it as "inversion to a strawman opposite."
This, at least, is a more cogent point....but you have no data to base it on. Would it have cost them 2.33x as much to only gain 1.25x the money? Or would it have cost them 1.25x as much to make 2.33x as much money? We literally cannot know. WotC doesn't even know.
Not sure how it could be, considering the very first supplement was SCAG, an official setting book...less than a year after the DMG was published. Meaning it had to have been in the works before the DMG was published.
Neither of us have data to base it on: WotC, however does, and it is their business to run. I see no reason to suspect that this is not the moderate approach.
