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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 3725007" data-attributes="member: 19857">I think they're totally after money.&nbsp; And that's why I will be willing to make a wager on your guarantee here.&nbsp; Doing something like that would screw up their revenue stream so badly it would make your head spin.&nbsp; The revenue stream for D&amp;D has always been about selling Player's Handbooks to gamers - everything on top of that is gravy.&nbsp; So they print lots and lots of Player's Handbooks and warehouse them - printing lots at a time that they know they're going to sell through saves them money on the per copy cost.&nbsp; There's a reason that the &quot;Revised 3.5&quot; edition came out when they were getting ready to do another printing - the choice was do another printing of 3.0 or put the revision out.If they came out with a completely new Player's Handbook every year that was &quot;required&quot; to play the game, a few things would happen.&nbsp; First, they'd have to print up smaller initial lots of PHBs from year to year, because the &quot;expiration date&quot; on those copies would be 12 months away.&nbsp; That means less guaranteed return on investment on Player's Handbooks.&nbsp; Second, edition fatigue would start killing off sales in droves - one year isn't even enough time to fully exploit a well designed card game, let alone something as complex as an RPG.&nbsp; They're pushing the time a bit with an eight year gap since the last edition, one year would be insane.&nbsp; Even if people were excited about a new set of rules, too many people would be mid-stream in their campaigns to want to suddenly switch to a new ruleset.&nbsp; One year is not enough gap between editions.And this same reasoning tells us that they won't make these new PHBs complete books on their own (e.g. with the combat, and character creation, and other rules completely reprinted in them).&nbsp; They'll want you to own BOTH books - the core PHB and the new hotness PHB2.&nbsp; If every &quot;sequel&quot; contains the basic rules to play there's no incentive to get the core book, which is where the bulk of their sales come from.&nbsp; The economics just don't make sense.As for D&amp;D Insider - everything they're saying makes it sound like it's as &quot;mandatory&quot; to D&amp;D 4e play as Dragon and Dungeon magazine have been to previous editions - not very.&nbsp; It sounds like there will be some neat tools, but that none of them will be required.&nbsp; And that makes sense too from an economic perspective if you think about it - you're already asking new players to plunk down almost $100 to get the 3 core books to play the darn game, and you're asking them to shell out money for miniatures and adventures and dungeon tiles and maps too - why put up a barrier to them spending money?&nbsp; Instead, make the stuff as modular as you can - if you can play the game with just the 3 core books that's perfect.&nbsp; Then slowly lure them in with shiny toys like adventures, miniatures, maps, electronic doo-dads, etc. until you have them spending the bulk of their entertainment budget on your shiny toys.I mean, this is economics that any crack dealer knows instictively - I suspect that the whiz-kids at Hasbro have this part figured out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 3725007, member: 19857"] I think they're totally after money. And that's why I will be willing to make a wager on your guarantee here. Doing something like that would screw up their revenue stream so badly it would make your head spin. The revenue stream for D&D has always been about selling Player's Handbooks to gamers - everything on top of that is gravy. So they print lots and lots of Player's Handbooks and warehouse them - printing lots at a time that they know they're going to sell through saves them money on the per copy cost. There's a reason that the "Revised 3.5" edition came out when they were getting ready to do another printing - the choice was do another printing of 3.0 or put the revision out. If they came out with a completely new Player's Handbook every year that was "required" to play the game, a few things would happen. First, they'd have to print up smaller initial lots of PHBs from year to year, because the "expiration date" on those copies would be 12 months away. That means less guaranteed return on investment on Player's Handbooks. Second, edition fatigue would start killing off sales in droves - one year isn't even enough time to fully exploit a well designed card game, let alone something as complex as an RPG. They're pushing the time a bit with an eight year gap since the last edition, one year would be insane. Even if people were excited about a new set of rules, too many people would be mid-stream in their campaigns to want to suddenly switch to a new ruleset. One year is not enough gap between editions. And this same reasoning tells us that they won't make these new PHBs complete books on their own (e.g. with the combat, and character creation, and other rules completely reprinted in them). They'll want you to own BOTH books - the core PHB and the new hotness PHB2. If every "sequel" contains the basic rules to play there's no incentive to get the core book, which is where the bulk of their sales come from. The economics just don't make sense. As for D&D Insider - everything they're saying makes it sound like it's as "mandatory" to D&D 4e play as Dragon and Dungeon magazine have been to previous editions - not very. It sounds like there will be some neat tools, but that none of them will be required. And that makes sense too from an economic perspective if you think about it - you're already asking new players to plunk down almost $100 to get the 3 core books to play the darn game, and you're asking them to shell out money for miniatures and adventures and dungeon tiles and maps too - why put up a barrier to them spending money? Instead, make the stuff as modular as you can - if you can play the game with just the 3 core books that's perfect. Then slowly lure them in with shiny toys like adventures, miniatures, maps, electronic doo-dads, etc. until you have them spending the bulk of their entertainment budget on your shiny toys. I mean, this is economics that any crack dealer knows instictively - I suspect that the whiz-kids at Hasbro have this part figured out. [/QUOTE]

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