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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3818604" data-attributes="member: 18280">Clearly, then, you believe that you have insight to TSR's finances that are greater than those available to the average person.  While it is certainly true that "TSR threw money into a hole trying to sue their fans for publishing derivative works for free on the internet" (even stupider a move for PR as, prehaps, the cancellation of Dragon and Dungeon in their print mediums), I would say that where TSR lost was trying to compete with MtG through Spellfire, Bloodwars, and dice games.  Of course, I don't have a copy of TSR's financial statements, as you apparently do.  And, if you do, cite specific information and sources, please.  Otherwise, you appeal to authority as to TSR's financial dealings falls a little flat.So here's something else about context:Before 2nd Edition rolled out, TSR was selling product for both the AD&D and the Basic/Expert (later Rules Compendium) D&D lines.  What was sort of neat about these products was that, with very little work, an AD&D DM could use an Expert module, and a Basic DM could use an AD&D module.  They were analagous in the way that 3.0 and 3.5 are.TSR also had a lock on D&D.  Not only a legal lock; people associated the two in a way that WotC hasn't managed to duplicate.  So, you might have C&C or T&T as competing products, but they weren't D&D.  What D&D meant was roughly analagous from product to product and line to line.  Even when 2e came out, the average DM could run Keep on the Borderlands and make any needed changes on the fly.WotC has a legal lock on the D&D name, but it doesn't have the same "TSR=D&D" lock on the imaginations of its players that TSR had then.  For many people, the offerings of third-parties, such as Paizo, Necromancer Games, and Green Ronin, are as important to what D&D "is" as are the products put out by WotC.I never purchased 3.5; I know a lot of people who likewise never purchased 3.5.  I have no intention at this time of purchasing 4.0.  I know a lot of people who likewise have no intention of purchasing 4.0.  If Paizo & Necromancer put out 3.75, I would purchase it, sight unseen.  Likewise, I know a lot of people who would do so.I am not alone in thinking that WotC simply doesn't "get" D&D.  I am not alone in thinking that Paizo, Necromancer Games, and Green Ronin do "get it".  Had I suggested that TSR didn't "get" D&D in the 1e (or even 2e) days, I would have been standing alone.I played my first D&D game on Christmas Day of 1979.  I've been playing ever since.  I've been through every period of this game's history from the Holmes Blue Box to the present.  At the worst time near the end of 2e's history, I could go to any one of a dozen gaming stores to get any recently released product.  That number has narrowed significantly.Finally (and this is important), WotC doesn't need to simply turn a profit.  It needs to turn the profit Hasbro requires.  If WotC doesn't turn sufficient profit, it makes sense for Hasbro to allocate its resources elsewhere.RC</blockquote>

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