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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Solvarn" data-source="post: 5483134" data-attributes="member: 59666">I suspect that it wasn't a matter of them not having their act together, but more that they don't really understand the interaction of the market forces involved with 3PP and their company; at least the executives higher up don't. Possibly poor analogy: Let's say you are a Chinese restaurant all alone in the food court. You will have huge fans of the restaurant that really like the food and eat there at every opportunity. Once in awhile they may get a bad meal, but their enthusiasm will keep them coming back. These fans will also get their friends to come with them. Eventually though, some of these people might want to try a different place. They may get the huge fan to come along as well. They might leave the food court and go somewhere else, or they might even abandon eating out altogether and pack lunches more. Some people won't go to the food court at all because there is only one restaurant. If there were more than one, they might occasionally eat at your place because a special looked appealing, but they like to have a plethora of choices. These people may never get exposure to the food in the food court because they know only one restaurant is serving food up. They may have heard its not good or they may not like Chinese food. Now, as the only restaurant in the food court, someone that lacked vision might assume that allowing other restaurants to run in the food court would hurt their business. They think that they might have to split their business with the other people in the food court. There may be some restaurants putting out some real garbage but that is a problem with mall management that can easily be remedied. Management can elect to not have their lease renewed, or the food will suck and the bad restaurant will just go out of business. At any rate, in order to be a restaurant in the food court management can make special rules that all restaurants need to follow. People will come to places with more choices, because consumers like choices. The food court is great because although I might hate Chinese food, I can eat at the food court with my friend and I can get pizza at the Italian place. I might even change my mind about the Chinese if my friend's keeps looking so appealing. It will also help develop the habit of coming to the food court. Because of lack of vision and poor understanding, WotC really shot themselves in the foot with the 4E third party publishers. They forced Paizo to open their own food court on the other side of the mall, rather than open a restaurant next store. So now people that eat lunch at food courts have two choices and those that go to one get little to no exposure to the other. It's a sad situation for both parties and I think having more than nominal success with 5E will predicate them attracting more third party publishers. If they do not they will see their numbers skew downward more quickly on sales of product from core release to supplement, and this trend will likely continue the more editions that they spawn.</blockquote>

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