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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 394722" data-attributes="member: 812">Re: My two coppers...Ah! Good call! What exactly is the success of Hackmaster? How many people are buying it and who are they? I *suspect* it's an insignificant number compared to the number of people buying 3E, but I don't know. Anyone with numbers here?Lots of this argument depends on numbers we don't have. First of all, we need to know sales figures for, let's say, both 1985 and 2002. Then we have to know what percentage of the sales of 3E were to new gamers -- you're assuming most are new gamers but that is certainly not my experience. Without some evidence I'm not going to agree to that point at all. In fact, I assert the opposite -- that most people who purchased the 3E PHB already owned either 1E or 2E PHBs.Anyway, we don't have any numbers so this is all pretty pointless.All I'm saying is that, according to the reports from WotC employees that I have read, 3E is selling very well. I believe Anthony Valterra is on record as saying that the D&D group of WotC is one of its top earners. This indicates that the business plan is doing well.The fact that there may be a large market unserved by WotC (not that anyone has demonstrated that there is) does not mean the plan is flawed. Not if they're making as much money as they expected to. It's all about hitting targets, not about maximizing revenue.What makes you think that's not exactly what has happened? It's exactly what happened to me. I'm an old fan. My wife is a new fan. We both play 3E. Where's your evidence that these huge numbers of unsatisfied 1E fans even exist?Stupid Hasbro? Only time will tell. It looks to me like they're following the business plan to its proper conclusion -- cut out everything that isn't high-margin -- that is, everything but the PHB. Provide the SRD so that third-party groups can generate the network of supporting materials that keeps PHB sales high.We're talking about a company that sells Monopoly, a game that hasn't changed nor shifted its position on toy store shelves for 50 years or so. Why wouldn't they want to do exactly the same thing with the PHB? Keep on selling it, maybe not a massive number but if they've got no R&D staff, no designers and no writers to support they don't need to sell a lot to make a tidy profit. Let the third parties create all the goodies that keep it selling. I mean, I don't know how many copies of Monopoly they sell each year, but I bet it's always in the top ranks of tabletop games. This from a product that literally has not changed for decades. Designers? What designers?So you see, if 3E is selling well, there's still motivation for Hasbro to cut staff. They might very well keep cutting staff. It doesn't follow that because Hasbro is gutting the creative team the company must be suffering from low sales.No company in the world wants full-time employees. Part-timers cost less in every way except long-term loyalty. And why would Hasbro be concerned about keeping people's genius to themselves? Again, you're misunderstanding the plan. They WANT other companies to be producing incredibly cool d20 products based on the SRD. That's exactly what they want because every one of those products helps to sell the PHB.Now I don't know any better than anyone else what's really going on. I just know what Mr. Dancey has said, and other WotC employees. I don't have any numbers, but neither does anyone else. All I'm saying is that the actions we've seen fit the plan, and there isn't any evidence to suggest that the plan isn't working. And that includes massive layoffs, not caring about theoretical masses of cranky 1E holdouts and the success of Hackmaster.EDIT: Hey Meepo, are we tag-teaming AGAIN? What's up with that?</blockquote>

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