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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 9678599" data-attributes="member: 697">TTRPG lines have made a decided shift toward fewer releases. I think Paizo is the only company still doing monthly, physical releases for a game line. There are a bunch of reasons for this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Back in the day, distributors really liked product lines that had monthly releases. A line meant a regular cadence of products to keep people coming back. It trained retailers to order the new Pinnacle or AEG book each month. Otherwise, it was an uphill battle for a sales rep to pitch a retailer on a TTRPG supplement for a game that came out six months ago (which is an eternity in the business, unless the game is hot and customer are still asking for it). However, long-term a lot of stores found out the hard way that a growing line eventually petered out. They ended up with books that simply didn't sell well.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The shift to color art and a greater density of art increased the cost per product. If you look back at the release-heavy days of the 90s, products tended to be in black and white and have a lot less art. As expectations increased, budgets went up.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A similar thing happened with product format. You don't see many 96 page, softcover, black and white books anymore. Products tended to be smaller. Today, products are boxes or high quality hardcover books. Books were cheaper, so you could do more within the same budget.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The internet makes it much easier to rely on freelance writers for any publisher. Back in the day, a publisher making a full-time go at selling RPGs had at least one full time writer on staff. That writer has to do something, so you end up churning out a lot of text. Combine that with lower art costs and smaller products, and you end up doing more stuff.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When planning for the 5e product line, we found that people wanted about 1 new product per year. The monthly release schedule was choking the game line to death. People who bought everything were playing a game that looked completely alien to people who bought just the core rulebook. 3.5 had entire action categories that were standard in books released after a certain point, but the rules for them weren't in the PHB.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finally, TSR embraced a volume strategy to remain on top of the market. They knew that any product they released would soak up some percentage of a distributor's TTRPG budget. If they did a bunch of products each month, that left far fewer dollars available for their competitors. They also believed that a high volume of products would crowd out competitors on retail shelves in book and game stores. That exacerbated the first point. Once your product line fell out of mind, it had a hard time pushing back in.</li> </ul>I think the TTRPG publishing ecosystem is much healthier today due to those changes. Back of the envelope, adjusting for inflation I think the overall market is probably about double what it was in 1995. There are far more outlets and far more creators around today, and that adds up quickly.</blockquote>

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