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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Business models from TSR, WotC and Paizo
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<blockquote data-quote="Henrix" data-source="post: 4778519" data-attributes="member: 3587"><p>TSR was, especially in it's early days, working on a random business method.</p><p>(Management by rolling on a gygaxian table?)</p><p></p><p>They published whatever they felt like and had at hand, without much regard or knowledge about what they made money on.</p><p>There seems to have been, even towards the end, very little, if any, feedback from what they sold passed on to those who wrote the stuff.</p><p></p><p>So I don't really think it's true to say that they made the most money on adventures. We don't know. Nobody knows for certain. But probably not.</p><p></p><p>But in the early days and in the eighties money was easy for them, roleplaying grew almost exponentially. You could sell almost anything (and people did, an amazing amount of crap, and a good deal of weird good stuff, was produced).</p><p></p><p>Likewise, in 2e, we know that several of the settings, including, sadly, Planescape, never earned back the money they made.</p><p></p><p>The best sellers have always been the core books for TSR/WotC. And some of the supplements.</p><p>Therefore, WotC wants to make more 'core' books, and less extraneous stuff.</p><p></p><p>They've also, inspired by White Wolf, realized that if they make a book that's mostly useful to DMs, then they can sell one book per gaming group.</p><p>If they make a book interesting to players they might sell one book per player.</p><p></p><p>Paizo has much smaller expectations, I suppose we're talking about at most a couple of percent of WotC sales, and that influences how they do it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Henrix, post: 4778519, member: 3587"] TSR was, especially in it's early days, working on a random business method. (Management by rolling on a gygaxian table?) They published whatever they felt like and had at hand, without much regard or knowledge about what they made money on. There seems to have been, even towards the end, very little, if any, feedback from what they sold passed on to those who wrote the stuff. So I don't really think it's true to say that they made the most money on adventures. We don't know. Nobody knows for certain. But probably not. But in the early days and in the eighties money was easy for them, roleplaying grew almost exponentially. You could sell almost anything (and people did, an amazing amount of crap, and a good deal of weird good stuff, was produced). Likewise, in 2e, we know that several of the settings, including, sadly, Planescape, never earned back the money they made. The best sellers have always been the core books for TSR/WotC. And some of the supplements. Therefore, WotC wants to make more 'core' books, and less extraneous stuff. They've also, inspired by White Wolf, realized that if they make a book that's mostly useful to DMs, then they can sell one book per gaming group. If they make a book interesting to players they might sell one book per player. Paizo has much smaller expectations, I suppose we're talking about at most a couple of percent of WotC sales, and that influences how they do it. [/QUOTE]
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