Can someone fill me in on the history of the late TSR/early WotC/3e period?

[AaronLoeb]

Henry: It's been a while since I worked with a company that actually had an inventory of anything physical, but my recollection is that it works like this:

You account for your investment in making the stuff (in this case, printing the books) and then it sits on your financial books as, essentially, potential sales. The money you spent making the books is just in limbo until you either sell the book or decide it's just not going to sell. When you decide it's just not going to sell (this is the case with any manufactured good, I think) you write off all the money you spent on making the book as a "loss." Tax-wise, losses countervail profits. Corporations are only taxed on their profits, not their income, so the lower your profits, the less you have to pay tax on. But in order to declare something a "loss" it has to be good and truly lost -- i.e. destroyed. This leads to some famous destruction stories -- like Atari filling an entire desert landfill with Atari 2600 E.T. cartridges in the early 80s because they sold about a thousandth as many units as they'd expected.

This is why you mulch books rather than holidng onto them in hopes of one day selling them (beyond the inventory costs involved) or giving them away. If you give them away, it's not a loss for some reason I truly do not understand and cannot begin to explain.

Any accountants are invited to correct what I'm sure are my many errors in explaining this.

AJL

 

[Drawmack]

I certainly have learned a lot from this thread. I have played DnD for a long time but never worried about stuff, just bought the books and played the game.

It is interesting to learn the politics behind the game so to speak.

 

[johnsemlak]

This is why you mulch books rather than holidng onto them in hopes of one day selling them (beyond the inventory costs involved) or giving them away. If you give them away, it's not a loss for some reason I truly do not understand and cannot begin to explain.

AJL

Very clear and informative post. Thanks.

I'm by no means an accountant, but my guess is that companies are required to destroy goods in order to write them off as a loss because if they were allowed to give them away and then write them off, large corporations would find a way to abuse that big time.

 

[Henry]

Any accountants are invited to correct what I'm sure are my many errors in explaining this.
AJL

Yeah, I'm familiar with the "unsold and destroyed" concept, and kind of figured that was what happened in their case - but Ryan or someone closer at the time would probably have a better explanation.

 

[DDK]

Start hijack...

This is why you mulch books rather than holidng onto them in hopes of one day selling them (beyond the inventory costs involved) or giving them away. If you give them away, it's not a loss for some reason I truly do not understand and cannot begin to explain.

Grr... that really bugs me. Aside from being environmentally unsound on SO many levels, it's just plain greedy and selfish.

I worked at a supermarket for two years as a nightpacker and occassionally I had to do the storemans and night managers jobs which involved stock right-offs. You should see the amount of food that is thrown out on a daily basis from supermarkets... it's disgusting!

I once asked my boss if there was even a remote chance of some it being sent to charities since I knew that some charities received stuff like bread from bakeries. A lot of the food that gets thrown out doesn't have anything really wrong with it, like cans that are a bit bumped or bread that's a day old or some water damage to the outside of a box where the contents of the inside are fine and protected by plastic. But nope, he said it all had to be counted and then thrown out and that it was against the law for them to give any of it away.

I swear, the amount of people that stuff could help... it's just disgusting how modern society works, I tell yah...

/hijack

 

[Staffan]

http://www.gygax.com/gygaxfaq.html#AD&D and My Leaving TSR

Here's a fascinating FAQ on Gary (Gygax's) home page. It tells of the early days of TSR and the rise of evil - aka Lorraine.

I'd just like to point out that I hardly think Gygax is all that impartial in his description, seeing as he was one of the involved parties. Not saying he's lying or anything, but I'd always take the description of people involved in ugly stuff like this (on either side) with a big grain of salt.

Like the Vorlons say: "The truth is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the real truth."

 

[DDK]

I'd just like to point out that I hardly think Gygax is all that impartial in his description, seeing as he was one of the involved parties. Not saying he's lying or anything, but I'd always take the description of people involved in ugly stuff like this (on either side) with a big grain of salt.

Like the Vorlons say: "The truth is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the real truth."

Although I agree and I love that saying, I'd say that there are several things in that history that have been confirmed by others or are patently obvious.

One of which would be Lorraine Williams incompetence. I mean, for a company with roughly $16 mill revenue/$4 mill profit annually, she managed to get the company into debt to the tune of $30 mill over 15+ years without any foreseeable method of paying off the debt. I mean, I'm no business guru, but from what I understand, she had to be pretty damn stupid to bring the company to that level of failure.

 

[BOZ]

Re: Start hijack...

I worked at a supermarket for two years as a nightpacker and occassionally I had to do the storemans and night managers jobs which involved stock right-offs. You should see the amount of food that is thrown out on a daily basis from supermarkets... it's disgusting!

I once asked my boss if there was even a remote chance of some it being sent to charities since I knew that some charities received stuff like bread from bakeries. A lot of the food that gets thrown out doesn't have anything really wrong with it, like cans that are a bit bumped or bread that's a day old or some water damage to the outside of a box where the contents of the inside are fine and protected by plastic. But nope, he said it all had to be counted and then thrown out and that it was against the law for them to give any of it away.

you got that right. i worked at a supermarket for 10 years, and you could keep several families well fed just on what that one store threw away on a regular basis. sickening, and i was often the one who had to do garbage detail.

 

[herald]

I was looking through Die, Vecna Die again, and it does pretty much work as the system reset for the mixtures of Gods from different game worlds. In the end it describes that many Gods were displaced and whole planes shifted around, some worlds are merged and some are destroyed. No gods can enter Sigil by hook or by crook any longer.

If you take the book as it's writen it's a good wraping up place for 3e.

It took the book as the reason why Forgotton Realms dieties aren't around anymore. They just don't appear in the Great Wheel. Their in thier own cosmos, (which makes me very happy.)

 

[TeeSeeJay]

Could be. Could also be Lankhmar.



DD sold something like 300,000 - 500,000 starter sets in its first 6 months. It was that popular. But the remaining inventory, as well as other bad decisions involving the game (like including dice from the first 4 core races in the first new race's kicker pack, or having a print run for the next kicker be about as high as that of the starts, and other things) did a lot to hurt the success of the game.

Fortunately, fans now own it (http://www.sfr-inc.com/) and they're working hard to keep the game going. [/B]

Lankhmar, huh? Couldn't you count the total number of Lankhmar products with your fingers?

Dragon Dice: Wow. I must have been looking the other way that day I had no idea it sold like that. But yeah, you're not supposed to produce expansions in equal number of the starters.

Plus, isn't designing and manufacturing dice a lot more expensive than, say, designing and manufacturing cards?