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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maggan" data-source="post: 5352464" data-attributes="member: 6616">To further complicate things, "circulation" and "subscriptions" are not the same thing. A magazine being circulated in 100 000 copies means that 100 000 (or so) copies are sent out to subscribers and shops. That's the "circulation" part of the whole thing. The ones sent to subscribers are prepaid, good stuff for a company. That's the "subscription" part of the whole thing.The ones sent to shops are a gamble (more or less informed). The ones not sold are returned for pulping. And there are lots of magazines returned every month.Without knowing how big the subscription part of the circulation number is, it is impossible to say anything about the number of subscribers. Basically, a circulation of 100 000 can mean 100 000 subscribers or 0 subscribers.As always, print runs and circulation have a limited meaning. It's sell through and subscriptions that are the meat of the matter. And I think, although I might be wrong, that all the numbers for Dragon and Dungeon I have seen have been for "circulation" and not "subscriptions".Sure, a large circulation often means a magazine has a large subscriber base, but this need not be a fact due to differing publishing models; wholly ad supported magazines might have a huge circulation but few subscribers, and a company can work towards a huge circulation to offset a dramatic loss of subscribers and hoping to pull people in again (not a very good long term strategy), to name just two different situations.My guess is that the number of gamers declined during the late 80's, but that the industry continued to operate on the assumption/hope that it would be static or increasing, which in turn led to print runs that were too high, which took a toll on the companies, which in early to mid 90's caught up with them and brought many to their knees. I base this on how the companies I worked for during that time operated, but I have no clear numbers to back that up.As I mentioned, in the late 80's and early 90's Sweden saw a dramatic drop off of RPG gamers, and from what I've read and observed, I believe that to be true for the rest of the world as well.EDIT: so when a company enthusiastically cites "circulation", keep in mind that it is basically the same as citing e.g. downloads or print runs. A nice number to use in that company's marketing, no more, no less./M</blockquote>

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