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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5444746" data-attributes="member: 177">Nobody outside WotC knows, and they aren't talking.&nbsp; We have only pure speculation.That will depend upon many factors, most of which we cannot predict at this time.&nbsp; I don't expect them to support 4e forever - there is a maintenance cost to supporting legacy systems, and eventually there won't be enough people paying for it to make it worthwhile.Add on top of that the scenarios where you can lose out on profit if you compete with yourself in a small market, and I wouldn't expect them to keep the legacy system supported for very long.No, they probably won't, for several reasons.Content for 4e and beyond is (and will be) created in ways that are easily convertable to digital presentation.&nbsp; 1e was created using much older publishing methods, so they don't get the conversion to digital for free - they have to do a pretty massive conversion project to support an old edition.Despite how much ranting we see on message boards, the actual market for those older products is probably not very large, in an absolute sense, or even relative to the 4e player base, and the players probably aren't going to be willing to pay a premium for it.&nbsp; So, the profit margin on that work probably wouldn't be large.And, as I said before, this is not just a data entry issue, it is probably also an application development issue. It isn't just about getting the game in a database, it is having an application that displays that data in a sensible manner, and what is sensible depends on the game's design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 5444746, member: 177"] Nobody outside WotC knows, and they aren't talking. We have only pure speculation. That will depend upon many factors, most of which we cannot predict at this time. I don't expect them to support 4e forever - there is a maintenance cost to supporting legacy systems, and eventually there won't be enough people paying for it to make it worthwhile. Add on top of that the scenarios where you can lose out on profit if you compete with yourself in a small market, and I wouldn't expect them to keep the legacy system supported for very long. No, they probably won't, for several reasons. Content for 4e and beyond is (and will be) created in ways that are easily convertable to digital presentation. 1e was created using much older publishing methods, so they don't get the conversion to digital for free - they have to do a pretty massive conversion project to support an old edition. Despite how much ranting we see on message boards, the actual market for those older products is probably not very large, in an absolute sense, or even relative to the 4e player base, and the players probably aren't going to be willing to pay a premium for it. So, the profit margin on that work probably wouldn't be large. And, as I said before, this is not just a data entry issue, it is probably also an application development issue. It isn't just about getting the game in a database, it is having an application that displays that data in a sensible manner, and what is sensible depends on the game's design. [/QUOTE]

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