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<blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3727852" data-attributes="member: 3649">OK, now I get what you're saying.I think that many more changes can be traced to the fact that for the first time, WOTC did marketing research and found out what gamers were like and what they wanted. TSR never did that and it led to an increasing disconnect between what they produced and what fans wanted. I think that the majority of changes that D&amp;D has undergone and will undergo are much more in accord with the will and wish of the fans than it was in the TSR days.Some of that is bottom-line-oriented. If you find out that only a small percentage of the people buying your products purchase adventures, then you cut back on adventure production. But you do it because you find these things out. It may have seemed like things were cooler back when we had hobbyists selling to other hobbyists, but you know? More than a few times, someone would produce a really cool product and it would just die. Then because they had no other products out bringing in cash to the business, the business would die. Movies are the same way. Knock the latest Michael Bay Blowed Up Real Good Movie, but it brings in a lot of money, and that allows the studio to take risks like spinning off an independent films incubator for young filmmakers. Without the Bay money, they'd never be able to take such a risk.It was a lot like comics in the seventies. You had a large entrenched set of writers and editors. Some were very good and produced superior and forward-looking product. Most were 40 - 50-year-old men trying to write 'relevant' stories and create images for an age group they barely remembered. You got some truly bizarre stories out of that, and long streaks of what today is almost painful to read.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WayneLigon, post: 3727852, member: 3649"] OK, now I get what you're saying. I think that many [I]more [/I] changes can be traced to the fact that for the first time, WOTC did marketing research and found out what gamers were like and what they wanted. TSR never did that and it led to an increasing disconnect between what they produced and what fans wanted. I think that the majority of changes that D&D has undergone and will undergo are much more in accord with the will and wish of the fans than it was in the TSR days. Some of that is bottom-line-oriented. If you find out that only a small percentage of the people buying your products purchase adventures, then you cut back on adventure production. But you do it because you find these things out. It may have seemed like things were cooler back when we had hobbyists selling to other hobbyists, but you know? More than a few times, someone would produce a really cool product and it would just die. Then because they had no other products out bringing in cash to the business, the business would die. Movies are the same way. Knock the latest Michael Bay Blowed Up Real Good Movie, but it brings in a lot of money, and that allows the studio to take risks like spinning off an independent films incubator for young filmmakers. Without the Bay money, they'd never be able to take such a risk. It was a lot like comics in the seventies. You had a large entrenched set of writers and editors. Some were very good and produced superior and forward-looking product. Most were 40 - 50-year-old men trying to write 'relevant' stories and create images for an age group they barely remembered. You got some truly bizarre stories out of that, and long streaks of what today is almost painful to read. [/QUOTE]

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