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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5000567" data-attributes="member: 22424">Yes, new editions are a financial necessity. On the plus side, beyond a certain point they're good for the game, too.As time went on, 2nd Edition became utterly broken by splatbook after splatbook. TSR tried to clear up the mess with the "Player's Option" material, but this proved to be just as broken, albeit in different ways. Worse, it was almost completely incompatible with what had gone before.As time went on, 3e became more and more complex. Furthermore, the presence of so many Prestige Classes, races, feats, and so forth gave rise to a bunch of "super-builds" that ruled over everything else.As time goes on, 4e will suffer from much the same sort of bloat. Given the "exception based design", I predict that the thing that will eventually cause problems is "duelling exceptions" - Player #1 has some power that works a given way, Player #2 has some power that works a different way, the two are mutually-exclusive, and there is no way to determine precedence. (I may well be wrong about this, but I am 100% certain that there will be some sort of a major problem creep in).So, beyond a certain point, a new edition is a good thing, not just because WotC gets to sell us all the same books again, but because in doing so they can sweep away a lot of the mis-steps of the past decade, and fix a lot of the problems that have been found.(The alternative is instead to publish a 'complete' game across a number of books, and then stop. This eliminates the bloat entirely, but is also a disasterous business plan.)Not really. However, the new edition can be delayed, especially if they can hit on some product that people really want to get and that requires a regular buy-in.Paizo have done this, to a large extent, with their "subscriptions model" - a huge number of their customers are essentially signed up to buy everything, or at least everything in a given line. This allows them to accurately predict how sales are going, and should help slow the rot.WotC managed it for a good while with the D&D Miniatures. The problem here is that the minis don't degrade in value, and you only need a certain number. If they produce Goblin figures, then they'll sell a bunch at first, but then everyone will have Goblins so they'll stop buying. If they produce Elemental Ooze-Drakes, then it's likely that nobody will already have them... but it's also very likely that very few people will really want them (most people will just substitute some other figure).However, WotC may have hit on just the thing with the DDI. It seems to have enough value that (enough) people do want it, it requires a monthly buy-in... it's all good.(If I were WotC, what would worry me at this point is the possibility of a shift in tastes amongst gamers. At the moment, lots of people seem quite happy to play 4e using the RAW, or with only minimal changes. The DDI copes with that very well. But if tastes move back towards a much more customised game, as was the case during much of the 1st/2nd Edition era, then the DDI becomes much less valuable.)</blockquote>

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