Banshee16 said:A smaller, leaner company, with lower expenses, could generate a higher profit. That's what I'm getting at.
It's basic for business. As businesses grow, some things that they used to do become harder and harder to do cost-effectively enough to generate a profit.
Which is, I suspect, exactyly why Hasbro itself does not meddle directly in WotC production. By all reports, Hasbro is not involved in the day-to-day operation and decisions. Thus, whatever higher overhead that Hasbro has does not directly impact WotC products. They get to keep their small-company efficiency and make use of Hasbro's economy of scale at the same time. I don't doubt this has helped the short-term sales of the game considerably. But it does make the game vulnerable to things like we are worrying about now.
While there are certainly exceptions, I'm going to have to disagree with the "harder to do cost-effectively enough to generate a profit", unless you're talking about a company that is on the whole moribund and ready to die. The problem is not in generating profit - by all reports, the D&D brand, and RPG products in general, are generating profit. We have no indication that Hasbro is losing money on rpg products in an absolute sense.
The question facing Hasbro is not, "is D&D profitable?" The question is, "Is D&D as profitable as other things we could do with the same resources?" Which is a better bet for them, giving operating budget to D&D, or Monopoly, or any one of over 130 other brands they own. In economic terms, while D&D isn't actually losing money, it may be a form of opportunity cost for Hasbro.
Wulf is correct that D&D needs to be with a company that wants it to be wildly successful. What he seems to miss is the difference between companies for whom that wild success would only bring the brand up to par with normal everyday business for them, and companies for whom wild success would be... wild!
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