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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Coreyartus" data-source="post: 262314" data-attributes="member: 5399">I've spent the last hour and a half reading this thread, and my emotions have ping-ponged back and forth from anger to frustration to elation to disgust to retrospection to deliberation...  and I've finally drawn some conclusions.  Ultimately, the debate over the degree of crunchiness and fluffiness is a symptom of several larger concerns:  what is considered a quality product (content), who determines that definition (designer, executive, or consumer), and the impact of that definition (profit margin).  I think it's difficult to debate one topic without considering the others.It seems many of the issues that have been discussed concerning WotC/Hasbro have been re-hashed over and over again for several years now, with no resolution in sight.  Most say it's the maga-lithic company's fault for not knowing about the industry and it's players, and some say it's the Open-Gaming License and it's continuing ripples of impact on the gaming industry...  Some could even say it's the blinded fan-consumer-designers that have lost all business sense in their zeal to create!  I think perhaps it's a combination of all of these factors to some degree or another.In the end, though, the game we all love will survive.  The mega-lythic corporation will sell it in the end because they are blinded by their inability to see anything beyond their business concepts of profit and loss.  (We've had our WotC feast, now expect famine for a while.  Hasbro is just too big to know how to handle a niche industry like RPGs, and their hired guns are just that:  hired to emulate their kind of thinking.)  The game system will survive because the OGL has ensured we will continue to have supplements of some nature ad infinitum, crunchy and fluffy both.  And there will always be those who have the zeal and drive to share their creations with others who also have their same interests, whether their motive is profit or simply proliferation.The real question is whether we are patient and wise enough to withstand the trials and tribulations that these inevitable fluctuations in our hobby/industry will have.  Product lines will come and go, sometimes returning and sometimes not.  As long as the industry operates under a business ethic, it will always be so.  Money and increasing profit margin are what drive the people in charge of the larger RPG companies right now, and until those unsavory elements burn themselves out and lose interest, we are at the mercy of their irrational judgments.  Some good things have come from those companies, but like all large corporations that merely market commodities regardless of what they are and ignore the essence of why they produce the product in the first place, they are now strangling themselves to stay on top. It is up to us as consumers and designers to keep the torch alive, to continue to support the hobby we all so very very evidently love.  Ultimately, our efforts in buying (and publishing) what we feel in our hearts is quality--that's what will ensure that products that are all degrees of crunchy/fluffy will continue to be seen on shelves.  Unfortunately, for a while, those items that will never see the light of day from the large profit-driven coporations will be sacrificed.  I, personally, would rather have those special supplements produced by people who care, with the profit going to people who encourage quality in RPGs.  It scares me to have my hobby in the hands of people who base all their decisions on profitability.  But, perhaps in a new incarnation, when there are new or different executives, we will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds.  But are we patient enough to wait?  TSR, WotC...  perhaps the third time's the charm?</blockquote>

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