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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vocenoctum" data-source="post: 4385125" data-attributes="member: 2477">IMO, some of each. The problem is that Distributors and Shop Owners didn't recognize the difference, it seems.True, but so long as they're selling, and recognizable quality, Good Glut can be fine as long as the market is fine.I know you're speaking in general terms and not specifically to me, but to be clear I'm just an observer with a good memory and reading skills. The "industry" is always unhappy with exact numbers being let out, and even when they give a number, it's widely accepted as a lie...Quality is subjective. In early d20 days, gameshops didn't know one random company from another. So called "Splats" always were good sellers previously, so they invested heavily, often purely at a whim I would guess.See, I think this is where the problem comes in, in regard to the timeline I believe to be accurate. There were no "big names" back then. Mongoose had a full line, BadAxe had books coming out, GR was of great renown for the adventures, but... well, who knew how much any of them would sell? Who knew quality?Alderac had a long running line of L5R and the swashbuckler game, so maybe you go with them? But I doubt their d20 stuff did that great either. God help someone that recognized FFE's authors and bought them...Seriously, I'd name them if I could remember most of them. I may have some adventures on my shelves from The Lost Game Companies, but that's in the back next to Earthdawn and Hunter. I'd need spelunking gear.If I still went to the gamestore I'd take a list, but these folks still have Vor books.The problem really was the gameshop/ distributors that didn't know what they were ordering. Once they got loads of stuff in, they didn't know how to get rid of it. In the end, they have shelves full of books taking up money/ room, and even when they sell something, they now are too gunshy to stock stuff.Like publishers that made "vanity" products, covering what they like, you'll get gameshops that ordered lots of this or that, because they like that company.Nope, because both companies made Good Glut and Bad Glut, and the gameshop had no knowledge of how to differentiate them.Again though, we're 6 years past that glut, IMO. After the so called "crash", followed by 3.5e, the gameshop inventory of new stuff shrunk a lot. I think a lot of them overreacted (and distributors) and then entered a phase of not ordering ENOUGH of the good stuff people wanted. In addition, they made excuses for why they didn't buy stuff and basically sent me elsewhere.I mean, I couldn't find a good selection of M&M to feed that addiction at the time, so I ordered online.I'm not sure how the gameshops around you are run, but go in and see how much stuff they have FROM 2002!The Glut isn't (IMO) WotC's fault, but I'd say distributors and gameshops are 80% responsible for the way they handled it. Add in that publishers didn't seem to SEE the glut as it clogged up the drain, and you got a lot of publishers reacting to a sudden stoppage and looking where to put the blame.</blockquote>

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