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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CharlesRyan" data-source="post: 4386146" data-attributes="member: 5265"><s></s><s></s><s>To be clear here: I can only speak for my own thoughts on the topic, now and when I was running the brand. Any discussion about what WotC cares or thinks about now is pure speculation.</s><s></s><s>That said, as to why they might care about competition: They don't, as I said. What they care about is a marketplace full of interesting products that excite the consumer and the sales channel. If there are 10 products released this month, everyone benefits if they are 10 different, interesting, exciting products. If, instead, they are 10 versions of the same splatbook, everyone loses. Consumers get a confusing, unexciting range of options, retailers and distributors have to make difficult and often arbitrary decisions on which products to support, and all this leads to piles of dead stock in the channels which affects WotC's marketplace.</s><s></s><s>I made the comments Nicole brought up in reference to WotC's decision to get back into the adventure publishing business. At the time there was great demand for adventures, but only a couple 3PP were publishing them, whereas dozens of 3PPs were making harcover splatbooks, often on the same sorts of topics WotC was covering, often even cloning the WotC look and feel. Some of those books were real gems, to be sure--I own many a 3PP d20 book--but they were drowning in a sea of mediocrity. Since the 3PPs (I'm generalizing here) were not innovating or focusing on the opportunities in the marketplace, WotC changed course and re-entered the adventure business, along the way innovating with new adventure formats and product types.</s><s></s><s></s><s></s><s>You certainly can't do it if you're chasing other people's successes and failing to respond to the needs of the marketplace.</s></blockquote>

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