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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reinhart" data-source="post: 6764074" data-attributes="member: 13080">Absolutely. And the thing about WotC is that they're not completely autonomous from Hasbro. Hasbro is the corporation that has to maximize profits within their mission statement, but the way that a division of a publicly traded corporation does that is very different from a solitary firm. A solitary firm pursues profit by seeking to produce until the marginal increase in profit reaches zero. A publicly traded firm instead seeks to maximize return on investment. So instead of chasing every last dollar, they chase only the "cheapest" money to make, to a specific limit.And even that is a gross simplification, because many necessary aspects of running a business around mass market merchandise don't directly generate much revenue. In those cases the corporation needs to know or at least believe that those aspects contribute value elsewhere. That's what Leeds is talking about when he brings up the buzz-word "synergy." I suspect that's at least part of the reason that Hasbro funds WotC's management of the D&D brand: Hasbro wants D&D to be a brand that is bigger than table-top roleplaying, but even if RPG books aren't the best ROI, they still need to keep making books to maintain the brand relevance for its core fan-base.</blockquote>