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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trollwad" data-source="post: 1588035" data-attributes="member: 19187">High quality does NOT denote high resource expenditure, it denotes efficient results!  I dont think your argument is true.  Look at my example of autos earlier.  Detroit abandoned the "low end", got squeezed into the medium/high end (trucks/suvs) and is presently in the process of losing that too.  Toyota is the leader in both the high end (lexus) and in the low end (high volume).  They have a superior SYSTEM of allocating resources.  Striking closer to home, within the publishing industry there are vast differences in efficiency and financial performance among the various publicly held companies (I analyze companies for a living).History correction:  tsr went down in flames without gygax, it was extremely profitable relative to capital employed during his reign.  wotc HAS done pretty well but they are now buried in a conglomerate that is not known for its financial savvy (pull up any set of annual reports for mattel and hasbro and they have amazing record of bungling fairly decent slow growing businesses over the past six or seven years).the question is, I agree that the OGL can pump up financial results in the short term as HAS/WOTC can dramatically reduce its required capital to support the business since it does so much less (no low margin modules etc), BUT does the fact that the company has done little to address its apparent high overhead structure and now has a restricted scope of revenue producing products mean that the company must soon produce 4.0 and then 4.5 to freshen its revenue line, thereby hurting its core relationship with customers?  Ive looked at a lot of companies and the avowed rationale for 3.5 smelled a lot more like my hypothesis than what was proclaimed in terms of timing and scope of change.the bottom line of what I and perhaps gygax is saying is instead of pursuing a strategy of restrained but revenue-generating licensing, coupled with a significant cut in overhead, perhaps pdf publishing of modules to cut costs but retain breadth and stable if modest cash flow and only occasional reissuing of the core rule books, wotc appears to me to be opting for broad licensing, outsourced module production, and retaining what appears to be a very heavy overhead structure which has created enormous pressure to continually reissue its core rules.  the tradeoff between top line growth, returns on capital, and participating in the low end of the market (modules etc) is a very common dilemna in a mature business.</blockquote>

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