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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seankreynolds" data-source="post: 1597255" data-attributes="member: 3029">Sorry to reply to something now several days old, but....WotC is at least ten times bigger than Necromancer, Goodman Games, or probably even White Wolf. Not in terms of sales (I don't know what the multiplier is in a sales comparison between WotC and WW, but I'm guessing it's at least x2), but in terms of employees and other costs.  When I was laid off from WotC in 2002, WotC had about three hundred employees. Three hundred. That includes everyone on the sales staff, the marketing staff, human resources, the mailroom, etc. They took up seven floors of an eight-floor office building. By comparison, I doubt White Wolf has more than 100 people. Most other game companies have less than ten people. Hell, Pazio Publishing produces 2+ magazines per month (at least one of which has a monthly circulation of over 20,000 copies, 5-10 times or more what your average d20 publisher sells) and they only have about 20 employees.  All of those 300 people at WotC need a computer (barring the janitorial staff), chair, desk, office supplies, health insurance, and so on. They all use electricity and water. All of those things cost money, and that cost must be accounted for in every single product WotC makes. So even before they get a single product out the door, WotC has set costs that are ten times higher than the costs for your 10-man d20 company, especially as most of those d20 companies don't have a formal office (they're run out of peoples' homes and linked by phone or the internet) and thus don't have to pay janitors. Most probably don't have health insurance. They're using their personal computers.  Now do you see how a 32-page adventure, which makes maybe $1-$2 profit (based just on the cost of goods, printing, and the salaries of the designer, editor, artist, mapper, and typesetter directly involved in the book, but not counting the averaged-out costs of the marketing, sales, human resources, etc. employees) might be profitable for the ten-man housed-in-the-basement company (which has a low overhead) but not profitable for WotC (which has a high overhead)?</blockquote>

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